Michael

Oktoberfest is the California Blacksmith Association's fall gathering, about 2 hours north of San Francisco. On site camping, demonstrators (Daniel Miller this year) and open forges (courtesy of the Education Committee) till midnight friday and Saturday, tools for sale, breakfast lunch and dinner.

I'll be there! Loading up the car after I get the family off to work and school. Last year was my first one, came home inspired after meeting smiths for the first time. I'll keep an eye out for you Clinton.

I started out bolting 1/2 inch square legs right to the brake drum. Then a more stable plant stand for a while, I was able to add a couple of diamond plate shelves on either side of that. Stumbled onto a steel service cart, about 18 x36, cut a hole in that and bolted the brake drum to it, that set up worked really well.

If you have access to materials to get your brake drum into some sort of a table with a raised edge or lip, I'd say go for that setup.

I hope the fishing was good Clinton, I saw the ad on CL on a thursday, and was a little surprised the stuff was still there on Saturday. Lousy pics might have had something to do with it.

the parting lines and the upraised columbian mark on the vise made me think it was cast. I don't recall ever seeing a marked post vise, but my experience bank is small on that front. Someone did a decent job replacing the bracket and spring.

Everything was painted with a thick coat of motor oil, spent a couple of hours cleaning it all off. Forge table is HEAVY, have to figure the best location for it and move it once! I've been burning charcoal in a brake drum forge, but I may have to switch to coal now, but I'll probably start a charcoal test fire just to see how a real firepot with the clinker breaker works.

got very lucky with a craigslist ad about a half hour from home. Cast iron forge with a newer Centaur fire pot, Tiger (never seen this brand before) forge blower on a stand, and a smaller cast Columbian vise.

Grand total $50. Couldn't be happier. Some major rearranging of the patio smithy is in order.

Yeah, barrel tool from driving hoops was my first thought, but I've not seen one of those handled like a set tool. Tool is too hard to file without annealing. Next time I fire up the forge I'll anneal it, file it back into shape and give it a shot. Double decorative lines, have to think about where on my work that would go.

Picked up at an estate sale this weekend, no other smithing tools save a couple of big coil springs. My first thought was 'creasing tool', the end seems abused, skates the file right off.

For forging a decorative groove on hot metal, maybe collars?

Thank you,

I use charcoal a lot and a fair amount of wetting is necessary to keep the sparks down. I find the longer I work the more of that "devils popcorn" the pea sized bits of glowing charcoal, tend to accumulate and spill out. The type of wood the charcoal was derived from seems to make a difference as well. Mesquite is by far the worst! I've had good luck with Cowboy Brand charcoal, which seems to be made of building material scraps.

garage sale a dog*s walk away on Sunday (thanks Yardsaletreasuremap.com) yielded 2 full cans of MAPP gas (the pre 2008 stuff) for a buck, and with the wife and kid back to school shopping, I got to fire up the mini gas forge and pound hot metal for a couple of hours.

With the forge on the metal cart on one side of the anvil and me on the other, spent a good 3+ hours hammering away. Here*s where I ran into the 4 inch wide problem, attempting a corkscrew handle just a bit wider than the forge.

and the results of the afternoon, couple of ugly nails. I*m sure the fourth one would have looked nice, they spotlight the non symetrical nature of my nail header, have to work on that.

Dragonfly necked down between the head and the wings, modified the guillotine fuller tool with a hard steel pin instead of a nail for a pivot. Now it necks down the metal instead of cutting the pivot nail. Still need to spread and split the wings, another narrow forge problem.

Bottle opener (another one) came out a bit rough on the hook end, but at least it fit in the forge!

Michael-frightening the neighbors since the year Four.

I seem to recall a tale of cleaning chainmail that involved putting the finished mail item into a small barrel with measure of sand and water, then sealing up the barrel and having a serf roll it around the courtyard of the castle to derust the mail. Modern equivalent might be a 5 gallon bucket with lid rolling around in the back of a pickup truck.

YMMV

I've also been using an american pattern scythe to cut the grass, Really long in the backyard, just sprouting in the front.
Looking for a hand powered edger to finish up the job. The lovely wife doesn't balk at my using grim reaper tools to mow the front
lawn, but thinks pulling out the electric weedwacker to do the edging is wrong, just wrong.

short vid of working my back yard with the scythe

The type of earplugs that are connected by a flexy band under your chin have the added advantage of not coming in contact with your grubby fingers, transferred the grubby ness to the insides of your ears!

I work on a 104 lb PW under a sheet metal patio cover. Often I'll use earplugs AND earmuffs.

I've also got overalls for forging. Blue denim for forging, Carrhart style brown for yard and real dirty under the house work. The lovely wife asked when I started wearing them if I was worried about burning holes in that 'nice new pair of overalls', told her where we live isn't rural enough to justify having a nice set of overalls, but someday, a place in the mountains, neighbors well out of earshot, I may end up living in my Carrharts.

I'm so sorry for your loss, every parent's worst fear.

Sincere and heartfelt condolences.

Definitely a bigger stack is in order, I'm running 8 inch and it really should be 10 inch. If nothing else, remove that narrow dryer hose at the top of the stack.

Neat blower drive, very cool, fabricate that big flywheel and hanger yourself?

I like the handle, the lack of a hook or hole (unless I missed it)

Marshmellow forks I made get stashed next to the fireplace, their carefully hammered hooks unused.

Nice work.

Great tip on the 2x4! I measured the cubicle walls before I left today and whadayaknow, 3.5 inches! Any wings?

Thanks, I'll see what I can come up with.

I made a dragon headed cubical hook, (hangs on a cubical wall to hold a coat---spiraled tail on one side for the coat dragon head on the other)

Thanks for all the info on the shear use. Now I can add sheet steel to the list of scrap that catches my eye.

Hmm..hinges...

I just found this yesterday at a garage sale for $40. Had to undo the lags holding it to the bench with slipjoint pliers, no wrenches left in this garage! So far I've been playing like a kid with those fancy scrapbook scissors, cutting shapes, trying different gages of sheet, this thing makes scrapers out of trashed sawblades like nobodies business.

From the interwebs I get its the smallest Beverly Shear, a B1 and the product specs say 14 gage mild, 18 gage stainless, but can I cut bar stock with this? The blades should be hi carbon, can a shear handle hot work? I do have a couple of sheet metal projects in the pipeline, and the B1 doesn't take up much space.

I'm wondering is there a blacksmithing application for this tool(Latch plates maybe?) and any advice on how not to mess it up? I've seen one or two at the flea market that were abused into boat anchors and left to rust.

Thanks,

Michael-loving a cool new/old tool

There's probably something wrong with the way I do this, but in my charcoal burning brake drum forge, I'll often let it burn down as I'm getting to the end of a working session, using the last couple handfuls of charcoal to slightly tweak my shapes and heat up work for the application of wax and shellac, or to even out the overall heated look of the iron.

Left to its own devices, charcoal pretty much all burns up unless I wet it all down or shovel the still hot coals into a bucket of water, so I just let it do what it wants to do and have a mostly clean forge to come back to.

I have drenched the whole fire to put it out if I need to stop and leave, and the cast iron brake drum hasn't cracked...yet.

I've been using galvanized buckets for slack tubs. Just picked up a $4 galvanized mop bucket at a garage sale, a little bigger, and oval shaped, than the 1 gallon bucket I've been using. Good idea to raise it up off the ground.

Hey Phil, Thanks for the right hand math link. with a little practice it'll work better than the 'keep a lefty by the forge and do it the other way' method I've been using. The spiral is a direct lift from Hofi's method. I usually keep the screw nice and tight when I'm forging the handle, then the last step to is to heat the screw to orange and pull it straight forward by the tip, then cut it off and sharpen.

Got a little forge time the last 3 day weekend we had. Managed to crank out a couple more corkscrews of a style I started last fathers day. I have to figure out memory reminder to get the screws going in the correct direction, half the time I mess up and make a left handed corkscrew. Tried to bend the handle shape around a wooden mandrel, that didn't work, I might try making a jig with bolts as pins to bend the handle around. In the meantime, I THINK i've got the bending sequence over the horn worked out.

in the upper right of the pic is what I think might have been a shaft that had roller bearings on each end. $3 at the junk store, it makes a pretty good drift for bottle openers, spanning the size between my largest punch and the anvil horn.

I also work under sheet metal roofing and walls and the high pitched noise is a bit much. Plywood wouldn't be all that bad noise wise. Also considering a small dedicated smithy leanto/shed. I was thinking of lining sheathing it with cement board. Fire proof, and anything would be quieter than the sheet metal. Hearing protection via the in ear plugs that are connected by a flexible band under the chin. They go in your ears without contacting your fingers, keeps your ears cleaner.