Dave Murray

On 12/8/2022 at 11:16 AM, Chad J. said:

 before the tank started to freeze up.  

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.

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. 

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.

On 9/20/2022 at 11:14 PM, Daswulf said:

Also a new style welded up cut nail cross design. 

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. 

11 hours ago, Dave Murray said:

I find the horseshoe stuff sells real good. I would rather spend my time hand forging things but found people won't pay what you need to make it worthwhile.  The horseshoe stuff is quick and easy  and you can sell stuff from $20 to $50 all day. I had a booth at a local rodeo this summer and did nearly $1000 in 2 days.and could have done better just run out of stuff . 

50 minutes ago, Dave Murray said:

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.

6 hours ago, George N. M. said:

I'd like to see one of your hammer head dog heads. 

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.