bipolarandy

Here are some pics of my new baby, Body is a 20# propane tank with angle iron weld on for legs. The bottom is 3000F ram refractory which I had made for me and cured by a local refractory company, the top is 2 or 3 inches of 3000F insuwool. Its fired with two homemade 3/4" T-rex burners. I'll probably fire it up tomorrow sometime. Here it is next to my first gas forge I built two years ago... -Andrei

Hillbilly, if you've never worked silver, you may not want to mess with your troy ounce's. Silver is very different than steel, you need a very clean setup, you must be OCD about cleaning all the scale off the metal each and every time its annealed, it has a low melting temp too, so the ol'e forge is not an option for heating,,,,, and its soft,, so any marks in your tools will mark your silver. Thats just the basics. Now, your question about rings, fine silver is too soft for a ring, it will deform very quickly. Sterling is whats used for most jewerly because its much harder than fine silver. I would try engraving your friends name into that troy ounce and making a bezel setting to hold it, like these. slides and pendants , than you can put it on a leather cord or something. -Andrei

Mills, your so right about the silver sulfadene, that stuff is the greatest. I knew someone that worked at a VA hospital and took home some bottles of it for sunburns, after a day the worst sunburn would be healed if you used it. I wish I could get it again, my doctor wont write me a Rx for it.

I didn't understand all of your first post, what are you trying to make?

If you dont want to fool around with acid, you can use plain white vinegar. Put it in a tin can on a hot plate and let it come to a slow boil. The patten in your chain will come out in a few minutes. To amp up the vinagar, add a few squrts of lemon juice.

cw, i ment, did you start with pre made frames, like from kimber, or did you cut those out of a billet?

cw, i love the 1911 thats on your picture page, how much of that is your work?

Video of hammer - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting Video of hammer 2 - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting The video is kinda dark, but you can still get the jist of it.

larry, i'll take a quick movie of mine tonight and see if i can upload it

4 1/2" hand grinder, is use mine for EVERYTING ,Grinding, sanding, polishing, cutting, i hold it down a table and use it like a belt sander,,, iv even learned how to cut sheet with it id brush my teath and walk the dog with it too if i could The only thing i dont use on it is the wire cup wheels, they scare the heck out of me.

Dan, it "could" be done in a small shop , buy why? Real wought iron isn't that hard to find, factorys churned out tons of it for over a hundered years. and now you can buy Pure iron bars too. The thing is, with most old steelmaking techniques , you will have a large loss of metal, Even more so when working with wrought iron because of the refining involed. Take a trip up to the Chittenango Barge Canal Museum in Chittenango, NY. The guys up there have tons of iron they pulled outta the ground from the 1850's, im sure they'd give you a piece if you asked nicely.

welder19, i did get the largest bottle you can buy from the store with C-25 in it.

Just a quick pic of it, i havn't had much time to play with it yet as iv been trying to figure out issues with my power hammer. But I can tell im gonna !love! MIG welding so much more than stick.

Just arrived today.

Nuthing really metal related, but I got some new blue jeans and some other clothes, and a wacom tabet for my computer.

i have an anvil thats around 80-100 pounds, the only marking on it is a five pointed star. the bottom looks like cast iron, and the top is a tool steel plate.

Is it a five pointed star thats raised off the surface?

Actually , iv been looking at that billet for the past few days thinking of what I could forge it into,(it got lost in the mess that is my shop). But, seeing as how im moving in a month, im not gonna rush things wile im packing a house and a shop :)

I was very disappointed at how much they dumbed down the science aspect of it so much and relied on silly reenactments and 3d computer animations. Shame on you Nova, you took a great subject and trashed it by appealing to the lowest common denominator.

This may be a silly question, but how do you drill a hole thru the handle?

wow, that thing is awesome!, what ever you did, id try to repeat it, thats a great form... -andrei

here are some better photos of sparks, these are from Mild steel or A36, ' alt='' class='ipsImage' > Note how the cluster is kinda loose and the sparks are long and straight and dont have many forks and bursts at the ends of them. Now this is 5160 spring steel. See how the cluster is much tighter and the sparks are shorter, and there are almost little fireworks at the ends of each spark. Now this is a High carbon steel, comparable to a file, or possibly higher in carbon. ' alt='' class='ipsImage' > See how the spark cluster almost looks solid its so dense, and each spark branches off into two or three other sparks. Just to compare, look at these two side by side. ' alt='' class='ipsImage' > ' alt='' class='ipsImage' > Hope those help -Andrei

Aint you the guy thats been making these $2000 ninja swords? I thought you would have learned how to forge weld by now?

Haha, thanks Jr. The cake is still being made (by mom) :)