Steve Sells

I have to work so no chance of me getting there

dont worry guys I am watching this one...

Aluminum cans are an extrusion alloy not really for casting, also when melted you will lose most of it to dross

Be aware there are legal regulations as to spacing between rails, this is for preventing children getting trapped...

odd that no one started a thread for THIS years event

IForgeIron Blueprints Copyright 2002 - 2007 IFORGEIRON, All rights reserved. BP0193 Diagonal Peen Hammer by James Joyce Talking about a blacksmith's hammer is about like talking of his dog, truck or wife. So, no matter what that style of hammer is called, Quarter peen, slash peen, Twisted face, Diagonal peen, Drawing hammer, or another name, let us be clear here, I am talking about MY hammer. Take what you like and leave the rest. This is the view I see when I go to a blacksmith's demonstration when he is using a standard cross peen hammer to fuller. He pulls his off hand in toward the center of his body, aligns the working hammer hand and goes at it. This is the view from the eye of the blacksmith doing the fullering. As you can see, as the standard cross peen strikes the work the blacksmith is essentially blind. His handle covers the view of where exactly the peen is striking. Several years ago a blacksmith named, I think, Jeffery Foote (?) thought this an intolerable intrusion on his otherwise fine workmanship. Jeffery told me he took a Swedish cross peen, heated it up, twisted the peen 45 degrees. He opened the world of blacksmithing to a new dimension of accuracy. And introduced the diagonal cross peen hammer to artist blacksmithing. When a right handed smith uses a left diagonal pein hammer, smith�s view of his fullering strike location is impeded with the diagonal cross peen hammer. When the right handed smith used a right diagonal pein, the smith�s view of his fullering strike location is no longer impeded with the right diagonal cross peen hammer. When the left handed smith used a left diagonal pein, the smith's view of his fullering strike location is no longer impeded with the left diagonal cross peen hammer. But when the left handed model of the diagonal cross peen is used by a right handed smith, it becomes a diagonal straight peen, again allowing an unimpeded view of work (his arm is now to the side) and producing greater accuracy and smoother work. This shows the body position of the smith fullering at the horn when using the diagonal cross peen. He has relaxed posture, with the natural hammer arm position at his side. Notice that from this position he can pin the off hand to his left side for easy control of the work piece. This shows the same smith forcing his arms into alignment in front of his body to fuller over the horn with a standard cross peen hammer. I hope this helps explain why many of us blacksmiths (like Rob Gunther and Bill Epps, to name just 2 you probably know) have switched over to diagonal peen hammers for better control of our work. A full set of smithing hammers should include a right and left as above, a cross peen, a straight peen and a round face spreading hammer, all of the peens should have at least a 1/2 inch rounded face so as not to make sharp dings in the material worked.

YES!!! you are getting the idea now

I dont think you really need 20 wide honestly. 20 was not an exact measurement, 14 or 16 may be better. the HVAC guys here would have a better idea. MY numbers were just an example. FYI My forge is huge, 30 x 60 inch deck, 2 pallets of brick and 10 or so flue tiles to make it

I was talking about 4 inches deep and 20 wide. Above the fire, out of the way, it transitions to a 10 or 12 inch round. The point is you wont have to give up 12 inches of space between the fire pot deck and the wall to have a side draft. A side draft sucks the gasses into the pipe, where as a hood attempts (poorly) to collect it as it rises, along with massive amounts of room air

Use non carbide saw blades. The carbides bodies are soft steel plate where as mono steel care many times L6 a chrome/moly alloy which is near perfect for this

You do not need 12 inch depth for the side draft, it can be a few inches deep and not need 12 inches depth to work, example 4 inch by 20 inch will work also taking up less floor space, than the 12 inch you suggested.

Let us know how the taming goes John

I used my chop saw and only used an abrasive blade

Edge up I dont know of any bladesmiths using flap disks, but there may be a few

There is no more risk in sharpening edge grabbing onto the moving force of the belt, any more than the spine doing it. That is nonsense. I use edge up so I can see the edge thickness, and keep it even. so edge into the belt, since running the belt the other direction would just throw the metal dust into your face

no clue your linking rather than just posting failed, there is no photo

and YES you will lose a fair amount of material in the process

300 series is NOT good for a cutting tool, get 440

My shop is about 200 sq ft also, and I cant see your AC having any real effect while the forge is working, if you have enough intake air flow to allow enough O2 and general ventilation for proper flue operation unless you are only standing in the direct output of the AC unit

Normalizing should not effect it , its the Austenite/Martensite transformation that will change it

I will ad that IMHO my 60 grit Blaze are well worth the cost

but that is exactly what heating and quenching with water does, makes that area brittle from the hardening

OP has not returned since making this post

I may as well be the one to rain on your parade, because I dont know where you got the idea of using water, but you may have ruined that steel because O1 is not water hardening, its OIL hardening, that is what the O means it could be fine, tho it could now have many micro fractures, time and hard use will tell

How are you hardening it now? you are aware that tempering is useless unless you harden it first right?