Bentiron1946

Nice little rod shear, I got one similar a few years ago and it sure is nice for cutting hot rolled rod for making rivets, brass and copper too for the same purpose. Those are some nice used jack  hammer bits, some unusual shapes.

I remember as a kid bending a coat hanger back and forth to break it, boy did I ever get a burn on my fingers from doing that!

Glenn, Yeah, we kinda missed that it was good publicity for the craft of smithing and maybe piqued an interest in the physics behind the demonstration.

When you wire brush it other stampings and markings will appear, then take more pictures.

It looks old enough to be he great-grandfather's anvil, could be a family heirloom. Doesn't look to be in bad condition either. To clean it up put a wire brush on a 4" hand held grinder and give it a good brushing, NO abrasive disks please.

Woody, I'll be praying for Kristy and Jackie. Kristy for healing and Jackie for peace of mind during the whole process. Cancer is a scary thing to hear. God's peace and blessing on all of you, Jerry

Well that's an unusual way to light a coffin nail! Way to go, blacksmiths rule!!!

Well I guess someone from Southern Arizona had better give you a welcome. So far we are relatively warm and dry but could use a little more rain in this part of the state and snow in the high country. We have some great smiths in the state so if you get tired of the rain come on over and dry out for a little while, I sure someone will let you sleep by the forge.

I may need to buy that book, used ones start a thirty one cents, such a deal!

Nope nothing here, I'm with Frosty on this one, I'm just taking life one day at a time.

Mark, Ifing I was healthy I could gather several tons of wood just from folks who trim and cut down their trees and place them out at the curbs to go to the land fill, eucalyptus, ash, pine, palo verde, mesquite, citrus, mulberry and many other types of wood. It's a shame it all gets buried away where it does no one any good.

Jerry, I will be praying for your wife and you, it just don't seem right sometimes for these things to happen. I will be seen a request to some others to be praying for you as well. Trust God to get you through this one moment at a time. Keep on praying for peace from the Father. Jerry

More sage words from James Binnion http://ganoksin.com/blog/binnion/2013/01/02/age-hardening-sterling/

Steve, You are on the list. It takes two genes for those types of things to get passed on so you may not have to be concerned about it too much. I will be praying for your birth mother's pain and your pain of heart so that you may have God's peace about you. Jerry

Will miss your daily comments, prayers for a quick resolution for a decent job.

I'll be thinking of Mary and family, praying for her peace. Jerry

I used to do a fair amount of shooting, small bore rifle and  pistol target. Got pretty good with my model 64 Anshutz rifle, at 25 yards off hand I could shoot a five shot group the measure 0.24" center to center in the "X" ring. Then with my Ruger Mark I semiautomatic pistol at fifty feet I could put all ten shots off hand in the "X" ring. I also had an 03-A3 Springfield with a "C" stock with a Lyman 1,000 sight and could put a ten round group in ten ring a 500 yards and all ten in the black at a 1,000 yards. It ain't all that easy to hit the target at a thousand. I have owned a plethora of handgun, rifles and shotguns over the years, once I added them all up and it was well over two hundred but those three have stuck in my mind the most. I only have one of them left now. I used to do a lot of archery but doubt if I could draw a forty pound bow now. Life sure changes on you. Enjoy you youth while you may.

You sure do get some fine wood out of the wood pile for use in craft project that's for sure.

McBruce, So you like your blades a little on the taut side, I usually just make them tight enough for a nice ping when plucked by my fingernail. Of course I have one friend that, like you, makes them really, really tight. How tight? You don't want to be in the same room when the the blade breaks unless you have on a full face mask for sure.

Thanks for taking the pictures, I love going to places like that. Thanks again!

Well, a brass could be called a bronze you know. There is a product I have had the pleasure to use on occasion that is call Manganese Bronze and it is really a brass or is it? It has a composition of 60-66% copper, 22-28% zinc,5-7.5% aluminum,2.5-5.0% manganese, 2.0-4.0% iron, 1.0% nickle, 0.25 lead and (wait for it) 0.20% tin. WE rally can't call it bronze can we because it's small amount of tin is far outweighed by it massive amount of zinc but when I bought it the name was Manganese Bronze not Manganese BRASS which is what it really is. Bronze on the other hand can be any of a number of alloys of copper and other metals including tin but not restricted to tin alone. Bronzes can be made with arsenic, bismuth, antimony, tin, silver, gold, silicon, well just about any other metal that will alloy with copper except zinc because when you use that you have made a brass. Oh yeah, one of the bronzes I'm using now that silver is so high is German silver an alloy of copper and nickle. The particular one I have right now has 94% copper and 6% nickle, looks looks pretty good too, just not Sterling silver.

Merry Christmas, off to early Christmas Eve service at church, can't stay awake for the midnight one anymore, God's blessing on you all, Jerry

A spearhead walks into a bar and says....... Sounded like such a good beginning to a joke you know. I remember seeing some spearheads in the de Young Museum of Art in San Francisco  and it seemed if I disremember that they were cut from the  head itself but I guess you could forge weld some on too. 

Frosty, It's a good idea to use a crucible for each type of metal you pour, one for silicone bronze, one for nickle bronze, one for traditional bronze, what you don't want to do is use one crucible to do a pour in one metal and then the next time use it melt another alloy, you end up with a bunch of contaminated pours and no pure metals, this may not be important to the home founder but for a fellow trying to do a commercial business or even a half way decent job as a hobbyist you need to keep your pours pure. Yeah, a lot of guys I know use welded up schedule 40 black steel pipe for a one shot crucible and I guess that's OK if it's a one off but you just have got to be sure that it's well sealed or you got a real mess on your hands or should I say feet. I have use Plaster of Paris & silica sand as a reasonably decent investment but I use a steel ring to pour it in as it tends to crack and the steel ring(read short section of black iron pipe) keeps in intact so it doesn't fall apart during the pour. Cloudbuster is correct in getting it hot and driving off all the moisture before the pour, that way there is no popping and spitting. And so is Njanvilman, looks like it would just be easier to buy a hunk of brass and machine it down.

Been doing some more reading about Calcolithic tools and found a analysis on some early copper tools from Ur and they had quite a range of metals in them. First off was Tin, less than 0.018% but a couple of tools had it up to almost 3%, then next was Arsenic, with anywhere from near trace to a high of 3.9%, Nickle was next with0.5% to 2%, next was Lead with near trace to 2.7% and finally was Iron in the for iron silicates or slag at 0.9%. This is for a total of 48 "copper" objects. If something similar holds true for the Egyptian masons chisels then their tools were a lot tougher than the pure copper the New England sculptor was using. I also read in anther article that for a period of time after the stone was first exposed to air after the major stone blocks were removed from the quarry they  were considerably softer than once they had cured in the sun where they became considerably harder. The article stated that most blocks for the pyramids were squared before leaving the quarry and some were shaped with flint scrapers. So it seems, now to me, that the program missed the point of carving the new "nose" with pure copper tools, they should have used a less than pure Calcolithic type of tooling to portray it more accurately.

You would be just as well off to do as a sand casting since you have that experience as opposed to the plaster talc casting. Forget the weed burner, just doesn't seem to generate the number of btu's necessary for a good melt. Your idea of a charcoal hand blown forge should work but it will take awhile. Without a pyrometer there is not a sure way to tell except by color change. I used to pour by color when my pyrometer was out of order and poured when it was near incandescent in color about 2,300F. You can also get from a ceramic supply these temperature cones that melt at predetermined temperature ranges but I don't know how they would work in a melting furnace. And yeah it is important to make sure there is no condensate on any of the metal add to or poured into damp moulds, hot metal hurts like crazy, so full leathers is a must and make sure the laces on your boots is covered with three or four layers of duct tape, this keeps the little bitty globs from getting in there and causing havoc. Plumbing bronze? Yeah, I guess that they are using some silicone bronze in some check valve know, I have a very nice butterball ball valve, 12", center ball that is silicone bronze, been saving it for year for a special project. If you're sure it's silicone bronze it should cast up fine, pour temperature should be around 2,150f for best result. I have never used a cover for silicone bronze nor a flux but if it is red or yellow brass you will need to degas and a flux. It's been thirty years since I messed around with brass, nasty stuff to cast compared with silicone bronze, too much work compared to silicone bronze.

To calm anxieties, police in Beijing have posted an online notice telling people that "the so-called end of the world is a rumour"..................It seems that is always someone taking on God's business of telling us when the world is going to end but if I misremember correctly from reading Scripture the earth will "wear out like an old cloth" and we are doing the wearing out of it pretty good as it is. It may not go out with a bang but a whimper. We were given stewardship of the place and at times seem to be a pretty poor job of taking care of the garden. Only God knows for sure when his is ending this mess.