ThomasPowers

Will they spring for hand forged stainless to lower maintenance needs?

I have a tool dealer at our local fleamarket that I do not patronize just because he had a bunch of tools with prices marked on them that were at the high end for out here; but when I tried to buy one I needed he said that that wasn't the price the price was actually higher. I decided that we just don't suit and avoid his table now. Out here in NM smithing stuff is pretty rare as we didn't have much population back in the old days; but I have still managed to find two postvises on craigslist in the last year for $50 apiece, (1 a 4" and the other a 5.5" weighing 80 pounds.) When I left Ohio I was just beginning to see folks wanting e-bay pricing at the fleamarket instead of local market price. I'd tell them to sell it on e-bay.

I once found an old horrible set of hand forged nippers with very large jaws (steeled too!). They were so large I was able to forge them into a set of tongs for hot firebricks---a really useful thing to have if you run a gasser with bricks for the ends! Another one you can do is to forge cheap old tinsnips into scrolling tongs.

Figured that one out in 1981 when I got started smithing.

At the 2008 Quad-State I saw over a dozen post vises for US$40. Out here they generally start at $100. Where you are at-????? Pretty much everything can be fixed on a postvise; but the screw and screwbox are difficult and a pain to try to re-do. So check them out thoroughly! One thing to remember is that the jaws of a post vise are not usually parallel until it's opened a ways so when it's closed there will be a gap along the bottom of the jaw---this is so they will be parallel when they are in "using" position. Size also makes a difference, $80 for an 8" jaw postvise in good condition is a STEAL *anywhere*

They were just siting those in when I visited Ironbridge

with unknown to you steel I always advise making a test piece to figure out the heat treat on something you don't have so much work involved. Try oil and see if it gives you a hamon, you can then try water using the same piece and see if it survives.

Silver doesn't pattern weld---you have to mix it with other metals to get a pattern---(mokume) Acid etching does not smooth things out, makes the surface worse! Blackening does not harden silver.

As late as the American Civil War Steel could cost as much as 5 times that of wrought iron much less cast iron which was cheaper still!

It turns to quick lime, a corrosive and unfriendly material---unless you are disposing of road kill.

A few misconceptions: What Abraham Darby accomplished was the commercial smelting of iron from ore using coke instead of charcoal---all charcoal iron was very low in sulfur; but when they tried smelting with coal the high levels of sulfur made the metal unusable. So the iron for the previous 1000 or so years was very low sulfur (though sometimes high in phosphorous). Also the definition of wrought iron is that it's a composite material of a usually a clean iron and ferrous silicates---if it doesn't have the silicates it's not wrought iron! The lower quality wrought irons do tend to have a greater percentage of silicates and those in larger form.

I went to an ABANA affiliate's gas forge building workshop twice (once blown, once aspirated). The most I paid was a day of work and $120 to get a great forge. Does your local group have something like that?

The fleamarket is your friend; you won't find a Hofi Hammer there but you can find pretty much all other types there and a lot cheaper than buying new. I've never paid more than US$5 for a hammer at a fleamarket, though you should factor in the cost of re-handling them. (I buy "seconds" hammer handles that have only cosmetic issues where I'm going to trim the hammer down already and so have no effect on it's usability)

Safety Warning: I met a knifemaker who had converted his hand crank post drill to electric to save money by not buying a drill press. Once when he was drilling a fussy piece with it he reached up to advance the bit while watching the workpiece and fed his fingers into the gearing. Result: about 6 months complete downtime and tens of thousands of dollars of micro surgery trying to save the fingers and years later when he told me about it they still did not work well. Money saved: negative 5 figures!

The board drop hammers are raised by a wheel pressing against the board that then falls away allowing freefall. They usually use quite heavy top dies 500+ pounds is not unknown make for substantial strikes. Most inline systems seem to lose a lot of the snap of the blow and it's the snap that helps "squirt" metal in the die cavity. I would definitely experiment with some before deciding to go that route---get in touch with the local ABANA affiliate and I am sure you can find folks willing and even excited to let you try out their version of a treadle hammer. I have a friend who coins semi-professionally and his main tools are a large motorized flypress and a knuckle press he bought on the used market much cheaper than the new imported stuff. Check out his work at Shire Post Mint Coinage Page

I tend to make tools as I need them rather than waste a lot of time making things I don't end up using. Do think of making some short punches to be tong held and used with a treadle hammer or screw press so you are ready to use such items when you do get them. So are you going to make tongs? make a punch for the rivit Going to do animal heads? make the punches for that. Etc.

Funny I'm in the middle of a similar project; only doubling the size of my current shop and doing it on $20 a week + what I bring in selling the odd piece of smithed work: Here is what I am working toward: 20'x30' with 10' walls I was able to get free utility poles from out local electrical coop, got 2 40' poles and chopped them in half and doing pole barn construction. Hand dug the holes about 5' deep to make 2 bents off the end of my own shop. Bought two old metal trusses to mount on the poles. Bought new purlins. Have a lot of hail damaged propanel for roofing and walls got free from a roofing company when they re-roofed the entire town and had way more than they could dispose of. (BAD hail storm!) Dirt/sand floor---our desert is rated as "direct pour" for concrete and so makes a decent floor as it stands. When I'm done I will have about US$1000 in it given that I can find some old barn sliding doors to scrounge I already have a dozen stall doors with hinges I can use to make double doors from. Oh yah; bought two 10' pieces of spiral wound vent pipe 12" in dia for $4 a piece from habitat for Humanity re-store a,d a couple of pieces of stainless pipe to make my side draft vents out of.

Very thick heel, is the base cast iron? I can see a relatively thin steel face on it.

The light base is most likely mild steel as well. If you want cheap medium carbon go with automotive coil springs!

With my long forge I left one end of the air pipe open and used a "ram rod" made from a steel pulley and a small diameter pipe to control the length of the fire by controlling where air came through the holes.. For knives you ONLY want to heat what you can work as heating more than you can work promotes grain growth scaling and decarburization. Only time you need it all hot is truing it up and heat treat!

Charcoal was the fuel used for about the first 1000 years of iron working including smelting it from ore, forge welding and even melting iron/steel in certain areas. It will get how enough to burn your work up. How much hotter do you need it? It helps to modify your forge for charcoal---you want a deep fire but not a broad one as all charcoal on the forge will burn even the stuff on the sides you are not using. I usually put a firebrick or two next to the forge pot to contain the charcoal pile into the "using" area. Charcoal also needs less air than coal does so throttle your blower *way* down. Handcrank or bellows works much better than powered blowers for using charcoal. As mention you want to use real chunk charcoal NOT briquettes. You may also want to reduce the size of the chunks if they are large. appx 1" cubes is one suggestion---some folks drive the chunks through a grating to get fast and dirty sizing. The dust and any partially uncharred pieces help increase the forge flea problem as does dampness (that you can "cook out" by letting new fuel roast on top the fire a bit.) Charcoal has been used for forging from the very beginning through NOW! (coal started in the high to late middle ages) as you can make it almost anywhere while good coal is *HARD* to find. BTW the local grocery store had their charcoal on 1/2 price sale lately as it's the "end of the season"...

Not when he was born it wasn't! (part Cherokee from the OK end of the Trail of Tears)

Great magnets in disk drives, also Al in them, Nice sheet metal in PC sides. I got to use my metalworking skills to fix a server box dented by a forklift, saved the company $30K and weeks of lost time on the unit. I also used to make conversion fittings for a non-standard rack when the company was hard up. Probably helped keep me on through several lay-offs before the final one got me. You might be surprised what you can find in IT (not to mention find a 3" ball bearing with one side ground flat that had been left when the machine shop had moved out back and our lab moved into their old space)

Glenn; every year some folks are "cured" by attrition. We're praying right now that well liked member of the forum doesn't go that way. My latest "fix" was getting another hand crank blower so I can have a travel set-up and a home set-up. I hope to go work on my shop extension tonight!

Copper was supposed to block forge welding.