Jeddly

a80b9568df3c9fede565d51c93d61b03

All of my hammers are named hammer. Yep, all three of them. The ones without handles I call ham. I really should do up some handles. haha

I've been told that regular ole antifreeze works too.

Thats wisdom right there! I always turn on the radio on my way to the forge. Light the forge, stretch a little, wipe off anvil, survey tooling, etc. Depending on which day of the week it is, I usually know what I want to make. If not, then I just sit and stare at the anvil for a while until something comes to mind.

30'x40' with a 10'x12' garage door. Water and sewer, electricity, 6" concrete floors. Natgas heat with optional waste oil system. Center drain with a sump. Preferably a steelfab with plenty of insulation. A smattering of windows, high speed exhaust fan. Can't forget the loft with a cot, that way getting in trouble won't be so bad.

Its a good thing you're ok. I've seen plenty of collisions up here in AK. Most times they're glancing blows, and only a little corner damage. The analogy of hot dog with toothpick legs is pretty accurate. I've also seen the critters (moose) in the front seat before with nothing but their toes poking out of the windshield. As you can imagine, most of those are fatalities. As for the Jeep, it looks like an easy fix. I'm a big fan of bolt on parts on a bumper. I like to think of them as adding to the crumple effect. Its way easier to replace a damaged bumper, than to replace a damaged frame.

I was thinking she was using the glove to keep the punch from loosing its heat treat

I pulled a nice little Wilton vise from the dumpster the other day. Model 1755. Only thing wrong with it was the swivel base had a broken bolt ear. Tossed the base, and solid mounted it to the shop table at work. It replaced the tiny Japan made one that will be coming home with me. Woo! Free stuff rules!!

Its only the best stuck bolt getter outer on the planet! http://www.amazon.com/Kano-Kroil-Penetrating-liquid-KROIL/dp/B000F09CF4 It is kinda spendy, but I think it is well worth it.

I was thinking of this pair of tongs the other day. What grabbed me was if it didn't have a pin, and you relaxed your 'grip', wouldn't the working ends mis-align? I also thought that you could maybe use a spherical type joint (ball and socket) with flat sides so as not to wobble left to right. Maybe just punching and pinning would be less labor intensive?

A little heat and some Kroil should do the trick.

This setup seems to work fine for me. I have the back bricked shut, but can move the brick for pass through items. Also, I was experiencing the woof woof problem, and solved it by rotating the burner 90 degrees to the side. Fire needs oxygen duh. I also used a little bit of sairset between the gaps, and the output increased quite a bit.

Thanks Steve. I browsed through your post in the stickies and found it really informative. It has occured to me that there is alot more to smithing than just swinging a hammer. I never really knew. Every day I read this forum, the larger it seems to get. With all of the combined knowledge here, a newbie such as myself basically has the world at his fingertips. Thanks again.

Dang! That thing is huge!!!

Thanks Randy. I can't wait to get back to the heat and make more tools!

Sure is alot to this heat treating stuff. I appreciate all of the advise guys. I thought you had to cool the steel slowly on each step. This normalizing step sounds too simple now. So, when I left the piece in the forge over a long cooling period, I was in fact annealing it, instead of normalizing? I guess normalizing is basically like being nice to the steel after you beat the heck out of it, and then you give it one last shock (quench) to show it who's boss. :)

Whoops! Im always leary of using my 12 ton press.

Thanks for the tips Phil. A hanging magnet seems like it would be more precise than my method.

I decided to attack it again, and ended up bending the tip of the tool 90 degrees. It cracked. Then I snapped it all the way off. Pics tonight. I have an old speaker magnet that I was using. But will find a ceramic magnet this week. Why don't you touch the magnet?

Dang thing just bent. Indestructisteel!!

I made a new one a couple days ago out of the same spring. First I heated it up to yellow, then put it in some sand to cool. A few hours later I pulled it out and re-heated it and forged it straight and put the taper in. After forging, I let it get yellow again, and turned off the gas, closed the forge, and waited till the next day. That was the normalizing step right? After this step, I brought it up to non-mag, and quenched in used fryer oil using a swirling motion. Then I set it on top of my forge hood for a while until it showed some bluing. Just to test it out, I chucked it up in the vise, and smacked it with a hammer. The vise would not hold it. I think it was because I had the taper in the jaws. Today I will put the round part in the jaws and try to break it off.

I would'nt say ghetto, more like post apocalyptic!

I'm pretty new to grain structures and stuff. I have no idea what a good grain vs. a bad one would look like. This busted piece looks like a solid powder (kinda). Frosty, the last meet-up I was at was a good while ago. Out at Pats place I think (near fairgrounds?) Looking at the piece, it looks like there was a small (pinhead size) portion that blew out as well. Relevant? I don't know.

Good food for thought guys. Thanks! I'm going to make a couple more and try to get the HT right. Temp in the shop is +/- 70 give or take.

I've used it several times before, and use the 'two whack' method between dipping the tip in water to cool. The steel came from a 69 bronco, so it is possible that it was stressed. I am thinking the HT was not the greatest. IIRC I may have only treated the working end.