tlreif

Go to blacksmith depot. They carry ocp tongs. Theses are a great tong. Grant who posts on here regularly makes them. Good price great product can't go wrong.

Apologies, my mistake, you are correct, it does twist both halfs at the same time, the length of and uniformity of heating in a gas forge is obviously an advantage here

A smart bit of engineering/blacksmithing, I will edit my post accordingly

Thanks for the information Maddog! It looks like a nice job! I will most likely go that route in repairing mine. Do you happen to know the tread pitch? Like was it 4 turns per inch or 5? Thanks again!

It's very nice work. The lines are clean, the scrolls are nicely porportioned and well matched. All components and elements are well balanced. All in all a very pro piece of work.

About the money making part. You DO know why the devil takes the blacksmith don't you?

About your dog. I pity anyone who doesn't share their life with a dog or a few. Falki, our new Icy pup is getting close to old enough to start spending time in the shop while a fire's lit. Happily the little lintball doesn't need a cheeseburger bribe to hang with me.

Frosty the Lucky.

And one more thing. Just in case you wanted to see what things looked like complete, here are some photos. I know its nothing too special but I was pretty proud of the job. Too bad I didnt make any money! But I really didnt do it for the money.......ok well maybe a little!

Frosty, Thanks. Yes the dog normally wont have anything to do with being in the shop but, that was on a saturday. You see she follows the wife around all week and then on the weekend she follows me because I buy her a cheeseburger!

And Maddog, Im sorry to say that that is the normal state of order in my shop! The reason is 2 fold. #1 Although my wife loves what i do out in the shop, she expects me to keep it out in the shop. And #2 I work in a place that there is such filth and waller ( for example: machining chips all over the place xxx xxxx xxx xxxx everywhere in mean everywhere! and just complete lack of organization.) that I just cant let it get bad here.

Here are some more detailed photos of it.

Ok so I had this large railing job last winter and the customer had seen that I had done a reverse twist on something else that I made and liked it. Knowing there would be many of these to do I decided to make a tool to help speed things up. Now I know you can suspend the piece and stick a wrench in the middle and get the same thing, but if you are like I am it takes a while to straighten them back up. Hopefully you can follow this link and watch the video. Im sure i'm not the only one to do this ,but it was kind of fun. Let me know what you think.

Matt, you can cast the flares in the refractory. It's been don't and works just fine. It's just a little easier to make a flare out of steel. Good point though.

hey frosty thanks for the heads up about cast , do you know anything about cast stainless steel? I found some reducers the same size with npt threads that will work but dont know how well they would hold up either.

another question is if i even really need them, my burners work well inside the forge but if you take them out the flame will not hold and blows out easily, since you dont use em outside the forge my question is does these reducers really serve a purpose inside?

I replaced the thread and nut on a 5" vise with a large dia acme threaded rod and nut. The threads were very worn and the box (nut) was cracked. The acme thread is a higher pitch than the original thread so the jaw action is slower but it closes very tight.

I cut the boss off the original thread and welded it onto the acme rod. That part is tricky. Acme threaded rods are something like 4140. The original thread and boss were a casting. I used SS rod with pre and post heat and peening. So far it has held fine. Frank Turley did a similar repair and the weld broke after a year. So its an iffy weld. If I were to do it again, I would probably use nickel rod or some other rod designed for CI. I could post a picture if there is interest.

I chosed a 4" long acme nut, I think these are meant to be couplers, rather than the standard size nut. The nut fit in the eye of the fixed leg easily so I welded a ring of 1/2" rod around one end to hold it from the back side.

I decided to use the original boss together with its spherical washer because the head of the screw needs some way to accomdate the changing angle of the the moveable leg as it pivots. This seemed easiest and it retains the original look.

There is a traditional method for this repair that involves wrapping two pieces around a rod to form matching threads and brazing one onto the rod and the other to the inside of the box. I think there was a BP for this once.

Did you mean "Iron City"? I have a 4" vise stamped with the legend Iron City inside a six pointed star. That too was in bad shape when I got it, but the threads were fine. I keep it next to my forge.

If you decide to scrap the vise, keep it as a source of wrought iron.

What in the world has happened to our manufacturing base when a machine shop doesn't have the experience to cut a thread?

This would be a good project to learn on.

What is the condition of the screw thread?

I would cut the thread first with a standard 60 degree threading tool, then chase it with a square tool to complete it.

Well I have a Steel City post vice that Im sure is much older than myseft. It finally called it quits this last weekend. The threads were very worn when I got it for 25 bucks about 6 years ago. The nut finally said enough and stripped what was left of the material. Oh well I have a back up vice but it is a 4 inch and I would like to have the 6 inch back up. So my queston to the fine people of the forum is have you fixed one before and what did you do? I have looked at acme rods and nuts and am not opposed to that. I also work at a machine shop but I personally dont have the experience of thread cutting. And neither do our machinists. But im sure we could figure someting out. If i did that what material would be recomended? I hate to retire the old gal it is otherwise in great shape. Thanks for your responces!

I have not been at all heedless of the guidance an I have been in communication with several members of this forum via email. On the contrary I have listened carefully to many things said here and adopted a ton of stuff said here. I simply can not travel a long distance with my work schedule and family and whatnot. I respect and appreciate the offers of assistance in person and I would like nothing more than to take them up on that offer but my family and job must come first. This is but a hobby and if I must stop annoying people and not post here anymore and not do smithing anymore, it will be a minor loss in the grand scheme of my life. Perhaps it is a selfish indulgence to spend hours in the garage in the first place.

I would love to have an ozark pattern anvil, the best forge, a coal forge and ability to use it, the best tools, a power hammer, a great post vise and so on. Alas I can not afford any of that and I have to make do with what I can afford and do. Sure, I can build a brake drum forge but using coal in a residential subdivision is impossible (heck even some of my neighbors bitch about the noise as it is) and selling my house to move out to the country for a hobby is a bit extreme. I would love to have a spot in the country but again, I am not stacked with money, I get by with a modest budget for amusements. Yes, I am a green newbie smith, I have never claimed to be otherwise. However I can only do the best I can.

Your post, and others like it, seems to admonish me to imply I am being stubborn, but the reality is that I am only working within the bounds of finances and time available to me. I apologize if that annoys people. Honestly posts like yours make me wonder why I bothered getting interested in this to begin with.

Robert,
I have read most all of your posts. You have been given the best advice that I can imagine. It seems that maybe you havnt quite understood the advise or something has gotten lost in the translation. You now have a very generous offer on the table to take a little road trip to build a forge that will do the job for you. May i suggest you swallow that lump in your throat called pride and take the man up on his offer. We all want to do things for ourselves but sometimes we need a little guidence. I dont know your personal skill set but if you have had this much trouble getting a forge going with all the information available, imagine your frustration trying to get your first forge weld. Dont give up just get some help.

In conversing on another thread it was pointed out that refractory board was not rated for high enough temerature. My question is how hot is hot enough,(Technically 2300 degrees is forge welding heat. and I have seen it done colder than that) and what happens to the refractory if the rated temps are exeeded? Do we have a nuclear meltdown that goes to China or what? Seriously though, what does happen? I know the refractory board i use in my forges has seen 2500 degrees and I have not seen any difference in it.

You Must be going to get it really hot! I use it in my forges and have never had any issues with it. As for the expense 120 bucks for a 2 foot by 4 foot piece is not bad in my book. considering that will build a lot of forge. Good luck and keep us posted on your progress.

Are you asking about this because you already have these materials? Because if it was me, I would use the refractory board. It is rigid enough to stand up to your design. In fact I would use 2 layers for better insulation factor. Just a thought.

Here is my newly finished Tire Hammer from the clay spencer plans. I had a lot of fun building it. I have not actually used it yet as I have not heat treated the dies. I did however hit some pure iron rod that I have to try it out. I did that cold as the rod is very soft. The hammer seems to hit fine. I know I had the people in the neighborhood out wondering what that noise was! LOL!

My forges are top burner. I have no problem with backpressure because my openings are sized correctly. As to damaging the burner the very simple answer is to simply close the choke. This stops the air flow and things do not get damaged. If you have seen the pics from my other post you will see that I get plenty hot. And I have a fancy paint job on the burner chokes that have not been damaged.

I am clean shaven. It used to be mostley because I didnt have enough facial hair. It seems when you get older and balder the hair moves down! LOL But i did try a beard for the first time last winter. I didnt like it much. Pubic hair belongs in other places on the body. Not on the face. HAHA

That forge is based on the old abana gas forge plans. I built one of those and ran it profitably for years. It needs a blower period end of story. The air flow is usually regulated by a gate valve or sliding cover over the intake of the blower. Perhaps he never finished building this forge or the blower got lost at some time.

Hey thats looking good! Now its time to put it to work! Do you have the forge built yet?

That is first-rate work!

Can you say more about the openings/doors? I think I see at least three different shapes in the pics -- a large square, a small square (at the back), and an upside-down "T" shape. Are they interchangeable?

Yes I coated it with itc-100 after curing the satonite. I mix my itc-100 really thin like the consitency of paint and then brush it on. I do several coats seems to work well for me. Thanks for your kind words.