EtownAndrew

I agree about the gates. Very nice!

The green shade 3 glasses do change the fire and metal color slightly. However, I don't have any problems determining the metal heat. If I flip up the shades to look at the metal with just plain clear safety glasses it is the color that I thought it was. I don't have to interpret it in my mind because what what I am seeing is so close to normal. From reading Beth's comments it sounds like she also does not have any trouble interpreting what she sees.

I wear Shade 3 lenses all the time when I am forging. It is overkill some of the time but I don't have any trouble getting around and seeing what I am doing if there is good lighting. I found the ones below work well clipped over my safety prescription glasses. http://www.amazon.com/3M-Protective-Eyewear-Infrared-40427-00000-10/dp/B007JZ3WOU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1391448335&sr=8-2&keywords=shade+3+flip+up

I learned something new. I had not known about these.

Very nice.

I agree with DSW. Your interests may change over time. Mine have. Everyone is different. Pursue what you are interested in. I started blacksmithing to make knives. I last made a knife about a year ago because I've moved on. I have a tendency to make one or two of something. I decided I'm happy with it and then move to something else.

The AACB will be hosting their blacksmithing conference in Murfreesboro Tennessee, May 16th & 17th, 2014. Attached is their four page pamphlet on the conference that lists all the demonstrators. Brian Brazeal and Elmer Roush are the main demonstrators. Many, if not all of you have heard of or seen Brian Brazeal demonstrate. If you haven't, that's a good enough reason to go to the conference. If you have seen him, then you know it's worth the trip to see him again. Elmer Roush's name might not be as well circulated as Brian's but he is absolutely amazing to watch work. He specializes in ancient repro's and his stuff is just incredible, plus he's a great guy to talk to. http://www.appalachianblacksmiths.org/ (Note: I don't have any info on the conference myself and am just passing on the info on what appears to be an interesting conference that I am considering attending.)12_2013_conference_pages.pdf

Dave Custer and I made a rounding hammer today for me. My job was to swing the sledge hammer. My postal scale says that the head weighs 2.5 pounds without the handle. It is round on one side and flat on the other for planishing. I am looking forward to trying it out.

Hi DSW. The instructions I was following actually called for machining the ring face. However, I was not convinced that it is needed and so did want to avoid it if not required. I have been thinking for some time that a steady rest would be handy and so am expecting to use it occasionally for years to come.

This past week, I finally got an excuse to make a Steady Rest for my little lathe and finished it this afternoon. I wanted to chamfer the inside of an 8” long x 3/4” pipe for making a propane burner. After considering various possible methods and my limited supply of tools I made a small cast aluminum steady rest. I pretty much followed the instructions by David Gingery in his book 6 The Dividing Head & Deluxe Accessories with several differences. The first difference is that I used lost foam sand casting. Second, I used small pieces of CRS to form the jaw guides and then hammered them out after the casting had cooled. Third I had to come up with a different mounting to attach to the 109 lathe bed and so tried to copy the tail stock mounting. That didn’t work out so well since I didn’t have a precise way to machine matching V grooves. I ultimately just tightened down the steady rest base on the ways and it wasn’t going anywhere. Plus the aluminum base won't hurt the steel ways. I also made a spade drill bit to mount in the tail stock. The irony is that I realized about a half hour after finishing both the steady rest and drill that with the steady rest I didn’t need the drill to chamfer the pipe inside edge. I could have used regular lathe cutting tools. However I went ahead and used it and it worked well. The bit was made from 1095 high carbon steel that I had on had for making knives. It worked very well cutting the steel pipe and was not yet needing to be sharpened after chamfering both ends of three pipe pieces.

Normally a hammer is used to secure these. The link below is to a lacing type that does not require special installation tools according to the web site. The most important part is to keep the lace square to the belt center line. http://www.flexco.com/products/alligator_lacing.html Try to find the manufacturer's installation instructions for what you have. You may have been sold something that requires a special installation tool/machine. If so then you should switch to a different type that does not require special tools.

I spent most of the day today forging outside on my back patio. There was snow covering the grass and the temp was below 30 F. The main thing about winter that holds me back is that there is less daylight. I stuck a 200 watt light bulb over my work area but I am still a little less inclined to start forging if it is dark out.

Very nice! I think that if you could have worked in a diagonal element, from the top hinge corner to the far bottom corner, you wouldn't have to worry about it sagging more than the adjustment you have in the hinge bolts. However something like that would be noticeable and so would require a different design to incorporate it.

The stitching on the sheath is very good. It it was hand stitched it is much better than any of my knife sheaths! Also I am reminded that there is some leftover apple pie waiting for me in the refrigerator!

Welcome. You are several hours away from me and any other blacksmith that I know of. Of course I am networking in the central KY area and not the western KY area. That knife is nice and is how I got into blacksmithing.

Here is a picture of my attempt to make a pair of Ultimate Tongs. My version should probably be called Amateur Ultimate Tongs. Brian said that it takes him 3 hours to make these while I spent three afternoons over the long Thanksgiving weekend working on them and finished this evening. The comparison gives me some idea of how far I have to go. On two of the days I had to stop when my arm got too tired to go on. I am also trying to not over do it since I gave my self a case of tennis elbow a couple years ago and spent a year recovering. It appears that they will work. I've went around and tried them on several bar sizes and it seems that they will be a good addition to my growing collection of tongs. I intentionally didn't draw down the reins as much since I over did it on a pair that I made a couple years ago and I occasionally have to bend them back. Also it is a lot of work to draw them down starting from a 3/4" round bar. I found a couple 24" long bars at my local scrap yard this past Friday morning that I used to make the tongs. As you all know, with scrap yard steel you don't really know what it is. I was trying to pick up mild steel but I ended up with something having a higher carbon content. I squashed the ends on a center punch and cold cut while working on the tongs. So I went ahead and punched the pivot pin hole hole hot because it appeared that drilling it might not work well.

In my area Tractor Supply sells a #4 acetylene tank that holds 145 cubic feet for $350. That is the largest they sell. However, I have also noticed that their price is a little higher than buying direct from a gas supplier. You will probably be happy with propane but if you are still interested in getting larger acetylene tanks you may want to call a couple of your local suppliers to check on their lease vs. buy policy. I have one that wants to lease them and I think another said that I could buy them. http://www.tractorsupply.com/en/store/acetylene-gas-cylinder-4-size-145-cu-ft

My one basic suggestion is that you should buy relatively big tanks. The cost to fill a big size 4 tank is about double the cost to fill a small one but you get 14 times more gas for the money. (Exact figures depend upon what tank sizes are being compared.) I started out with a small portable oxy-acetylene torch/welding kit and I can't get through much more than a small project or two without running out of gas. I have pretty much decided that the next time I run out of gas I'll get a larger tank and stop using the small ones. You probably should buy tanks from a local supplier. Occasionally they are listed on craigslist but when you check into it you learn that they don't have the papers for the tanks and my local gas place will not fill the large tanks if you don't have papers on the tank. Also when you check into it the seller may realize that the tanks were leased and need to be returned to the supplier. I don't know that there is really a cost difference to use propane as compared to acetylene. Both have other advantages and disadvantages than cost that might be a deciding factor. I did a study a year or so ago based on published Victor and Smith gas consumption rates for cutting 1/4" plate. Acetylene cutting ranged from $9.89/hour to $10.87/hour. Propane ranged from $9.80/hour to $15.79/hour. Propane requires a lot more oxygen which offset the lower cost of Propane. The published data typically gave a range of gas usage and so if I picked the middle or bottom of the range for my evaluation then someone else would get different results depending upon the figures they used. Used Oxy-acetylene torch kits are readily available on craigslist. I don't see a propane set as often and you might need to buy it new from a supplier.

cool

My son came to me several nights ago. He was trying to pull together a costume of the greek god Poseidon for Halloween and wondered if we had a board or something that could be cut into the shape of a Trident. So as we were talking about it my response was that a wooden trident sounds dorky why don't I just make you a real one. So I spent the last two evenings pulling together the trident shown in the attached picture. I didn't go all the way since it was just a costume accessory. So I mostly used a 3/8" mild steel round rod for the tines and didn't sharpen the ends. The socket is a piece of 1" pipe that I tapered down. The parts were stick welded together. The socket is pinned to the 1 1/4" ash shaft with a copper pin. The biggest problem that I had was making the middle tine with the double barb. It has the same problem as making a broad head arrow. I did a fair search on Iforgeiron and elsewhere to see if anyone had every really laid out how to do that and couldn't find anything. My first attempt was to make a leaf shape and try to cut away the sides. That may have worked but my first attempt looked so bad that I gave up. My second try was to split the end of a bar down the middle and fold the sides back. However, when I tapered that down I ended up with a split in the end. So I finally just bent a 9 gage wire over and welded the middle to the end of my tapered bar.

I have a theory that the oriental Wok had a round bottom because the smiths couldn't figure out how to keep it flat. Then from there they just adapted their cooking process to accommodate the round bottom.

Cleaning up the marks is certainly something to work on. I don't have an official flatner but one would not be too hard to make.

I used 14 ga (1/16") sheet metal for this. It was a former lawn mower hood cover. I used a portion where it had originally been broke at 90 degrees. The crease still shows. Next time I need to start with a piece that was not previously bent. Nick that sounds like a valid thing to try. Before I tried this I watched a very long series of youtube videos showing Jymm Hoffman forging a fry pan. He said that he had tried many times to just raise the sides and leave the bottom alone and it had not worked for him. His breakthrough method was to also dish the bottom and then go back to flatten it. The pan does not really have an official finish on it other than cooking oil. The care of this pan is similar to a cast iron pan but I don't think that it needs an official seasoning other than giving it a light coat of cooking oil and starting to cook. Try to avoid washing it in soapy water as that does remove the surface oil that it needs. Most of the time the pan is pretty clean after I am done cooking and so I just wipe away the excess oil with a paper towel and put it away warm. If it does need water I take it hot over to the sink and rinse it off and then put it back on the warm burner to dry. The 8" diameter blank that I started with produced a nice small fry pan that is really good for frying an egg or two. It is a tiny bit small for making a pancake but I have still made a lot of pancakes in it. Also I brought the sides up too much. They would be best left at a more shallow angle so they don't interfere with getting a spatula under the food. This pan was about at the limit of my normal blacksmithing hammer to reach into the dished pan. I am about half done with a longer "sheet metal" hammer that has about 3 1/2" of reach from the handle center line and a more radiused face. So some time in the next few months I will probably make a slightly larger pan and put a basket weave handle on it which should be cooler.

I made my first pair of tongs that way where you do both sides at the same time. This may not be what you are thinking of but it matches the description. The tongs are good to hold sheet metal and material up to 1/4" thick. 1/8" thick material being held is the normal use.

Seeing Brian forge an aluminum bar was an eye opener. It had never occurred to me that aluminum could also be forged. Also I like his method of slitting and punching a hole. I had to watch it again on Youtube a couple times after the weekend because I didn't quite get it when he explained it in person. So on a more personal reflective note; I spent Saturday morning watching the copper smith. After seeing him make a couple items I think that I could also make them. However, observing him do all the decorative stuff also brought me to the realization that I am not really that interested in the artistic side of things. I like a well formed pair of tongs or a well designed and executed knife. But I don't see myself getting into making roses or sea horses. Of course the reason that many of the demonstrations focused on those sorts of things was because that is what the public is buying. So it's probably a good thing it's just a hobby and I can spend my work day designing machines on my office computer.