Everything Else

So I finally got around to cutting up that black locust I fell last October. I got a really nice branch from it I want to make a walking stick with for my brother. He's got one made of some super heavy bamboo type thing, so I figured he'd appreciate it. I used my draw knife to take off the bark(green wood and draw knife is like therapy). Anyway, I was wondering about drying it, I sealed the ends but I was wondering if I could just put a clear coat seal over the whole thing like to seal stain, if that would just make it rot or what. I was thinking it might help keep it flexible by keeping the moisture in it. Should I just leave the ends sealed and let it dry a bi…

It seems that the Romans may have melted iron-rich slag and poured it into cracks to repair the streets of Pompeii. https://www.livescience.com/65479-ancient-romans-used-molten-iron-street-repair.html

Friday night I finished shooting an interactive galaxy pair, The Whirlpool. These two galaxies are literally running into eachother, feeding off eachother and spewing stellar matter into the universe. This is my first time shooting M51, or the Whirlpool. When the first of the many images started showing up on my screen, I was awestruck. This is the first image completed with my new scope, a Skywatcher MN190 Mak Newt. Mak Newt designs aren't very popular for some reason, but I don't know why. They are a blend of refractor and reflector and are the best of both worlds. Both visually and image wise, mak newts perform as good as the equivalent size APO refra…

I've had blacksmith's elbow for two years now and in that time I've learned a few things that might help others. Before I go on, I want to stress that I am not trying to provide medical advice. If you've got a problem, please see a qualified doctor. With all that said, here are a few things that took a a lot of pain, and a very long time to figure out. Blacksmith elbow tendon problems can be diagnosed with an ultrasound, provided you have access to a facility that has an elbow imaging specialist. However, I saw several doctors, physical therapists, and even a surgeon who wanted to operate without any imaging to confirm or diagnose my problem whatsoever. …

I love smoking food lately I’ve been doing it more than smithing. Naturally I like building things so I made a smoker called an Ugly Drum Smoker. I started with a food grade 55 gallon drum burned all the paint off of it and cut 2 1-1/2 inch air intake holes in the bottom. I made an expanded metal charcoal/wood basket and I put in a heat diffuser (out of an old pizza pan) and a grill grate. The thing works great. Here’s a few pictures of it and some products from it. Anyone else smoke food on here?

Not sure if this should have gone here or in the welding/fab forum. So I just put it here. So I have two pieces of some nice bamboo butchers block, one piece is 47" x 25" x 1.5" and the other is just about square so it's probably 25 x 30 or so. I'm wanting to make up a frame for the bigger piece for a nice workbench. I'd like to weld up a frame from angle iron that it can just sit down inside, probably weld a piece of two of flat bar for sturdiness on the bottom side. I'm wondering the best way to go about it, should I make mounts to bolt up some wooden 4x4's as legs or just go with some sturdy angle iron. Im wanting it for a general purpose workbench, although …

Long before I had my nice shop behind the house I had a 9 x 12 foot room I built in the basement for the grinding and finishing. I have not been using it since I built the new shop about 10 years ago. My son has a part time job as a voice actor, doing over dubs and such; he has been looking at buying a recording isolation sound booth for over $4k. I got to thinking that my shop in the basement that I no longer use has a noise reducing (I hate the term sound proof) ceiling that isnt being used and its much cheaper to convert that, than to buy the 4ft square foot booth he was looking at. so for the past week I have been cleaning, painting and rewiring a bit. H…

Anyone else do this? I haven’t had time to go to the gym as much as I’d like lately due to work/kids and such. I don’t have any equipment at home to lift, but I do have a lot of rocks and heavy steel tools laying around in my shop. A lot of the old powerlifting routines can be adapted to work with just about any old chunk of heavy stuff as weight, and it takes me 2 min to walk up the hill to my shop instead of half an hour to drive to the gym. I did get some funny looks doing front squats while hugging an anvil, but my neighbors all think I’m nutty anyway.

Quite a few people at today's demo despite the rainy weather. During my demos I often say to people they are welcome to ask questions, and often jokingly add "If I don't know, I'll make something up." And then add, "No I won't; you never know who is in the audience." Today was such a day. After the demo a group of visitors stayed behind to talk and one announced that he was a metallurgist. Times like that I'm glad that I never answer questions that are beyond my level of understanding. If I don't know, I don't know. Anyway, the gentleman said that he enjoyed watching the demo and we talked for several minutes about the composition of stainless steels, the carb…

Been on a job in Santa Barbara since July. Time to go back to San Diego. Have to find another job. Will be good to be home, although we have become quite attached to new friends and family up this way....... Ah, bittersweet, this life....... Robert Taylor

We raise a pretty good crop of rocks around here. There is a large sandstone bluff out of the side of our hill. At the base was two large pieces that had slid out that weigh about 1,100 pounds each. For years Debi & I have been wanting to do something with them because they were sort of in the way of our drive through truck port. Our neighbor down the road had a large fairly flat stone next to the driveway that he gave to us. It measures 26X28X12 inches and weighs about 800 pounds. I had a 16 pound RR track anvil that was used for a light bench anvil before getting a better one. Earlier this week we got ambitious moving all the rocks and came up with this, c…

I was having withdrawals during the website update yesterday so I visited another forum. Just wanted to say thanks to all that make this sight available, from the moderators and curmudgeons to the newest members. Laynne

Friends out west having a clean up of the shed. Old blacksmith shop had these 'things' lying around. Makes you *sigh* doesn't it?

Found this in a BBC article on restoring a Building at Cambridge University (www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-47845898 ) As you can tell it's based on a downhearth cooking grill---you can see two the feet projecting from the right hand end.

We stopped at the mother in laws new rental place and there was an interesting tree out back. First though was osage orange with the round seed balls. But a quick google kinda says it's something else. Unfortunately no new leaves just yet. Does anyone know off hand what it might be. Sorta had my hopes up it was osage and I could steal a few pieces for bow wood

hi Im martin , i need suggest for making a case study about a simple machine . And a problem encountered in that machine that needs improvement or solution This is may project so please help me find one >

So, a thought popped in my head while driving home today. In fantasy settings is often portrayed as dwarves using volcanic lava or magma as their heat source. Is this something that, in theory, could be possible?

When I was an 18YO kid I went to school briefly in Kansas city. I there I first met a working blacksmith. He had a shop in an area called The River Quay, a craft and art district. He shared space with a silversmith and a glass blower in the basement. I long ago forgot his name, but that short acquaintance left me with a lingering desire which I didn't see realized until I was in my 50s. Now i remember that time and inspiring Smith and i wonder if anyone knows who he is/ was, and if he's still around?

Celebrating my Grandfather's 94th Birthday today; even more impressive as he was a US Marine at a little dust up called: Iwo Jima, Battle of, 1 ea.... When I was young he once told me that Marines didn't shave; they just took a ballpein hammer and hammered their whiskers in and bit them off from the inside and used them as tacks... I'll be going to NW Arkansas to celebrate it with the family when they get back from *further* down south. His cold tolerance is way down these days.

I get a lot of overseas visitors coming by the forge, and it does make life interesting. Some don't speak English too well and it's sometimes a bit difficult to explain what's going on with the demo. Japanese visitors especially are very keen on photography and nothing escapes the long lenses of the Nikons and Canons. I was making some hooks out of spanners recently and forged one from a spanner that had Japanese writing on it. I had no idea what it said so I presented it to the Japanese fellow for his assessment. His face lit up and he exclaimed, "Ah, Makita!". It was one of those router spanners. Today we had some people from England, straight out of Northumberla…

Hello all. This isn't specifically blacksmithing related, but it is for a forging project I'm working on. I'm making a standing frame for a watermark I have and looking for a way to provide the lighting. I purchased one of these battery powered tea lights off the net and it's not bright enough, so I'm looking for ideas. There's no way that I can see to swap out the bulb for a brighter one. Thanks.

Is there anyone near the North West corner of North Dakota? Seven (7) Miles from Canada and about 20 miles from Montana? I would like to hear from you. I am a new (so called) blacksmith although I don’t like to use that term as I am NO blacksmith, I just hit heated metal with a so called hammer, I would like to know if there is anyone near that can “forge” me into shape. Any input would help, as it seems to me that I’m standing alone. But I’m trying; at least I can say that, although I’m a little slow (health), I do my best. Almost everything I know has been done though the internet, and that is not much, well I think I know a lot but do not know how to use it.…

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the origin of this nickname remains obscure. The most common theories according to A Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principles (1951) by Mitford M. Mathews. The word "Dixie" refers to currency issued first by the Citizens State Bank in the French Quarter of New Orleans and then by other banks in Louisiana. ($10 notes issued before 1860 by the Citizens’ Bank of New Orleans) These banks issued ten-dollar notes labeled Dix on the reverse side, French for "ten". The notes were known as "Dixies" by southerners, and the area around New Orleans and the French-speaking parts of Louisiana came to be known as "Dixiel…

Had a question I would like to ask if I may. A friend gave me about a dozen catalytic convertors that he said one buyer only offered $5 apiece for and others wouldn't buy them period. I cut one apart to get a fill for there contents and found a nice block of honeycomb like material. I wanted to ask your thoughts as to whether it could maybe be cut into bricks for lining a forge or grinding up to make refractory for a smelter? The stuff is supposed to take some pretty high heat and thought I would post here to get your guys thoughts. Thanks for any input.

The Cleveland Museum of Art has digitized a sizable portion of its collection and made it available online for free. Lots of good design inspiration, from Arms & Armor to sculpture to architectural ironwork. http://www.clevelandart.org/art/collection/search