newbiesmith

Ok Glenn, I just got another language infraction for using the xxxx word? Now my grandmother used to get onto me for using that term. But can you please clear this off my "record"? I merely thought that since there were so many Brits involved in this thread that a little Montey Python might be, shall we say Festive? -Dan

Hagerstown. That's just a couple dozen miles east of my home town. I'll have to definately look into that. Yeah I don't have a truck at the moment. All I have is a Saturn 4 door and my wife's Forrester. I always get strange looks when my little Saturn pulls up to the yard here. And I get out with my dress (work) clothes, tie tucked into my shirt pocket, a pair of wolverine boots and work gloves on. Then the guys at work always wonder why I come back from lunch with a big smile on my face..... -Dan

Been forging the past couple nights. Made 2 nail hooks the first night. And started working on a toasting fork. I was using rebar for stock. Well tonight I went to finish the toasting fork. I get all the way down to the handle where I was going to draw it out and curl up a nice ring for it to hang on the wall, when I heard the most sickening sound. The twang of one of the tines breaking off. I had been holding the fork at the tine end while I was working on the handle. I have no idea what happened. I just stood there in a daze for a few minutes wondering what happened. Then I went to the fridge, got another beer and sat in my plastic deck chair (that is convieniently sitting right in front of the forge). I think next time I will do the tines last. -Dan

Oh I know Phil. It's just that I am a transplant from Maryland to WV and I haven't quite gotten accustomed to hearing those stereotypes directed to me. For 20 or so years I was on the other side. "What goes around, comes around..." Overall I've adapted pretty well to the area and really like it. And this shack is just one of those things that make the area neat. My buddies across the river would think I was nuts if I got an idea like this. Over here it's a different story. Thanks guys for the info. All those things are great ideas, unfortunately I am still a sucky smith. Good thing about a shack though is that most of the people who would notice your work, would be more "intrigued" by the nature of the shack's construction to notice a flub up here and there. -Dan

Blast it. After reading your posts I decided to go for it. I went down stairs to get the configuration for the dryer outlet and discovered that my landlord is just like me. He's pretty frugal. The dryer is wired directly into the 220. So no outlet. So I'm back to where I started. I think I may just give him a call and see if he has an outlet hid somewhere out in the shed. He's renting us his old home and gave us free reign of his shed and out buildings. Hopefully he'll be receptive. I'm pretty sure he had a welder in there because I saw a helmet hanging on the wall and an old box of rods on a shelf in the corner. Keep your fingers crossed for me guys. -Dan

How safe is it to use a homemade/store-bought extension cord for a welder? I'm thinking that the extension cord will need to be 50' for it to go from the car port, through the mud room and down the steps into the baseement to where it will plug into the dryer outlet. If it is safe, any recommendations on guides on how to make one? Also can I have the ends of this cord setup so that there is a different end that plugs into the dryer from the one that will plug into the welder (basically a way of adapting the plugs. I've been uncomfortable with tackling something like this since it could cause a fire but if it can be safely done I'd like to give it a try. -Dan

Touche, Phil. You make assumptions that we have old vehicles in the yard. Would be nice but none of us are big fans of snakes. If we did we'd have a lot more interesting materials to work with. -Dan

My buddies have all gotten together and decided to pool absolutely no resources except their ingenuity to build a shack on my buddies property down by the river. Currently there is an existing structure there that will be refit with a couple old barns that have been torn down and their lumber salvaged. We've netted an old wood stove that should cover that base. I'm currently working with another guy to scrounge some electrical materials. So it's all comming together without us having to spend a single cent. What I was wondering is what would be some good blacksmithing additions to this redneck shack? I'll be making it so it will have to be somewhat simple. I've already planned on making some hooks, but was wondering if anyone could suggest anything else. -Dan

Bruce what kind of wood is that? I've never heard of it. It's got the same "swirl" texture as my Peterson Pipe. Which is made of briar. -Dan

J, You just hit the proverbial "rivet on the head" so to speak. That's why I posted. Lets just say the first POZ tong kit I got from Blacksmith Supply is basically useless. I think I ended up welding the rivet to the tong blanks. Yeah I suck. Who else could screw up a prefab tong kit? -Dan

Hot or cold? How do you set them in a pair of tongs? I've heard that you heat the rivet, drop it in the hole and give the tail end of it a couple whacks. I've also heard that you can just drop it in the hole and whack it cold? -Dan

Holy cow. That is a pretty impressive tool. Thanks Jim for pointing that out. -Dan

trattoclip, It's great to see someone from the homeland that's taking up the trade. Keep up the good work. -Dan

Sorry Mark. But I have to just say "Welcome to my life". I'm one of those guys that can walk through a field and step in the one cow pie in it. Good to see there is someone else with my luck. -Dan

Woo hoo. Good to see another IT guy that's smithing. Thanks Larry, you made my day. Just spent 12 hrs troubleshooting a Groupwise SMTP forwarding issue only to find out that it is an issue with our ISP. I want to go beat on some metal. I'm just too tired ;-(. -Dan

Thanks guys for all the wiring advice. Before I do anything I'm going to get in touch with the landlord since it's his house and "Liability" is a big thing I deal with every day. It's not something I want to take on lightly. And when/if I end up finding a house in our area that is affordable and we do move on it this year, I'll be setting up some kind of shop outside, even if it is a $240 Lowes tin shed. When I do that I will do as I always done with wiring. I'm planning on sucking it up and buying the biggest baddest mother of a cable to run from the main box to the sub box in the shop. Then I'll be very cautious about ensuring that there is consistency in the wiring (ie. not trying to run a 50amp sub box off a 30 amp breaker in the main panel). This is the kind of stuff I was taught when I "assisted" in the rewiring of my uncle's house after he passed away. I worked under a master electrician who I then contracted with for the oversight of the rewiring project on my first house. So electrical work is not something I'm new too. However at the same time I know there is a lot that I don't know and when it comes to the thought of peeing sparks or catching my house on fire I siss out pretty quick. There's a few things I never skimp on: Tires, breaks, wiring and plumbing. And before my big snip, Trojans were in there too, but no more ;-). Thanks guys for all the advice as always its appreciated. -Dan P.S. Rich I'm hoping mine isn't like yours ;-). If it is I'll be buying a new fan ;-(

Tom was your comment in jest? $40 10 years ago is like $200 now it seems. -Dan

Thanks Mike. I'm not going to be able to make this month's meeting but am hoping to make the one in March. But I apprecaite the offer and will definitley take you up on it. When I was down there I bought, I think a sweedish style hammer for my friend as a birthday present. It had a good feel and in retrospec I wish I would have picked up another one for me as it was hard to part with it the night of the party. Which, now I finally understand why smiths can have soo many hammers. -Dan

Thanks guys for the info. Glenn I had seen those posts in the blueprints and that is how I had been using it. But I couldn't make out how the face was dressed. I kept gouging the metal as I was working it. Dragon, I'll have to drop you a PM. By chance can you take a picture or two of the hammer your referring to? In particular the face and the handle. The handle feels good but I'm a still a little weak from not smithing since I put the forge up for the winter in November. HW- what do you mean by the 24" radius? Is that really 2/4"? Or are you talking more about working on improving striking. -Dan

Peyton, Any word on the how the last meeting's video turned out? If I can be of any help please let me know (IT is my day job). From what I saw you guys were off to a great start. Kudos to the gentleman (my memory is horrible forgive me) that was running the laptop/sound system/webcam. It seemed like the only thing limiting him was the hardware he was working with. I think once the enigma of port forwarding and bandwidth cost is resolved we'll all be able to sit back and watch the meetings live from where-ever we're at. Keep up the great work. -Dan

This post is in Glenn's style of show me your..... Basically I'm struggling with a new hammer that I just purchased. Up until I read Hofi's post I was thinking it was a Czech design. But really it's a cheap knockoff of a Hofi hammer (sorry Hofi, I couldn't afford the real one on the rack). Anyway back to what I was saying. I've moved to this hammer from a small 1.5# ball pein and 3# sledge combination. I didn't perform any dressing on either of these two hammers and actually had better luck moving the metal than I had with this new cross pein. The way I see it there are two possible causes for my issue. The first being a need to dress the hammer to fit my style. The second is the need to change my striking angle/force/etc.. I'm really hoping it's not the latter since that would be the more complex of the two. Change style/hammer weight/handle length/etc.... It's difficult for me to interpret/visualize the description of "slightly crowned, with the edge of the hammer face well rounded" (George F. Dixon). I may be overanalyzing since I'm a newbie but I figured I'd throw it out there to get some advice. Thanks. -Dan

Thanks guys. From what I've understand from reading is that with it's vintage and amperage and being a copper core, it doesn't have a cooling fan. I'll need to pop the top and doublecheck. The only noise I hear is a light buzzing from, I believe the transformer. Unfortunately I've got a little bit of a setback. I just went out to look over the shop/shed and found that there is no 220 outlet out there. My landlord said that he had an old welder he used and it ran off of 220. He used it in his shed back when he was living in the house we are renting off him. I traced a heavy duty wire from the sub-panel out there and found that it ended, hanging on a post, with it

Exquisite, Unique, Elegant, those are the words that both my wife and I uttered when we looked at your piece. It was one of those moments where I hollered over to her to "come and take a look at this". We ooh

I happened across an add for a Lincoln Welder for $50 in our local "iwanna-esc" publication. I called and the guy said it was an old 180 amp box that ran off a 220 outlet. I ran out to see it. It has a little play in the switch (have to wiggle it a little to seat in the amperage slot) but it touched off fairly well, even at the low amperages with the old stick in it that looked like it was in there since he last used it 2 years ago. Granted this is what my buddy told me to do since I have very little clue as to what makes a good welder. I was just looking for a cheap buzz box to get started when I saw this. I ended up walking with it and a couple pounds of old rods and a promise from the guy that as soon as he finds it, he will give me a call to come and pickup the new switch he had bought for the unit, but didn't have time to install. The son of a gun is heavy as anything for what I was expecting. The guy told me that it's because it's got the old copper core in it. Which from what I've heard is a good thing to have. So I guess it's a little late to ask but did I get taken for a ride? That and any other advice to someone who is new to welding would be great. -Dan

Looks great Keith. I think that's as close as one can get for a first attempt. It's alot closer than what I could have gotten. Did you end up using that sweet little gasser that you were showing off at the meeting? What was that site that you said you got the design from again? I didn't write it down and have been kicking myself since. By the way thanks for the blower. I finally got it and the control unit installed on the forge. Now I'm just waiting for a a nice day to fire things up. -Dan