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I Forge Iron

tzonoqua

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Everything posted by tzonoqua

  1. Yes, ciladog, of course I am not saying tools won't work without it!!! Please don't be offended that I choose to splash a little paint around! Alas you have not seen the tools in my workshop- I've had different workshops in my time of having workshops, only since 2007, so yeah, I'm a veritable newbie in all this!! In the first two I had no need at all to do anything to my tools apart from an oiling every now and again if at all. My current workshop that I moved to a year ago is just over a mile away from the sea, the air is corrosive, and my workshop is prone to condensation. "It's not like your tools are buried in wet soil or stored in a drum of water." Quite clearly you've never been to England! :D I am not talking that my tools (the ones I don't use all the time) suffer "a little bit of rust" I can live with a little bit of rust... but it's more like a heck of a lot of rust, not a fine dust of it but a raised crust!! So, my tools get crusty, I'm going to protect them, if that's about the tool and not the work than so be it!! Interestingly though, I do like a little bit of rust on some of my sculptures, especially the flowers-- I will often wax over the rust or varnish over the rust. Makes for a nice finish!! Core 20, is that the same thing as Corten?
  2. yes, this is true, Ciladog, the paint does wear away when it is used but of course stays on the parts that don't get hammered on, (the sides mostly!), but I am finding it a better form of protection against rust than just oiling my tools, which I used to do. I also hate that when tools are oiled they seem to attract the dirt and dust. "Use them more", they say, but sometimes that scroll former or whatever will sit for six months without a need for use, so it gets painted too!
  3. No word of a lie, I went to the shop to buy some paint. They had black, white or lilac. Lilac it was then!!! I get lots of condensation in my shop, so my tools needed painting... I also have since painted lots of them red, and some white. I'm still deciding what colour to paint my big anvil. My daughter wants turquoise, I tend to think that would look nice next to the lilac!!! Oh dear, what colour then to paint the swage blocks???? I'm quite enjoying having colourful tools, actually!!! :)
  4. I've got one already, thanks! (I've also got lots of tools to match!)
  5. I have a friend who uses one, he's a fabricator, not a blacksmith. As long as it's well insulated, the inside boarded out, it should be fine- if it's not though you can run into problems with condensation from the metal roof/ceiling, (as my friend does!), although climate may have a lot to do with that, it's damp and cool in England, maybe not so much in California.
  6. Yes, mine does, I have attracted some nice commission work with my website, and also some smaller stuff, absolutely enough to warrant it as necessary. I treat it as an online portfolio, or brochure, where people can look up to see the variety and scope of work that I do. I know here most people instead of looking at the yellow pages will look online for a phone number etc, so I think it's necessary to have a presence on the web, for me it is anyway. I have an acquaintance who has a server so I pay him to host which is £80 a year, and I made my own website on apple's iweb, so I am in control of it and update it myself. I also do facebook but haven't got any work that way, it's more of a networking tool with other smiths, that it has worked that way for me anyway. I also recently made an Etsy shop just before Christmas and got a few sales through that, with Etsy I think you need to work at it updating it regularly etc and do a lot of self promotion, etsy can work as an online sales platform but that is all it is, like the others have said you can't expect stuff to just sell on it's own there., Ironwork though, doesn't lend itself that well to online sales, it costs a lot to ship etc.
  7. Eric, those you are refering to are the "Gadia Lohar" or "Gaduliya Lohar" a caste of blacksmiths in india who's lineage can be traced back to a once a very cherished class of artisans- "Descended from the Swordsmiths of Mewar, the Gaduliya Lohar have maintained a nomadic existence for over 400 years. They honour a vow made by their Rajput Warrior ancestors to the Maharana Pratap who valued their skills so highly that he spared their lives by allowing them to flee rather than stay to fight and face certain death in a doomed battle when their Fort at Chittaurgarh was seized by Akbar in 1568. Their legendary vow - for them never to settle, never to draw water from a well, never to use a light at night and never to return to the Fort at Chittaurgarh, has, in some parts, been honoured to this day. At the time of Indian Independence, then Prime Minister Nehru attempted to settle the Lohar People. Many have chosen to keep their vow and thus their lifestyle but there are increasing numbers of Lohar who have now adapted to a settled lifestyle due to economic and societal pressures. Basically, they fell from grace and are now dalits (untouchables), ironically because of the prized skills their ancestors possessed. Now they make mostly agricultural and domestic wares. In the video no doubt that anvil was a coveted object!! That is a human powerhammer, only thing is us humans make mistakes sometimes! Jeff, you do get used to working like that, but it's not easy at first, they sit like that a lot from birth, not like us who sit on chairs, I mean of course sometimes they sit on chairs but they can still do that "squatting" position that we have lost- look at a small child and how they naturally will squat down like that, we lose that ability because we sit on chairs. Also, I have seen a lot of times even if they have no shoes often they will sit on a burlap cloth and have the cloth folded up over their feet to at least protect their feet from the hot scale!
  8. Wow, Dan, really? I think that Blacksmithing as a craft can encompass both technique and expression. Woof Woof! :D
  9. Oh, wow, I loooooove the fire set!!!! Great horse head!!!!! Very nice knives too, great to have you here!!
  10. Hi Rowan, I sent you a message on that other website! I just wanted to add, I used to have a showroom at the first workshop I rented. I spent a fair amount of time talking to the public rather than working... which can be quite frustrating, but... you often need to talk to the public to make a sale.... but then sometimes you can get quite resentful however interesting they are, that you've just spoken to someone for an hour and all they bought a £10 keyring or whatever... with regards to how many major commissions you would get is a bit of a stab in the dark...
  11. I don't sell knives but I've recently opened an Etsy shop (ArtisanIronwork), had two sales in the first few weeks, and a special order for a fire set, which is in progress. That was way better than I'd hoped. I wouldn't use it as my sole outlet, I have numerous places that sell my work but I thought I'd try it out as an online platform. I do see a lot of work on there that leaves much to be desired, and there is a heck of lot of beautifully made work on there as well. There are hundreds of thousands of items listed though that it is very easy to get completely lost in it. They suggest having minimum 100 listings to be "seen" there. Also you need to do a lot of self promotion to make it work for you, it's just a platform for sales really. It can work, but you have to work at it! And there is a huge amount of stuff that is clearly not handmade but passed off to be, I think the site is just getting too big to keep track and I imagine the etsy shops that are selling the low cost high volume items probably pay a lot of fees so I wonder if that's why they just ignore them. Good luck whatever you do!
  12. Wow, that must be for some ginormous bottle of wine!! :) :)
  13. As what Dave has said above, you just have to do a little bit of research. In a nutshell, shop around. Whatever you do, don't buy it online, silly prices! A friend of mine introduced me to Director of a very large Engineering and Fabrication company, they buy in steel in massive quantities. I now get my steel through him as he just charges me cost price, he gets one of his staff members to cut it up for me to put in my car and doesn't charge me for cutting, and I can pick through his scrap bin and take what I want for free. I was very lucky to have been introduced to him, I have never paid so little for steel! The down side is that he is usually very busy, often hard to get hold of, and sometimes when I've put an order in, the company has used some of it for their own needs, so he needs to reorder, but that is a small tradeoff for the great prices. I generally keep a small stock of steel sizes that I use all the time though, so that I'm not left in the lurch. I also have another smaller fabrication and engineering firm that is also my BOC dealer, they do odd bits and cut for free. I used them when I first moved here as they do small orders, but they charge much more than the bigger company, I can go through their offcuts and scrap bin but I have to pay for what I find. Just recently I've needed to find a supplier for the school where I also work, in the next town. It just took a little bit of phoning around to find a sympathetic and amicable fabrication firm and we got some fair prices with delivery for £10. I had been quoted as much as £40 for delivery.
  14. The Mayans are still with us!!! (Apparently they are the second largest ethnic group in Mexico!) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-20803579
  15. Nice, I know what you mean about the plasticy look!! I actually like stuff that's been galv'd then t-washed, takes away the silvery finish of the galvanizing and leaves a mottled black/grey finish, looks more natural, or organic. That would be a lovely job, a little church gate! I used to live near a yew tree in Scotland which is one of the oldest trees in Europe- about 2000 to 3000 years old, called the Fortingall Yew, lots of standing stones and general "old worldy-ness' around there!! Lovely!! Also very nice to make something for the school where your kids go, eh?!
  16. In my experience, clear lacquers can stand up outside... but not for very long!!!!! Especially if they get knocks or scrapes, then it just looks a mess, as it starts to rust and the rust creeps under the lacquer. I've never done a gate or railing like that but I have with sculpture. Any gates or railings I've done recently (mostly small fab jobs) I've sent off to be hot zinc sprayed and powder coated. I think maybe the only way to get a nice steel finish is to use stainless!! Unless you like rust, I love rust, but can't imagine anyone paying a lot of money for a gate or railings to have rust, with sculpture you can get away with rust though!! Of course that is just my experience, there may be a good clear coat that stands up to it out there, but none I've tried!! I have to say I when I saw the first photos I wondered about the baby's head rule, but the second photo of it painted shows it's scale a little better, it doesn't look that big, what are the dimensions? Bet the school are pleased, must get a pic of it in situ!!
  17. Well now, that would be a "vehicle" with a built in gas forge!!! :D
  18. Good stuff Beth. know what you mean about the paint, I quite like how Randy's done it, highlights of colour, that would lift it a bit, but then it is popular here with people to just think ironwork should be black to blend in with all the other ironwork! I've just done a hat shaped planter for a lady, could be quite good with some colour, but she wants it black, but hey ho, customer is always right eh! :)
  19. Can't say I overload it but at the moment the only vehicle I have for hauling stuff around in is a Subaru Legacy GTB (complete with Subaru STI twin turbo engine) ... regularly is filled in the back with metal, bits of scrap, dogs and children and hauls all my stuff filled to the roof, and my market stall every week to the market.... I keep saying i need to get a van, but hey, who else can say they have a works vehicle that does 280bhp 0-60 in about 6 seconds! :) Although I seriously doubt it can do that with heaps of metal in the back!!! Second last time I moved workshops I rented a 4.5 tonne truck, we bottomed out the suspension, so it was definitely overloaded... thankfully no damage to the suspension, it was only an hours drive away. Next time I moved I rented a 7.5 tonner!!!
  20. That is very interesting Thomas! I loved that about India, how there were generations and tribes of specialists, in pretty much everything, stone carving, musicians, dancers, wood carving, lost wax casting of bronze etc, although the dark side of that is the caste system which works to oppress people.
  21. Wow, those photos bring back memories, I worked with Rajasthani blacksmiths in 2002, they are called "Gaduliya Lohar" which roughly translates as "Cart Iron" (Lohar=Iron) as they are renounded for travelling with decorated iron carts. They have the most amazing history- there is a synopsis of it on my website http://www.colleendupon.co.uk/Research-_The_Gaduliya_Lohar.html Ironman, it is not just the entire family, they are a whole tribe or blacksmiths, some are still nomadic. I have seen a child of 8 striking, totally amazing! Every family member, mothers fathers sons daughters cousins uncles etc are very skilled!! I remember we did a lot of cold chiseling their to cut shapes out of sheet!!! I would love to return one day to see them. They felt very sorry for me then as I was a 30 year old woman with no children and in India, that was seen as very sad as their society is very family centred. I'd love them to meet my daughter now to show them I'm not a sad person anymore!! They were also horrified to hear about eating cows in the West!!!
  22. Really pretty!!! I love it! Great texture!
  23. Yeah, Peter that stand is awesome. I started cutting up some super duper heavy angle for making one of these today!!!! I knew the monster bit of angle, and some hefty channel plus a nice big section of box would come in handy one day! All I need to source is a bit of plate to fasten the vice to. Sure a bit will show up sooner or later. It won't be nearly so pretty as yours though!
  24. That sure is a pretty fork!! Love the little details, very fine.
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