Michael

I've read, somewhere, that if you ever find square sectioned weights in the pile of cast sash weights, those are wrought. That said, a couple years of picking thru scrap piles has never turned up a single square sectioned sash weight.

I've had a few of those sharpening steel punches bend a little bit, but nothings ever snapped on me. I do the usual 2 hits then knock it out and cool it off. Usually I lube these with coal dust. Probably annealed just in use.

I've been using sharpening steels as punches for a while now. Usually a dollar or less when piled in the flea market box with the knives, forks and other kitchen stuff. Cut the handle off and a nice hard steel punch.

this one only took about 2 hours.

Lessons learned,

1- much easier to work on the end of a long bar, just not so long that when working around the tip of the horn, the bar stock hits the ground!

2-When center punching the bar end to mark where the punch will register, half the thickness of the bar from the bar end is good, a full thickness leaves too much material at the end of the ring

3-before half punching the "tooth" inside the ring, make sure all the surfaces are smooth/rounded to avoid cold shuts on the tooth

4-Keep BEER in the house before making beer openers you IDIOT!!

Michael

I also have a brake drum firepot. Cutouts on opposite sides weren't that hard to do in Cast iron with and angle grinder. I find that for a charcoal fire, the standard 4 inch depth is a little shallow for welding, its hard to get out of the oxidizing part of the fire without piling on the charcoal. I think 6 or 8 inches deep would be better for a charcoal fire.

Here's one I did a couple weeks ago. 2nd attempt, first one I didn't punch squarely and the ring broke while shaping it. Ran out of time (had to pick up the kid) before I could punch lanyard hole or forge a hook on the gripping end end. Next one I'll try making from a RR spike.

I make a lot of these, once the families keys are all set they tend to end up as zipper pulls on jackets and back packs. Hardly get a forging session in that doens't include yet another leaf keyring.

Michael

Thanks for all the support, I Knew an opener was a good idea. Got a couple orders from friends who want them.

Long post, mostly for the old tools list, alot of this will be old hat to the smiths on this forum.

Figuring everyone has had enough of my S-hooks, J-hooks and leaf keyrings, I began my second attempt at a bottle opener. First attempt is not worth discussing.

Carefully hot cut a square end on some half inch bar stock from a prior keyring, tossing the scrap into the slack bucket and marked a half inch from the end on both sides with a center punch. Getting a good orange heat, I drove a tapered square punch (made from a tire iron) from both sides on my center punch marks. Cooling the punch in a little can of water and remembering to wipe the water off on my pant leg so as not to cool the hot bar too much, took about 3 heats to get through, and between punching heats I was carefully flattening the section I

I burn charcoal in a brake drum forge and just for fun a few months ago, I tossed the grill from the weber on the forge, fired up the blower and threw on the cheapest steak from the market. Took a total of 4 minutes to sear the outside and cook the interior to a nice medium. and for such a cheap, fatty piece of meat it tasted pretty good, much better than I would have expected. Interestingly as I cut the meat to check the interior, I could see juices try to flow out and be seared back into the meat. tasty, though I doubt you could cook a rare steak that way.

Very nice, I like the use of the leaf on the other end of the stock. Is this a rolled rose or did you start with seperate sheet petals?

I toss all the little pieces, chunks and off cuts from when I square off stock, like the tapered left over after I cut off a leaf, into the slack tub/bucket. I was using a big washtub, but the addition of a buffalo forge blower on a stand took up too much room in my corner of the patio. Now I've got a galvanized bucket for a slack tub. I'd like to find something a little bigger, maybe kind of oblong shaped.

But the scrap too small to for much else goes in the bottom of slack bucket.

I love working with charcoal but have found that my brake drum forge isn't really deep enough for welding. Even piled high I've got maybe 5 inches from tuyere to the top of the fire. the brake drum has an enclosed rim around the inside, currently looking for some 3 or 4 inch wide stock to make a fence so I can pile the charcoal higher.

I do a leaf as practice just about every forging session. the wife still keeps one of my earliest, clunkiest ones on her keychain. I've got a few as zipper pulls on my backpack, the kid has absconded with a few of those as well.

the one with the saw tooth edges was done by driving the threads of a bolt into the sides of the leaf blank while hot, haven't had much luck duplicating that trick.

Michael

My stand has been evolving over time, originally sections fo 2x12, bolted together with allthread and staggered to make little pockets for tools, then I wrapped the base with 2x4 to make it a little less tippy. Newest mod is the addition of a baking sheet tray under the anvil cause it seems like I'm always looking for a place to put the hot cut, bending fork and soapstone. I pulled the plumbers tape that was holding the 104#PW down, forged a couple of staples out of quarter inch round, glued down the tray with silicone, then glued the anvil to that and drove the staples thru the tray into the wooden stand. Haven't had a chance to try it out yet, but I think it'll work out well.

Michael

So on the way to do some errands with the family, we drive past a garage sale. The seller is barking *real garage sale prices, two dollars for that hatchet*, said *hatchet* springs into my hand as if of its own volition, there to stay.

Then the seller says *I will make you a deal on that cart, two dollars!*. Now, I've been looking for a metal table of some sort as the basis for the MkII forge. Something waist high, about 2 foot by 3 foot or thereabouts. Maybe with a shelf. I've looked at plant stands and patio furniture, I've lusted after metal mesh cafe tables, scoured restaurant recycling stores and considered wheeling hospital furniture away under cover of darkness. This cart is waist height 18x30 inch sheet steel, heavy wide casters, quarter inch steel rod welded all around the perimeter and two bucks to boot, I could have plotzed right there. So I'm four dollars in, but having a five in the wallet, I grab from the ground a couple of V Blocks, about 4 x inches, and an inch and a quarter thick, square bottomed V groove in one long side, marked Eclipse-made in England and E 106 on the flat next to the V. I suspect they are a larger version of the little one inch V block I used to hold round things that need holes drilled in them.

Five bucks and I'm glad I had both the wife and the mini van, the cart just fit in the back,
the V blocks chocked the wheels to keep them from rolling around and we were off, I don't think we were at the sale 10 minutes.


Michael

Thanks for the compliment. Don't know how much different it is yet, the purchase of the blower inspired a rearranging of the whole smithing set up. So far, all I've done is a couple of small fires with shavings to test out the blower after the rearrange, but the air supply is AWESOME!! Just a nudge of the blower handle and I've got a good draft, I may have to be gentle.

The forge downtime gave me a chance to try a couple of things I've been meaning to do, clay the forge for one. Not for any thermal insulation, just to try and get a more bowl shaped in the brake drum firepot, the ridges in the bottom have been a minor PITA. The first layer cracked in a very uniform manner, the ring of clay separating around the circumferance, last night another layer in the gaps and it looks good, might work, might not. Also drilled the side of the brake drum for a U shaped rod that will act as a shelf/tong rack, and put a section of fireplace screen in the smokestack to act as a spark arrestor.

Hopeing to get a little hammering in this weekend.

Here's my little corner of the covered patio. Just swapped the electric squirrel cage for a Buffalo forge 300 Blower. 104 lb PW on a wooden stand, rod stock bent to fit in the VW Bug gets hung over nails in the patio roof framing . Post vise bolted to a 2x8 that's bolted to the woodshop wall. Bucket for a slack tub. The tiny MAPP gas forge is on steel plant stand to the left. Cement board behind the brake drum forge to protect the wooden shop wall.

About 8 feet on a side is the part of the patio that I use.

Michael-Frightening the neighbors since the year Four

When I first saw this post I wondered if he meant the Brand Name Wolf Jaw tongs.

Centaur Forge-Wolf's Jaw Tongs

which to my knowledge have grooves cut in both axis of the jaws to allow holding of work in both directions.

Hooligan, you mention that the buffalo blowers were meant to be filled with oil, not the Champion's. I just got my hands on a Buffalo 300 blower and while I can put oil in it, if I filled the gear reservoir, it would certainly drip out from right behind the fan casing for a while.

How full of oil are these meant to be and is there some sort of a seal or gasket that I need to replace/fabricate.

Thanks, I'm very much looking forward to getting away from the squirrel cage blower on the forge.

Michael

Thanks for all the replies guys. I ended up getting the smithy area of the patio about half rearranged, and went with a left side placement of the blower just cause that was easier than unbolting the post vise and finding a new place for that. A stand for that is in the works too. The guy who fab'ed the stand for this blower was either much shorter than me or had much longer arms, have to adjust the handle a bit I think.

Hoping to get some smithing time this weekend so I can try the blower out.

I was just going to turn the whole forge around but then the 3rd leg would stick out to where I'm usually standing. cutting the bolts holding it in the stand will give me a chance to drill a couple more holes in the rim so I can put some shelves out of rod on either side of the brake drum (next forge will absolutely have a table).

Hammer left huh? think I'll bring out the old pre anvil chunk of I beam while I learn a bit of southpaw hammer control.

Thanks for the responses.

Michael

OK so now I have a decent blower on a stand, and on most of the forges I've seen its set up the crank with the left hand for a right handed smith, of which I am one. i've been using a squirell cage blower for about 4 yrs now, it and its electric switch are on the right and the 2 inch tweer piping under the forge has pretty much rusted into a right sided configuration.

So, I can massively rearrange my forge set up, cut the drum out of its stand and reverse it, move the anvil to make space for the blower to use with my left hand and while I was pondering this the lovely wife pipes in with 'well, don't you use your left hand to hold the tongs?' She has a point, the right hand is tending the fire but the left is holding the tongs and a right side placement of the blower, would let me crank right handed and stop when its time to pick up the hammer.

So where's your blower, and how do you use it, lefty or righty?

Thanks,

Michael-frightening the neighbors since the year Four.

Lazzari Fuel Company, P.O. Box 34051, San Francisco, CA 94134

Physical Address: Lazzari Fuel Company, 11 Industrial Way, Brisbane, CA 94005

Telephone: 415-467-2970 or 800-242-7265

$21 for a 50 lb bag of good coking blacksmithing coal

on the way home from the Alameda Flea Market, really so convenient that I couldn't NOT stop by, I followed up on a craigslist post about an estate sale that just barely mentioned blacksmithing tools. The guy there was cleaning out his grandfathers shop, filled with boxes since the last 1940*s. He shows me the back of the garage smithy, big rivet forge with blower, another Buffalo Forge #300 blower on a pipe stand, post drill, anvil, grinders, tongs, big pipe vise inside and out, piles of hammers, drifts, and other steel tools, including a plane or two. Time and finances allowed me to grab only the BF blower and a nice pair of tongs. but I told him I'd let other smiths know about what he has there, he SAID he didn't want to sell his grandfathers's anvil, but when I said I paid $300 for my 104 lb PW, his expression changed.
andy, 925/323-2134