frogvalley

Get rid of your noisy, swaybacked soft anvils and return to the land of Fisher. LOL I suffer from frequent headaches and/or migraines. Quiet is good. Better than that though is the stability of the Fishers. No sway back due to soft bodies. And they work just as well as any PW or HayBud. I have a PW 150 and a Fisher 200. Love the Fisher, am OK about the PW. Any body who uses a power hammer knows that it is made of CAST iron with a hardened face to work on, same as a Fisher anvil. Its a fact that this is the best way to build a working machine, its not cheaper per se. If huge machines were made of softer wrought iron, they would sag over time, just like the sway backed wrought anvils. And boy would they be loud.

I respect PawPaw and the work he did, many of us were sad to hear of his passing. However he made a bad choice in the method of removal of these coatings. Way too much at once. Burning is OK sometimes, but not in the concentration that he did. I know I am stirring a hornets nest with this one. My shop is a multi faceted business, mostly art metal, sometimes there is no way around working with the stuff. At times we CHOOSE to make something from it for the anti-corrosion properties. We weld it with mig or even tig for minimal heat affected area, therefore less outgassing or burning of coatings. Top coat with zinc paints. Working with galvanized materials is not nearly as dangerous as is claimed. Work in a well ventilated area. Don't eat it or breath a lung full. Long term exposure to other materials commonly found in welding rods is more of a danger. Think chromium, vanadium, etc. Zinc oxide is what they put in your sunscreen, other health products and breakfast cereal to make it whiter and more yummy. In smaller doses it can be beneficial, zinc is a mineral commonly found in Vitamin supplements. Toxic levels are so much higher than you are normally exposed to in a well ventilated shop, that working with care on galvy is not a danger and I do it frequently without reservation. Not to mention the fact that eventually the zinc will dissipate from your system with generally a full recovery from the symptoms. And I ain't gone mental or died yet. Well not that I know of anyway...

...and easy. I don't expect to have any trouble finding them in the future. Older one might have just the holes, bu mine has extensive dishing capabilities. A shovel form, a spoon form, three sizes of hemisherical concavities plus a long slow curve down one side that allows for dishing of HUGE forms.

I have no real interest in modern machining practices, but the older tooling such as I have, some of which runs from the same line shaft over head, is very cool and much more in keeping with the time frame of all the other blacksmith tooling that I have. I am a blacksmith and sculptor for a living but still find time to chat about blacksmithing, unless of course I have been at the forge and hammer all day. Sometimes its just too much. Knowing ALL of the techniques and tools required to work iron, including blacksmithing and machining do go hand in hand though. Since there is no one around here that I would trust to fix my power hammers and other machines, necessity is the primary reason to keep a working machine shop.

Stupid question I know, but after looking at another post here, I thought I'd try to drag out a few more of you. How many other blacksmiths out there are machinists as well? Most of the sources that I know say that blacksmiths of the past were quite often at least familiar enough with a metal lathe to make the things that needed to be machined for repairs to both his and others tools. However I find that not one in ten of the actual blacksmiths I know in this day and age actually run or own a lathe. I see some of you do have machines already, but wondered what kinds/ types you might have. Frog Valley has a complete older machine shop with a benchtop Atlas Lathe with all the trimmings and a vertical/horizontal mill that is turn of the last century. Both come in handy for repairs to power hammers and more. I recommend at least a familiarity with these tools as cold working of forgings is often the finishing touch that is required, and the repair capabilities of both are obvious benefits to any shop.

I created these originally by simply forming the parts over the face of the anvil and horn. Its kinda hard to explain but concave forms can easily be made by hammering down on the face and sort of pulling up with the tongs. I could show you in person. I put the V in the leaves first (they are convex) and then put that "ell" shape against the edge of the anvil and just hit around the edge and backside of the work and make my way toward the vein. The flower is done the same way, rotating and reheating about 6 times or so for the dished part and about that many for the petals. The get formed backwards over the horn , btw. The sunflower is about 10in across and 48 tall. By both the lifting/pullin action with the tongs and the spreading action of using a ball pein, the work can be made to be concave if worked from the backside. After all, if you expand the material, which you are doing with a ball pein, that material has to go somewhere. Make it go into a compound curve. Can also be done in a similar way but in reverse by working the face of the piece over the horn and hammering downward and pulling down instead of up. I have a cone mandrel that can be used as well, it has a dome on top, not a point, just for this purpose. Most important is to do this at the highest heat that you can stand to work it. Yellow or bright orange. Don't bother once its gone red. Especially with sheet metal. BE CAREFUL. The surface area of sheet iron radiates more heat than the same weight of thick bar stock. IR dangers can burn you pretty badly. While I make dozens of bowls/flowers/other thingys a year, I don't use these methods very often. I have a swage block for dishing most things, and the big bowls that I make here ( 12, 24, and 36 inches across) are formed into a concave form that fits into my hardy hole. My most used ones are eight inches or so across and can be made to work small or large bowls. I have several for each anvil in different sizes and purposes. Below are some pics of some things plus a pic of the tooling.

Trouble with pre-textured from King is that it cannot be easily drawn out to a point without re-texturing the stock. If you have to have the tooling to re-texture, then you might as well do it all, at least for anything tapered like trees. I often draw or work 1 inch stock down to 1/4 " for a tree, then texture the very long taper. No way around that, I just charge more for the truly handmade thing.

I thought I would post this here as well. "All Ab o u t Me t a l" In association with the Morgan Arts Council, I am curating a gallery show and hosting a hammer-in here in Berkeley Springs, WV. I am looking for artists and blacksmiths with a focus on larger scale work, but also need smaller works. While sculptural blacksmithing is a focus, traditional work is also a component to the show, especially the hammer-in and demo part of the weekend. If you would like details you can download all the info in PDF format at this link http://www.frogvalley.com/hammerin/calltoartists.pdf Frog Valley Artisans Application Deadline: April 1st, 2007 Jury Notification: May 6th, 2007 Hammer In: July 14th, 11:00am 6:00 pm All About Metal c/o Frog Valley Artisans 82 Powerline Lane Berkeley Springs WV 25411 Contact: Mark Schwenk Phone: (304) 258-3541 Web: Frog Valley Forge/West Virginia Blacksmith Email: Mark@FrogValley.com

LOL , mice, now theres an image. I have a Fairbanks with the mystery hole and I find that I use it frequently. Its where I designed all of my spring / clapper dies to go. The frame that holds the interchangable tooling I have fits around the die on top of the sow block and the clappers fit into a "hardy hole" in this frame. Not by coincidence is it the same size as my actual hardy hole. Anyway I also use it to put flats in middle of large round rods occasionally. Sometimes you just need a twisty in a roundy thingy. Of course no one else I know uses theirs very often but I seem to. On the matte of the original post- If there is no adjustment to the springs to level up the arms , then the springs may be in the beginnings of failure. Crystallized brittle breakable dangerous. Find replacements. Very cool hammer BTW and with that crossed arm mechanism it is a thing of beauty.

Thats about how I make trees. I have yet to find a faster way, although due to the size of much of my work I can't forge out the joints, although that sounds like it would work cause of the extra heat involved in gas welding. Hot bending is great- although (I know its sacrilege but...) I often have the forks in my anvil or the big bender handy when I make mine and then do a cold bend to get the branches close then heat any final touches. All my branches are hot bent into random branch shapes as I do the final forging heat after the pattern goes on. That gives me a good basis for the beginning of assembly, their already naturally curved then I mainly tweak cold and finish hot again. Mind you I do much of this work under one of the power hammers, including texturing and drawing, but I finish and bend by hand and eye. I mig tig or stick weld the individual branches onto the trunk, depending on what, where , etc.. Then flap disk smooth and level with the surface, sanding WAY out beyond the joint for better blending. If there is bark texture that I put on (probably), I then die grind the pattern back in to blend the patterns to match. Then wire wheel or whatever to burnish it and blend it further.

Just a side note, but I don't believe the damage to your anvil was from laying on its side and weathering. It appears to me that you have the well used anvil of a left handed blacksmith. Bending and forming on the farthest edge away from you gives this wear pattern and in my experience, right handed smiths have the horn on the left and lefties have the horn on the right, hence this particular wear.

Building up a wood stand from 4x4's or whatever is a good way to go. I mount mine on sections of tree trunk, aka, a log. Only way to go for long term use is wood. Especially true if you have a dirt or gravel floor. Metal stands don't work so well with soft floors, but a wooden stand will work on concrete or gravel. I don't know how full time smiths could stand on concrete all day anyway, I know it kills my back/legs/feet. Dirt or gravel floor for sure.

Look for a number on the foot, or sometimes at the waist. I beleive that they are cast in all of them, being cast iron the weights are accurate enough to be molded in and not stamped after weighing as on a peter wright. A 200 should have 20, basically multiply by ten. Many had a date too. Mine reads 1919. I believe that the fishers were cast upside down onto a layer of molten tool steel, not a plate, and thats why they didn't need to be forge welded. I love my 200 lb fisher. It one of two primary anvils in my shop.

Of all the craftspeople, only Blacksmiths work with all the elements, fire, air, earth, water. One could not help but be spiritual and connected to the earth nature and spirit. Whatever spirit you believe in, there is great power to be had in the blacksmith shop. Can't say as I have done or read any metaphysical studies about blacksmithing, however I have at times done ritual blacksmithing and I know of many other ritual/spiritual blacksmiths. Creating a piece of art with intent is a part of much of the work we do. I know of that camp in NY, and a number of us end up there occasionally, fire workers seem to seek each other out. Hence the familiar "hammer in" or other gathering around the fire where magick is created in the forge. I'll be up during Sirius, as will some others.

TBR- You can email me off list for any questions at all about running a blacksmith/welding business. Or for that matter you can start an thread with some questions and let all of us business owners chime in. The math and design sounds good, although the 1.5 inch rail seems a bit thick. Maybe 1 inch or 1.125. Thats just my opinion I don't see anything wrong with thicker. I am guessing you'll adjust for the .333 difference in the math on number of risers? 10ft=120in divided by 9" rise = 13.3333333333 and so on. -1 gives you 12.33 steps. .33 left over. Divide this up to add to the 9" to get actual rise. Most important part to remember is that the center post is not the only support. One of the balusters must "hang" down and support the next step thus creating a stepped support for the outer edge of each step, both supporting by hanging a contiguous section and then at the bottom step this attaches to base or floor giving support. Fully cantilevered suspension type stairs can be troublesome. Oh and I am in such northern WV that I have to buy Pennsylvania coal. Annealing very slowly will help with the glass , although you cannot eliminate the cracking totally. Unless you cheat like I do and have the glass department make inserts to fit my openings then epoxy or use welded tabs to hold it in place. I could be wrong , but I doubt it. LOL

The commercial staircases are a good way to see how to construct them. I concur on the central pipe theme with larger pipe sections that slip over the column for each tread. These can simply stack if cut from the same length of pipe as the column and then divided into equal sections for the treads. I just drill two holes and thread them 3/8-16 and use allen head set screws to keep them from turning. For the pickets I would use two for each tread( that keeps the math to a minimum and all of them the same size), both of which hang over the edge and attach to the next tread as well, one up from and one hanging down from.Two holes in each down low will allow you to space the treads properly. Using pipe for the hand rail is the simple solution, either weld in place after bending, or drill thread and bolt, or drill over size holes and toggle bolt into it. flat stock is a little harder to get to bend to that shape, but can be done too. As to support for each tread, it depends on the material that you want as the tread. If metal is the final, then simple angled pieces of plate welded under the tread and to the pipe section can work. If more decorative wood is to be used then construct each tread/step as a frame attached to pipe and then use rod from the outer edge of the tread to the lower edge of each pipe section. If you have trouble visualizing what I am talking about, I'll get off my lazy butt and make a sketch.LOL

Ok more questions for you. Are you talking about a stand alone spiral staircase that goes straight up a pole? Or are talking about a railing for an existing staircase? If you are talking about creating a spiral one on a pole thats actually fairly easy. It is designed the same way that a regular set of risers and treads is done for a a straight staircase. Height (10 feet) divided by the height of each riser- say 7 inches. 17 steps roughly. If you add a platform or landing at top , one less. I am looking at my own staircase and can see how easy it really is , only I am not the best teacher. It goes up eight feet and has twelve steps and landing at top. Each step is 12 wide at the outer edge. You could adapt or modify a commercial set, but it ain't that hard to do the math. I'll try to write a more coherent description of the design I would use. I have had to do trigonometry three times this week on blacksmith projects and my brain still hurts from it.

Just to be clear, by circular do you mean what is usually called spiral but is actually helical? What ornamentation is asked for? I know I have multiple levels of work, basic stuff is from commercial components with generic elements put together in a pleasing way, next would be simple but truly hand forged work assembled well, and then on up to very ornate all original truly hand forged work that is considered art. While I generally quote only by the job, price for iron work like this starts at $100 a linear foot and goes upto to about $400 or $500 per foot. That is just the iron price and when I make a final quote I add in the installation costs. What is the installation going to be mounted to ? Wood? concrete? Indoors or out?

I cannot stress this enough. I would say this is the most important part of a smooth finish. Order of things- take piece from fire, wire brush, then lay on anvil and hit with hammer, return to fire. Otherwise every time you hit the piece you force the scale back into the stock causing both an uneven finish and making it harder to remove the scale later. Pitting from scale reworking can cause worse marks than anything other than a bad hammer. Wait till you get access to a power hammer and see what happens to pieces you havent' descaled properly. P.S. Bad hammer means simply a hammer that has a factory flat finish with sharp edges. All hammers(not flatters) should be slightly rounded as already stated by others.

Canola oil, baked in the oven at 350 deg for about 2 hours then recoat and bake for another couple. Thin coats and make sure there are no runs. I spray mine on with a kitchen grade pump oil sprayer. Fully baked/seasoned vegetable oil will not go rancid. Ever. I do food safe bowls with this. Dozens of em. If fully burnt or forged on, beeswax shouldn't get tacky.

As a director/member of an artists collective, I live by forge and anvil as a metal artist. That means blacksmith, welder, sculptor...anything metal. While I do traditional work(hooks, hangers etc.) what sells the most is art posing as ordinary iron objects. Coat trees, tables, gates, fences, other furniture... as long as it is unique and comes from my heart or head or in collaboration with a client or other artist. Since we can't compete with China for hooks in a Walmart culture, we can give our clients something that has a value far beyond what an uncaring, unfeeling utility item can give. Vision. Style. Feeling. Our clients may not be able or capable or willing to create the way that we can. So how do you put a price on that? Not just with an hourly rate, thats not the way that the blacksmith/artist should price things. $30 dollars an hour is so low that you probably ARE giving away your work. I have an office manager/accountant that does cost analysis for me. She double as a glass artist but comes from corporate with a list of real costs that need to be figured in. With my Real costs in mind, I can figure the overhead and what I want as actual take home pay. I don't like to actually give my hourly base rate, most times I give a per job price. Below are a couple of pics of recent work to give you an idea. Email me offlist if you want any advice on how to calculate ALL of the overhead. There were 20 some line items for a recent accounting/cost analysis of our pottery department, and it came as quite the surprise when some items thought to be profitable were found to be lack luster in terms of actual profit. Did you remember to figure in your property taxes, gasoline, car payment, insurance for building/business/auto, gravel for the road, cost of promotional material( business cards, flyers,) , that recent yard sale score of 4 new hammers and 2 great tongs, that great deal on a power hammer that cost $25 but took 6 months and $800 in other expenses to fix up, and on and on? Its never just the cost of steel and coal. Examples of a few pieces recently at Tamarack or another gallery near you- Table/ iron tree branches with copper wrap, blue stone top-$900(I got the stone free) Branch candelabra/ branches are textured to look like bark-$600 Fireplace screen(decorative only),-$500 something (I think) Sun/ iron sun and base with stained glass and rondel inset- $400 or 500? Cattails/ iron and copper-$1200 or $1400 I can't remember. Pounding out the brain cells.

In order of preference/amount of usage. 1.Clear Gloss Rustoleum-my favorite, shows all the details and works great in or out for years. Great silver black finish over mostly descaled work. Very artsy if you ask me. Reasonably chip resistant, quick drying, polyurethane is better against chipping but takes forever to dry. Most used for my sculptural work, in or out of doors. By far the most used finish here, ten to one over the others. 2. Boiled linseed oil, cold application, air dried- for triangles/dinner bells or hooks and whatnot.. 3. boiled linseed oil, heat dried in forge or oven depending, or hot applied and heat dried. Hooks and stuff. 4. Vegetable oil, hot applied, or even baked on- several coats, best for the functional bowls that I make , you can eat out of it like seasoned cast iron pans and you can easily re-apply. 5.beeswax, hot applied, two coats, 6. beeswax and linseed oil mixed, hot applied, two coats, also reasonably edible for eating utensils 7. Gloss black, flat black, other colors of rustoleum over appropriate primer. Tend to hide detail. My least favorite as it is not that much more durable than the above finishes but is a multiple application with many coats. 2 primer, 3 finish for spraying, one and two for brush applied. I use- volume wise- almost as much as the clear, but thats because the jobs that tend to need this finish are custom gates and fencing, bigger single jobs rather than individual sculptures or art pieces. 8. Powder coating- NEVER. Don't even get started on that one.

I am firm believer in the naturally aspirated / venturi style burners. I have two forges using shopbuilt burners. We do this commercially and find the reliability, efficiency and ease of construction to be excellent. Our primary forges are large pipe with single burners and rarely require more heat than that, allthough occasionally we do a brick pile with another burner for the odd job. I know of several other smiths who have gotten rid of their Johnson forges and converted to brick pile or pipe forges in various sizes. Mine are built from a 20lb propane cylinder and a 30lb cyl. No fancy doors for them, just solid legs that are the right height to use bricks piled up for aprons and further up to block off both ends. Tangentially mounted burners work best in my opinion. The swirling of the dragons breath is cool. The flared nozzle is of debatable use, i have one with and two without. All three work great, although the nozzle fitted one works best outside of a forge,all work fine in the forge. I strongly reccommend making a choke for the burners, at lower pressures the atmosphere is too lean and an oxidation atomsphere is created forming scale unless you choke it down-at higher pressures is a bit too rich and needs more air. All of my burners of 3/4 inch pipe with mig tips for jets.

Many a house has my railings inside, I have been doing fence and gate work for a while but never into fine stone masonry.I have just finished a gate that swings from the center, approximately 48in across. It is to be set into a hard sandstone, the posts I need to set into the first step are 1"square so need 1 1/4 inch holes and the sides or tops of these posts have brackets that anchor into the vertical surface with 1/2 bolts with lead anchors that need 7/8 inch holes. I have a stone mason drilling the holes. I want to know how others would anchor this job and what mortar or epoxy would you use to fill and seal the holes around the posts into the first step. The stone is thick sandstone slab with big stone blocks on the verticals. No problem drilling. Mortar is currently black and I would like to keep the same look if possible. Is there a black mortar that has an epoxy base? I dont' want to make any mistakes on this one, not only is the piece a real work and top notch, its also a big show piece as it will be seen in the heart of town by thousand of passersby. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

A kitchen hood is not good enough. The volume of air mixed with combution gases is exponentially larger than what goes in so do your calculations carefully. See Boyles law on gases when heated. Dodge is right about watching the dragons breath, it can make the gases flow past your hood. Anecdotally I can tell you that my propane forge inside the main shop(we have three propane and two coal in various parts of the shop and under shed roofs outside) will heat up the building to 15 degrees above ambient in under an hour. Thats with door closed, almost that much with door open but fans off. Shop is 20x24 with open trusses from 8 foot wall at edge to 12 foot at center height. We keep the building drafty to allow for combustion gases and Vent with a 20 inch exhaust fan at the and a window or more open when we are working. There is a heat shield 5 feet high over the forge with 4 inch clearance between it and the wood trusses. This "deflector" keeps the wood from catching fire and was designed to be where the dragons breath meets the truss. Your mileage may vary