Spruce

Agreed - at least a name or something. I would be interested as well. OP could PM me maybe??? Spruce

Just wondering who, if anybody, out there uses an open air burner? And what designs? I know you can just use an oxy-acetylene torch, or oxy-propane torch, but, refilling oxygen bottles costs money. If you could get an atmospheric burner to heat up metal to forging temp, that could be a handy unit - for when you need to heat up just a section of something, or heat up something that wouldn't fit in a forge say, you would definitely be cutting down on oxygen bottle useage. So, what's the word - anybody doing it relatively successfully? I just got a forge going with Frosty T burners - I think maybe a 1" version of one of these guys, tuned correctly, might do a good job. Anyone done that? Thanks, Spruce

Alright folks, here's the latest: It was indeed burning rich. Its only a little bigger than 350 cubic inches - 450ish from memory but I need to go measure again to get it exactly right. So, I opted for 2 burners - hopefully backpressure won't screw me up too much, but I was hoping I could keep 2 burners running on low PSI instead of having to really blast 1 burner for most forging work. I got 1" x 1" x 3/4" Ts, reduced the jet down to a .035 mig tip, and drilled and tapped 1/8" schedule 80 nipples to hold the tip, which allowed me to cut the tip back to about a half inch. Before with the lamp rod setup the caps which I drilled and tapped for the MIG tip were so big that I was afraid I wouldn't be able to cut the tip back enough. I like this setup much better - it just looks cleaner. I thought about drilling and tapping a 1/4 compression to 1/8 MIP fitting, the way I've read several others are doing it, but I wanted to go from the 1/8 MIP section, directly into my 1/8 FIP threaded ball valve, and not have compression fittings in between, just out of a preference thing - it puts the valves where I want them. So, this seems to have worked great. I don't have photos yet, but I have way less dragons breath, and they are louder again. I can get the flame lean, and I put a little choke plate on each opening of the Ts so I can cut down the air however I want. And, I can now idle it down way way lower, which will help with my propane consumption. And, my castable refractory came in today, so I'm going to trowel that in tomorrow, and cast in 1:12 burner flares. Then, after my IR coating comes in (trying the metrikote stuff from Wayne Coe), I'll put that on, and I should really be cooking. It already got hotter than my previous efforts. So far, I'm way impressed with the setup. One more question I have though - I used 8" x 3/4" down tubes - Frosty - I read in another post of yours, that you recommended between 6" and 7" for a 3/4" burner. Is this right? What will be the effect if I drop to 6" down tubes? I have two, so I might try it tomorrow just to see. Anyway, thanks mucho - I'll post some photos tomorrow (or the next day or so, depending on when I put in the refractory cement) to see if you guys can spot anything else which needs tweaking. Spruce

Thanks for the info, Samcro - I think you're right about it being rich. The question is how to fix it. I am switching from a 1" downtube, to a 3/4" downtube, with a flare on the end. And, I think my mig tips need to be shorter. Hopefully I can get it to run with too much air, and adjust it via a choke. As for it being unlined, the materials are on their way. But, right now it's not hurting that lining much, if at all. After running it for 20 mins yesterday, I can't even tell it was on. In any case, it will be lined soon. But, lined or not, I want those burners running perfectly. Charlotte - It was only open for that one picture. Most of the time it's just got a hole on either end. I'll only open it up when I have to, and I'll crank the hell out of the propane when I do, to get it hot enough, and close it up as soon as I can fit the piece in again/start on something smaller. Hopefully my latest round of mods will help, Spruce

So, I've built myself a little forge - a kind of box design which opens on three sides if I want it to, kind of like a diamondback. I made 2 of Frosty's T burners to heat it up, and fired it up today. My last forge was a round air tank one, and had to Zoeller side arm burners - the kind with the ward reducing T. It was loud - really roared and spat out a lot of hot air. I tried choking it some, but it seemed like it didn't heat as well. Did produce quite a lot of scale. Now, my new forge, is much quitter, and doesn't force as much hot air out. But, overall there is more flame coming out the doors - it just doesn't roar out like my old forge. Instead it curls up pretty quickly. So it's like there is more flame, but doesn't shoot out so far. I'm thinking that I need a balance between the two. Here's a link to some photos (imgur is not giving me the image codes - I think it wants me to upgrade my account...) http://imgur.com/a/Irhz3 Lemme know what you guys think. In the images you can sorta see the pale yellow flames leaping upwards from the doors. They go up about a foot. This is what I'm wondering about. Overall it does get hotter than my last forge - I haven't lined it with plistix or anything yet, but I can get up to a bright orange or dull yellow heat. I think I might need a little more oxygen though, which I think means I will need to take the burners apart, and cut the mig tips shorter - is this correct? Mucho thanks, Spruce

Out of curiosity, has anyone used the venture burner posted above? Here's the link again: http://www.axner.com/mr-750venturiburner.aspx At $40ish if it worked well it would be worth buying just to save the time it takes to make a burner - without a lathe, getting everything lined up perfectly plumb, drilling and tapping, etc. $40 is worth it all day long for me. So howabout it, anyone used one? How's it work? Spruce

Thanks for the awesome reply Mitchell:) I'll troubleshoot and see what I can come up with. Overall I think it's pretty good, especially for slapping everything together and it working first try. I think with a little tweaking I'll have it roaring in no time. Thanks again, Spruce

Cool, thanks for the replies guys. For now I'll use the vice as is, but maybe try to get a thrust bearing at some point to replace that weird collar. It seems to work fine for the most part - once I get it mounted more securely, cleaned and greased I think it will work as a first post vice - I'll keep my eye out for another floating around in the meantime. I haven't been able to find a mark anywhere on this thing - it's got plenty of hammer marks and other dings though, so it could be obscured. Would be cool if it was an iron city - I lived in Pittsburgh for more or less 8 years. Now I'm based in a little desert town a few minutes outside Las Vegas. I got the vice at an antique dealer in Colorado though, along with a 150# mousehole anvil. There were a couple more anvils as well - not the greatest price, but in Vegas I haven't been able to come up with anything else. Spruce

Hey All, So this past week I wacked up a forge. I used an air tank, and made Ron Reil burners. I read quite a lot on different burner types, but at the local plumbing stores, I could only find the plumbing fittings for a Reil type burner, so that's what I went with. It seems to be working awesome - my burner flares aren't flares at all, and it still seems to do well. I used kaowool I was able to pick up at a local pottery place, and decided to just see if their refractory cement would work. I forget what it's called, but unfortunately it doesn't - oh well, I will pull that inner layer of kaowool out and reline with ITC. Since I had to order ITC and burner flares anyway, I decided to just order two more burners as well, from hightemptools.com. So hopefully I should have to burners which work even better, and everything lined correctly as soon as that stuff gets in. Which brings me to my first question: has anybody ordered from these guys on here? It's been a week and a half, and still nothing shipped. I am fine with a small business taking a while, but I would at least like to know what the status is. Haven't heard anything from them yet, and am wondering if it'll ship any day, or in months from now??? Also, right now after my forge runs for 5 or 10 minutes and gets up to full heat, the burners start to 'flutter'. Not too bad - it still seems to be hot as hell, but it's annoying and I know it's not efficient. It's a lack of oxygen I believe, because if I blow into the bell, it stops fluttering and starts to roar smoothly again. What should I do to fix this? A bigger reducer? One last thing - this puppy seems to spit a lot of heat out the doors - inside is a blue roaring flame, but I do get a pale white/yellow flame that licks it's way out the front door, and a helluva lot of heat coming out. I'm a complete newb, and maybe this is normal, but it does seem a little excessive to me - to take stuff out of the forge I have to be quick and wear gloves - even leather welding gloves get hot in a hurry. Seems to me like my burners aren't quite working right, and I'm getting a little more flame out the door than I should. Thoughts? I'm getting this all set up in my garage, which is not quite a double - kind of a 1 1/2 or 1 3/4 but in an L shape, with high ceilings. Right now I'm working with the door open and the forge pointing out it - I would like to be able to work with the door closed or partly closed though, to keep noise down so I can work at night - does anybody else out there work in a space this small, and how is your ventilation coping? Thanks in advance, Spruce

Hey all, Picked this post vice up a while back, and am in the middle of turning my garage into a smithy. Today I started going over the vice. I picked it up cheap, and didn't have time to really go over it - now that I've got it home and taken apart and cleaned up some, I can see it's definitely not in perfect condition, but is hopefully useable. First of all, can anybody tell me what it is? Who made it and when? Second of all, you can see that some of the screw threads are flattened out. They're kind of mashed flatter and wider. So far it still seems to work though. Think this will be a problem? And, is there a way to fix the threads? I've been reading up on these guys - I know you can buy acme threads and nuts, but is there any way to fix the male threads if needed? The screw box itself is definitely a little damaged on the leading and trailing edge of the box, but the threads for most of the length of the box seem to be fine. Can anyone tell if this is machine cut or brazed? As you can see from the pics, it's had some repair done to it before, and has some non-stock parts for sure. Can you guys tell me if the collar, which the spring is welded to in the pics, is an original part, and if so, where it went? It seems to me that this whole piece is jerry rigged. Also, can anyone tell me if the big collar, which acts as the 'washer' between the handle knurl and the front/moveable leg, is aftermarket? I think that this thing is just a black pipe plumbing fitting of some sort, which is taking the place of a real washer. I believe that the moveable leg is also a bit bent - as in closed so tightly that it tweaked back a bit, cause it's no longer in a nice straight line - do some have a bend in this leg, or is mine tweaked? So far I cleaned it up some and made a new spring for it, and got rid of that ridiculous coil spring. Now I have to finish mounting it, scrounge up or make any parts which are missing or inadequate, and hopefully that's it - hopefully the threads will hold up for a while longer and the bent leg doesn't hurt anything. Any help is appreciated - here are the pics Spruce

Nevermind, answered my own question... Missed that link in the first post on my first pass through the thread. Spruce

Off topic, but, what kind of anvil is that??? Spruce

Cool, thanks for the responses guys. Definitely keep me in the loop if there is a get together. Would be psyched to meet ya'll, and hopefully soon here I won't be so crippled and can start learning the trade. - Spruce

Hey all. For some reason, the website is not letting my enter button work at the moment, so all of this will be typed in one paragraph... I'm just starting to break into blacksmithing. I have acquired a pretty beat up but useable Peter Wright (I think it's 126 pounds from memory - would have to check again) and a 149 pound mousehole, as well as a good post vice that just needs a little loving to get back into great shape. Was about to start on my forge and everything else when I broke my ankle pretty bad, so I've been laid up for a couple of months now, and I'm not out of the woods yet. In any case, if you guys meet up some time, I'd love to hang out and ask questions and see what other people have got going on. So, keep me in mind if there's a get-together. I live out in Blue Diamond, the little desert community of about a 100 houses underneath Red Rocks. Takes a minute to get in town, but that's fine by me. And we can do whatever we want out here, like tear trucks apart in the front yard, or, set up a smithy in the back:) Very handy. Hope to hear from ya'll soon - Spruce

Hey Everybody - Thanks for the replies! Seems like I have a decent anvil on my hands, which I'm way psyched about. Probably what I'll do for the moment is pretty minimal - take some flap wheels to the top to clean it up a bit, clean up the horn, and dress the edges just a bit so I have some nice undented radii, but for now I'll leave the worst of the carnage, and just get to smithing to see what I can work with. I'll also leave the sides mostly alone, to preserve as much of the writing as possible. I did do some research, and it seems people have had luck with the Gunter method of fixing anvils, which doesn't sound bad at all - stick welding is no problem. Eventually I'd like to fix the edges and make it as nice as possible - I like to own nice tools, and keep them in top notch condition, even when it doesn't affect performance much - just the way I am, I like my tools just so...

Hey All, First time poster here, and never swung a hammer at a hot peace of metal in my life (well, not true, I've done general jobsite torchwork including heating things up and beating the hell out of em for some reason or another, but nothing which could be called blacksmithing). But, I've been reading about smithing off and on for years now, am a welder, woodworker, (and these days a rigger by trade). I've been keeping my eye out halfheartedly for an anvil for quite a while now, and last week I went to the girlfriends stepfathers ranch for the first time. I asked him if he saw many anvils in his travels around various ranches, and he said he had a spare 'dead' anvil I could have. I nabbed it, and it turns out it's a Peter Wright, 146 pound anvil, that is not dead - rings like a bell if you set it on a block of wood and tap it. But, it's certainly been used and abused. A lot of the edges are crowned over, and the face has some big dents in it. It has a little sway, but not too bad (I don't think anyway, but I also don't know what I'm talking about). My question is, what should I do to bring this back to working condition? Pictures can be seen here: http://imgur.com/a/7BNh2 I've been reading, and some suggest grinding, belt sanding, welding, etc. etc. etc. My best guess is to grind some, but as little as possible (and I'm a surgeon with an angle grinder - got way too much practice with those guys), and then belt sand, to flatten the face (dent wise, not try to take every bit of sway out of it). And, to grind the edges - round over as little as possible, but as much as it takes to get rid of the crowning/chipping. Thoughts? I've read of some people welding in the chipped edges - not ideal, but better than fully trashed edges. I'm thinking I can get away with little or no welding though. Thanks in advance, Spruce PS My girlfriends stepfather had tore up a brush hog blade assembly, and I volunteered to weld it back together for him. After welding it back together, we needed to straighten one of the blades - which he did, with the help of his ranch hand, by putting it over the anvil, and smashing the ever living crap out of it with a huge sledge hammer. His ranch hands sure knew how to swing a sledge - he put the kaibosh into it, and it would move around on the anvil, and at times it was right on the horn and I thought for sure it would break it off - but, the anvil took it and survived, thank God - I didn't want to tell them to stop, cause I could tell they would both think that was ridiculous, but I was terrified they were about to destroy it. I think that's the kind of abuse that anvil has seen more of in recent years than any kind of blacksmithing.