Randy

Jake, no problem at all. I'm glad he was brought up so more can learn about him. I must say I admire you and your work. Your determination and drive is top notch! I don't see many smiths that are creating so much work, and in the name of learning. Quite the challenge! Keep up the great work! Randy

Beth, Chris was my best friend for many years and a better artist I've never seen. What a talent! And not just in metal. Also in drawing and wood carving. He even wrote a play, the music for it, all done on the computer and the metal sculptures that were a part of the play. He even did his own website from scratch before they had the fancy programs they have today. And his website is still a classic.I've never seen anyone push around sheet metal like he did! Compound curves and all. After his passing they did a gallery show of his works at one of the ANANA Conferences. What a body of works! He is sorely missed.

"I was warned years ago not to melt copper in my forge- that metals would never again weld in the forge... " That's an old smiths tale. In classes I've had people put copper in the fire while I'm forge welding and it still welds. The copper will just burn up.

One of the details that I’ve learned in coal forge design is one of the most important. It’s the function and design of the grate and/or clinker breaker. When I first started forging in the early 70’s I was finding all types of forges and then trying to figure out the reason things were done as they were. Luckily I had a couple of retired wagon smiths that could give me some leads into this information. One item I noticed was all of the different angles to the sides of the fireboxes and the different configurations of grates and clinker breakers depending on the company that made them. In use some constantly had large fires no matter how you ran the blower. These seemed to be the ones with either shallow fireboxes, approximately 2-1/2” to 3-1/2” deep, and/or ones that had grates with slots angled outwards. I also found the ones where I had the most control of the fires were deeper, approximately 4” to 5” deep, and had grates angled toward the center of the firebox. I believe it was the Champion forge that had the best configuration of depth of firebox, angle of the sides and size and angle of the slots in the grate to allow me to have a well controlled fire. This helped to maintain a small fire when needed or a large fire for bigger jobs. See Drawing 1. I even designed an all steel, not cast iron, firebox and tuyere using the angle, depth and grate design angled towards the center and it worked as good as its cast iron counterpart. My sides were only 1/4" steel plate and I got over 8 years of service from this firebox before the sides warped. When first completed I painted the outside of the unit with heat resistant paint, which only goes up to 1,000 degrees, and a lot of it was still intact when I removed this firebox. A lot of forges were built from the plans in my book and I never heard any complaints, just how well it worked. Back to designs, one item that I often found was the forges with the solid triangle in the bottom of the firebox which acts as the grate and the clinker breaker. One of the railroad style forges had two straps of leather hanging on the front of the forge. When I inquired about this I was told that they were to hold the clinker breaker lever either to the right or to the left. One way the lever would keep the triangle with the flat on top. This would be for larger fires. The air is forced outwards creating more airflow towards the outside of the firebox. See Drawing 2. If turned in the opposite direction the point of the triangle would be up forcing more of the air towards the center of the firebox therefore creating a smaller fire. See Drawing 3. Yes, as the fire burns it will consume whatever is in the firebox, but the hottest area will be where the most amount of air is, closer to the center. It’s up to the user to maintain the fire using green coal and water. I had the opportunity to put this to the test this year while teaching a forge welding class at one of the craft schools. Most of their fireboxes had the triangle in the bottom and all had the lever bent so that the flat of the triangle was always up. They complained that the fires were too big and they couldn’t control them. It also made for a very hot shop. So I wired my lever so that the triangle point was pointing up and just that simple move gave me a smaller fire with more control. Forge welding was even easier as there was a hotter area in the center of the forge, not spread out in a large area. They have since heated and bent all of the levers in the opposite direction so that the triangle point is up. So the old methods are out there, but sometimes we just have to figure out how it works and what purpose it serves, and then share what we learn with others.

Thanks, Brian. I'll have to write another subject on forge design to show what I've learned about this setup. Okay, I added a new thread under" Forges, Solid Fuel", on how the different fireboxes/grate/clinker breakers function and some info on the triangular clinker breaker/grates. I hope it helps.

Is it really flat on both sides, not a triangle?

What's the shape of the klinker breaker?

I do mine basiclly the same way that Frank does. I found a small v-block from a press brake and use that in the vise or cut of the lower web and weld on a piece to fit the hardie hole. My top tool is a hand held chisel made to a 90 degree end. As nice as it is I'd have to be making a lot of tongs to make the tooling that Gearhartiron has for it to pay for itself. I have had over a hundred tongs over the years and only found one pair that had v-grooves. All of them were made round. Didn't they have square stock or what? The v-grooves hold square and round so why weren't v's more popular?

Gorgeous! What talent!

Great job! Tooling is the key. I still have trouble splitting out the horns like that. Way to go!

I have one like the last one shown. A great heading tool as I have jaws with holes from 3/16" diameter to 3/4" diameter. Good for doing faces and heads on the end of a bar, too.

I live about 30 minutes north for Lancaster, in Reading, PA. If you can make it up here go see the Gruber Wagon Works. Amazing shop and equipment, if you're into that sort of thing. Landis Valley is good, too.

Paul Di Francesco, of Salt Lake City, Utah, and a member of the Bonneville Forge Council has hammer-ins at his place and may be able to answer many of your questions. Good guy and has the procedure down pat.

I noticed the washing machine, but didn't connect with the water bird. Good one!

I've been using car/truck/garage door/etc. coil springs for some time with good success. In teaching that is all that I use and the students have no problems either if they follow the lesson. As stated above, don't over heat or hammer too cold. When starting with a new spring (new to you) heat it up on top of the fire slowly in the area that you want to cut. Then place it in the fire and again slowly heat until bright orange and then cut off the length of piece that you need, usually over the horn using a slit chisel. Don't cool off the remainder of spring in water, but put it on a brick or somewhere to slowly cool off. I should mention that if the spring material is under 3/8" round stock or under then you can heat up a large section and slide it over a bar in the vise and pull a section straight and then cut to length. Pull it perpendicular from the bar in the vise not the other way. Take the cut off piece and slowly bring up to a medium to high orange heat and straighten out. Keep inspecting the piece for cracks. If you have any cracks then pitch the whole spring. This is very rare, but it does happen even with proper proceedures. It's not worth the risk. (I also cut a sample piece, about 2" to 3" long that I bring to a chisel end and use for a sample piece to test hardening mediums.) Try another spring the same way. When done forging slowly heat to a medium cherry and then place on a fire brick to slowly cool (normalizing). Once cool check for cracks again. Now you're ready to harden and temper. Try the sample piece first. Heat slowly until it loses its' magnetism and then quench in water moving the piece in a figure 8 until cold. Check again for cracks. If there are no cracks then you can use water for your quenching medium on every thing you make from that spring. Now you can heat the chisel/ punch end about 2" slowly and thoroughly. This is the working end only. The hitting end should just be normalized, never hardened. Do the same process for hardening and then temper the tool for whatever use it will serve. If this particular spring needs to be quenched in oil or if when done is particularly tough, I mark that on the remaining spring. Actually I have never used anything but water for quenching coil springs, but each new spring I check first to make sure that I don't have a particulary brittle spring.

Great tooling! What's the deal with the stop blocks under the v-blocks? Wouldn't there be less chance of marking if they did pivot?

So, why are you quiet? :P

Learn something new every day. I looked up "metal memory" and found this: The three main types of shape-memory alloys are the copper-zinc-aluminium-nickel, copper-aluminium-nickel, and nickel-titanium (NiTi). So maybe you got a piece of Nitinol? Here's a video you may like in regards to that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLGaF6cWl04 I remember the government agency I worked for back in the 70's had a scroll of Nitinol in a glass box and just by changing the temperature it would straighten out and then go back to the scroll shape. They had a scroll drawn on the one wall so you could see that it went exactly back to shape each time. This happened every 5 minutes for years! So instead of being frustrated with it, see what else you can make with it using this feature! Wish I had some of it!

Hey, Sam! How goes it??? What have you been up to since the forge welding class at PV? Drop by sometime! Randy

I had a nice Park Tool apron, but too many pockets and it finally went thread bare. So I drew up a pattern without pockets and cross-back straps and have sent it out to companies that do custom canvas awnings and bags. I'll let you know the response.

Are you sure it's ti? There are memory metals out there. I've done a lot of ti forging and never ran into that problem.

I'm also looking for a new apron. I have a good leather one, but it gets too hot. I need one mainly to help keep clean. I like the canvas ones, especially with the cross the back straps. The neck loop cuts into my neck after about an hour. The trouble I'm having is finding an apron with no pockets and the cross straps. Doesn't seem like it's out there. May have to find some where to get one made. Any tips?

Way to go! That's a finely designed and crafted piece!

Try in your gas forge and see the results.

If you want to witness this process for yourself: take the raw steel and put it on the grinder and note the high carbon sparks. Then place in the fire and take up to a welding heat. Cool off and put on the grinder again. You'll see a lot more carbon sparks and fairly deep. This works on pure iron, too, and in coal or coke fires.