Farmweld

Yep, hang them fore and aft! edit: xxxx, I forgot to quote the post above this one first to give context

Getting a dose of tendonitis tends to give you a VERY BIG warning that your hammer technique is not sorted. Ignore it at your own peril. Same applies for pain in your neck, shoulders, upper back, lower back (nominate any part of the body here). If it hurts, STOP, and work out why, then work out how to work around it while that part heals, or otherwise just stop until it heals while you work it out, and don't do it again. I'm missing the middle finger finger on my dominant hand and the index finger doesn't bend because of the same accident, so my hammer grip is with the thumb, ring and little finger of that hand. I use a variety of hammers from >2lb to 8lb in that hand and have fairly good control (though it looks like crap on seeing a video of myself) and the main problem I have is my forearm pumping up. Learn good technique and you don't need any more than that. Andrew

I had a steel tuyere similar to what you have welded up and the worst problem I had was that whenever I had a big fire running in it it would start eating the sides of the tuyere. Mine was 10mm plate backed with sand and I managed to burn one side out after about three months of firing it up 2-3 times a week. The mild steel plate doesn't seem to have the longevity when it is in direct contact with the fire. I have another forge that has a 10mm Bisalloy plate in the bottom of it and that doesn't seem to be affected by the fire at all. Let us know how you get on with your forge after you have used it for a while. Andrew

Pretty difficult for rust to cover any metal coatings as they are a sacraficial coating to stop rusting, ergo, if the metal is rusty the coating is gone. Like Larry H said, if it's that old it's probably wrought iron. Andrew

I'd like to chime in on this subject. A couple of months ago I asked a similar question about course notes/testing criteria/etc and didn't get much in the way of responses, so be it. I can understand where Dale is coming from as our little group in South Australia has been trying to come up with some sort of training curriculum for the people that want to join up and learn blacksmithing. We have been trying to nut out a set of course notes that we can hand to people before they start and they will then know what they are going to be taught and by what criteria they will be expected to perform to to show they have learnt the lesson. Frosty's list quoted below is a comprehensive list of basic skills which every blacksmith "should" know. "1st. tier or basic, course. Learn all the basic skills of blacksmithing, fire managment, forging functions, bending, piercing, cutting, punching, drifting, tool steel includes, heat management during forging, heat treating, dressing, finishing and use. All joinery including welding." I'd love to see the course notes that Frosty hands out and a description of the criteria he uses to judge whether someone has learn each basic skill and can perform it competently. Or does that start to blend into his second tier quoted below. "2nd. tier or intermediate, involves putting techniques together consistently. For instance I hand them a leaf coat hook similar to the one they made in basic and their job is to make four just like it, looks, size, weight and finish. Not identical but alike enough they'd look RIGHT on a finished board on the wall by a upscale front door. Sets of built up items, say four fire tool sets with stands. mailbox stands are favorites, it goes on. They get to make themselves a chisel set or punch set, or.. . I allow leeway in what they make so long as they can maintain consistency in product form, quality, finish, etc." We have many people who are really only interested in learning a couple of the basic skills to do the little projects they want to do, we have others who want to learn everything (usually in a four hour workshop), and some who come along and spend more time talking than hitting metal. We try to accomodate everyone but it would be nice? to be able to award someone who has attained a level of competency the recognition that they have done so. This begs the question of who judges their competency, by what criteria they are judged, and who judges the judges? The European Guild system had that pretty well sorted out but it is not recognised or doesn't recognise anyone not trained in Europe, and setting up an Australian Guild is out of the question for a lot of reasons. Finally from Frosty we have, "Advanced? got me, I've never taken let alone passed an advanced course. Most of my kids are up to learning whatever they need, I've given them the tools they need, it's up to them to use them." Which would probably equate to the "Master" designation before a trade in the Guild system. Hard to make it relevant under todays conditions but there are a lot of blacksmiths, including many who are on this list, who are recognised as "Master" Blacksmiths whether they want the designation or not due to their skill level and years of experience. I too have met some who claim to be "Master" Blacksmiths and have not been impressed with the person or their level of skill, I've met others who humbly claim no accolade but have an incredible depth of knowledge and skill, and are prepared to share it. Personally I'm mainly self taught, but have been told I do good work, and I attempt to teach others all I can. I would like to be able to quantify the criteria by which I teach others and make sure it is comparable to some sort of standardised curiculum, hence my interest in this subject. Andrew Hood

Thanks all for the feedback again. The design work is done by Trish, my wife and partner, who has a lot better eye for design than I do. I'm learning slowly though. I just have to interpret the drawings into something that works, which has caused the occasional argument in the past when fine elements will not support the weight involved. She also got a plasma cutter for her last birthday and has been cutting out her own designs. Checkout the Farmweld facebook http://www.facebook.com/Farmweld page for a couple she put up recently Time so far is about 28 - 30 hours. I cheated with the bulk of the scrolls and made a jig, which took a quite a while to get tweaked to 'just right', and then it only took about three hours to do the 16 scrolls in the body. The topper took about 12 hours as it is pretty well all hand done. The rest of the time was cutting metal for the frame and assembling the whole lot, and then align, measure, adjust, measure, stand back and look, adjust, measure, contemplate some more, commit, cut, tack, measure, (swear), adjust, WELD, decide that a blind man would be glad to see the glaring errors, cut form and fit the collars, get a hernia trying to lift it off the bench, prop it up and take a photo. Trish also worked the photo magic to convert it from colour to B&W, mainly because the photo off the phone was pretty washed out, and the above was the end result. Andrew

Thanks for the feedback. Finished product will be powdercoated, black from memory. I've still go tot go through and tidy up some dodgy welds, de-splatter the whole thing, tweak some of the scrolls etc. I should have put the dimensions in, it's about 7' (2.1m) tall and just under 4'6" (1.4m) wide and the final weight was around 160# (75kg). Thank god for a gantry. Andrew

Just got this gate finished to the cleanup stage. The customer decided on bits of the design which I personally am not sure about, but it's what they wanted. Too many balls in it for me.

Really nice. How do you get those really nice colours?

Hi Woody, It was a combination of all three. Once the packing and valve train were right it would lift itself up but then I had to shim the swing out stop so that it sat on the sweet spot where it would lift. It's still a bit variable as to how much it lifts when cold but after working for a while it seems to lift all the way up fairly consistantly. Andrew

Hi Woody, Welcome to the Massey owners club, the serial no. on my 2CWT is 1449 so its a bit older, and smaller, than yours. I had a similar problem with mine, no low pressure hold up, and solved it by following a couple of steps. Repack the stuffing box glands using a kevlar based packing. Not difficult but it is heavy. Take note of where everything is positioned and if you do need to drop the piston out make sure the rings go back on the positioning pins properly when refitting. JohnN or Moony should be able to reccomend someone close to you for the packing. While you've got it in bits check everything for wear so you don't have to do it later. Pull the valve spindle and check all the measurements/tolerances, taking bloody careful note of everything before you pull it to pieces and don't drop anything in the sump. Most of the measurements can be done without disassembling the spindle. Mine had excessive end float over the whole length of the spindle and I had to file a washer and put it under the top nut to tighten it up. By the sounds of it this could be the problem with yours as mine didn't so much vibrate as "click" (I'm assuming it was the valves) in low pressure hold up and just tup about 10mm or so. Once everything is as it should be you will need to shim the swing out stop so it picks up properly. The other thing I did was put the anvil/hammer at 45 degrees so I could feed really long bits through, but that was for my workshop settup. Regards Andrew

I've just got back onto the computer for the first time in a couple of days so thanks for all the advice and the saga did continue. I got the shits trying to work with it yesterday and decided to try and fix it. Shut down the forge, unbolted the covers and dragged out the measuring gear. Start with the measurements on the top, all good except I have 4mm more travel between hold down and hold up than I should have, worry about it later. Pull the spindle and work my way down that, quickly work out that the only ones I can alter are the ones between the blocks and they are altering themselves as there is about 1mm slop below the pegged nut on the top. I adjusted the top valve back to where it was originally and then set to work filing a washer to get rid of the slop. I got that done and it all fits together snug with the valves still able to rotate and everything where it should be according to the measurements. Re-install the spindle and check the top measurements again, full work is back where it was and I now have 5mm extra on the hold up, nothing I can adjust there. Fire the beast up and see how it goes Low pressure hold up has the hammer tupping about 20mm but not lifting, ease down on the lever and the hammer lifts about 100mm and hovers in 30mm range and then descends and starts hammering as I ease down further. Works out I've got to shim the locking lever about 2mm so I did that. As it stands at the moment the hammer works as it should except that the low pressure hold up doesn't lift the hammer fully, I can lever the hammer up to full height and it will hold there, and using it last night sometimes it would gradually lift itself up, but most of the time it hovers around 100mm. I don't know whether it is a problem with the valve timing or the pressure/volume from the compressor but at least it is a lot more useable than it was before and possibly it will sort itself out with use. Regards Andrew

Thanks for the warning Phil, and I will be doing just that. I pulled the valve spindle out and gave it a good eyeballing, nothing seems to be cracked or badly worn so I put it back in and started by checking the height at full work. The top control valve was sitting 1 to 1.5mm low, so I pull it all back out, adjust the setting, put it back in to check, dead level as per the "0" stamped on top, pull it all back out to bend the lock tabs over, and then re-assemble to test. The hammer now tups about 12 - 15mm but will not rise unless I lever it up, then it gradually descends until it is tupping again. If I depress the foot lever a bit I get it to rise about 100 - 120 mm and it cycles through about an 80mm stroke which makes me think that there is something out with the valve spindle so I'm going to have to pull it again and go over it with a measuring device. Something else to add to "the list". Thanks for the email James, those pages were the ones I had seen but seem to have gone missing. Now to feed it into a speadsheet and convert it all to metric. Regards Andrew

Revivng a very old thread but I thought I'd throw in the following. After a very long time the shed is finally up and I've been forging in it. Haven't got any pictures to post at the moment as I dropped my phone and it died (thankfully, blessed peace for a couple of days until I had to get a new one). I'll try and post some as soon as I can take some more. The hammer still doesn't work in the low pressure hold up position so I'm going to have to pull the valve and see what is going on there. I might be after a copy of the manual as I've been back through all the paperwork I got and the relevant troubleshooting pages I need seem to be missing. I tried ringing John N but I probably mucked up the time zone bit. I'll have to email again. I've also managed to dislodge the top taper key but the bottom one is still stuck solid so I've got a bit more work to go there. The dies are getting quite deformed and while it's handy having a multiform die for drawing out different shapes the scale dents are getting prety deep and it's a pain having to smooth them out on the anvil afterwards. Otherwise everything is going too well and I'm really going to need a break at Christmas time. Andrew

Interesting how the discussion has split a bit. I don't give much consideration to Bigred or his personal opinion but I think the discussion he has kicked off could go far if not derailed by personality/ies. I'm interested in the progression from apprentice to journeyman to tradesman to master. How is each step assessed? I realise that the old system had all of the usual human political foibles involved but it would be nice to see a series of assesable tasks/projects assigned to each level that could be used as a definitive indicator of ones abilities. Andrew PS: this is speaking as someone who can fix aeroplanes if you want me too, I just don't have the licence to sign for it anymore. Do you trust me to keep you bum aeroplane in the air for the next 100 hours?

In my case the fab shop, which involves a lot of "cut and tack" of components, pays the bills. Yes a lot of people won't be able to afford the price of a fully hand made wrought iron piece, but the will pay extra for something that looks different to a farm gate. The money I make goes back to buying more tools and improving my workshop. I won't take on any structural work because a) I don't have a structural welding ticket, B) I don't have a builders licence to install it. I have done some jobs that weren't structural from engineers drawings and most of the stuff I make is overbuilt out of habit. As far as my blacksmithing skills go I guess I'm at journeyman stage, some of the stuff on here tells me I have a lot to learn yet. Amongst my local group I am considered one of the more experienced smiths. I am presently trying to set up a training schedule for the local group and have been researching widely for training notes or course guidelines to do with blacksmithing courses so if anyone has some, or a URL, I would be grateful for any assistance. I wonder whether it would be possible to set up a curriculum that is recognised world wide for teaching the basic skills involved in blacksmithing and then a set of testing criteria for demonstrating competence in those basic skills. I think the ABANA "controlled hand forging" series of lessons are good but are thee any other things that should be added? Andrew

Multigrips don't work when all else fails?

There are some in Oz who would crucify you for doing that to a genuine H V McKay cast iron seat, personally I think it looks a bit too big on the horses back, sorta like a R M Williams stock saddle on a 14 hand pony. Not sure what type of riding Taylor was into but there are different saddles for each discipline and they are shaped quite differently. You might want to look into that a little if you are going for a fully authentic look. Andrew PS: and yes we have four horse shaped paddock ornaments wandering around our 75 acres. Kids outgrew theirs and the wife and I haven't had the time or energy to ride for ages. They are all fat and happy not having to do any work, they just have to put up with the odd hoof trimming and ear scratch, same appplies to the horses.

All of the forges looked good but I was most intrigued by the water tank/44 gallon drum bellows near the end of the clip. Need to think about it some more but it looked like a really neat way of getting lots of air volume without having to crank away at a handle continuously. Andrew

Just picked up this anvil thismorning. Got it home and scrubbed it up a bit and discovered it's an Attwood, can just make out the "warranted" and there are the letters JS stamped prominently below. Did a bit of a search here and I'm wondering if the blacksmith who made the anvil had their initials stamped on it because there seems to be several different Letters on each one mentioned. The weird bit is the weight numbering Never heard of a fifth quarter before, a rough compare with my other anvils put it at about the 200# mark so maybe they lost the #3 stamp and used the #5 instead. Happy with my purchase though. Andrew

I'll second the Peter Wright vote as it looks like both of mine. Looks like the cutting deck has copped a beating but the tool steel face looks to be in fairly good nick. I got my second one sandblasted as it was even rustier than yours, it came up looking good and it really shows the difference between the face and the body. Yours probably only needs a workover with a wire buff. I wouldn't bother dressing any edges until you've used it for a while as those rounded edges can be handy for all sorts of shapes. Andrew

Hi, I agree with Basher, it looks like a clone as the one I've got in the shed has "Samuel Platt Ltd" very prominently on both sides of the body casting. The springs and arms also look a lot bigger/longer and the body casting is also different. No idea what its worth in Australia as I still haven't managed to sell the one I've got either. Andrew

You're not the only one to like a bit of fun, thats why we're smiths isn't it? Andrew

Jerry, I googled your sig line "Malleum sapientiorem vidi excusso manubrio!" and "the hammer wiser than the handle" was the answer I got, though the context was interesting. Don't tax the aching "handle" too much and hopefully the "hammer" will not impact the keyboard too often either. I hope your back gets less painful soon and you feel well enough to rejoin us Regards Andrew

r smith that is an edited quote! If you had quoted "Like holding a match to a leaking joint" you would have been technically correct but somewhere along the line the THC "allegedly" in your brain has modified it to suit. Sorta like Homer and Doughnuts. I have several thought lines about what a leaking joint could look like but these include several diferent sorts of hydraulical, pneumatical, geological, prismatic, electrical, physiological, genetic, and probably a couple of others that waving a match at them could mean a multitude of things. Regards Andrew PS: and thats after only a couple of glasses of red