Toreus

I saw one at a farm auction east of Winnipeg last year- it was a lot more beat up, but I think it even had the JH Ashdown stamp. I guess there might be a bunch out there...

The one's I've worked on have been carburized. I'm always surprised at how shallow the hard layer is- IIRC the last ones I saw were carburized to about 0.5-0.6mm

IIRC, natural gas has lower specific energy rating (J/kg or BTU/lb) than propane. That should mean it takes slightly less air per weight of fuel burned. Not sure exactly what that means for an aspirated burner since I haven't dealt with one, but... maybe scaling down the burners would help? Anyways, I'm pretty sure 2 PSI would work plenty good if you add a blower- I run my propane one at less that 1 PSI using an old squirrel cage blower, and the specific energy isn't *that* different. Maybe just a black pipe T fitting, and that would be that?

Here's a rough sketch of what I want to do. The red dots are the proposed rivet locations. I'll be able to work on it tomorrow, so I'll post an update after that. I think I'll try out the unadorned handles, and add on wood scales if it really needs it. Thanks for the advice!

Looking handmade would be nice, but it's in no way a requirement. Looks like the way to go would be to suck it up and practice riveting until I get it right I would think A36 rivets would rust, so for the final project I'd have to get a rod of stainless?

Hello everyone, I want to make a burger flipper for an uncle who loves to grill. I’m stuck on how to attach the spatulas to the handle. Requirements for the flipper: Must have a 2-foot long handle, Has to be of the double-spatula type (kinda like THIS ), Must be food-safe The plan is to buy a sheet of 316 stainless and cut the spatulas out, then attach them (somehow) onto a 4-foot long piece of steel (probably SS) bent into a U. I could probably just cut it out of a single piece of stainless, but that would leave a lot of unused material. I’d like to put wooden scales on each side of the U as handles, but I’m not confident I wouldn’t mess it up, so I’m leaning towards just wrapping them in paracord, rawhide or something similar. Now for the questions: 1) Which thickness of SS steel should I get, for both the spatula and the handle? I have no experience working with it, so I don’t know what would be good for flipping burgers and a bit of abuse. 2) How do I attach the spatula to the handle? I’m horrible at riveting nicely, and I can’t weld stainless. Thanks! T.

Welcome to Iforge! I'm currently running a blown forge (also made from a 20lb propane tank) and considering making an aspirated forge to get unplugged. I'm currently getting a bit more than 5h from a 20lb tank of propane. Seeing as you have the same size forge, how long can you get out of a tank? Cheers, T.

The way I start my coal fires is to make a ball with about 10 sheets of newspaper, wrapping them a bit like a wonton so that there's a dense central ball and a fluffy protruding tail that's easy to light. Put the wonton in the firepot with the tail up, buttress it with coal up to the tail, light the tail. After that, move in the coal as the central ball burns up. 2 things for coal fires: 1. As the coal starts up, there'll likely be a lot of smoke 2. Once the smoke is gone, it's because the burning coal turned into coke 3. Remember to keep your fire buttressed with green (unburnt) coal to turn that green coal into coke- cuts down on the smoke a lot. I've never forged with a coke fire. PS!!! There's probably quite a few threads about fire starting/maintenance. The search function is your friend!!! Cheers, T.

I put some high-temp cement (local manufacture, all I know is it's good to 3500F) on the inside of the tuyere where it enters my forge. It's holding up so far, but I think that may be in part due to kaowool right up to the pipe- I put some on a flat bar and it chipped off easily. So... imho, if you roughed up the edges of the shelf and then coated the place where it meets the kaowool (incl the joint) it should work (with the stuff I use, anyways... :S ) Cheers, T.

Looking good! I've been thinking of building something similar myself. It looks like your insulation rests on a ledge that goes almost all the way to the edge of the insulation. Are those steel, and if so, is there a good enough seal between the insulation and fire firebricks to stop it from oxidizing to nothing? I'm not sure if you're already planning on it, but I recommend coating the insulation with high-temp cement/satanite/itc100 or whatever you want to use, especially the ends. Speaking of ends, I'd keep the soft firebricks intact and just build a "wall" in front of the opening, but that's probably personal preference more than anything... Cheers, T.

Looking darn good for a first set of tongs, nevermind a first time smithing! My first set of tongs will never be photographed, and my first attempt at forging shouldn't even be mentionned. Keep up the good work!

I was talking to a blacksmith I knew from few years back yesterday, and as we were talking about our shops he mentioned that he had been talking on-and-off for a few years with 8-10 other local blacksmiths about setting up a formal non-profit association and an associated shop. For you folks that are experienced with the administrative side of setting up a group like this: 1- Do you have any tips, tricks, do's and don'ts? 2- Any resources that we should consult? 3- The old Blacksmith's Association of Manitoba was, from what I understand, a stand-alone organization. What would be the advantages/disadvantages to starting a chapter of a larger organization, such as ABANA? I'll likely start another thread about the management of a communal shop soon. Thanks, T.

Didn't Gustavus Adolphus (king of Sweden) use gold bullets? I seem to remember something about one of those crazy kings doing so...

They all look so happy! :)

The melting point of gold is around 2000 *F while iron is around 2800 *F, so I don't think you could forge-weld it apart from a canister weld. I've seen some really nice-looking results from a canister weld followed by stock removal! The solubility of gold in iron is pretty low, something about different atom sizes mucking up the lattice IIRC, and so if you went that route you'd get very low amounts in there. I wouldn't use the alloy, and especially not the pattern "weld" type for anything that takes significant forces or needs to hold an edge. And yes, 3-metal alloy exist- as a matter of fact, most steel has much more than 3 elements: http://en.wikipedia....E_steel_grades. Hope this helped! Edit: Of course, this is in reality. If you're writing a fiction book, well, you get to make the laws of physics, right? ;)