mike-hr

Howdy, Join the CBA. I'm an instructor, but the drive from LA to south Orygun would be intense. There's lots of folks in between, they are all good folks.You are in luck. In my opinion, which didn't cost you anything, the CBA has one of the best grass-roots-type education systems going. you can learn the basics from someone close, and if you want to attend a workshop for pay someday, you will be armed with a deadly array of basic skills with which you can heartily get your money's worth from. A two hour drive wouldn't be inappropriate, I routinely go 4-7 hrs to get to 'local meetings' in NorCal. It all depends how bad you want it. Carry on.

I think that's pretty common. My used-to-be-good-sized-shop is out of room, now i'm tripping over an errant 5 gallon bucket. That means I have to clean up the place all the time. I've tried saving all those one hit wonder fixtures, but everything can evolve better. I've found that I can rarely locate those specialty doo-dads when needed a second time,and even worse, identify what they do, so I usually just make another one if needs arise. I bet there's some resourse re-appropriator at the scrap yard that's filling his shop with things that I made a year ago, and junked out, not remembering what it is.

Once a year in August, when the humdity is down, I mix up a batch of Linseed oil/turpentine,60/40 ratio. I paint the tops of all hammers and set tools, and pour the remainder on my anvil stump. I don't know if it helps the stump or not, I guess the thing I wanted to say is, don't sweat that stuff, start using the anvil! I've seen a lot of folks so infatuated with getting their tooling correct, they lose track of the big picture, and forget to start making stuff. I have a very good friend that spends all morning every saturday going to yard sales, looking for blacksmith tools. I keep telling him that if he would spend every saturday morning forging his own tools, he would have what he wants, own more skills, and save a lot of gas money. (sigh)

I love traditional work, and have carved my niche in the community as that guy. I feel toolmaking, however, is a race to the finish line, and anything goes, as long as it doesn't cause a murder. We had a hammer-in a couple weeks ago and I made a set of heading blocks for the Museum/learning centre. I dropped a chunk of 3/4 x4 flatbar off at the waterjet guy's shop, the next morning I picked up 4 pieces, 4 x 4 inch with 1 inch, 15/16, 7/8 and 13/16 square holes blasted thru the middle. Total cost of plate and holes, forty dollars US. I was easily able to donate the blocks to the museum after welding them up. If I had chisled and and filed my way thru 4 blocks, I would have been resentful. Part of maturity is knowing where to pick your battles. I feel great about using the waterjet guy for dumb flat work, and burning calories on more challenging battlefronts. The first two heading blocks I made, I drilled, milled, and filed. went way over forty bucks in time. I can say I worked thru them, I guess that's worth something.

I learned a great use for leaf springs recently. If they are the kind that taper down to pretty thin at the end with a radius on the end, cut a bunch of end pieces about eight inches long. They make nice, tough, thin wedges for around the shop. They work great for shimming a project to the correct height when fabricating, wedging welds apart when doing repair work, etc. I keep a handful in my welding trailer, they get used all the time.

Mark, Last year at the Weaverville hammer-in, I asked Francois to make a snub scroll for me. He made the lemon-to round shape like your book page, then turned the round side up on the anvil, and hammered it down to start the scroll. The transition from round to scroll was very nice, albeit counter-intuative. I thought he'd learned this from you.. It couldn't be a French thing...

Howdy Mark, Smithing will probably be good for you, it is for me. I'm trained as a machinist, with a welding backer, and have a small rural job shop. The better I got at machining, I realized I was spending the better part of the day worrying about a thousandth or less, and how to narrow it down into something more manageable. One day I discovered I was living in this paranoid box, always worried about how true the milling machine head was dialed in, how true was the tailstock on the lathe running today, etc. When I first saw some one working at the forge and anvil, it was quite liberating. The guy was using his eyeballs to get perspective, had a brass rule that went all the way down to 1/16 inch, but didn't use anything but the 1/4 inch marks. And he made beautiful, functional stuff. I cut some1/2-13 threads on my 1924 south bend lathe the other day, they came out great, but I had to heat and beat on some steel later to get all that precision out of my head.. Anyway, welcome, feel free to ask questions, answers cost nothing. My first smithing teacher told me, "I'll teach you everything I know, as long as you promise to keep nothing secret". The smithing world has proven to be the tightest bunch of folks I've met, and, with luck, this philosophy will migrate to the rest of the trades..

For those of us with overhanging belly syndrome (OBS), learn to work the powerhammer with your tongs at the side of your body, not the center. A hammer blow that isn't flat with the bottom die can launch the tongs into the OBS, causing great discomfort, painful death, etc

Thanks for the reply Frosty. There's dinner and hydration waiting for you in South orygun whenever you're passing through.. I understand the pizza pan/stick idea, counter-intuitive, but I'll try it tomorrow. I've been lubing with parrafin wax, per one of the links in the previous post. It seems to let the roller slip along, but if you think it's an issue, I'll search for spinning lube. My lathe RPM is probably low. I've got her cranked up, but I doubt I'm over 1000 RPM, I can check it tomorrow with my antique Starret RPM guage, the funny looking thing I bought at a yard sale years ago because it said starret, but only recently learned what it does...I may need to do a quick re-jackhaft pulley, easy fix, to gain some more warp speed. When I take the stroke to the outside of the disc, do I tackle the pizza brim on that stroke? or leave it be until the end? Thanks again for your help, I forgot to mention my wife is a massage therapist, heavily trained on hypertonic blacksmith muscles, I'll make sure she has a go at you before dinner and hydration.

I got some scissor tools made, 3 inch diameter hardened 4140 rollers, I've made 2 rollers that fit into the scissors tool so far. One roller tapers to a 1/2 inch radius, the other tapers to a 3/8 inch radius. The scissors system seems to work good, they have enough compound leverage to stop the lathe if I push too hard. I made a face plate and glued up a big maple block. The maple is amazing stuff, it's taken lots of abuse so far and hasn't exploded. I tried the first round with 16 guage hot roll steel sheet, it seemed like it took a lot of effort. we were making progress, then the sheet buckled on the outside of the disc. Bumpity, bumpity goes the scissor tool. I next bought a sheet of cold rolled steel 18 guage and had the waterjet guy cut me a bunch of discs, ranging from 8 inch to 16 inch. I ruined 6 discs this afternoon, but i had a great time doing it! What seems to happen each time, as I'm attempting to spin my trumpet shape, is things start out good, I start at the center and scissors out in small increments. There's a certain point where the outer third of the disc starts to generate a Toroid shape ( I think that's what it's called) where it oil cans its way backwards as I'm spinning out from the center. If I disreguard the Toroid, it keeps generating itself until the disc has a really nifty, but not desirable, backwards rolled edge. When I try to correct this flare, I'm free spinning. I work it very carefully, but something strange keeps happening, and the piece folds up again, and I'm back to bumpity, bumpity with the roller, and reaching for another disc. I watched some metal spinning videos on youtube, they don't seem to have this flaring problem, but they're apparantly working aluminum and copper. Any Ideas? Thanks

I'm the new proud owner of 5 gallons of Chevron equivalent, ISO 68 Way Oil. Can I assume it's okay to use this on the babbit headstock bearings on the lathe and power hammer? I apologise if I'm sounding over-analytical, the hammer is 100 years old, the lathe is pushing 85, I just want to give them the respect they deserve.

Thanks folks.

For years I've been oiling the ways on the lathe and milling machine with non-detergent 30wt oil. After 6 months or so, it grows a sticky, varnish goo that I have to cut down with paint thinner or WD-40. What do you folks use that doesn't leave sticky goo?

If they are common Acme threads, you can buy nuts through MSC, and use them to retro-fit worn out screws on leg vises.

It's the little things that make the difference. the barn wood and the cupola turn that barn into a home. Great touch!

My first mentor, Dave Atwood, is a very traditional non-electricity user in the Salmon River drainage of north California. I was helping him demo one weekend at a mule packing clinic, a teenage individual came up to Dave and told him he was a good smith. Dave gave the guy his hammer, and said show me something, we're always ready to learn. The guy turned away, and Dave said, "You're not a blacksmith until someone better than you says you are." Dave's a crusty individual, I don't always agree with him, but I never called myself a smith until he did.. Just my story, worth what you paid for it.

I have varying statistics on drop the tong welds. Some times it's easy, most of the time it ain't. I'm currently a big fan of blind rivets. Drill a 1/8 inch hole through both scarfs, countersink a little bit, and pin together with a piece of gas welding rod. Now you only have one piece to work with in the fire. The rivet disappears during forge welding. Life's too short to get all stressed out.

Thanks Frosty, that all made sense. The material will be mild steel plate, we can get it powder coated to a bronze color, it should look good with the SS ball. I'll get to work on some tooling, and start with some smaller scale pieces to get a feel for this. Thanks again, I'm excited about this..

Here's a picture of the project, it's a cap piece, pinnacle-like object, for a fancy octagonal gazebo. The whole thing will be about six foot tall, the picture is of the base. The round sphere is a 12 inch stainless 'gazing ball', on order from a garden supply outfit. You can see the two trumpet shapes that capture the ball. I'm not too worried about the trim beads on the trumpets, I can roll rings from roundstock and fix them on appropriately. I have two options so far, one is to spin the trumpets out of 16 ga sheet. my SB lathe will swing a 16 in piece, but i need to do some volume and circumfrence calculating to see what size piece I need to start with, and if it would fit in the lathe. I have a buddy with a removable-gap lathe I could most likely use, if I could do the job cold. The other option, the more scary one, is I have a chunk of 8 inch pipe, 7-5/8 ID, 8-5/8 OD, 1/2 inch wall thickness. My 3-jaw chuck won't grab it, but I could cap the end and weld a managable socket to the cap. I'm worried that the half-inch wall of the pipe might be resistant to what I need to do with it. I would need to neck down some, and flare out some. I suppose I could take a cut on the pipe and lose some wall thickness pretty easy.. I don't mind making the scissor roller tools, but I wonder if the two different processes described would warrant different styles of tools. It also appears that the spinner folks do this scissoring thing freehand, I wonder why they dont mount the roller in the tool post, and use the carriage and cross slide of the lathe. Thanks for listening, I actually enjoy challenges like these, I just wish I knew why.

Grant, from your picture, cut the vertical line away, the triangular bit that's left,(the legs), would be the stock to use.

An old smith told me that a good stock to make shapes from, is 3 or 4 inch channel iron. slit wheel or bandsaw the middle away, the remaining legs have a nice semi triangular shape, what's left of the web of the channel, that stores heat in the thick part, and makes life easier for the firetender at the brand party.

Thank you folks for this thread.. I've been stuck for a few days on a project, I need a trumpet shape that goes from 8-1/2 inch to 12 inch, in 6 inches . Spinning appears like the answer. I'll post pics and questions as they come along. Frosty, thank you for the links, especially the fender one.. First question, could I free hand spin a trumpet shape, or do I need a wooden mold?

That's a pretty personal question. You may get a lot of different answers. I like to radius the handle axis so when you lay a straight edge along it, there's about 1/32 inch of light showing on the edges, the left/right axis, about 1/16. I radius all edges to a soft edge. I use a 40g flap wheel on a 4.5 inch hand grinder, then polish with a scotch-brite wheel on the bench grinder. If you find that you leave dings on your work predominately on any one corner, work on your body mechanics for a while before you grind that corner out of your hammer. Sometimes you can lift or lower your hip or shoulder a bit, and lose the dings. You may get one hammer fit just fine to your swing, but what happens when you pick up another one?

Open Die forging is something that's learned by doing. I can't see hiring anyone to train, I'd have to pay them an hourly, plus take time out of what I'm doing to watch herd. The shop would be losing money as soon as the new guy clocked in. There's also a raft of paperwork and regulations when dealing with employees. As a sole proprietor, I can run my 1907 power hammer all I want, but the state safety bureau would have kittens if they were to try and dumb it down for an untrained hand. I would have to add on a rest room to the shop, it won't do to ask employees to walk 50 feet into my house. My work is often Boom-or-Bust, I'm often backed up for a couple months, and then nothing. It takes a business man to run a business, I'd rather be a one guy shop with no stress, and be able to take my kid fishing after school when the lake thaws and there's no wind.

The CBA (California) club has a wacky program that involves local members going through a 3-level instruction (taught by local members) course. It's a non-profit thing, but a small fee to cover fuel is tolerated. The CBA covers the insurance for the student liability, all they need is gullible folks with a shop (me and McraigL in Kfalls) who want to give back to the trade with a couple Saturday mornings a month. The program works really well, in my opinion. Once you get the basics handled in a non-threatening environment, you can get much more out of a specialized class for money, and come back and show your local instructor what you learned.. everybody comes out good. You should ask if the AZ club is doing this, I think it's a great idea, and don't mind volunteering in my area to help it work.