fciron

I made this video to show a friend his 'new' flypress. It seems there is nothing new under the sun, this baby came from the factory with return springs. It was only when I read Grant's post that I realized why I liked this little flypress better than the big one which I kept.

No real rule. Use it, trim it. Use it some more, trim it some more. Repeat until perfect. Then cut off a little bit more, use colorful language and start over. I use my dirty hand-prints as a guide to what part of the handle I actually hold.

Beautiful. Nice lines and lovely finish. ..and clever idea!

Another vote for flat dies with a heavy radius on the edges. You can draw quite effectively with the edges and you can use tooling if you need it. It's hard to use tooling efficiently and safely with drawing dies.

It will definitely work off the train controller which puts out dc. It might not work on a simple transformer that only puts out 12v ac. Most 12v power sources floating around put out DC. Heck, I think you might even be able to use a power source out of an old computer: I believe they provide 3, 5.5, and 12 volts DC.

If you had kids you would know that they are far more likely to poke you than to get cut themselves. Burnt is a different issue, they can learn about hot. :P

You took the time to file down the welds and heat the chain to match the rest of your work, that's the correct and responsible thing to do. Your customer does not know what 'hand-forged' means, they do know if something has been custom-made for them and they can tell the product of a careful smith from a careless one. You tried hand-making chain and it didn't look right, so you made something better. That is doing right by your customer. Would it be more ethical to do bad work because you're angsty about the meaning of 'hand-forged'? Do woodworkers get worried about using a table-saw vs. a hand-saw? I bet most of the hand-made wood-work at craft fairs has never been touched by a tool that didn't have a power-cord.

If you've got a plaster model, the usual procedure would be to pull a flexible rubber mould (backed by plaster) of the model. Then use the rubber mould to cast your waxes, sprue your wax, invest, and finally cast. It's very possible to do this with basic equipment, but it looks like you've got a lot of research to do.

When my sister was in the Peace Corps in Cameroon, she reported that the village smith did a brisk trade in hair sticks. I am sure he made other stuff, but she hadn't heard about it. Looks nice.

Nonmoving? You may want to look up counterblow hammers. (Although the technical term for both parts seems to be 'tup'.) I find dablacksmith's answer as satisfactory as anything out of webster's. The question of whether it's a hand tool is a neat one. Perhaps it's 'hand equipment'.

Man, you must take some big stuff out in the field. That looks like a stationary tool to me. Looks handy. :)

I made a couple of tools from a large bearing race and I was worried about how hard the metal was, so I simply annealed them. One tool was a bending fork that served well for a decade before it broke. The other is a bending die, using the curve of the race and it's fine, but it gets a lot less abuse. I'd be very hesitant to hammer on a piece of bearing race. When my fork failed it simply snapped right off, no bending or warning whatsoever. I realize that you've already put time into making the tool, so, if you're gonna use it, I would anneal it by heating to just above magnetic (as a guess at critical temp.) and cool as slowly as possible. You should only be using it on hot metal anyway, and that annealed tool steel will still be a lot tougher than mild steel.

When I hear someone accused of overcharging, my reaction, as a full time smith, is "CONGRATULATIONS!" Now mark those fasteners up 100%. It's still cheaper than making your own.

Hey man, got any pictures of your last batch of titanium knives? You know we love pictures here. Surely someone must have taken a picture of at least one of the hundreds of high-end knives you've made and sold.

I've been running my own business with "Blacksmith" on my business card for 14 years now. There is a lot more to the business than the smithing. That may actually be the easiest part, it's certainly the easiest to get motivated about. Running a blacksmith shop takes all of the skill of running any small business, plus smithing and designing experience. Unlike other businesses, there are no estimating software or business management packages targeting smiths. Art schools (I don't know about the canadian blacksmithing degree) are notoriously bad for not giving their students the business skills they will need to succeed. I would still recommend school, having a degree provides a certain degree of prestige and expertise that can be used to set the tone when dealing with clients. They are commissioning art, not buying a gate (Plus the wonderful opportunity to concentrate on smithing for its own sake, without trying to please clients and schools usually provide access to equipment that might otherwise be unavailable.) Most of my income right now is from fabrication and repairs. It takes a concentrated effort on my part to educate my clients about what is possible and what is smithing versus simply welding. I stopped making that effort a few years ago due to some personal issues, combining that with the economic downturn has led to a large number of small, annoying jobs in the shop. I'm too spoilt at this point to work for anyone else, so I am gonna just knuckle down and try to rebuild my business the way I want it. I just wanted to point out some of the many issues to be aware of.

What Glenn said: don't adjust all the legs, three of them are already touching the table. I usually rock the item to see which three legs are closest to level and then pick a single leg to adjust. Think of the legs as paired diagonally: the item rocks on the long pair and alternately touches on the short pair. Some times one of the long legs needs to be shortened to bring the top level. When adjusting to stop things from rocking, only mess with one leg. (Adjusting for symmetry is a whole 'nother issue and practice is the only thing that helps.) Practice will help train your eye. It is not always obvious how to adjust a curved object. I am a big fan of bending forks and pliers which allow me to put the bend exactly where I want it.

:lol:

Wesley, Look at the location. It's in India and the description is post 1940. So less than 70 years old. It's clearly targeted to collectors, not a users. The seller has a bunch of funky ironwork listed. I kinda like looking at it.

ah, I was confused by the mention of a small truck mounted crane. I've moved several 25s by leaning them over into the back of the truck and then jacking the bottom up until they could be slid in horizontally. reverse the process to unload. Use lots of blocking as a safety measure in case the jack slips.

Yup, I've got my eye peeled for one of those, after ten years I'm starting to outgrow the tackle-box. I think it would be intimidating to try and fill one of those up if I didn't have a tackle box full of stuff already. ;)

why use the light duty trailer? It would seem safer in the back of the truck. I moved my 25 in the back of my little nissan pick up and the hammer and the truck were both fine.

One of the best things I did for my tapping and thread cutting needs was to put everything into a big fishing tackle-box with each size in a different slot. This gave me space and a place to replace the craftsman brand stuff with industrial quality taps and accompanying drills. When I buy taps I buy multiples and stash them in the bottom of the box along with my wrenches and die holders. If I hadn't started with the cheap set to start with and the nice box I would not have gotten as well equipped as quickly. (I think the two cost me $20 at a garage sale.) Once I had a set up with room to expand it made sense to buy a more expensive tap every now and then when needed. It would have been harder to justify buying a tap for a single use if I knew I'd misplace it before I needed it again. If I hadn't had the tackle box with room for expansions and upgrades, then I would only have room for the pieces it came with and it would have interfered with getting bottoming taps, tap drills and other additions to my kit.

I just bought a handful of the angled-spout plastic squeeze bottles when I was at the beauty supply store with my girlfriend. Cheap and no shipping.

+1 :)

Yikes! I'll assume only the hammer was damaged since you're typing.