Jeddly

The coating is called Sairset. Forgive my ignorance (theres lots), what is the kitty litter for? I have a 50# sack of bentonite I scored from a drilling supply house.

I don't think I had the right thermocouple in the forge. The probe was 1/4" stainless about 6" long. It melted. Also, I'm going to have to re-coat the interior after the last block of damascus. When the forge gets hot, the floor basically melts. I've tried chipping it off of my brick, but I think its there to stay. I'll just cover it over and see what happens.

This is horse pucky. 43 degrees in February. I fear the lack of snow is going to wreck the fishing streams this summer. On a good note, I didn't have to shovel snow this winter. haha

Never been to your place Frosty. I'd love to date my anvil. Dinner, movie, then later, something hot and steamy? :)

The only notable things I have forged are a few knives, a couple shelf brackets, some little skulls from 1/2" sq, and a dozen or so pint jar handles.

Heres a quick picture of my forge. The burner I copied from reading about Frostys T burner. Its 1" pipe and tee with a .045 mig tip. Two inches of kaowool coated with rigidizer and sairset. The housing is a regular ole propane tank. I got the anvil from my dad. He said it came out of one of the barns on his property in Colorado a really long time ago. I weighed it the other day, and it was dang near 125lbs exactly.

Went to my local HD the other day to inquire about the 165# anvil. I had heard they were able to bring them in from the lower 48. Apparently they have changed their minds or something, because the anvil was removed from their website. Feeling a bit miffed, I decided to check Amazon and roll the dice on a couple other sites. The best I found was from Acme tools, and they quoted it as being ~1200 to my loading dock in Anchorage. Only 49$ shipping. Wow! I just thought I would share, since finding anvils up here is kind of difficult.

Thats a good one JMC. I really like the presentation too. Far better than my shabby iphone pic with a dingy mig glove. My big hammer is a rounded 8#'r, and I had my daughter pull iron out of the fire while I played striker. Lots of work these blades are for sure.

I'm real proud of this one. It's my first in damascus. I swear, Popeye must have also been a blacksmith. Forearms are feeling like jello. Anyways, its 1095, and 15n20 to the tune of 33 layers. Before anyone asks, I did heat treat it. Held it at 1600 for 10 minutes, and then quenched in some warm canola. After that, I put it in the oven at 450 degrees for two hours. I'm still getting my legs under me with the grinder, so the lines are not perfect by any means. It is however, harder than hens teeth, and sharp as all get-out. The wood is cocobolo, and as you can see, the pins are large copper, and 3/8" stainless tubing.

I have seen inserts that have a round OD, and a square ID. I believe some smithing company actually sells them too.

When I was doing my research on a press I wanted to build, I had the local hydraulics company work up the system. Using a 6" bore 3" rod cylinder, they were saying I needed a little over 5hp, 11gpm at fast advance, and 4gpm in press mode. Mind you, it was for 35 ton. I believe that gave me a speed of 1.5" per second.

If I had a big power hammer, I would just build a dang shop to house it. I know I'll get one sooner or later, so, I'll just wish for a VLPOS. (Very Large Pile Of Steel)

Here's a tip for those that keep receipts. Most receipt paper nowadays is made of thermal paper. Over time, the ink will fade, and you'll be left with a handy sized piece of scratch paper for starting the forge. A good idea is to scan the receipt before this fade happens. I have a friend that bought some high dollar part for his truck, and six months later it broke. Part had a lifetime warranty. The receipt in the glove box was blank. Hence, unhappy camper with a busted truck. Food for thought....

Why not use tannerite? That stuff is double fun. You get to shoot, AND blow stuff up!

I will have to change my vote as well. I changed jobs a while back, and the rules are alot less stringent. Having never gotten this far in the face hair game, I'm pretty surprised at the amount of grey. Oh well.

Maybe you could make the ends longer, and just fish them through and trim the excess? There are alot of different wraps out there. I would imagine that the 550 cord wrapping techniques could be applied to wire.

Congrats! He'll be hammering in no time!

Another drill press mishap. I chucked up a piece of copper round stock, maybe 3/8", and was using sand paper to bring the OD down some. Stupidly pinched the copper too hard, and wrapped my thumb in with the sandpaper. I don't do that anymore.

Me too. I like big fire. My gasser was only able to put out 1800 degrees. A day of reading the forum provided me the knowledge of what I did wrong with mine. It was worth 600 degrees. Mr. Bronze, et al, can ya'll pm me the location of the meet? I'd like to attend.

I think I read somewhere that a 3/4" burner needs around 350 sq. inches to be optimized.

Thats some big fire!

Hey fellers, I've been trying to read, and watch all of the videos on forging presses I can lay eyes on. I feel that I need to build one for myself. I've already found some parts for it. The power pack is a 10hp single phase motor, bolted to a 20 gallon tank. As far as I can tell, the pump is ~3 gpm. From what I've seen, I'm going to need a two stage pump to finish that assembly. I do not have a cylinder, nor do I know where to find one that is economically feasible. I checked out Surplus Center, and Northern Tool, and they seem to go for around 6-800 bucks minus shipping. I would much rather get one in town for a reasonable price, than to pay shipping. The work I want it to do is damascus, and ornamental stuff for gates and fences etc. According to some calculations, the 16/3 pump will push a 5/2.5 cylinder to 70K at 2500psi. I would like to emulate Mr. Mcdaniels press, but with one cylinder (maybe two would be the way to go?). Bottom mount, seperate powerpack, removeable dies, the whole shebang.

1) Trying to forge stuff 10 hours a day for 4 days straight, and injuring my dominant appendage. (shoulda stopped at first sign) 2) Thinking of all of the cool stuff to forge, whilst laid up. 3) Getting orders for more stuff, whilst laid up. 4) Letting the magic smoke out of my VFD on the grinder. 5) Others inattention to details. 6) Inefficiency. Gosh, I better quit whining.

Thanks! The vise works pretty good, but there is a bit more 'engagement' than with my other bench vise. I chalk it up to using a single acme nut.

Welcome to Alaska! When I came up in 1994, I soon learned that I would never leave here as well.