ThomasPowers

IIRC old british silver coins can be used for "medium" silver solder. Had a friend who was a member of the worshipful order of goldsmiths in England... Thomas

I've done a slew of that stuff fairly regularly during the last 10 years; but I participate in a bunch of reenactment stuff. The local historical farm still does all their plowing, planting and harvesting with horses and has a privy---a big shock to a lot of the "tourists" when they need to go---they finally put in a toilet out by the parking lot due to the complaints... BTW packard made an inline *12* that would start with a nickle balanced on edge on the radiator cap without it falling over...my father told me about it having seen it done at his father's gas station where he would work after school. Thomas

Get power to the shop Make a "sell item" everytime I light up the forge to pay for that power set a regular time to work in the shop after work Get the coal forge "porch" buillt and set up Thomas

Archie; weren't you using wood or charcoal? They throw off a lot more heat than a coal forge and that IR is very drying to your skin. You can put up an IR shield with a working hole too. Thomas

"The Complete Modern Blacksmith" has detailed instructions for making anvils from RR rail including heat treating instructions! Note: a Rail Road Anvil is not the same thing as an anvil made from Rail Road rail...just like a bridge anvil is not made from bridges and a shoeing anvil si not made from shoes... Thomas

I was always taught that the arc weldor was the fellow dropping hot BB's in his boot and the arc welder was the machine they were using. You forgot "Anvil horn ---a device for DIY vasectomies or proctological use" Thomas

Sounds like the scrounging rules that have been posted many places many times. A couple I hold by are: *Never expect something to be there when you come back---get it NOW!" keep gloves and something to put dirty/oily stuff in the vehicle in on hand at all times. If in doubt *ask*. It is amazing the stuff people will let you have and even tell you about better stuff they want removed but were not strong enough to haul it out of the basement or garage.---note this works best if you are neatly dressed and polite and look as if you will work in a safe matter. A sixpack of a cold drink will work wonders on a hot Friday afternoon when they didn't want to get sweating picking up all that stuff they were just going to trash anyway. Always leave a place *cleaner* than you found it. Even if you have to take extra time to do so. I was once given free rights to anything scrapped by a small ornamental iron shop because they had to pay to have their scrap bin hauled and not only did it decrease how often that happened by removal of material I always stacked the stuff left in a better pile so it would hold twice as much. CONSTANT VIGILANCE! I picked up a 125# PW and a heavy post vise once cause I saw some "stuff" leaning against a collapsing barn while doing the test drive for a car we were buying---my wife refused to let me pick it up then; but I went back after we bought it and made a deal with the owner... And my best scrounge: they were getting ready to tear down the 1915 college building that had been industrial arts and then was welding engineering and so were dumping "nice" stuff in a construction dumpster that I would check out regularly. One day a fellow saw me fishing stuff out and asked me what I was doing. I explained about being a smith, etc and he told me he was in charge of getting the building cleaned out. He could not give me the stuff as it was "state property". He could not sell me the stuff without posting it and tasking bids, etc; but he could *pay* me to haul it off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We agreed that I would help clean out the building getting paid in kind. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Thomas

Things I say to new students: Stop *before* you make that last hit that messes everything up.... Don't work WI too cold or high carbon steel too hot or too cold. You don't have to have the fanciest most expensive tools to do good work. Don't expect to make a pattern welded great sword the first time you fire up the forge. Hit it where it's *hot* not where it's *not*! You hold the *cold* end and hit the *hot* end---please get it right next time. If the ground wants to look at your piece it is considered *very* rude to try to stop it. I'ts far more dangerous to over react to dropping a piece than to under react. Wearing artificial fibers in a forge area is grounds for a darwinian intervention--I'll wear hearing protectors to the ER so I won't have to listen to them pulling the melted plastic out of your burns... and a quote from my teacher on forge welding: "Don't look at it *HIT* *IT*! Thomas

I've never heard of the double curve technique. normalizing before heat treat is a common step to help avoid warping. As for straightening a blade: you can actually heat it up turn it so the belly of the bend is up and straighten it by hitting downward on the *EDGE* you are not walloping it but pushing it back in place and correctly done does little to the edge that will need to be tweaked---you can even do it with a wooden mallet if you are afraid of messing up your blade. This is a technique used by many bladesmiths and works very well though counter intuitive. Thomas

The use of WI decresed asympotically over time though. Towards the end only ironwork in very corrosive areas still specified wrought so along the seashore is one of the best places for "recent wrought" Unfortunately a lot of it went in the wartime scrap drives. I still find some in old farm scrap piles---some of it showing that it is on it's 3rd or 4th incarnation. I have some friends that have a piece of WI pipe they use to tow cars with---run a chain through it to keep spacing. They won't turn loose of it and I'm hunting a replacement to trade them for it... Thomas

Note: it's the smaller bearing sheels that are likely to be 52100; large bearing tend to use case hardened material for the shelll like 8620 IIRC. I had a smithing student who worked for Timpken bearing as a metallurgist... Thomas

"I have an old car; what are the chances it's a model T?" Pretty hard to tell without more detail. If the dam is only 85 years old or so I'd guess it wasn't WI. If it's 150 years pretty good chance it is! Of course some of the 1920's re-bar was fairly nice stuff to forge---some is trash too. Of course my most recent piece of wrought that I can date is from 1929 from a water tower. The legs are mild steel but the tank was WI. I'd suggest A: looking at a weathered piece is you see lineations in the rust it's probably WI B: Notch a piece with a saw and do the break test---you don't need much left to break. I recently was given about 100' of 1" rod used to patch a cistern after the Socorro quakes of 1906, I cut it till there was only about 1/4" left uncut and used a large pipe wrench to do the breaking and it showed wrought. Thomas

I once had a nice talk with a fellow who had been the smith for the orthos at a big hospital during WWII. Made a lot of custom ironware to help things keep oriented right during healing. He told me that the large anvil was still in the basement of that hospital---never managed to get a way to it... Thomas

If you have the lathe I'd just lathe the whole thing---you might weld up a pattern welded steel billet for looks a nice twist pattern would be pretty or twist some wrought iron and etch after lathing. If he uses it mainly for verticals than the bob doesn't have to be too accurate but if he is trying to transfer points then it should be as accurate as possible. Thomas

Texans! And yes there was an enourmous hog on display right next to the SWABA smithy trailer, as I understand it they complained that the smiths were drawing flies... I priced my work to sell it out and did so. I'm happy. Thomas

I have one of each: A light one made from grain auger tubing and a heavy one made from an oxy bottle. The heavy one is great for the shop as it doesn't move around on you. I welded a piece of sq tubing on the side that 1/2" sq stock slides in and made an adjustable holder for long pieces. I'm currently designing a twister that will work with the metal in the forge---it will have a holder for an adjustable tail piece so I can twist various sized work. Having heavy metal makes it easy to weld on all sorts of bells and whistles---though it isn't very protable... Thomas

My best seller last Stater Fair was a rasptle snake made from a used farriers rasp with bottle caps threaded on the tail for a rattle. I have a swage that starts the curve in the rasp reall well so it's fairly fast and easy to role it into a tube for the body. I was getting $25 for them, no finishing it's supposed to rust! Thomas

In general I try to stick to CP Ti or alpha alloys 6AL4V is an alph-beta alloy and forging of beta alloys has been reported as producing flu like symptoms in the smith. As for the CP stuff I've cut it with a hacksaw---very tedious. It's dead soft at forging temps so I do most of my cutting with a hot cut. I have some 2"x3"x5' Ti stock waiting for the triphammer to come on line. I'm hunting my Ti sheet which I haven't seen since the move...sigh. Thomas

Was it something I said? I've been working on a forged Ti eating set, knife fork spoon, not real happy with it but they will work to eat with at the SWABA meetings. I still need to do a plate and cup but may have to do that from SS as my Ti stock is limited in starting size. Thomas

Karl; you control the pattern by how you manipulate the material. Basically you need to have deformation and stock removal. To get a bird's eye or raindrop pattern you drill shallow holes in the billet and forge it flat again---they have to be shallow so you don't get cold shuts from the walls folding over into the holes. to get a ladder pattern you cut V shaped grooves into the billet and forge flat. Christmas is coming and it's a great time to get a good book on this sort of stuff. "The Pattern Welded Blade" by James Hrisoulas or "Damaszener Stahl" by Manfred Sachse, (also available in English Translation) will cover how a lot of patterns are made. Hrisoulas' book is better for people learning how to make it themselves in my opinion. Thomas

Karl; if you search around you can probably find the specifications for railroad track in Sweden. Here in the USA it is around 70 points of carbon and has an appreciable manganese content for work hardening in use. This steel will feel harder under the hammer when forging and should not be quenched in water especially in thin section as the Mn content promotes deep hardening and so it's likely to crack. Like most high carbon steels you need to not let it get cold while hammering as well---if it's not glowing don't hammer on it! Thomas

The choke is to try to adjust the atmosphere in the forge to get it more towards reducing. it's a common design---that was the type of burner we built at the SOFA gas forge workshop though out forges at 10-11" dia and appx 16-18" long used two burners; very handy as I can dial the back one way down and get a quite reducing fire in the forge. Adding a blower to an aspirated burner shouldn't help. In fact adding extra cold air beyond what the burner can use will cool things down---as well as make it fiercly oxidizing---not helpful for welding. If you want a blown burner build a blown burner---they are easier to build than an aspirated one as you don't have to be so very picky about alignment and orifice size as you can adjust the airflow to suit. Thomas.

Look up what a bending fork will do. Check the size of every piece of curved metal you have---I collect the oddball items just to have various radii to hand, (old fire extinguishers came in an amazing number of sizes...) Thomas

I have a book called "Iron and Brass Implements of the English House" that I can look through without getting an urge to make something out of it. For an ongoing project how about getting a copy of "Knives and Scabbards, Museum of London" and forge all their examples starting with #1 and going through #310 when ever you are staring at the forge and don't know what to do... Thomas

Don't forget to investigate immigration issues! We have several new collegues here in the states whose wives cannot legally work as they are in on a "wife" visa. Thomas