Steve Sells

My new shop is covered by my home owners policy, My agent was here 3 weeks ago. As for Liability waivers, I used to run my own company for a number of years with 7 full time and 3 part time employees. Also I still have the Martial Arts school, and my little sister is a business lawyer. Waivers do not remove liability, but they may reduce the level of penalty's from an action because that signature shows they were informed of risks. But no court will allow anyone to sign away constitutional rights in any contract. So says my Sister of Indiana and Michigan Bar.

hmmmmmm Nope.

There are plenty of satellite groups of ABANA around the states. Merry Christmas, and thank you and your Unit for serving.

12 more "C" clamps, new jeans, socks, and plenty of Hot Pepper products.

depending in the grade of wrought is can come apart, architectural grade needs a lot of refining, before ya can twist it much.

welcome to I Forge Iron, there are many beginning smiths here. some younger than you are good place for friendship, and instruction.

for some strange reason my family can't understand why I don't find putting up more Christmas lights an enjoyable time. I try to explain that by the time I get home from my work putting up other peoples lights, the last thing I want to do is more electrical work. I do like Christmas time.

Funny: because an anvil IS a block of steel, But some do have additional shapes to the basic flat face. Welcome to IFI , While this ain't Valhalla, its close enough for this lifetime.:D

You did good on this One, keep at it. As a wise man once said "the good is too often the enemy of the best". If you will learn to never settle for "good enough", you will succeed beyond your dreams.

If you ask Glenn I am sure he can change your log-in name. But that may already be taken.

WARNING when it "clears" you are still poisoning yourself. you can not see CO and CO2, but if its burning it is still being produced.

rather than empty and refilling 5 gal of water every time I use the forge, I was thinking of a heater for the slack tub. I do have plenty of power 120/240v 100 amp. So I looked at small heated horse water tanks at tractor supply, but fear due to them being made of plastic. I have though of immersing an Aquarium tank heater, but would have to remove when in use. Also wrapping the bucket with heat trace tape, which can remain in place. Rather that attempt to reinvent the wheel what are others doing ? Sign me off as Shivering in Indiana :)

you do realize that you may be losing about half your aluminum cans in weight when melting them? that is why few use them as stock for casting.

about the stress. That is the major point of failure to what would be an otherwise fine blade, Many of us, at first anyway, make nice clean sharp cuts for the ricasso/tang transitions, but a small curve rather than a clean 90 degree angle is best, as it relieves what will be a stress point.

the W series has added carbide formers. Giving smaller grains, and well as making it somewhat hot hard. work as 10XX and you be fine

Welcome to I Forge Iron. Glad you have you here

I confuse terms a lot, Dyslexia, sorry. But isn't that the desired quality with a tang? To flex rather than break? One reason many of us make our tangs dead soft. The tang is not getting the same amount of working stress as the blade itself, also even with a lower flex measurement of the 6011's 60,000 vs the steels 100,000+, is plenty. I don't want to argue semantics, it defeats the purpose of our discussion, a strong functional tang weld. Jhomney or charpy testing can show it is weaker, but but enough to matter?

Actually cast iron has a higher carbon content, well over 2% C. Its melting point is higher than steel because while the addition of carbon does lower the melting point of iron, this is only true until reaching the eustetic point, which is around 0.83%C, then it raises the melting point of the mixture again. A second point I wish to comment on, as my Opinion only, is I have heard, and therefore assume that cast iron pots are made because casting steel is not as cheap as casting gray iron. It took me over 15 years to get a small hole in my last steep pot, and in fairness it has been outside exposed to the rain the last 6 years or so.

No real need to as cold mild is much more resistant to deforming than just about any hot metal.

weak how? many weldments used in MIG are stronger than the brittle high carbon blade steels we use. But i totally agree about keeping it out of the blade area itself, I leave at least a few inches of blade material into the tang area before I overlap mild steel for a tang extension. After I spot weld it in place with the MIG, I go back to the forge and forge weld it solid... Unless someone puts an etch it there , you cant tell it was welded. But I am making talkng about my pattern welded blades. That material is too costly to use for tangs, but for a less costly steel I would make the full blade and tang of same material. At an average cost of less than 25 cents a square inch for carbon steels, its to close to the cost of mild to waste the effort, and risk any potential troubles.

One problem learning with mild steel is that it does not work the same way as knife steels. IF you want to get started learning, as I assume from this posts tone, then go to a junk/scrap yard , Used leaf springs are not suggested for a fine blade due to many things listed in many other places, they are great for practicing, as they are higher carbon, and heat/work like many simple blade steels.

thank you, it just takes time and practice.

sure weld away

standard square clay flue liner tiles.

My side draft never gets hot enough for any code issues. Never to hot to touch bare handed and leave it there. I used 12x12 flue, works great. A forge does not work the same way nor have the same issues as a stove or fireplace chimney. also My day job is in construction, so I talked to everyone before I built mine. Most do not know anything about forge flues. The local code enforcement guy (not building dept) served an apprenticeship as a blacksmith, so he did understand.