ironsmith

pecan's smeekans, i settle for some boiled peanuts! fer sure. Nice knives too , the shape of the handle looks really comfortable... thanks for posting em !:D

Welcome aboard Andrew, and by the way that is a cool avatar pic you have! reminds me of a fibonacci scroll :rolleyes:

the pictures arent good for scale, it says it weighs 400 lbs, and is 35 inches tall, thats one heck of a blower, but man thats one heck of a price too....

Hey guys, My wife and maybe me, are going to Uruguay to visit the in-laws, (she's from there.) does anyone know of any smiths down that way? would like to visit some shops or at least make her do it for me THanks !

sad thing is the government prolly has a contract with this guy supplying the entabulators for NASA LMAO and the dingle arms are made overseas! HEHE thanks for sharing that!

well, maddog pretty much summed it up there, that was a good description and break down of each...

Whom ever is being awarded that hammer is awefull lucky!!! Congrats and my envy to the lucky guy or gal! for sure...

hehehe , I would call it , "Potty Training from xxxx" :P

Congrats on making a set of tongs, I have been working on tongs for a while now, trying to get them to look nice as well as function. on making a rivet I use a "rivet header", a piece of round stock about 1 inch in diameter and 1 inch tall, with a hole drilled Slightly larger than my rivet diameter is going to be. I will heat up a piece of round stock that is going to be my rivet and cool every thing but the tip that is going to be the head. Then i put it in to the "rivet header" and use a ball peen hammer to make the head. (unless i am wrong you should allow for 1 and a half times the diameter of the rivet for making the head and also the peened side ) I am sure other members here will correct me if i am also google rivet making and how to peen a rivet that will come up with some good info.

I would love to see some more pictures Grant, that thing is neat! Thanks for posting it!

thanks for the replies guys, we finished up today, and heat treated our hammers, it was really great to see everyone end up with a hammer. I had to leave before he demonstrated putting a handle on his demo piece, but I am sure the other guild members took notes for me, hated to leave for sure! I Really hope I can hold on to and remember what they showed us, it was really a great experience well worth the money I spent on it... Looking forward to passing on what I learned to some of the other guild members who coudn't attend , if I have time i will right up something for our newsletter.. well that's all for now!

Well first off I would like to thank Brian and Lyle, (LDW) for coming to South Carolina to share there experience and knowledge. I am in awe of the time and effort they have put into the craft and the generosity they show us. so. First thing i learned is how to listen! you wouldn't believe how hard it is to shut up and listen to what someone is teaching, and Brian is very good at letting you know you are not listening LOL. Second thing is understanding, Actually taking the time to walk around and see what the other students are doing or having trouble with helped me understand what i was doing wrong and how to correct it. and the last thing i will share with you all is how important it is to THINK and Reason out what and Why you are doing the steps you are taught. Thanks a bunch for a great time and a Great Hammer (which Lyle helped me fix ;P);)

WOW, thanks for the info, I am going to make a shim this week and pound on some steel! it has been repaired but has a good loud ring and rebound...

hey guys, just got this m&H armitage mouse hole anvil, weight says its 177 lbs i think, my question is why is this anvil "leaning" towards the horn, I have never seen one that wasn't the same height all the way across the face. you can barely see it in the picture but It is quite noticeable in person, anyone know why it would be cast this way? any comments appreciated. thanks

I like to use the KISS method when building these things, and i felt since the regulator is adjustable and you have a shutoff valve at the burner there is enough adjustment there... I'm thinkin the next one's i build i/m gonna round out the outside of some kiln brick and shape it to fit inside the shells to see how that works. any predictions?

well, matt, it is not that i dont want to , its that i have never tried to , and wouldnt know where to start! do you have a how to or what type of refractory is needed to do this with? thanks for the suggestion!:D

well as stated in a different post the forge got so hot it destroyed the reducers i had on the ends of the burners to help with flame shape, It seems these are not needed anyway for the forge to operate so no big deal. the guy i sold one to is really happy. and the other may be sold this weekend. thanks for the comments too!

hey frosty thanks for the heads up about cast , do you know anything about cast stainless steel? I found some reducers the same size with npt threads that will work but dont know how well they would hold up either. another question is if i even really need them, my burners work well inside the forge but if you take them out the flame will not hold and blows out easily, since you dont use em outside the forge my question is does these reducers really serve a purpose inside?

ok so better late than never, here are some pictures of my forges

hey guys, i just posted that i made two propane forges (which i still need to post pics of,) and built the burners as well, anyway the burners are the same as I always make them, (A 1 3/4 to 3/4 reducer with a 9 inch 3/4 pipe.) this time i added a 3/4 to 1 inch reducer on the flame end. it seems that this part has melted or fell apart inside the forge. any ideas why? or what i could use to replace this. because it really improved the performance of the burners... Thanks so much I still have the other one so when i get some time off work tomorrow i will post some pics to help. :D

hehe , sorry to tease you guys, but i sure was tired that day, then i stayed up some 20 hours straight to go see Mark Aspery last saturday at our guild meeting. will try to get the wife to email the pictures of the forges to my work to post them :)

well since i am a member of the Philip Simmons artist blacksmith guild of S.C. how about Philip Simmons :)

Ok, so 70 bucks and 12 hours later, finished up two propane forges, painted , leak checked and tested... will post some picks if I can get off the couch later! ;)

thanks for the suggestion to look around in the forum, I did that a little but dug even further in some posts, and found some reference to fontanini's. these seem more to my liking !! and the price is near what i want to spend and it's made in the USA so there is a plus as well. gonna take a couple days to decide, it's a lot of money to me...

hello all, does anyone have a current list of anvil makers/suppliers I am in the market for a new anvil and i have my eye on few, mainly: a euroanvil from blacksmithsupply.com a TFS from blacksmithdepot.com one of the new rhino anvils from www.incandescent-iron.com i would like a 200 lbs or better but these 3 are the only ones i've found and was wondering if there are others i should look at before i make my purchase. I'm also curious what you guys would pic if buying one of these. Thanks a bunch !