eidilon

My tire hammer locked up today when one of the bottom retaining clips broke off. It really locked everything up. I had to carefully cut the the opposite side clip off to free things up. I've had trouble with the shims for quite awhile. The shims often slip by the retaining clips. My question is, when I put it back together, how much play is allowed for the hammer's head in the guide weldment? Thanks.

Here's my new forge, about a year in the making. The table is an old, heavy cast iron table saw top, The fire pot came from a collection being sold by New England School of Metal work, left to them by a blacksmith. The smoke hood is an old 50 gallon drum and the chimney is a 10 inch, double walled duravent inside and through the roof and 24 gauge galvanized above that and is around 15 feet high from the top of the smoke hood. I had a lot of help with the chimney from my son. You're looking at the very first fire, once the hood and chimney heated up the draft worked great. I've got an old under the counter heater squirrel cage 2 speed blower on it for now.

Years ago I made this little guy out of a RR spike. I twisted it and gave it a little bit of a curve, used an old funky utility knife body for wings, machine cut nails for legs, old Cristmas wreath forms for antenna, a couple of screw heads for eyes and even cut in some eye lashes on the washers. I can't remember what I sold it for.

I put my post vise together late winter and have been using it now for a few months and it works great. I mounted it on a 4 inch square post that has half inch walls. The base is a 3 ft circle of quarter inch plate It. I built the tray based on the vises I have used at the New England School of Metal Smithing in Auburn ME. For general use this has turned into one of those things that I wonder how I did wthout it for years. When I really need to "reef" on it standing on the base makes that possible. I welded it together with my old Montgomery Ward stick welder. (I know I'm dating myself with that little nugget of info.)