jayco

Quite nice!! Congratulations!!

If you decide to make your own tongs,don't put the rivet in until you get the fit you want. I say this from experience.I recently made a pair of scrolling tongs.....thought it would be easy to adjust the jaws after riveting. Well, I WAS WRONG! I finally had to grind off the rivet and do some reshaping. As the tongs were not closing properly, they needed a little file work on the inside of the pivots. This was impossible with the rivet in place. The lesson I learned? I now use a threaded screw(or small bolt) and a nut to test my tongs and how they work.If something needs tweakng,it's easy to take them back apart. Then put the rivet in place.

Very nice work Apprentice Man!

Yeah, I leave the blacksnakes alone. They don't hurt anybody.They do startle me a little when I run on to them unexpected though. Our local wildlife biologist says 'if you get rid of all the harmless snakes, you just make more room(habitat) for the poisonous ones.' The neighbors know about the snakes........come to think of it.....I haven't had any human visitors to my shop for quite a while!

I had a surprise visitor to the shop this morning.......a 4 ft. blacksnake! He was crawling amongst the rafters. I just happened to look up........

No,I'm not a bladesmith, but here are some blades I am familiar with. These fall in the catagory of "other sharp things". I suspect the farm tools of 100years ago might have been the battle weapons of 500 years ago. The first picture is my uncle's old corn knife......It was used extensively in the 1930's I've been told.Wooden handle with 5 steel pins. Blade is about 22 inches long. It's factory made. Before mechanical corn pickers were common,these knives were used to cut the corn stalks at harvest time. The other picture is of a tobacco 'tomahawk' and spear used in the harvest of burley tobacco. The tomahawk is used to cut the plant just above the ground ;The spear (a hollow steel cone with a needle-sharp point) is placed on a tobacco 'stick' (think...slender 4 ft.tomato stake). The spear is used to puncture the stalk from the side. 6 plants can be placed on one stick this way. The spear is moved to the next stick. (Someone who is really good at this can cut 1000 sticks or6000 plants per day.) I made this tomahawk years ago from a piece of old cross-cut saw blade. The hawk is 24 nches long and very light. Less than a lb. I just thought these might be interesting to share.

I had some really dirty charcoal I wanted to clean up. I tried sifting the dirt and rocks out, but I had mixed results......just didn't work very well. I remembered blueprint BP0450 (it's about using a bucket of water to "settle out" rocks and dirt and clean up dirty coal). The charcoal I was cleaning had a lot of nails,dirt, and rocksmixed in it. Well to make a long story short,it works for charcoal TOO! BP0450 Clean Coal Here's a before and after picture:

Ironwood commonly grows around creeks here in Kentucky. It is tough stuff! Just as the experts said, it is dense, hard, and heavy. I've made mauls from it, but no other tool handles. I rive (or split) a lot of my handles for hammers,mattocks,axes,etc, with a froe using an ironwood maul (made like a club) to drive the froe into the piece of wood stock I'm splitting. Using a hammer for this would soon ruin a froe. My froe is leaf spring, and this maul has struck the back side of it thousands of times.As you can see,much wood has been eaten away. For "riving", I look for wood with a good straight 'longitudinal' grain (running the length of the log). Straight, limbless sections of oak,hickory,and ash are my favorites for handles. Sassafras and walnut rive easily too,but are not good choices for handle material. See Blueprints BP0418 Froe BP0447 How to make a Froe

This old hammer is the victim of another kind of abuse....mushrooming. I have another just like this one.....that is not mushroomed. I suspect the steel in this one has been softened or "annealed" by being placed in a fire to burn out the wood still left in the eye after the handle had broken.This was a common practice with farmersyears ago. I could heat treat this one, but I think I'll leave it as is for now. It's sort of turning into a flatter!

I wish I had clean shop.It would be so much better to be able to find what I need,rather than thinking,"Now where did I put that?........." I'm a 'pack rat'. If there was a prize for messy shops, I'd win,hands down! There is literally 'a path' to my forge. I can see my bench grinder.......but I can't get to it to use it! Good thing I can still find my angle grinder!I really must do better.........and I plan to......one of these days! I cant realy describe it in words,so here's a pic showing the doorway to my shop.

Thanks for the info Richard! 8 months ago, I had never used a computer;I had never typed anything. I'm learning as I go........A 51 year old newbie!:)

How can I put links in the chat room? I can "click and drag"-----"copy and paste",----I can resize photos-----"address my photos",----but how do I get a "clickable" link? This is nothing major----I'd just like to show pics of old tools----things like that. Getting my computer skills(little bit at a time)-------any help GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!:confused:

The recent warm(actually hot)weather of mid-June has brought out all the summer critters. For me, the most noticeable of these are snakes.Here on the farm,we've seen several blacksnakes and watersnakes.Seeing them doesn't bother me so much,but their appearance serves as a remender to watch out for the poisonous snake varieties we also have; rattlesnakes and coppperheads.The rattlesnakes are actually pretty rare here,but the copperheads are quite common. One hot summer day about two years ago,I was rummaging through the scrap pile behind my shop;looking for a piece of 1 in. pipe I needed for a project.By the way,there's a lot of rusty stuff,coal,weeds, and what-have-you back there It's a mess! After some looking,I finally located the piece of pipe I needed. I started to reach for it,when out of the corner of my eye I saw something MOVE! Less than two feet away from the pipe lay a copperhead! Fortunately, I didn't finish that reach,because they can strike two feet when they want to.He was just lying there under some rusty rod and pipe. This was the first time I ever saw one in the scrap pile. Copperheads are notorious for their ability to blend into their environment.They are all but invisable in dry, brown leaves on the forest floor.Their dull,mottled markings of light and dark brown on their backs makes for perfect camoflage.In short, the also look just like rusty iron!They're not very large snakes;most are 30 inches or less in length. But they are quite poisonous! A bite from one of these snakes can be a serious medical matter. Years ago, my aunt was bitten on the hand while picking strawberries.Within minutes, she had went into shock and had to be rushed to the hospital.She was given anti-venom, but still had to stay in the hospital for nearly two weeks.She was not quite well for several months. Now 81,she recalls the incident as The sickest I ever was in my life. So if you live in snake country(a lot of us do),be careful around those piles of rocks,old boards,old logs,junk yards,etc.Snakes like to hide under stuff and often give no warning of their presence. Be CAREFUL! Incidentally,the snake I saw quickly disapeared under the scrap pile.I haven't seen him since. He's probably still there....somewhere! James Flannery

my thumbnails won't "click---I'm doing something wrong--I just know it!--HELP!!! Post your image to the IForgeIron Gallery then view the image you want to post. Right click on that image from the gallery. Copy the BOTTOM URL from the pop up box. Now return to the forum and paste that URL into the lower box on the "manage attachments" section of your post and click the lower "upload" button. Click the "manage attachments" button again and repeat as needed for more images to be added. When your finished you must scroll up and click on "submit" to add or submit the post to the forum.

What is this exactly? I have 2 of these my uncle brought home from work in the early 1960's. He worked at the old C&O railroad car shops(blacksmith shop) in Raceland Kentucky. I improvised a hardy& small horn and used both as anvils for many years.I still use them as upsetting/swaging blocks. They are 10in.x16in. x10in. in height and weigh about 70 lbs.Anyone know how they were used?

JWB---GREAT Poem! Thank you for sharing it with us.

Here's a trick I use in the shop to keep the heat from the forge out of my face when it's really hot----Take a piece of scrap sheet metal(old roofig metal is what I use)...cut it---say--10in. by 20in.---bend it in a semi-circle or "C" shape---just so it will stand on edge....cut a slot(think mousehole) to insert stock into fire.Merely place on your forge. This heat-screen will deflect some of the heat.Of course, you'll have to look over the thing to see your fire ,but it is easily removed.Use tongs---It'll get hot!!

I learned my lessons about working in hot weather from old men in corn,hay, and tobacco fields.They moved with slow deliberate,measured pace. They didn't fret or worry about the heat, but merely accepted it. TRy to avoid the urge to drinks large quantities of ice water---that always made me sick. I take breaks---hunt a shade---rest. I got heat sickness once---felt puny and sick for 2 weeks. It wasn't worth it,just to chop down those last few weeds!

You said something about using lighter fluid.That could be dangerous! If you have a small fire( not burning well) ,and squirt some more fluid on it,the flame can and will follow the stream back to the can...and your hand!The safest way I know to start a fire is with a match...Do it SAFE!!!

DMS---If your forge is large enough to handle the extra bulk, you might try charcoal (the home made kind). It's easy to make and much better than bad coal for welding.