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I Forge Iron

Mike R

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  • Gender
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  • Location
    Central Oregon
  • Interests
    Wood working, Blacksmithing, Camping and family. My son is 11 and he is the one who got us started building a forge.
  1. Hi Beth I really like how you textured the round stock. Looks great.
  2. Thanks for all the help guys. It started out as an exercise in upsetting and the ball was just something to shoot for. I really like the look of it. I haven't tryed welding yet so the other methods may be awhile out on the learning curve. I will try tapering the end some and see how that goes. The pics attached show how it folded over a little in a couple places. I found I had to keep pounding the sides of the ball to keep it from folding over. The Vice tool is very cool John. I saw somthing similar on one of Hofi's blueprints and I will be making one. A post vice is close to the top of my want list but still looking for one I can afford. Thanks for the vidio Francis. I tried some of the stuff Brian showed thru trial and error as I did this ball but I will have to try agean now I have seen how it is supposed to work. Mike I figured the digger chain was fairly hard based on the use but I have access to lots of it for free. I intend to get some bar stock from swift steel at some point. Hard to pay for it when you can get so much for free.
  3. its mentioned that 7000 alum. will work harden and break. Does anybody know what the alum. heat sink blocks from an old computer would be? Also just to be shure, there are no worrys with the fumes off alum is there? Thanks
  4. Hello all I decided I wanted to try upsetting and I thought the ball on the end of a rod looked cool so I tried that. I started with a small diamiter rod and was fighting it bending so I went to a heavier piece of digger chain. It took a lot of heats and time but I got something that sort of looked like a ball. Now the question is what are the tricks to this? I watched Uri's blueprint on it but it is for the mech hammer. Should I draw the end out and leave a bit on the end full size so it pushes metal to the end and then is there something I am missing or do I just keep beating on the end with the hammer. What I did was put the cold end of the rod on the anvil and pound down on the other end. It seemed to swell quite a bit down the rod when I wanted it just at the end to make the ball. Any hints are apperciated. Thanks
  5. Thanks Ciladog I have never used those befor but I will have to give a try to making them and using them for glue up.
  6. luke 978 I built a table along similar lines and I am going to have to add the sides. The kids are spending a lot of time picking up the bits of coal. We dropped the brake drum in so it sat on the lip and sticks up about 1/2 to 3/4". This did create some problems scraping coal into the pot. If I did it over I would flush mount under and build a brace under it. Good luck.
  7. Thanks Brian. A hot cut is something I need to make. We used a railroad spike to cut the leaf out of plate and to cut the sping off for the chisle.
  8. Brian couple questions: Do you taper the striking end? Looks like it in the first post pics. If so is there a reason or you just like it that way? Also what do you use to grind the working ends? I don't have a lot of metal working experience and I found it very difficult to get a nice even grind with the bench grinder. I have used the flap wheels on the angle grinder befor and thought they mite be better. Also was wondering about a belt grinder. Have to look into how to build one. I made a chisle today about like the one second from the right end on the first post pics. I needed it to put the viens in a leaf my son and I made. I drew the working end to blue and just let the stirking end cool in the air. Oh I started with spring steel. Had to resharpen once and the striking end is mushrooming just a little. Is that normal? The leaf was fairly larg and took a lot of hits. Thanks for the great info
  9. I am working outside and it is starting to snow so that could be an isshue. Is there a better steel to use? Thanks Mike
  10. Thanks I will go to the steel yard and get some round stock to try. Pounding to cold could definatly be part of the problem. I will keep trying with that in mind.
  11. Tom I have a hand truck just like that so I may try that. I still think if I can scroung some wheels in the future it would be nice to attach them to the forge. I did have better luck with the fire on the second try. I also used a lot more coke and less coal and that was different.
  12. The kids worked with the forge today. got a lot better fire control today and only took 2 tries to get started. Still heating the metal to much and it is cracking and busting. Anthony made a nice hook and we drilled the flat spot he made on back but tried to straighten it out and it shattered at the thin end. heated and rebent but the back of the hook was all cracked so we will start over. Kelsey made a nice heart but it had a crack in it also at the bottom bend. What color should I be heating to to pound on for this scrap metal of unknown composition? Been just heating till it is orange. I did straighten a piece of spring and start a hot chisle to mark with also. Need to make a hot cut hardie and mount it.
  13. drewed I am thinking about putting some bricks in the bottom to raise it up. The pot is about 3 1/2 or 4 inches deep and I was using a lot of coal and coke trying to get it up higher. I had problems getting the long piece of rebar to lay in it because it just kept spreading out. I will just keep trying till I get it figured out. Going to need to get more fuel though. I guess I will have to take a trip to the valley.
  14. PJames I tried channle locks with the same result. Didn't work well. Had better luck with some horse show nippers. I ordered a pair of OC wolf jaw tongs this week so should have them by end of coming week. Really interested to try that. I want to make some tongs but I held a pair of the OC tongs at Marks house last week and they had a real nice feal.
  15. Got the forge fired and made my first thing today. Tried of the hearts brian did the how to pictures for. I used some rebar and I kept burning it but finally got one hammered out. The pics you see are about 3 hours work with getting the fire started and figuring out what I was doing. Need to get the anvil mounted higher and work on fire control among other things. I need to build a hot cut for the anvil or just mount in the stump. I ended up using the edge of the RR anvil to cut the rebar then broke off the last bit. My 25 cent cross pien worked good but I need to soak it in antifreeze. Tomorow we fire up agean and the kids get to try.
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