John Martin

I was making a nail header and was using 3/16 inch steel. I wanted to make it strong, so I bent it over, so that it was 6/16 inch, and I heated bright yellow, forge weld temperature, sparking and everything, tried to forge weld it, but it wouldn't weld. Don't know what I was doing wrong.

I tried it, and my pieces kept bending, but i did push some of it back into itself. Either way, it was a loss.

Lol, it's upsetting to the smith. I like that.

Okay, will check it out.

I don't understand the upsetting thing frosty, please explain. I only use the vise for the horn to bend with.

What do you mean poll hard?

Lol. I bought one cuz, I wrecked one of my moms before that. It was like $25. Low, Med, High. Cold, Warm, Hot, Very Hot.

Exactly. Works like a charm, I'm gonna try making a hardie this weekend for hot and cold cutting. The head weight helps cut through the metal.

They are starters, once I have the slit made, I put in my "real" drift, and I'll end up with an eye to put a handle in. Follow the link.

Below is an image and a link to my smithy pictures. It's not much, but it's home and it works.

http://www.iforgeiron.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=5021&cat=&size=medium

Fire Place Tools and Maybe a Candle Holder or two

I use a hair dryer that is super powerful and has three settings, it works plenty well.

Well, I made a shovel and fire poker, not gona post pix. Don't really need to, and the shovel broke off. So I have the hang of it now, But unfortunatly for me, my 20 pieces of stock got sent to the wrong address and are now lost.

Go to dfoggknives.com then go to the forum and then go to the bloomery section, I learned a lot from there.

I use tongs, but i use short vise-grips for smaller pieces. Thank-you for all of the advice.

Below is a link to the album that I made for them, do not know how to make thumbnails.

http://www.iforgeiron.com/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/705

I have handle any longer pieces of steel than like 8in. The scale and sometimes yellow hot pieces fly off onto my left hand, so I've started wearing a glove on my left hand to limit those annoying burns. I have had in two months, third degree burns on my fingers, caught a piece of steel. Not thinking. Duh. And multiple pieces of melted steel that have burned into my arms and hands.

Do you wear gloves, do you not? DO you only waer gloves for one hand? Do you cut the cuffs off? Do you special order left or right handed? What is the best type of glove material to wear?

I wear gloves, on my left hand only. I've cut the cuffs off my gloves. Where can you special order them? And what is the best material you can wear?

I don't understand that, but okay.

Yeah, I meant drifts, let me change that. One second.

Lol. Cool. I use hardwood charcoal from piggly wiggly. I do not know if wal-mart supplies hardwood charcoal.

I made 3 Hammer eye Drifts, One Punch, One Hot Cut, One Twist in about two hours, will post pictures as soon as my cord comes in tomorrow, i got the camera fixed.

It got fixed finally, but they didn't return the cord, so I'm waiting on that. I don't think I'm gonna try a pattern welding yet, don't know like anything about it. Other than the basics.

Awesome job, what kind of fuel did you use? If you get a RR track plate, and a giant heavy log, it works really. Well. Like the twists.

Okay, well I'll stop clogging this topic up with questions now, thank you.