Jump to content
I Forge Iron

ThomasPowers

Deceased
  • Posts

    53,395
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by ThomasPowers

  1. I have seen tongs with the right angle bend in them used in pairs to move hot wagon tyres to the wood for shrinking on.  Also smaller ones used to hold stock for dishing.

  2. Funny how often my "hobby" got used when I was supporting several million US dollars of computer equipment in a major software lab.  When the dotcom bust happened I was one of the last laid off because of my "do it on the cheap" skills.

  3. I once rode a retired Rodeo horse that "objected" to the jingling of my chainmail shirt; thought the noise meant SPURS!

    For rowels they sell replacement dressing "stars" for grinding wheels.  High C last ones I used and "pre shaped".

  4. Old bloomery wrought iron starts out as a bloom that is a pretty nasty mix of iron, slag, ore, furnace wall, fuel, etc.  You take that and consolidate it as "Muck Bar".  (It can be very mucky---the worst blooms we have worked were consolidated on a wooden stump with a wooden mallet to keep it from "splashing" when hit.)  Take several muck bars and forge weld them together and forge them down and you get Merchant Bar; which was what was commonly sold.  

    If you take several Merchant Bars and stack and forge weld them together and forge out into a bar you get "Singly Refined Wrought Iron" repeat for Doubly Refined and repeat again for Triply Refined Wrought Iron.  I've noticed that every culture that used the bloomery method seems to have come up with pattern welding.

    Also a lot of scrap Wrought Iron was "busheled"   stacked and welded into a recycled bar.

    Now later processes didn't do as much "stack and weld" stuff and so doesn't show as much pattern.

  5. Sold off a bunch of Dishing Forms at the SCA event Saturday. Very kind folks unloaded and loaded set up for me.  My wife has asked that I clear the shop before I go.  Next sale at the NMABA meeting in Feb if they allow me to display a bucket or two of tools.  Hopefully I can repeat as needed as I learned that I do not have the strength to load much at one time.

  6. Cauterizing is a common thing in modern surgery using an electrocautery instead of a "plain scalpel".

    from pubmed: Surgical incision using electrocautery can be quicker with less blood loss and postoperative pain scores than the scalpel incision.

    (I once had a contact with the end of a hot piece of pipe rolling off the forge leaving a sickle moon scar; I tell folks who notice that it's a sign of a secret society I belong to...) 

  7. Don't forget smuggling in of Western European & American tech; I once worked "post wall fall" with a fellow whose previous job in DDR was the removal of "evidence" that the computer systems they worked on were smuggled tech. Anyway good to know that there are some crossover tools available.  I envy you that anvil and I'm working on downsizing my smithing equipment!

×
×
  • Create New...