Shop Tips n' Tricks

For accidentally dropped pieces in the deep slack water, I use an old speaker magnet on a hay wire to fish them out.

I made a couple of forged bowls for Christmas presents today. After forging I threw them in the tumbler for an hour and a half. I wiped the dust off them with rags and alcohol. I then waxed them with past wax but when polishing them with white paper towels the paper towels kept coming up dirty. I put on a couple more coatings of wax but this did not solve the problem, even with a LOT of hand polishing. I was considering stripping the wax and lacquering them to eliminate the problem. I thought about how production tumbling setups sometimes use a tumbler filled with sawdust to clean and dry items. I grabbed a handful of sawdust from under my tablesaw and rub…

Here is a short video of a tool I made for registering punch marks on two sides of a piece of stock for punching. It works well on square, round, and flat stock. The dies are made of H13 so you can mark on both hot and cold stock. The bottom die is a strike line so you can see it on hot metal. When you turn the stock over, you line up the punch in the strike and you end up with a punch mark on both sides. The punch on the top was made by brazing the H13 to a piece of cold rolled 1/2 inch so it would work with the bronze bushing in the guide. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5w3QsH3m3k

I weld a vertical weight made of scrap to the opposite end of the clinker breaker handle. It's usually a 1/2" round M.S. protruding in back of the firepot. In that way, the handle returns to vertical when released, and the tuyere valve centers itself. Most tuyere valves are triangular in cross section and allow most air to the fire from two sides. This makes for a more uniform fire than if the handle was left cattywampus.

Being in the south where humidity never sleeps there always seems to be a problem with mosquitoes. They need water to facilitate more of these blood suckers and it seems the slack tub is a perfect place for them. I usually put a drop or two of cutting oil in there. It works okay. But it does not kill them off completely. I am scared to do more than that because I may jeopardize the quenching qualities of the slack tub itself. How do you keep the swarm out of your slack tub? Peyton

I'm site planning right now for my new shop. Basically pulling out tree's and seeing what dimensions can fit in the footprint of space I have available. I intend to build a very sealed up shop so I can weather the oregon winters and hot summers with ease. My old shop in mass was in a basement and I definitely miss it. Warm in the winter and cool in the summer because it had central air drops from the ceiling. I certainly can do the same thing in my new shop, or I could use a large electric heater and window unit A/C. Anyway my question is when you get a shop very sealed up and thermally insulated like this you do have to worry about welding and smithing fumes. One of the …

Metal Weight Calculator – Boston Centerless www.bostoncenterless.com/resources-metal-weight-calculator.htm Calculate weight of metal based on alloy and shape.

I typically don't rave about anything HF has to offer but these gloves really cut it. I was using the blue smurf nitrate gloves and they go south if you look at em funny. These are bomb proof and I can pick up a dime with em. http://www.harborfre...arge-68512.html

We will be moving to a new house and new shop next month. I'm quite excited as I will be able to split my machining off into a seperate building from the forging/fabricating. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to go about packing up all the little things? I've well over a hundred pairs of tongs, probably close to that many anvil tools, hammers and other handled tools, metal in all shapes and sizes, work benches, large and small machines etc. The machines, benches and cabinets will all be loaded onto trailers and moved with a large fork lift or tow truck. My plan for the hand tools and small items is to crate them so they too can be loaded with a fork lift. How hav…

Crusing Ace the other day I happened to notice this stuff....Hmm, why not, I'll bite.....Works well as tapping fluid and as mig gun anti spat. It's more pleasant to smell (kinda like tofu) than regular anti spat cause you don't get that wiff of methelene chloride you get with the stuff from the weding supply. Lubes that are not petroleum based are sometimes preferable as well.

Here is a magnetic sweeper that I find very easy and convenient to use. The sweeper is made from a commercial roofing nail pick up magnet on a handle. The magnet is 3 1/2" in diameter and fits neatly into one of those cheap plastic storage containers usually used to store food. Mine came with the purchase of lunch meat. The only fabrication required is cutting a small opening in the end of the lid for the handle stem to pass through. Once assembled and swept over the floor release of the collected steel filings from the container bottom by raising the magnet above the container bottom. I have used this magnetic sweep for years with a zip lock bag which allo…

There are so many of these pearls of wisdom in our collective knowledge re PH's, presses, drills, grinders, hoists, forges, oxy/ace, sand blasting, on and on and on.............. I,m gonna see just how many I can list on the layout table alone. Safety can't be excluded cause things that make the shop more efficient will very often lead to just that....... When you're done with your layout clear everything but what you need to do the project.This is especially important if you use solvents lacquer thinner (nothing works better to remove silver pencil marks) and others. Strike an arc or melt a hole in the in the jug/can and it's off to the races......... If you're work…

Hot dipped galvanized ain't just for under paint imo.........I did 100's of feet of outdoor railing with the sample shown, 3/4'' sq, forged, twisted, fabbed into rail then galved. A gun blue/black spray to darken, steel wool buff then a bronze collar and forget it.

I have for the better part of my life been a collector of stuff. I have been at it since I can remember draging home my first bike from the alleys of Detroit. well its been 45 years worth of stuff collected around me over the years and I have come to appreciate marking my stuff. as an example I have 3lb coffee cans that I use for small stuff. they work well but if it gets out of hand you have like 300+ cans! its a nightmare of sorts but I love a good hunt. well to make matters worse I know I own stuff, I am positive...I can't never find it? dunno why other then it gets put where it doesn't belong. today I installed a set of wheel bearing on my Gravely Lawn mower. nothing…

Ever put your mig gun down on a less than stable place and return to find a huge ball of wire growing where you thought you put it? Just follow the wire and you'll find it! Or......

Here are a few tips(arangements) I like in my shop(garage).Simple but useful, the way I like'em. Some I've seen somewhere, some were thaught up while waiting for that cold, thick piece of metal to get yellow. If you have any that you find useful, please post them,I'm always on the lookout to make my life a little easier. 1-Rope tied up on each end of the screw handle. Eliminates that heavy noise when you drop the screw handle. 2-I put my propane forge on my coal forge table.The height is perfect, I have space to put some tools, etc... I still use the coal forge for demos or occasional forge welds at home but having close neighbors I try to spare them from the smo…

We're getting ready to install an anvil into a steel sandbox, and a friend, John Neary, had previously made a tool tray which hooks onto the edge and sits horizontally. One view shows it in place and the other shows the bent hooks with "legs." This also shows how we use straps over allthread to hold the anvil in place.

My old cast iron forge, maybe a Lancaster, dates waaay back, and it came with two lugs integral to the casting. Each lug has a 5/8" horizontal hole. This design was intended to contain a pivoting work support which I made of 1/2" D wrought iron. The supporting leg is likewise 1/2" D with a turned eye at the top. I made a 5/16" D slide to hold shorter lengths, as shown.

Years ago I stockpiled a number of 5 gallon metal buckets that have served me well in a wide number of roles. This afternoon the last bucket with out a hole sprung a leak. No more slack tub. I've been in shops that used every thing from galvanized laundry tubs to garbage pails, Cut off steel drums and Plastic barrels get quite a few votes I've seen quite a few whiskey and wine barrels used. If you are lucky some times one of the stainless steel beer barrels turns up available. A lot of it the better items rely on being at the right place at the right time. I'm tending toward the wooden barrel solution but wonder if anyone has plans that address this with out compl…

Thought you might like to see the progress on the new Anderson Blacksmith Shop and Public Armoury in Colonial Williamsburg. http://whatsnew.history.org/topics/armoury/ There are also 2 webcams to see what's happening, too. Ken Schwarz, their master smith, has been doing a great job of researching and putting all the pieces together. What a project it has been! Looking forward to seeing it in action.

I finally found the old building I am going to use for my shop. Now I need to decide where to put it on my property. My dilema is where I would like to put it is upwind from our garden, grape vines and berry bushes. Anyone have their shop near their garden, berries, or fruit trees and have you seen any side effects from that. I realize most of the coal smoke will be going up and over but was just wondering what you thought. Thanks and I will post photos of the shop when it is up.

hi all it has been a while, i have moved from golden co. to kearney ne. i miss the members in the rocky mountain smiths. have not yet had or made time to contact the praire blacksmiths in nebraska. i am a nebraska kid and am glad to be back here. i have a couple of great prodjects coming up. one is my own shop is finally getting started in an old ware house down town. the other is a new/old blacksmith shop i am helping build at the trails and rails museum in kearney. it is going to be a 50 x 25 foot shop part of it will be based off of an original shop from kearney and the rest will be an educational shop with multipal forges set up for classes on basic smithing. …

With the addition of the Clay Spencer tire hammer I had to move things around a bit. I don't really like the position of the forge much, but for now I have to live with that. I switched the location of the anvil and vise. So far I like the change but I need to wire a receptical to my vise for grinding purposes. So here is the main work station. John B. had said I needed to tighten up the work space. The anvil and vise are closer to the forge now. I am wanting to move the air hammer (the big red one,) closer as well. We got the tire hammer on the concrete pad I poured for it last week. We put two, 8-foot boards down as a ramp up to the concrete pad. The planks were …

It is getting close to time to begin the demonstrations at fairs, and shows. What are some tips you would give other smiths on how to protect the crowd from the demonstration. How do you handle those questions that come up everytime. "do you shoe horses", "is that coal", or my favorite..."is that hot?" For us the horse question was answered when we put a horseshoe with a line through it and the caption "We Don't Do Horses" under iton the demo trailer.....How do you handle these things? Peyton

You can see my "Flying Turtle" Forge from design to meat-space. Also, some cast bronze artwork created from that green flower foam. How to Build a Forge/Foundry from an old Vacuum Cleaner I would be happy to hear everyones thoughts for improvement in design, etc... I am intrigued about going blowerless, perhaps in the future. Thanks!