Everything Else

Saw this on another forum:

I'm thinking I should take a break from the site I'm not sure it's what it used to be, or maybe I'm not what I used to be. I'd like to thank most of y'all for being as helpful, encouraging, and as generous as y'all have been. Y'all have helped me be a better smith and a better person mostly. Y'all have encouraged me when i needed encouragement and have given me pointers when I needed critique. I'm going to be off of iforge for a while maybe a year or two and I will check in then and see what the site is like then. Those of you if you ever need to contact me I have given you my number or we are acquainted on other online platforms. Thanks again for everything I'm not sure …

Anchorage Alaska experienced a BIG, (7.5 Richter scale) earthquake a few hours ago. With a 5.4 after-shock. There are no deaths reported, but there is a lot of property damage. There may be more after-shocks later. Frosty and the rest of the Alaska: Hang in there. (and all the other residents). SLAG.

In todays world 2 bits, 25 cents, or a quarter is not worth much. You get them in change and slip them into your pocket without much notice. So here is the deal. Find a container, at least a quart in size, a gallon is better, paint cans work great. Remove the lid and make a slot in the lid so the quarter will just slide through the slot. Now put the lid back on the container tightly. Start at Thanksgiving or December 1, or when ever. Each time you get a quarter in change, hold on to it, do not spend it, but put it through the slot and into the container. Do not put any other coins through the slot, just any quarter you get in change. Do not sneak a peek or rem…

Hello again! Its been a bit since i was here last admittedly, but I wanted to share some good news with y'all. So as a step towards being able to afford to start setting up a potential forge in the future as well as learn sills to both have a good career as well as useful skills for later projects, I'm going to be getting a welding and joining diploma. Now originally i was a bit worried about how i would pay for the courses in order to start. sure, 1400 isnt much but with my financial situation (especially with a room mate soon to be moving out) its hard to save. So i applied for a scholarship through AWS (the american welding society). and was surprised later…

In 1929 Samuel Yellin was filmed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, NY. This film shows the making of the piece that Fred Crist demonstrates and calls "The Yellin Challenge" The MMOA in recent emails has acknowledged the existence of the film, but "it is not currently available for viewing" and has no interest in digitizing it for distribution, or viewing. If anyone has a copy of this film, myself and several others would like to see it, and are interested in it being made available for public viewing. Any ideas, or contacts that could make this happen would be appreciated. Feel free to PM me if necessary. Thanks Al

Metric weights are off so they redefined the kilogram. new balance for the new kilogram The kilogram gets a makeover

Design myself a simple new and modern logo. Let me know what you think. Below also the old one. I’m not a graphic designer so sorry for the simple approach. Next step is a translation of the logo into a maker mark stamp and an spray template to identify all the self-made equipment. Get inspired by the iron atom with an anvil as the core . I don’t know if their some graphic designers slash blacksmith is out there to help me work out a DWG-file to feed a laser cutter/etcher or a 3D stitching/sawing machine in exchange for documentation regarding my self designed/build equipment (foundry’s, power hammer, kiln etc.) If please contact me by PM. The rest of the c…

The French originated the meter in the 1790s as one/ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the north pole along a meridian through Paris. It is realistically represented by the distance between two marks on an iron bar kept in Paris. The International Bureau of Weights and Measures, created in 1875, upgraded the bar to one made of 90 percent platinum/10 percent iridium alloy. In 1960 the meter was redefined as 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of orange-red light, in a vacuum, produced by burning the element krypton (Kr-86). More recently (1984), the Geneva Conference on Weights and Measures has defined the meter as the distance light travels, in a vacuum, in 1/…

Today is the centenary of the day that World War One ended. Fellow I.F.I. members, please join me in saluting all veterans, past, present and future, for their service and sacrifice. Thanks, SLAG.

Hi All, I want to make (or have somebody make) a ring out of a type of meteorite called pallasite (see link below). I would provide the meteorite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pallasite The ring should be a thin, uncomplicated affair like this. Does anybody know who could do such a thing? Presumably you would just saw out the olivine and send it away to a lapidary to cut the stones and then just melt down the metal parts of the meteorite and cast into a ring. Thanks for any help or contacts, Paul

I’ve got many of the issues but would like to read the rest. Anyone got any ideas where I could find the Blacksmith Gazette CD’s?

OK, hive mind, I need some help. A local historic home/museum that I volunteer at has recently built a demonstrating smithy. Now they want to write a guidebook for the rotating cadre of blacksmiths that show up to operate the shop for tourists and school groups. Shop rules, things to make. Things NOT to make. Before we re-invent the wheel, does anyone have a document that they would be willing to share? A site online that has this already? My google-fu is weak on this one.

So I thought this was a walnut tree, once I got it cut though my dad said it might be hemlock. I looked up and eastern hemlock has similar bark to walnut. So if anyone has a good idea I’d appreciate it.

What would you do, if you happened upon a Craigslist add selling a blacksmithing hammer that has your before and after restoration photos and none of the sellers photos of said machine? Should I be flattered? And just let it be or what. I tried calling but no answer.

Australia Day today and we had quite a few visitors to the forge. We have just finished an extension to the forge area to keep visitors out of the sun and rain. Just in time too, as the onset of the monsoon season has made the shelter well used in the last few days. The extra roof area has darkened the forge a little, which is good. Today we installed a seat made from an old piece of timber found in the scrap area. No one is quite sure what it is. The swivel on the end closest the camera makes us think it could have been an old railway crane, and the pulley on the other end supports that idea. Anyway, it makes a good seat and has already been well used. The pictures …

Happy Halloween everyone. Here's a picture of my little hedgehog. The spider is one I finished up the other night that I wasn't able to finish before the last show.

Take me to school on the subject of moisture removal from compressed air.

Its just a 30 minute show. My section starts at 13:18 in case anyone wondered what I look and sound like. I got a hair cut this year. https://video.wfwa.org/video/arts-in-focus-705-ktl0kc/ https://vimeo.com/294414139

Okay I’m quite sure someone on here probably has one but I actually do not know for sure what I have here, specifically. In general I get it but I’m interested in knowing, with a link & or photo , what it is specifically as I’d kinda like to get the rest of it . If it is what I think it is. Seriously, I’d love to know but consider me to be from Missouri , though I’m not, & show me! I found this this at a junk store and bought it. What is it? 1/2 of a bar clamp? If so I can’t find any pics or conformation. From the color it appears to maybe be a Jourgeson product but there are no markings whatsoever. As a woodwork…

Lots of Fun to watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG8QRSvIuPM And the ASO did not break...

hi all. i'm on the scrounge for help here! my youngest son, now a 2 2 year old chef has found himself a job in Colorado Springs and is heading there today .He has traveled on holiday to the USA. before with his mom and I but we have never been to that part of the world. he has a year long employment contract so he is set up from that point of view etc. and i'm asking if someone would be prepared to spend an hour or two to "show him the ropes around town, that is from a locals point of view ,as i'm sure he'll otherwise get all his info from the other contract workers and getting broader spectrum of info as well as meeting locals hes always been a great boon for me! Th…

When is scrap art not 100% scrap? Am I stretching the truth if I label a piece as recycled if it uses new components? Case in point is my scrap art lizards, made from shifting spanners (adjustable wrenches). Now, there are only so many broken/unusable/seized/old shifting spanners in existence and when you need to make a lot of these to meet consumer demand, you have to source the spanners from elsewhere. Enter Bunnings … our major hardware retailer that sells these 150mm (6 inch) rubbish Chinese shifters for a few bucks. So I buy a heap of these and start turning out shifty lizards. Question is … can I still legitimately label them as recycled, when they are bou…

My new project for woodcarving is a blacksmith shop relief. The piece of wood is a big chunk of 17in by 15-1/2in by 4in wood. Here is the picture of the shop I'm gonna carve: I'll post a pic of the final carving, which is gonna be a while

Called Glenn today to chat, and his wife said he could not talk because he was busy with the Hydro-Thermal treatment of a combination of Ceramics, Aluminum and Steel in a constrained environment, later I realized he was washing dishes under his wife's supervision in the kitchen