LDW

You are off to a good start. The best thing to me is the next time you forge one of the same items it will keep getting better. Repetition makes you improve tremendously, at the same time you will be developing hammer control and everything gets easier. Just keep on forging.

Until you get used to striking the tip of the rod to get it started you may need to slide it just a bit to get it burning. If it sticks and burns the flux on the end or breaks it away you will probably have to slide it until you get the bare rod back up to the flux. If your amperage is set too low it will stick a lot easier. Its all about the puddle after you get it to burning. I used a hood the other day that had a "cheater" in it. The hood was magnified like reading glasses. I am 46 years old and that hood was great, that was my first time to ever use one that had magnification.

D.C. current etches the metal and A.C. current blackens it. Mine has a little bridge rectifier so it can be switched from D.C. to A.C.

Hello Big Medicine, I like to make knives as well. Glad to see another Mississippian. If you have any question you can bet someone here can answer it. Welcome aboard. LDW

Here are the next two heads. It was a lot easier when you had someone that knew what they were doing.

I have never done that but, check this out. Brazing, Soldering & Welding

I went through a class on making a wolf head, Thursday and Friday. Spent Thursday making the tools from H-13 then worked on the head most of the day, Friday. It started with 1 inch square bar. First time for something like this. I really enjoyed it and will start another one soon.(while it is still fresh on the memory.) I will post a pic of the next one to compare.

The conference was great Lorelei Sims is a great demonstrator. She held the attention of everyone as good as anyone can. We had a good auction, and things ran smooth. Thanks for everyones help that kept things rolling. Steve Williams was a great instructor during the wolfhead class and everyone that participated learned a lot about moving metal. We made some great tools from H-13 and will appreciate them from now on. Anthony Goodrum did a wonderful job running the auction and helped overall with the conference as much as anyone. Here is a link to some of the pictures of the Conference.Picasa Web Albums - Lyle - MFC CONFERENC...

We made some large copper sailboats one time and brazed stainless rods to represent the ropes coming from the mast, and they fell off. Had to go back and use copper. Here is a galvanic reaction pdf chart I found on the web. It says the farther apart on the list that the metals are the worse the reaction is.http://www.grabberman.com/Media/TechnicalData/127.pdf

We got everything moved to the pavillion and everyone is sitting on ready for the wolfs head class tommorrow. My weekend started today at 12:00. Looks like there will be 7 people in the class, including me. Looking forward to 4 days of fun rather than work. Wish you could all be there this weekend.

If you heat and twist re-bar it appears you spent a long time putting all the detail in it. I have made several letter openers and fire pokers with it, When you want to make something quick and easy it works good for that too.

Hey Jon, I am sure we will do the Iron in the Hat, and I am bringing a couple items for it. About the college folks are you talking about members?

A buddy of mine has a machine shop behind his house and has been running end mills, lathes, and surface grinders for years with no problems. This web page has a similar set-up to how his is set-up. Don't know if it would do any good in the UK though. Building a Three Phase Converter

I decided to try this spike tool that was done during the Tuesday night blueprint a while back. This was not as easy as I thought it was. It seems easier to make one into a blade than it does to just flatten out the whole end. I don't remember who did this on the blueprint but thanks for the Idea, it is a good way to use up those railroad spikes you accumulate.