svincent

Greetings, Tonight I learned of the passing of Ken Sharabok earlier this year. My thoughts go out to his family and those who who were close to him. :-( With his passing, the blacksmith community has lost a wonderful resource. As far as I can tell, Ken's EBay store "Poor Boy Blacksmith Tools" was the only place on the Internet that one could buy the book 101 Metal Projects for the Novice Blacksmith. I believe he was self publishing this book. With the closing of Ken's EBay store, does anybody know of a way to get a copy of this book for those of us who don't have it? -Shawn.

I've got a 3 burner atmospheric propane forge. It's lined with kaowool, kast-o-lite 3000, and Plistix 900F. I can adjust the air mix (I'm sure it's not adjusted particularly well) -- I had assumed that this would cause more or less scale. My red rust tends to be in spots as well, like you say, Postleg. I've been wire brushing it off, but it seems to keep coming back. My anvil has rust on it in places -- could it be "contagious"? I don't know if it's an old wive's tale, but I've heard the phrase "rust breeds rust". I also wondered about humidity in the air -- although I thought if that was the case that it would be much more common. Frosty, when you say "flux the stock lightly", can you elaborate? What would I use to flux? Thanks very much for your help! When I get back home, I will try adjusting the air mix and see if that makes any difference. -Shawn.

Greetings! I'm relatively new, to the community, and to blacksmithing -- so if this is a stupid question, please bear with me. :-) I have a propane forge and am messing around, making tapers and leaves out of mild steel (new from Metal Supermarkets). Strangely, the steel rusts suddenly as it cools -- like I get it orange-yellow hot, let it cool down, and a layer of flash rust immediately coats it. I've not seen this happen in any of the online videos, and none of the books talk about it: the oxide scale, yes, but not brown rust. Any thoughts/ideas? Is there something I'm doing wrong? Thanks for any help! -Shawn.