Feukair

So you never seen a leaf the bugs ate the end off of.

I got the idea from a post on this forum where someone made them larger as clamp downs for a woodworkers bench. I forget who posted them... :-( sorry whoever you are...

Looks Great, how does it work!?!??!?

Most Smiths consider a sledge to start at 6 lbs. That 3 lber would be called a double face or Engineers Hammer.

I wanted to start up this old thread... To ask about building a cave of coal in the forge. Whats the purpose of soaking your coal in water??? Is this to help with forming a cave somehow?

What I've been doing is:

1. i light a few wads of newspaper under the chimney to heat it up and start a draw.

2. I scopp some hot coals out of the wood burning stove (which sits next to the forge) and put them in the pot.

3. I turn the blower on very slowly so the wook coals glow.

4. I sprinke some coke from the last burn over the wood coals and wait for them to take.

5. keep adding more and more coke until theres a good pile burning

6. then i add green coal as i need to to keep things going.

I've never tried to build a cave, but I've seen that done and wish I knew how...

L

That one on the right looks upset...

Looks like it was a little too close the that cieling rafter... is that a little burn mark just above the tallest candle???

I imagine people "in the olden days" lived under the constant threat of fire hazards...

Nice work on the chandelier, i imagine you could make quite a large one with lots of scroll work. My neighbor collects candles, I've been trying to think of something to make for her other than a standard candle holder. Great idea!

I gotta learn to forge weld first tho i think... ;-(

L

L

I made my first leaf ( not counting a couple that didn't turn out) this one the tip broke off cuz i chizzled to deeply on the tip:



I made some hold downs for my anvil:



Thats it. It was alot of fun. I won't be up at my dads again to forge until saturday. I hope everyone had a great holiday.

Thanks,
L

I was able to spend some time smithing over the holiday. Here's some of the "successful" things I did...

I needed a straight peen hammer and had an extra 3lb slege hammer head so i tapered one end down into a straight peen and fashioned it to a handle that I turned myself from a piece of hickory.



L

WOW, amazing, that knife looks like it's worth 100s of $$$s. Not to say it just looks like it, after all that work it is!

L

I just think the hammer marks look cool... hehe

L

I like the hammer marks too. My dad always wants me to grind them off everthing i make... but i love the hammered look, proves it was "forged".

L

I'd love to see the pics. How did you forge the bevel on each side. I''ve tried forting a bevel down the edge of some scrap blades I've been making. Trying to get the blade as close to finished shape as possible so i have to grind away as little material as possible to finish it.

I'm still just playing. I can get a good bevel down one side by holding the steel at and angle as well as striking at an angle but I've been dinging up my anvil surface.... which is a bummer. I got a cheap anvil tho so I'm sure it's not hardened or anything.

Someday, if i get any good at this, i'll get a nice anvil...

L

I've read quite a few of the BP's. I really like the BP0078 metallurgy of heat treating by Rober Nichols. I'm new to blacksmithing and the whole "heat treating and hardening" thing was fuzzy to me. I have a much better understanding of those processes and what they do to steel now.

Thanks to Robert Nichols for putting it together.

L

My fiancee, a very understanding woman, got me a bench mount drill press. My father, a retired tool and die maker, got me a tap and die set and a set of 115 different drill bits.

Is it a hammer used for driving railroad spikes in to the timbers under railroad track?

This thread could be a contest LOL...

F

Very cool. I like the cross, how did you make it? It looks like one piece...

L

Thanks for all the comments everyone.

About the cracks... I think i know why they developed, i knotched out the metall too deeply during the first steps of that article, so when i bent the pincher back to make the bend it started splitting.

I'm going to my dads again tomorrow. I think I'll make another pair of tongs. This time rather than notching the steel in that place that split i think i'm just going to taper from there to the pincher end so there will be no notch there.

Thanks again for all the comments and the hole punching tips.

L

I have a set of bolsters that I made
My pritchel hole is 3/4 so I took some 3/4 grade 8 bolts and sawed off the threaded part then drilled various sized holes in them ( 3/16 1/4 5/16 and so on
When im going to punch a hole I just put the approiate size bolster in the pritchel hole and have at it

Punch the hole over the solid part of the anvil. Hit the punch until you "feel" the anvil face with the punch. Dip the punch in water after every third hit and then in coal dust. The water will cool the punch and a bit of the coal dust will stick to the wet tip. The coal dust will gas off in the hot metal and provide a lubricant. Once you feel the anvil with the punch, flip the work over and put it over the pritchel hole. You will see a
black circle where the punch has cooled the thin part remaining in the hole. Put the punch on this mark and drive out the thin slug through the pritchell hole of the anvil.

Thanks for all the comments everyone! Now I'm jonesin' to make some more but i don't think I'll get back to the forge until tuesday.

Sorry, that link in the url i posted was broke...

I basically followed the steps in this article to make them:
Tong Article

But i didn't do any work in a vise, and i didn't really read the article. I just used the anvil and looked at the pictures in the article for how to shape the piece. It took quite a while like 5-6 hours to make the set, alot of trial and error.

To assemble them my dad held the work piece over the small hole in the anvil while i drove a punch in on each piece for the hinge pin. I made a small rivet out of 3/8 stock, heated it to a bright orange, put it though the hinge holes, and mushroomed it out on each side. Man, that rivet was almost the hardest part, the first one didn't mushroom, it just bent and looked like crap so i took it out. Next one turned out ok. We also put a washer in between the two parts at the hinge. I dont think there's supposed to be a washer in there but i thought it would help keep them from binding.

This was the first time i punched a hole at the forge. How are you supposed to keep the back side of the hole you're punching from dimpleing out? Mine dimpled out quite a bit, i turned it over and drove the punch through the otherside also but i still had to cool the piece and grind of where the piece had dimpled out.

Instead of adjusting the fit in the vise i got it as close as i could by hand then I would heat the ends of the tongs orange, pickup a railroad spike with the tongs, then using a small hammer tap the pincher ends of the tongs while it was holding a spike. This helped to make it fit for that use.

I don't know if you can see in the pictures but theres alot of hardened scale on the pincher ends of the tongs, i need to keep the scale scraped off with a wire brush better, i wasn't doing that at all today and didn't notice how much had built up on them until after i cooled them.

L

Hello all,

as you already know I'm new at this... but today i made my first set of tongs. here are some pics. I made them following the article shown here http://www.blksmth.com/tong_article.htm which i found googling for blacksmith stuff one day. Ther is some cracking at the hinge area right where the bend starts for the pinchers. I believe i made the notches to mark the stock too deep, so when i made the bends they split a little. Next set will be better. These were made from 1/4X3/4 12"long stock, just like in the article.

Let me know what you think. These took me about 5 hours total to make.



Thanks!
L

I'd go ahead and try a superquench heat treat on it; nice lines!

Thomas

Here's two other rail knives i've forged and an unforged spike for comparison. The larger one is thined down to about 3/16 inch all the way from the head of the spike, that's how i was able to get it so long. I didn't realize there was soo much metal in a rail spike.

Sorry for the quality of the pic, it's from my cell phone...



L

Here's a pic of my 3rd attempt at smithing. It's a railroad spike knife. I grinded an edge along it but left the hammered finish on the sides of the blade. After buffing it off with a wire wheel i though the hammer dimples looked pretty cool so i left them. Besides i don't know how to properly grind one yet so i just used a bench grinder to shape this. It's not heat treated or tempered or anything, just forged and then grinded to see if i could make the shape.

My first forging attempt was a rail spike knife which i left in the forge too long and had it too hot so it melted the blade away...

My second attempt i got a little too hot after i had thinned the blade down so a piece of the blade split.

This was my third attempt. I don't think I'll make another knife for a while, I'm having fun right now trying to make tongs and other tools.



L