TomN

Great start! Where abouts in the UK are you based? I will watch your posts with interest, as i'm interested in how armour is made. Good luck!

Took then to the forge last weekend and heating them in the fire, seem to get them al moving. I have to tighten a few of the rivets, but they are all working now! Need to reposstion a lot of the reigns, but other than that they are good to go. Thanks for the advice everyone!

Helped clean out my grandmothers garage today. A LOT of old stuff in there and we filled a whole skip. On the plus side, I got myself a small monkey wrench to make a twisting bar out of, as well as an old mattock and old pick axe. Not sure what to make of these yet! Hopefully getting to the forge tomorrow to put a few hours in!

Very simple design, but really elegant. Nice work!

I've been roped into clearing out my Grandmothers garage on Saturday. No doubt she will just want to throw stuff away, so I will be doing a check for tools whilst i'm there. Fingers crossed that I find something useful, especially if its a monkey wrench! I will be up the forge ALL of Sunday working away and trying stuff out.

Those look ideal. Exactly what I wanted to make! Thanks very much for the offer, I appreciate it. I've found monkey wrenches over here, but they aren't that cheap. Plus they all come with hardened and tempered teeth, so they will be a bugger to grind down, to stop them marking my work. I will keep an eye out at car boot sales to see if I can find any. Might make the little twisting bar out of tool stool, whilst I wait.

I've been trying to find a monkey wrench for cheap, as that was the idel, but i've not been able to get hold of one!

I need to make myself a bar for twisting material. I need to go over the process, before I start it, to make sure I get it right. I thought i'd write down on here what I was going to do and people can correct me where I go wrong! Firstly I was going to take a piece of spring steel and cut off approximately 60cm of material to give me a 20cm 'handle' on each side and 20cm (+ spreading) in the middle to make my holes for inserting the bars in to twist. I would cut this length off, then make sure all of the toxic paint is burnt off, in a well ventialted area (outside for me). Straighten the bar out to give me a nice ~60cm long piece. Then I would flatten the central area, which would spread it slightly. This flat area, I can cut into to make different sized holes for twisting different sized stocks. I plan on normalising, or even annealing the central part of the bar to make it really soft. Then using the angle grinder with a cutting disc to cut in my holes to insert my different bits of stock into. Once I have all the shapes cut into it, I would make sure its flat and then harden the whole piece. So how far off am I with this, and how many beginners errors have I made?

Ok thanks, John!

I can borrow my friends mig welder, so am planning to bring a few bits back home with me, to get it done over this weekend. We'll see what happens.

If i'm splitting something i'd like to mark it out with a cold cut, before going through with a hot cut. Besides, i'm awful at making a straight line with cut tools, so need the practice! I have a couple of perfect bits to make cold cuts from, so just need to shape them with the angle grinder and then see what the heat treatment I need for them.

Very flukey indeed. Hopefully it will lead to something! Its a nice old place, right next to the garage. An old barn converted into a forge. The difficulty is getting the old boy to understand me, because he's so deaf! I'm playing rugby this Saturday and Sunday we are going to zoo thing for crocodiles near me, because the wife wants to go as part of her birthday present. So not a lot of time left for forging. Will still get over there and try and measure my hardy hole and base of the anvil and see if I can commision the local steelworks to make me an anvil stand, as the wooden stump I have it on now is a bit small and the anvil moves a bit. Adding a few things to my list of things to do. Namely getting some calipers for measuring, making some cold cuts and also making a twisting bar.

For a cold cut, I was planning on just on shaping the bits i've got with an angle grinder. Do I need any kind of heat treatment, or tempering to harden the ends, or just regrind the end as and when necessary?

Had my car MOT'd today and had a bit of luck, as the garage is right next to an old forge. I did a bit of skip diving and found a couple of coil springs. I will add that I asked permision first! The old blacksmith at the forge nextdoor has retired and is looking to get rid of some stuff, so I will go and have a look at some of his old gear that I could use. If I do take some stuff away, I will give him some money for it, even if he doesn't want any. I'm sure it will come in handy, even if only to buy him a pint or two. Can't imagine he has a great pension! The guy was absolutely deaf as a post, so I guess they didn't have ear protection in the good old days.

I had read it already George and even put in a question about the metal, that you answered in the thread. Haha. I think the fact that I don't have an avatar makes it difficult to recognise my posts. Very useful indeed and will think of making one in this way soon.

I will measure my hardie hole this weekend and let you know! I would be very grateful of these tools and I will pay for any transport and maybe a bit extra as well. Don't want yout to part with things for free, if you could make money from them! Looks like I will need to borrow my friends mig welder. I can get the shapes roughly made out first though. Really looking forward to getting going on this! Tempted to sack off rugby on Saturday, so I can get an extra day in at the forge.

I'm hoping to make a touchmark and some hardy tools soon. I have some spring steel to make the touchmark out of, but a few questions on how to make it. I'm still in the design stages at the moment, but when I come to make it, I was wondering how people go about making and treating them. I was thinking of something quite simple, such as a hammer, or an anvil shape with my initials in it. I will try and put up some photo's of sketches later. In terms of treating them, i'm presuming that I will normalise the spring steel, just in the forging of it. Once I have my shape do I harden the end and then temper, and to what colour? I'm guessing blue or purple. For hardy tools, I need to make a hot cut and would also like to make a few other general shaping tools, such as a square block to use in replacement for the edge of the anvil and also a shaping tool for making leaves. Could I make the square hardy and the shaping tool out of mild steel? I'm guessing that I would have to make the cut off tool out of tool steel, as I currently can't forge weld. I'm guessing that the most sensible thing would be to make the shape out of mild steel, then weld in a section of tool steel for the cutting surface? Thanks in advance!

Will be giving this a go, hopefully on Sunday after playing rugby on Saturday. Hopefully it will all go well. Will keep you posted and try and bring back some pictures!

Thats the one John. Just a simple set of number and letter touchmarks that will no doubt come in handy. Plus I will be able to put my initials on things I make for the Thame show, to give it a personal feel. It will be replaced when I have designed my own touchmark, which i'm currently doing. This lot should keep me busy for a while. I also plan to start going to the car boot sales again to see if any good old tools turn up.

Work has been very rubbish recently, so i've decided to try and take my blacksmithing a little more seriously and push on with it. As such i'm looking into making a website and getting some small cards made, to get some details out there and hopefully sell some things at the Thame show. Below is a list of things I need to do and I will check them off as I go!: Buy rivets Buy touchmark set from screwfix Make ball end punch Make 'eye' punch Make turning forks Make own touchmark (design pending) Design and order anvil stand Rehandle and 'fix' 5 hammers Make hardy cut off tool Free up tongs and clear rust off of them Instal and test new forge blower Make flat head tongs Make poker * Make leaf key ring * Make wall hook * Attempt to make a rams head * * = research for Thame show!

Thanks a lot for the great advice guys. This is gold dust for me! Dan - Thanks for the hosting ideas. I certainly do consider it important to have a proffesional looking setup and email address. Nobody wants to contact someone via a hotmail account for work! I will try the HTML approach on the website first, as firstly i'm cheap :P and secondly it would be good for me to learn! I will say that your dog site looks excellent though and a very worthy cause. Colleen - I will PM you shortly. Thanks for helping! And 67K is a very long way off right now. haha. Greenbeast - That is some very sensible advice and I will certainly be following it. I will make myself up an excel spreadsheet and then a physical archive for all my receipts etc.

Thanks for the info. I'm glad its not too involved! The thought of filling out endless forms fills me with dread! I work full-time, but would like to get a little sideline going to see how I go and get a feel for the market out there. Just need to come up with a name and then I can start to get things set up. I think I will get a business email address set up and print that on the cards, so people can contact me if they wish. Simple, but may bring me in some work. All practice is good, so if people ask me for things that I have never tried, it will be worth having a go anyway, even if it doesn't lead to a product! For the taxes, do I have to keep receipts for everything? Am I right in thinking I can claim the VAT back on certain things, such as fuel etc?

I have a little experience in blackmsithing and now I more than anything need to practice what i've learnt, to get me going. I am helping someone with a blacksmithing demonstration soon, through the Blacksmiths Guild in the UK and might be able to sell a few things. This is near the start of April. I was hoping to get some stuff made for the fair, so I could sell it. I'd love to be able to hand out a few 'cards' so people could get in touch with me and maybe commision work. I was thinking about setting up a website to get started on making things and advertising them! If I am selling stuff online, do I need to register myself as a business? I have absolutely no idea when it comes to the law with business i'm afraid. Does anyone have any experience to impart to me in the buying of a domain name and the setting up of a website? I should be able to learn how to code a website relatively easily, as I pick computer stuff up quite quickly. For a name, I was thinking of something short and simple. I also will stear clear of putting a location in the name (eg - West Oxfordshire Forge) as I don't know if I will be moving in the future. If anyone has any advice or wisdom to impart to this new boy, I would be very grateful and forever in your debt!

Its a shame, becuase the last time I serviced my car (which is a diesel) I collected the oil in a large can and got rid of it, in an appropriate manner I will add. I will definately try and heat them to red and move them as they cool. A friend of mine over the road, who also has a diesel that we serviced may have some old oil lying about. Will ask him later! Any tips for getting rid of the rust from all over them? I was thinking of just lightly going over it all with my angle grinder and a flapwheel disc.

Great tips and explanation there. Thanks! Looking forward to giving this a try.