David Einhorn

Back in the stone-age when I was involved in sports we watched ourselves in mirrors and also used videotape to monitor and refine movement. Have you tried either forging in front of a mirror or filming yourself?

If you want to get her something for Christmas on blacksmithing you can purchase a copy of "New Edge of the Anvil: A Resource Book for the Blacksmith (Paperback)" by Jack Andrews from most book dealers or online from Amazon.com. It is one of many good books that are available.

You can also get her a year's membership in the local blacksmithing guild by locating the nearest guild at [ABANA] Affiliate List

And if you want to purchase her tools you can purchase:
- Cross peen hammer, preferably in my opinion, a Hofi hammer
- several wolf jaw tongs of several sizes
- an anvil (the bigger the better)
- a coal or gas forge (gas forge will probably work out better in the kitchen)
- cut off hardie that fits the anvil
- and other tools as strike your fancy

These tools and lots of great books are available from the various vendors found at: [ABANA] Links

I am sorry for your loss. It is very nice that you made the cross.

If you need a grief counselor there are likely some in your area. If your doctor or minister does not know one, you might find one through your local MHMR office.

Best wishes.

P.S. : I googled your town and found http://www.amyalvarado.com/ who apparently does grief counseling according to her web site.

My humble understanding is that the leg serves to transfer the resulting forces from pounding into the floor rather than the bracket attaching the vise to the table. The leg allows you to take advantage of the compression strength of the leg rather than depend on the shear strength of the mounting bracket parts.

what is the purpose of the leg on a leg vice?

Hot, cold, chisel, hot set, cold set.... as you can see there are various names for basically the same thing. Hot cutting handled chisels tend to be thinner than the cold variety, preferences vary. Here is version on EBay that is a pretty well photographed example of what I would consider heads that are a bit thick for two hot cuts.

The reason that hot cuts have a curve to the edge is so that you can "walk" the hot cut along a line and have one continuous cut. Without the curved edge, it is more difficult to have one continuous clean cut.

NICE! HUGE VINTAGE BLACKSMITH CUTTER HAMMER HEAD TOOL - eBay (item 120344565193 end time Dec-10-08 20:48:01 PST)

Not to mention the other potential long term benefits of high temperature burning and welding of nickel:

http://www.iforgeiron.com/forum/f7/zinc-cadmium-hydrogen-fluoride-other-toxic-compounds-8515/

I built my shop with 12 foot to the bottom of the trusses so that I can cut 20 foot stock in half and stack it vertically at a slight angle in vertical racks. I put wood lofts at the one end of the shop, like those in a wheelwright's shop, so that at that end of the building the ceiling is 8ft with about 3ft high area in the lofts. I installed halogen lights as banks of lights so that I can vary the amount of light. I framed the windows the same 38in width as doors so that if I need to add on to the building, those windows can be converted to doors by simply removing the sills. I framed extra windows and marked where they are inside the building, so that if I need more windows I just have to remove those sections of plywood. I installed garage doors, at both front and back of the building, and 4 walk-through doors, so that I can vary the amount of air and conditions from indoor type environment to the equivalent of being outside with the wind blowing through my hair.

Welding is when you have two pieces of similar material with a similar range of melting point.

Soldering is when one of the materials has sufficiently different enough melting point that only one of the two materials melt.

While I might purchase Craftsman wrenches and hammers I will never purchase another electric tool from Sears. When we got our first house I purchased a set of tools for it consisting of one of their more expensive table saws, electric drill, scroll saw, and circular saw. The circular saw and the electric drill shot out sparks from day one and died at the end of the one year warantee period. Both the table saw and the scroll saw were almost unusable because the fences and guides would come loose and not stay in place during use. Also, the two slots in the table saw's top were not parallel, so that you could not slide jigs in the slots. When I went back to Sears their attitude was to go $%@& myself. A few months ago I took a Craftsman socket wrench back and they gave me a non-Craftsman socket wrench that does not look or feel well made.

I replaced those tools with commercial grade tools from suppliers other than Sears and have not had trouble in the 26 years or more since.

I would never recommend purchasing electric tools from Sears. Absolutely never!

Here are two more free books online at Welcome to Lost Crafts...

Modern Blacksmithing: Rational Horse Shoeing and Wagon Making by JG Holmstrom 1901

Farm Blacksmithing by JM Drew St Paul Publishing Company 1918

"smack'em together." If you hit the stack too hard the pieces will simply bounce apart. The idea is to tap on the stack when the surfaces become liquid so that the pieces stick together.

I have a buffalo forge, and I found the buffalo bracket that mounts the blower to the side of that forge. My preference is to mount a blower on a stand next to the forge, but either way is possible. For blowers my preference is Champion blowers.

I have a Champion speed control somewhere in the shop and once looked inside. As far as I can tell, not being an engineer, it looks like a rheostat. My advice is to go to a company that sells motors and motor controllers and inquire about a rheostat that matches your motor. Maybe they will even have an appropriate rheostat that will also fit inside the Champion metal housing.

A really big power hammer nicely installed on a well constructed base.
A bigger anvil.
A chimney for the shop and another for the house.
An eye doctor that doesn't miss "rust" when he is grinding a fragment out of your cornea. (we might have to try again)
A really good face shield.

It looks great! The best thing to do would be to test it with a hat and see if over time the hat retains it's shape. The hook reminds me of harness hooks that we have in the barn and basement. You might want to try a double row of horseshoe shaped supports so that with cross pieces connecting the two (like a harness hook) so that the hat is supported over a wider area (so as to not distort the hat).

I keep my wedding ring in my wallet. I avoid wearing rings or wrist-watches. I find the feel of them extremely uncomfortable, and on one occasion a car salesman held onto my hand using a ring to prevent me from easily getting my hand back. Needless to say, he did not make a car sale!

I always look for the specification codes on the grinding discs I purchase. If there is no code then I assume that the disc is cheap junk and not worth purchasing. I have been informed that the codes are "industry standard codes". My preference is code A24N for fast stock removal.

In case there is interest here are some of the relevant codes for steel:

Specification Application
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A24R......General purpose wheel for heavy working conditions. Long life, good stock removal. Used for Iron, Steel, normal ferrous metals

A24N......General purpose wheel for normal working conditions. High stock removal. Used for Iron, Stainless Steel.

Z-A24R....Zirconium abrasive wheel special designed for extremely tough applications. Has long life and high stock removal. Used for Iron, Stainless Steel, Forgings.

A46N......Special Wheel for aluminum and nonferrous metals. Used for Aluminum and other nonferrous metals.

I found this information at: www.franks-supply.com

In case anyone is looking for quality bargain-priced knifemaking books. This is a great book from a 4 volume series that is available as a remainder book from Edward R Hamilton. It contains 100 custom knifemaking and knife related projects, with over 1,500 original high-quality color photographs.

THE ART OF MODERN CUSTOM KNIFEMAKING: 100 Custom Knife Related Projects in the Making.

Projects in the Making, By David Darom

Hardbound.
252 pages
Published by Chartwell
Size(inches) 8

Pieces a foot or two long go into two buckets.

Shorter pieces of angle and stubs I make into jigs. I tend to use up most small pieces.

What I can't use because it is smaller than 1/2 long, I toss.

I used high grade white marine lithium grease in my Champion 400. Works fine for me and does not leak.

All of the cutting plates I have seen people use have been a piece of steel, either a simple plate sitting upon the anvil, or a stem that fits in the hardy hole, or edges that wrap around the two sides of the anvil.

There is a series of books by David Darom (I have four of them. He keeps putting out more books) where just about every two pages of each book is a different knifemaker discussing a technique they use. These books have spectacular photographs of a lot of remarkable inlay and other detail work. So far the books I have by this author are:
- Custom Knifemaking
- Custom Folding Knives
- The Great Collections
- Custom Fixed Blade Knives

Of course the other wonderful books are too many to list here. The emphasis of this author, according to one book's forward, is to have very high quality photographs. And in that I believe he succeeded! Great books for inspiration.

There are websites with free woodworking plans. Here is a site with plans for bedside tables. Let us know if any of the plans seem appropriate:

Free Bedside Table Plans, Nightstand Plans and Miscellaneous Bedroom Furniture plans

http://media.popularmechanics.com/images/sb_lg_plans-lg-5.jpg

How thick does the plywood have to be so that the boards will not bend?

I made a bellows many years ago from plywood, about 1/2" thick and the plywood bent severely when I tried to pump it. The bellows looked nice, and the valving worked nicely, but otherwise it did not work well because the plywood bent.

Here are some plans for bellows

BP0127 Bellows Construction

BP0141 Bellows Construction

Guru - Bellows

Bellows