mandoro

Well I finnally hav come to my conclusion. I think it is the closest to the mild steel photos. It has the same spark pattern, there just aren't that many though. That may have something to do with the fact that I was doing it with an angle grinder? I dont have a bench grinder so yea. Thanks to everyone who helped me.

Ok, I finally performed a spark test on the bar. All I can say is that sparks were flying. The spark pattern was that of a "bushy-tail" sort of tail. Not sure what that means, but if there is anything else you need to know about the spark pattern I can tell you. As far as teh quench test I haven't dont that yet because I dont have enough charcoal. Imma fire up a batch tommorrow and hopefully get a test done by thursday.

It isn't the black weightlifting bar it is more like the shiny ones. I don't know if it is chrome plated or what. I hope this is mild steel as well though, will save me from having to buy some.

I have yet to perform the spark test because I dont have a grinder of any sort and my creative jucies for another way to test are out the window. I dont know how to do a quench test....so yea. I wasn't sure if there was a BP or not.

Well I have acquired a weightlifting bar that someone was going to scrap. It is rusted up and I was wondering what it is made of. Its one of the long weight bars you see in gyms that are used for bench press and whatnot. I took it in hopes of acquiring some good metal to work with.

practice is what I call it =P

I found out what they were. I saw the boss man today and asked him. He told me they were slick dowels. Apparently they are used where joints are located so that the concrete can expand and contract. Basically they are rebar without the ridges is what he told me. The measurements of them are 17" x 3/4" thick and weigh about 5 pounds each. I have about 40-50 of them in the back of my truck. On top of that my friend who helps me likes to sell junk metal so I let him get everything else. It ended up to be 820lbs of rebar and he got 47$ for it.

I dunno about the holes and I know for sure they weren't painted green. They were pretty rusted. What I do know is that I am allowed to take em! Its a happy day.

I went to an estate sale here as well. There wasn't much anything good, but I did find an 8lb mini-sledge. I now have a hammer heavy enough for the heavy work!

Sorry Jens but I don't I didn't have a camera and I didn't think quick enough. Dan, I know! Which is why I am jumping on this asap. You wouldn't believe the drool that came out of my mouth when I saw that bundle of metal. I didn't ask the above question as to rule the metal out, I asked to see what it is classified as so I know what I am getting my hands on so I don't misuse it.

At the construction site, I saw 1ft long metal rods about 1/2" - 1" thick laying in bundles. They looked pretty used, but since I had only asked about the wood I didn't take them. What kind of steel do you think they are? I didn't see any edges like rebar. Also, do you think he'd be willing to part with them? Xxxx he gave me access to about 10 2"x16' board plus smaller stuff

well if you are still wondering. I had a fan blower with the spout shaped like a 2x6 rectangle. If that makes and sense. Pipe is always round so I had to figure something out. Well I have a shop vac with alort of fitting for the hose and I have a fitting that goes from round to about that shape. It is now what I use. I know plastics are a no-no, but its works right now, I dont see why not.

Wow, I didn't know that. That now leaves virtually any metal to use for my projects. Thanks.

I was thinking about a few future projects I would like to do and they require metals that don't rust. I guess those projects could be considered ornamental so I would figure that wrought iron would be the metal of choice. Well, if I don't want to use wrought iron, what is there that I can put on metals to keep them from rusting.

Hmm, Im not sure about the embers cause I was running around the dang thing in shorts and a t-shirt trying to rake charcoal on the fire with a piece of brick. The flame on the other hand was orange/red most of the time with a small amount of blue. I thought I had enough air cause when I tried to light the paper/kindley it blew them around. There also were pieces flying up from the forge that were still hot, it looked like orange raindrops. I guess after I light it and get charcoal on it I need to turn the air up?

Well I have a lil squirrel cage fan. The reason i think I had too powerful of an air flow is because near the end when there were just really small pieces the air blew them off the center (where the air was coming from) and to the sides. The type of charcoal was natural charcoal made of cedar logs. pieces ranged from a 1/4" to an inch. Ill rig something up and see if it is the air or not.

Yea, I did have a bed of charcoal beneath the metal. It did heat the metal up, just slowly. As far as color of flames, I only saw blue flames and even those were sparse.

Well, despite my doubts the charcoal worked perfectly. It lit the paper, sticsk and got a few peieces hot and then all of a sudden it caight and started burning. I had my entire 14" dia and 7" deep brake drum full of charcoal and I think it only lasted 30-45 minutes. A problem I saw was that it didnt heat up my piece of metal too fast at all. I had a piece of like 1/2" steel pipe about 9" long and I was only able to heat and flatten about an inch of it. What can cause this problem? I think I had my air blowing too hard, but maybe yall know something I dont.

ok thanks yall. I actually have a propane torch here. Its what I use to start my fires for my charcoal making

Well Ive searched far and wide and I still havent found it. I dont know how to start a charcoal forge fire. I would assume that it would be the same as coal? I got a big piece of my charcoal and tried to light it and it wouldnt light without lighter fluid. I know you arent supposed to use lighter fluid for coal, but does that hold true for charcoal?

Thanks yall. Xxxx! I just came from home depot. It never occurred to me to look in the gardening section. How much was that bag IronPuppet? Ok, Ill check the phone book and see what I can find. Maybe ill get lucky.

Ok well, I know this isnt normal for this site, but for some reason my email is banned on backyardmetalcasting.com. Anywho, I was wondering what places would have the items in the title. I went to home depot and couldnt find them. I just need a category I can look up in the phone book.

Just out of curiosity would cedar and pecan wood do? I ask because here recently we cur off limbs of our cedar tree and pecan limbs fell off the pecan trees. Also, sometime in the future we are going to cut down the cedar tree to make room for the maple we planted.

Cool, thanks. Ill definantly look it up. I just finished my anvil stand and forge, so new project to start is always welcome.