Dave Murray

I put my tank in a tub of tap water ,keeps it from freezing up.

I only made one snowman each of the last two shows. Painted them both and both sold in first 15 minutes.

I made a bunch of Christmas decorations as I had a table at the local Legion Christmas craft show. 20221126_085006.mp4

There's a video on you tube where a guy made a 2"×72" grinder from a treadmill motor he got free and the wheels off a skateboard..claims its as good as any grinder he's ever had.

I agree coil springs and strut assemblies are very dangerous. Never had a problem with leaf springs that are off the vehicle. But as always safety first.

Coil springs that are still on the struts,yes very careful. Leaf springs that are off the vehicle and not under any load I,ve never had a problem with. I just cut these bolts off with the grinder cutoff wheel.

Just stopped by the local truck repair shop .the guy gave me these trailer springs and said come back anytime always welcome to go though the scrap trailer. 13 4"×3/8.

Good ideas from everyone. Can also make bottle openers, a quick knife out of a RR spike,a snake out of rebar all the little boys will want it. Even just making a horseshoe from a flat bar keeps them interested. Good luck.

My entry, heavy duty letter opener, 48 layers of wood band saw blade and strapping metal off skid of bricks.quenched in brake fluid (only clean oil I had),tempered in gas BBQ at 425 for one hour. Didn't really need to harden it wanted to see if the welds could survive a quench. Hickory and copper handle.

Hi Neil, I used to have a farrier forge that had a 12" one . I was always taking it apart and just using the torch. Very handy for a multitude of jobs. Couldn't believe my luck when I found this one for only $20 .it's a very powerful torch.

Picked this beauty up at a yard sale today for $20. It was pretty rusty. Cleaned it up and it works great.

The crosses are $60 for the small ones like I sold yesterday up to $300 for the larger ones. People don't realize how big they really are inthe pictures. I had a lady wanted one of the larger more fancy ones.i said you realize that it is 3ft long and almost 3ft wide. She said oh and ordered a smaller one. The cats and dogs are good sellers I get $35 to $40 apiece for them.

Good idea Charles, this all started when a friend of mine who is the manager of the local feed store, they also sell farrier supplies sent me picture of a cross and asked if I could make her one. I made it and she put it onher facebook page and suddenly I had orders for 6 of them.then she said I can get you a deal on some new shoes we have in the warehouse, some are a little rusty.i said what kind of deal? She said $1 a pair. I said I ll take them all .to my surprise they had 420 pairs.so now with what I already had I now have 1000 shoes.so I went on Pinterest and found thousands of things you can make from horseshoes. So since the fair yesterday I have orders for 6 crosses and 3 Christmas wreaths. I will be busy for a while. The 2 brown dogs with the short tails their bodies are made from railway spikes I forged the head of the spike into the tail and put a small twist in them.so hoping to make a few bucks so I can build a forging press.

Thanks George, your right most of the places I go are horse shows and Rodeos. Would love to have some handforged items and plan to do so.i just always seem to be rushed to produce enough items to take to an event so go with what I can get together fast.i get the shoes cheap .steel for forging is expensive here and so is propane so I worry if people would pay the extra .putting the crosses on a stake is a good idea,I have mounted them on wood before. Arthritis in my hands wrist and shoulder also slow me down for hand forging ,working on making a press from a logsplitter for drawing out stuff,that should help save my arm.

Had a booth at our local fall fair today. Was beautiful weather and great turnout.sold about $350 worth of stuff. I did good considering there were over 65 vendors. I was the only one with metal items .found people are very careful about spending money. Seems no one wants to spend much over $20.i did sell my crosses but lower than my usual price. But people took a lot of my cards and got some orders for Christmas items.local newspaper took a photo of me in front of my booth so my get a little write up all in all had a great day. 20220924_094638.mp4 20220924_094109.mp4

Horseshoe nails come in a lot of sizes and styles nowadays. You can get from a size 3 race nail up to a 16 draft horse nail the ones in my crosses are 5,6,7s.

Those are strange looking horseshoe nails, are you reworking them I use a city head or a E head nail when I put them in my horseshoe crosses.

Just want to update this thread, Freddy did ok on this stuff finally. He got $500for the forge and pipe vice with the little anvil attached. He got$200 for the 6"post vice, and I gave him $120 forthe 5"post vice. So $820 inall,he's still got some stuff left. Only 2 people other than me even showed up to look at the stuff, out of over 30 calls. And they bought it.

I ve been asked by a friend to make a 4" or 5" wood gouge. He owns a landscape company and they are making a children's playground for nearby town they have some large 4 or 5ft in diameter logs ,and they are hollowing out the centers for tunnels. He wants a large gouge on a shovel handle to do some finishing after the chainsaws. Not sure what type of steel to use. I have some large saw blades I was thinking of cutting out 3 pattern pieces and forge weld them together then make the gouge from that.or I have hundreds of old farrier rasp i could grind down and use them ,or icould look for an old leaf spring,but he kinda needs it quick and it's a long weekend so can.t really hit the scrap yard till next week. Was going to make it my project this weekend. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Years ago when I was operating the drop hammers I would periodically get hot scale down my boot or the cuff of my gloves and just stand there and take it rather then make a piece of scrap. Always burning through my boot laces. Bought a lot of boot laces. Still lots of scars on my wrists from that and burns making horseshoes.

I don't forge the heads from the hammer I use it for the heads on my horseshoe crafts. I get $40 to $50 bucks apiece for these.

I picked these up today. $40 bucks for the lot.l make crafts out of horseshoes and the claw heads make good animal heads especially dogs.

Yes the anvil swivels.