dragon

I can't think of anything that doesn't find use sooner or later. Biggest thing in making something likely to be used or repaired is keeping it in an easily accessable spot -- if it's buried under too much junk, you're that much more likely to dismiss it during those times it would be handy. What I regret most is anything I've sold or otherwise discarded, thinking it was junk, or that it'd be simple to get another if I decided I needed it later. I lost not one, but two metal lathes that way. I kick myself every time they would have been handy.

Here's my third opener, and first try at an Aspery wizard. Edit: Did I do this wrong? I don't see the picture I thought I uploaded. Edit2: nevermind, I found that I had to click 'attach this file' after selecting it with the Browse button, followed by sleecting to add it to the post.

Gunnie - Funny you ressurected this thread just as I've been getting back into smithing! It's been 4 years since that experiment, wow. And yes, arc welders do have a duty cycle. I never used this long enough to trip mine, so I can't really say much more than that. If you give it a shot, don't be fooled into thinking my contraption was safe. I doubt it was safe at all. It mostly just seemed like a neat idea at the time. A good rule of thumb is that if something seems neat, it's probably dangerous. Thomas - The gases were what ended the experiment. I realized after a few tests that there was a funny smell lingering afterwards -- oh, right ozone. darn it! And put the project on the backburner. I'm now out in the country, and have a nicely ventilated shed under construction. I might ressurect the idea someday, but for now I've finally been getting comfortable using coal, have a very cheap supply, and am better adapted to heat than I used to be, so then again, maybe I won't. HWooldridge - I'd definitely prefer induction, too, but this was easier to slap together with materials I had around. I didn't, and still don't, forsee having 3 or 4 grand around for an induction machine any time in the near future.

I was experimenting with making brass today in a small charcoal fire. The process was awfully hassle-some, what with sparks jumping everywhich way and having to feed the fire every half minute. So I went and looked into arc furnaces. They sounded much more convenient. (Ok, plus it was just an excuse to go build something more complicated than a pile of bricks with an air inlet.) I slapped together some leftover kaowool, a metal can, and some glass tubing (to insulate rods from metal can), stuck some carbon rods inside, and hooked it up to the arc welder. It heats up. I expect even better once I put some itc-100 type-stuff on the walls. Then I got the idea of sticking some iron inside. A crude testing of this shows that it seems to work as a forge. But since I have never heard of this sort of thing being used as anything other than a melting furnace, I thought I would check with you guys for any possible hazards or other problems that I might be missing. So far I've worked out that I'll need to be shielded from the light while in operation, wear a welding mask, and such. Plus it's sort of hard to tell when the steel is hot; It looks dead cold at a medium orange through the welding mask. But that can be worked around. The idea of using this in my air-conditioned basement as opposed to the propane or charcoal forge in the non-cooled shed this summer sounds awfully attractive.. Any thoughts? And pardon if this has been covered before. "arc" was unacceptably short as a search term.

It flies well, though I don't necessarily throw so well, heheh. Until making this, I hadn't actually thrown one of these in 5 years or so. But I seem to be picking up the knack again. Only thing that's bugging me after throwing it a bit is that the head and shaft pop apart a lot, especially if I don't hit the target right. but I seem to recall this being a pretty normal occurrence with these things. When I threw these before, we had set of 3 or 4, and whenever this would happen, we'd just use another to beat it tightly back into place. With just the one at the moment, it's a little more annoying. I'm fairly pleased with the edge toughness, too. Accidentally struck a nail while using it as a hatchet, and it barely did anything to the edge , which is probably excessively sharp for an axe, especially one intended mostly as a thrower). I'll need to hone that spot again, but the damage wasn't nearly so bad as I would have expected from similar experiences with edged tools.

I'll definitely try that if I have a chance -- for now, I'm stuck with a cement floor.

I just rearranged my forging area so I could sit down for it. It really seems a lot nicer than standing up -- though it could just be the novelty of trying something new. One thing I like about it is that it really makes you think about where to put things so that you don't have to get up. Good for me, since when I was stepping around in the shop, I was having this bad habit of setting hammers and tongs down somewhere, then not finding them again when the metal got to temperature. Now I can't lose them! Much easier on the back, too. Also keeps you in the relatively cooler part of the shop. Still need to figure out what to do with the vise.. since it's a post vise, it kind of has a minimum height built into it, and I don't want to chop it up. I used to have a few smaller post vises that might've worked, but someone apparently threw them in the trash a few years ago without asking me..

Hi guys. Just finished this throwing ax this morning. It's made from a piece of leaf spring. It's my second attempt. The first I made years ago and gave to a friend, so it's sort of like a new first without anything on hand to compare with. It's a little rougher than I'd like. I always seem to end up with lots of craggy areas in things I make that just make me not want to spend time sanding them smooth. Not sure if it's getting burnt up in the forge, or if it's the hammer(I need to re-polish it, it has a few dents), or both. Or maybe it's the way I'm using the hammer. I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually. But it feels good to complete something nonetheless. It throws nicely, though I wonder if the handle is just a little long. Since I've yet to successfully forge weld, the eye hole is formed by folding over and then arc welding along the inside and outside with 6013, then forged over to remove the obvious bead. Anyone know if that's a bad thing to do on spring steel? I asked a welding instructor once what kind of rod to use on spring steel and she had no clue, since it'd never come up before in all her years of welding.

Errr.. Cold fish are deadly?

Do we know eachother? That happened to me this morning, and I was just about to post that very thing.

OK, Hi everyone. This is my first post here. Frosty's guillotine tool just looked awesome to me, so I cobbled one together myself. Naturally, about 5 minutes into testing, the blower on my forge made a loud pop and sprouted flames, so I didn't get to test it out much. The only problem I'm noting so far is the nuts holding the top die working loose awfully fast and mucking up the alignment. Maybe some springs to provide some tension on the nuts would help? Here's a few pics of my take on it. Rather than a fixed base, I made mine so that different thicknesses of metal can be used as dies on top and bottom, so long as the top die is 2.5 inches in width. Edit: Only one of my pics is showing up. I had a heck of a time trying to get all three uploaded(which involved loading and reloading the reply page a jillion times when it didn't want to finish uploading after 10 minutes), so I've doubtlessly screwed something up in the process somewhere.