Farmweld

Rockstar, reminds me of a comment from one of my old bosses. He always used to say he would give the really hard jobs to the laziest guy in the hangar and he would work out the quickest and easiest way to do it. Funny now when I think of the number of jobs he used to send my way.

Hi Darryl,

Sorry for the late reply, haven't been on here for a while.

I'll chase it up and get some in and get back to you once I've got it. Any chance of a PM with your email/mobile number and then we can arrange it all offline?

Andrew

On 5/21/2019 at 7:21 AM, ausfire said:

I googled all the steel suppliers in Adelaide and square bar starts at 10mm in every case. If you know of anywhere in Australia I can find some I would appreciate the link. Surely someone is importing some 6mm.

I got mine through Southern Steel Supplies. I can check with them who they buy it from but I know they had it in stock a month ago.

If all else fails I can cut some down to 1m lengths and post it up to you. A quick check with the online calculator says I can get 10m to you for about $30 - $35 and the cost of the stock is  $10. Let me know if you want some.

Andrew

I agree with Frosty, break it up smaller. The coke you have there would be OK if your forge was twice the size and you could mound it up more to get more of a coke oven effect, but you would need to be working big stock to justify a fire that big.

Andrew

Hi Ausfire,

Can't remember where I got that lot from as it was about a year ago and I tend to order from whoever can give me the cheapest price. There are a heap of different suppliers in Adelaide who all bag each other and trade amongst themselves all the time so you have to play them off against each other to get the best price.

Galv pipe I will always buy from Orrcon as they have an aussie product which is electroplated rather then dipped and its a lot better to weld, bugger all fumes/smoke and spatter. The rolling mills in the eastern states mainly produce pipe and RHS/SHS, Whyalla rolls rail and heavy sections. Most of the black steel in Australia in the smaller sizes is imported so your dealer just needs to shop around, someone will have it.

On 4/19/2019 at 7:02 AM, ausfire said:

Any of you guys know where I can source 6mm square bar?? 

Hi Ausfire,

Tell them to do a bit more shopping around because we can get all those sizes in Adelaide no problems so they are still making them. If all else fails I can probably get some and ship it up to you but freight from SA to Cairns is not going to be cheap. I suppose I could cut some down to 1m lengths and post it up!

Maybe I'll have to attempt to take some time off and come for a drive with steel and coke in the back of the truck.

Andrew

A couple of snakes I made a while ago when I was given some 32mm rebar. both are about 1500mm long and I made the flat one first as a "what can I do with this exercise". The wearable one was made next because my son wanted something he could wander around with and scare people. He (the snake) has had his picture taken with lots of people since.

I just had a commission from a customer to build a handrail for their backyard pool. They supplied a picture of what they liked that they had found online and I had to modify the design to suit their requirements.

I started with 2700mm of 50x25 solid flat and drew the end out over 1750mm to about 50x5mm and then fish tailed the end to start the scroll. This picture is half way through when I had the basic shape and the short end made as well.

I made up the base out of 10mm plate plasma cut to suit and formed and then welded the whole lot together. Finished product (minus the mounting frame) on the wall outside the workshop. The spike under the front is to stop it tipping over.

Had the whole lot hot dipped and now I have to paint it. Here it is on a pallet after being hot dipped.

I'll post some more pictures after it has been painted and installed

Andrew

And parts of it may once have been, not sure what it is now.

Andrew

I love that candle holder, very simple but elegant, already thinking of ways to put my own spin on it. It would be easier to forge out of 300mm of 20x10mm than 150mm of 20mm square though, same material volume just starting stock closer to finished size. Is this allowed under the rules or do you have to use square stock?

Andrew

I used a textured spring swage and twist techniques as suggested by Thomas above to make these door handles. Four 12mm round bars for the main part and a fair bit of sweat twisting them up using an Oxy/Acc with a heating tip. I cheated with the leaves and grapes using pre-made components but it looked alright in the end. I would have liked to make my own but I was already pushing the customers price point as it was.

On 11/18/2018 at 12:47 AM, arftist said:

Hi Andrew. I have only dealt with 2 of these gates. 

I replaced a lot of wrought with mild steel.

Most of the welds were made with 6011, if I were able to leave enough steel studs sticking out of the cast iron.

If I had to weld to the cast iron,  I used silicon bronze applied with a TIG torch.

Also, where I had to repair the spear points, I welded it with TIG silicon bronze.

Hi Arftist,

We do a line of replicas of the old cast jointed field gates that used to be available in Australia. I get a local foundry to make the castings up for me (took ages to get enough good old castings to make molds from) and then we tack them together using a pure nickel MIG wire (who says you can't MIG cast iron). Once that is done we use a Oxy/Acc metal powder spray torch to weld the whole lot together using a pure nickel powder. Expensive as but the best way I have found yet to get them to stick together well without melting the castings. Tried bronzing but it took too long and the welds looked too "blobby" when finished. The pure nickel powder tends to wick into the joint really well and actually looks fairly close to the original castings. All that aside these are still not as strong as the original cast joints but I don't have the skills necessary to run my own foundry. Maybe one day, after I finish all the other things I want to do first.

Andrew

Aus,

Perhaps try turning it around and flatten the wrought bar and put holes in it for the screw mounts and use the casting as the detail on the coat hook. Not as fancy as a nice scroll finial but you get to use the piece anyway and the casting definitely won't punch through a coat or hat.

Andrew

Hi Ausfire,

I have seen a couple of bedheads and gates with joints like this that have cracked and in most cases the bar or pipe has been cut with a mechanical shear which distorts the end of the material and provides a "key" into the casting. They were made by cutting all the pipe/solid to length, bolting molds around each joint and then pouring in the cast iron to make up the joint. You won't have much chance getting them apart short of melting the cast iron.

I've restored a heap of the cast jointed gates over the years and there was a period just after WW2 when a heap were made with pipe that didn't have the seam welded. As soon as I see that I tell the customer to junk it because it doesn't matter how many coats of paint are on the outside it is guaranteed to be rusted out internally.

Your best bet might be to grind the ends smooth and then bend them up cold as the wrought should be fairly ductile compared to steel the same size.

Regards

Andrew

Yes I've made something similar to that. It was a slider for a speedway bike rider. Strapped onto the bottom of his left boot so he could slide his foot and keep the bike up.

Interesting thought - do speedway riders in the northern hemisphere ride clockwise or anticlockwise like water going down the plug?

Andrew

Ironfest 2018

I might be able to get there from SA si I'm wondering if there will be anyone from here - there?

Trying to sort out my itinery as it will take me about 13.5  hrs drive time and being in a light truck I need some weight in the back to even out the ride. I didn't particularly want to bring all of my forge gear because I want to go see my sister in Melbourne afterwards and leaving a lot of gear in the back of a truck is asking for it to be nicked. I can bring bags of coke if anyone wants them and that will help pay some of the costs.

Otherwise I just hope to see some people there!

Andrew

PS: I emailed Craig but haven't got a reply yet, probably due to easter. Can you camp on the grounds as well?

At that price they area lot cheaper than the AU$200ish I am paying for steel cap boots, but they only go to a size 12. (Sigh) Some days I really hate having big feet

Andrew

New to me as I only picked it up on Friday.

John Heine model 86 A S, 915mm/3' throat, 250mm/10" stroke. The whole thing is nearly five and a half feet tall and a quick google seems to show it has a six ton rating. Now all I have to do is work out where to mount it up and make some tooling for it.

Andrew

Hi Ausfire, neat way of getting charcoal and cleaning up the bush a bit.

Not sure what trees grow like in other parts of the world but the bigger Australian gum trees (Eucalypts) tend to grow like this.  This one is in the southeast of South Australia and is one of the larger examples but should give you the idea.  A more extreme example is the Herbig family tree at Springton which was used as a house for quite a few years.

Once they get above a certain size the white ants (termites) get stuck into them and eat the centres out leaving the living and growing outer to keep doing its thing. Some of them are hundreds of years old and up to 80' tall around here so what you end up with is a really big hollow tube lined with combustible wood, perfect for making charcoal.  Once a bushfire lights up the inside it turns into a really big roman candle that will burn for days. The other problem is the fire can smoulder underground along a root run for weeks before popping up and re-igniting the fire.

One fire I attended as a volunteer fire fighter there was about 40 of these lovely stately old gums all candled up along a gulley and the only way we could put them out was to bring in a Cat D9 and push them all over. The property owner was really xxxxxx off because the fire was lit by an arsonist and he lost a lot of crop as well as the beautiful old trees. We spent about ten hours driving around putting out piles of sheep and cattle manure which also smoulder for ages if left.

Andrew

TP: (in a nice reference to the other TP, Terry Pratchett)

"Ah, you have an Igor"

" Yeth Marthter"

Andrew

Whatever age it is it still worked well yesterday when a few people came overforan afternoon play.

Pictures of the mousehole

Got it mounted on a stand, gave it a good going over with a cup brush and still no sign of any stamps and I think it ticks all the boxes for "robust body, small sharp feet, small horn are all features you are looking for in an *old* anvil". I carefully took the mushroomed edge back until I hit supported metal so that should help stop the edge beaking any further and then got some metal hot and gave it a workout.  Lots of rust puffing off with each blow and then the face started to come clean. Nice to get an old tool working again and thankyou to all the gentlement who have contributed to this thread.

Andrew

PS: I have a mousehole as well, 250# SOHO pattern with only one hardy hole in the heel end

Thankyou both for your replies, that makes it near 200 years old, and its still going strong.  I'm planning to get stuck into it with the cup brush again and see if I can find some makers marks to try and identify it. There are some dings that could be stamped letters amongst the chisel marks but a couple of coats of paint are in the way.  I'll post if I find anything.

Andrew

Hi All,

The main reason I ask the question is because I picked up an anvil to add to the collection and as you can see it doesn't have a pritchel hole. I'm mainly trying to work out the age/period it was made more than the maker.

It was buried amongst the floor stock in a second hand/antiques shop and was shown to me by one of the assistants after I did a small blacksmithing job for her (TPAAT at work). It is well used and the edge of the deck has been mushroomed so I may have to grind that off to stop any more damage to the deck.  Otherwise it is in good condition for its age. A good work over with a cup brush has failed to make any makers marks or weight stamps distinguishable but it does weight in at 340#. It looks more like a Wilkinson or Attwood shape than the other english makers bit it could have been made by an one of over a hundred makers.

Anyone want to take a guess?

Andrew

Das,

I just wrap the socket as they are pretty much one off giveaway items. If someone wants matched sets to go on arrows you need to be a bit more technical and try to get them identical with the weight of each head the same but I call that a commission and do it at home.

Another source of material for snakes is small reo rod (or big if you want an ongoing project but it can be hard work if you get a high carbon bit). 6-8mm works well for small ones and I went mad and forged some 32mm out to about 1m long, very hard work but they look good when finished.

An SCA member who does some work for me occasionally also makes "portable holes", basically a tent peg with a couple of bits of 25nb pipe welded on to hold standard/flag poles.  He makes them out of 12mm square about 350/400mm long with a point to hammer into the ground, loop on the top to pull them out, and a twist between the two pipe sockets. Sockets are welded on about 100/150mm apart. You need to make them up beforehand but he seems to sell heaps every time he goes.

Andrew