dbrandow

Obviously this is an aside to an aside, but have you looked at the Chevy Volt? It runs on electricity until it runs out, then it seamlessly switches over to gas. Then you plug it in and do it all over again.

One possibility to consider is just cutting a slot on opposite sides so you can slide your stock in. I found that that made my brake-drum forge a lot more usable when I was using it more regularly.

For the record, mass increases linearly, so doubling the mass doubles the force, whereas doubling the velocity increases the amount of force by a factor of four, not two. That being said, it may still be easier to quadruple the weight of the hammer and maintain velocity than it is to double the velocity.

Nothing too exciting, more work on my chair for CanIron VIII, plus I need to make some simple giveaways (key fobs, most likely) for some coworkers.

I'm not entirely clear where the $30 per hour number you are citing is from. If it is from Nol Putnam's article, then the thing to bear in mind is that that article was written in 1996. Adjusting for inflation, that would be around $41.75 an hour.

Off the top of my head, you could try David out at Lang Pioneer Village, which might also be a good place to see if you could volunteer at and get some experience that way.

I don't do it myself, but rotating ninety degrees after every strike is apparently a technique some notable smiths do use, including Toby Hickman and Mark Aspery, from what I'm lead to believe.

Well, it probably wouldn't be that challenging for most blacksmiths, but its challenging for me, anyway. :-) And yes, the goal was CanIron, it'd be fun to say I've had something in a gallery, and I wanted to try something significant enough to justify it being there. I certainly have been puzzling over what to do with the front legs. My tentative plan had been to do another twist, either a two-rope twist like the back legs, or perhaps something simpler like a pineapple twist, in the hopes that the twist would disguise the difference in size. However, you've given me pause for thought, that's something I hadn't considered, that would help balance it out. Let me get back to you on that one, and thanks in advance both for the idea and the offer.

Quick update, still looks pretty terrible and there's a huge amount of work still to be done, particularly embellishments, but here's where I am so far. No welds of any kind, 3/4" square stock for the most part. Front view of the chair (note that three of the cross pieces for the seat don't currently fit, the top bar isn't visible in this picture, the back hasn't been finished yet, and the angles of the legs and arms are a bit wonky still): Side view of the seat (drifting those holes took 20-45 minutes each, riveting not yet finished, just loosely assembled at the moment so I can check alignments): Side view of how the seat/arms attach to the back (this part has been riveted together, although the back decorative part hasn't): Two pictures showing the beginnings of what the back will eventually look like. I ended up settling on something that isn't particularly artistic, but I think should be pretty neat. Picture a three-by-three grid with the bars going in and out of each other, something that can't be accomplished without some tricky in-place bending and so forth: If you feel the need to criticize, be gentle, I've only been blacksmithing for a couple years and I'm well aware that I'm not very good, this is about fun, not talent. :-)

Agreed, I have no desire to start such a debate here either. My apologies if my comment was inappropriate or caused offense, I tried phrase it carefully enough so that it would not. My fundamental point, such as it was, was primarily that prayer should be used in conjunction with medical science, not as a substitute for it. It was the title of the thread, 'Prayers work', that I was responding to, and I probably should have given the context of the forum it was in more consideration. Shutting up now. :-)

I have no desire to be offensive to anyone, and you are more than welcome to believe what you want, but no, prayers don't work, at least in any measurable way. As an example, in a multi-million dollar study funded by a religious organization (the Templeton Foundation), involving more than 1800 patients, they found that prayer has no effect on healing. Actually, that's slightly inaccurate, while people who didn't know they were being prayed for healed at exactly the same rate as people who weren't being prayed for at all, the group who knew they were being prayed for actually did worse than the other two groups. If prayer makes you feel better, then by all means, but please, please, make sure you use modern, conventional medicine at the same time to do the actual healing part.

Hey Alex, as an OABA member, you are more than welcome to come out to some meetings (2nd Saturday of (virtually) every month), whether you join or not. Also, don't forget CanIron VII in Fergus this year, which is a terrific opportunity. You should check out an article from fellow OABA member Darrell Markewitz on this topic, it should be very helpful. To dumb it down to a sound bite, its a lot of work for very little money, but can be very rewarding if you accept these limitations. For my vote, given that I already have a job that puts bread on the table, and very little talent at blacksmithing, it'll always be a hobby, albeit a rewarding one.

I can only add the advice of a novice, part-time blacksmith, but if you can figure out, accurately, how long it will take, the rest should be relatively straightforward in terms of figuring out your shop rate. The tricky part, therefore, is figuring out how long it'll take. I would assume the key there is to have a record, either written or mental, of how long various things take. Thus, making up numbers at random, if you know it takes twenty minutes to make a scroll of type A, and fifteen minutes per foot to do a twist of type B, ten minutes to do a collar, five minutes to do a bend, and so on, you can figure out how many of those things are going into your design and then come up with an estimate. And then double it, change from hours to days, .... :-)

Its getting there, although I'm not very good, so the progress is pretty slow. I've gotten all the slots drifted now, I ended up with 10 per side, and I've gotten the curve of both side of the seat adjusted, getting them to match reasonably close was arduous. I was originally planning on putting that same twist in other places as well, but its a lot of painstaking work, even with a treadle hammer, so I might opt for something simpler instead. As for a sketch of the ornate back, I'd have to respond by asking which version you want. :-) I've designed and redesigned the back so many times I can't begin to describe it, and I haven't yet settled on what I'm actually going to go with. At this point I've still got a long way to go before I need to commit, but once I do have a better idea of what I'll go with, I'll be sure to post it up here. Thanks for encouragement!

Thanks to everyone for your feedback, its been very helpful. I've decided to go with 3/4" square, the chair will end up weighing about 100 pounds, which is bordering on absurd, but better too heavy than too light. I also made a few modifications to the design, specifically at the joint. I'm going to overlap them vertically and drift out a reasonably large hole (5/8" round is the current plan) for the mortise and tenon joint. Its still in its early stages, but in case anybody is curious, here (hopefully) is a picture of what it looks like when assembled. Note that the angles have gotten distorted by all the drifts I've been putting in the seat, and I've only got cross pieces for holes 5 and 7, I think it was, in that picture, and there's a rather obvious blank section where the ornate back will someday bee. Thankfully I have another several months before I need to finish it, as I may need them. :-)

Have a quick scan through various blacksmithing books, online or real, until you find a technique you haven't tried yet, whether its a new twist, a new jointery technique or whatever gets your juices flowing.

I also really like this book, its very comprehensive. The thing to keep in mind when reading it, though, which is something I didn't fully grasp the first time through, is that its closer to being a historian's take on blacksmithing than it is a blacksmith's take on blacksmithing. I know of others who deride it for this, but this book is one of my favourites.

:-)

<blatant advertising> Or you could see them on the way to Fergus for CanIron VIII in July '11. http://www.ontarioblacksmiths.ca/CANIRON8/index.html </blatant advertising> B)

There were moved up the road a bit: http://torontothenandnow.blogspot.com/2010/10/9-haunted-royal-ontario-museum-then-and.html http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=43.66696,-79.395217&spn=0.01,0.01&t=m&q=43.66696,-79.395217 (go to the street view and you can see a picture of them, along with that...interesting...new design for the museum)

Oxygen is the enemy. Make sure you put your steel in the middle of your fire, vertically and horizontally. Too low and you'll be too close to the air, too high and it won't be hot enough. Make sure your fuel is above the metal so that no air from above gets at the metal. Ideally you just want a small hole for visibility so that you can see the metal change colours. Don't try to bring the metal to temperature too quickly. Sparks are one indication that its ready but a better one, in my amateur opinion, one thats less likely to mean its too hot, is that the surface of the metal turns a consistent liquid, which will happen just before you get sparks. Don't get caught staring at the metal for too long, however, without good eye protection, IR and UV.

From my limited experience, a treadle hammer helps, but it is really more effective for repousse than it is as a replacement for a striker or a power hammer. It does fit in your budget constraints, however, and it does save a lot of stress on your arms, but don't expect it to come anywhere close. Another alternative for those of us in the power hammer-less category is to make a holddown that locks it in place and then you can whale away with a heavy sledge. I find I get a lot less wear and tear on the joints with my 10 pound sledge held with both hands than I do with my 4 pound sledge held in one hand.

Hmmm...I can understand how a sketch would help convey the design better, but unfortunately my ability to sketch died of natural causes somewhere in the 3rd grade. :-) I've put up what I can come up with on short notice, hopefully it'll make some sense. The proportions are wrong, and I've intentionally left off the embellishments, seat and chair back so as to make it somewhat understandable. Also, keep in mind I'm an amateur, and a new one at that. Given how poorly I weld (to be fair, I've had a grand total of 10 minutes instruction), I'm going with sizeable rivets to attach the arm/front leg sections to the back leg sections and mortise and tenon joints when attaching the cross pieces holding the sides and upon which the seat and back rest pieces attach to. I can certainly agree with the notion of using heavier than strictly necessary stock, but I'm trying to balance that with a concern about ending up with too stocky a design. I like the idea of tapering from heavy to thin, I was certainly thinking of doing that on the arms so you could have a nice wide, downward curving section to grab in the palm of your hand.

I'm in the process of designing a chair I'd like to build, but I'm having difficulty settling on the material size to use for the supports. I'm pretty new to blacksmithing, couple of years, and I've never made anything that was intended to bear the weight of anything other than plants. I've seen one set of plans that uses 1/2" by 1&1/2" square for a bench, although presumably that would be overkill for a chair based on the number of people sitting on it. Would anybody with some experience let me know what works best?

The yellow pages approach is a mass marketing solution, which does work, but for a different kind of business. You aren't in the mass market business, you aren't trying to sell 10000 $10 widgets, you are trying to sell 10 $10000 widgets. For what its worth based on my experience not as a professional blacksmith (because I'm not) but from my real job, which is also not mass market, the best advice I ever heard was to scour around in appropriate places to find one guy whose pants were on fire. Then figure out a way to put that fire out (solution #1, sale #1). If you can do that, he'll be so grateful, he'll do two things: he'll tell one other person about the problem you solved for him (solution #1, sale #2), and he'll let you solve some other problem you have (solution #2, sale #1). Then your second customer will let you solve the same problem (solution #2, sale #2), will tell a third customer (solution #1, sale #3 and solution #2, sale #3) and so on and so forth. Again, assuming you keep solving problems, it'll escalate from there, each customer will tell people about the things you have done for them, and will let you solve additional problems. It'll also help you to refine your ability to solve these problems. As Grant said, this isn't about selling products, this is about solving problems. Its also worth noting that this approach can backfire if you don't actually solve the problem, so you need to be darn sure you can solve it, and at a price point the customer can live with.