Whirly

You've done a great job on that and you'll be giving a gift that'll last their lifetime. They'll love it..

Mate, you're a Genius........

Nothing wrong with that for a first effort Mate, it's a good job. Well done and keep at it

John, really nice work. That letter-box stand is a dead-set winner. Like it alot

Like the finished product there Michael, nice design- simple, pleasing and functional. Well done.........

Wow Sam! Lovely tools Mate. Beautiful work

G'day Andrew, how goes the project, you've not posted for a bit Mate.......

anvilfire.com also has a good step-by-step.
Go to the site and on the left you'll see iForge-How To.
That'll bring up a long list of tutorials on how to make stuff.
Number 11 "Twists" will show an easy to understand demo of how to make a Pineapple twist, among others.....

Rusty, Frosty, thankyou.
Frosty, you and Dave, sounds like you boys need to make some flowers for the Missus :D

G'day, just back last night from another town trip.

Thankyou all for those kind comments, I do appreciate them.
It's the feed-back, support, helpful criticism and advice that, I think, that makes this site so great.
They are the things that encourage people, new to the 'smithing side of things, to attempt new things and develop their skill levels, so thanks again...

Oh yeah, she loves it :P ...............

Hey PE, looks good. You're on the right track now with the ring, but the stip of metal below it will still take a bit of wind to get swinging. If you choof that off and replace it with a disc of thin plywood or lite sheet metal, you'll find it takes much less breeze to get a song out of it.....

Gaz, I see you've done a gnarly looking pine-apple twist on the handle, which really suits the knife, but how have you done the blade? looks great...

G'day, not sure if this should be here or somewhere else. Oh well, guess it'll get moved if I have it wrong.
Anyhow, my wife has a b/day coming up and was not sure what to get her, so thought I'd make her something.
I'd made her a metal rose (which I don't have any pics of) for our last anniversary, so thought how about a candle holder?
Next dilema, what shape/design would apeal?
Hmmm,...stick with flowers.....girls like flowers....well, mine does.....
Ok, so what kind of flower would double as a candle holder?
(I've seen some really great work on here when it comes to making flowers)
Decided on an Orchid, so searched the 'net for Orchid pics and then made this....



Next trip to town I'll look for a nice smelling candle (the type that don't dribble heaps of wax).

Hope she likes it.....

Saaaweet Garey, tell me more.......

G'day Chris, beautiful work, as usual, really nice.

Mate, where do you source the 1" coil? and the dozer blade, is that like HT400 or some such?

G'day 99, nice piece of work.
Following on from Sam's comments, if you want to get the pins smoother, try a wooden Hammer.
Make a hardwood hammer/mallet and when you get the pin as smooth as you can with your steel hammer, take another heat and belt it with a wooden hammer and you'll find it helps smooth it even more. Sometimes a piece of wood to hit on is good also, but with these pins being so thin, they may just burn into the wood too fast and the anvil may be better.
Anyhow, something to try. Keep up the good work

Yep, I'm pretty much with Tim on this, Gob-smacked. Incredible work Rory, well done.....

Nice Randy. That certainly gets the message across. How do you make up your dies? Are you carving designs in or making up punches?

Nice lines on all of it. Well propotioned. I too will be keeping a copy of your design. (I hope there are some serious wall anchors holding this rig in place, a lot of weight on the top of that bracket, especially if any cast-iron cookware gets hung up there)
Well Done...

That's really nice clean work. well done.

G'day Mate, good start.
If you have access to hardwood then you can make good charcoal. There is a fair bit on the 'net about it, but all you really need is a metal drum/container you can put a lid on to seal it.
I use a 44 Gal drum with a 2" pipe entering the bottom of the drum, with the end of the pipe in the middle of the drum (so air can be drawn into the centre of the fire). Then just light a fire and start adding your hardwood until the drum is full. When the wood has burned to coals, put the lid on and bung the 2" pipe closed, (so no more air can get to your fire) then let it all cool and you'll end up with about a 1/3 to a 1/2 drum of good charcoal.
It's all I use and it works well......

Thankyou All. I'd thought long and hard on how to make these out of spring or similar, but I'm not far enough along with my skill levels yet, so settled for using mild. The bits will be made as required for whatever job comes up

Whoa Sam! This is yor neighbour????

Man, tough neigbourhood! if that thing tuned up in my neck of the woods the greetings would be travelling at about 940 m/p/s, in 7.62mm at about 180 Gr...and there'd be lots of them.....

Ok, in my last "Tools" post ('More Tongs, Well of course') I floated the idea of tongs with inter-changeable jaws/bits/what-ever-ya-wanna-callems, and posted a drawing;


So, today I thought I'd have a go at making them a reality. They're forged and fabricated, as in I used an arc welder to join and attach the 'sockets'


I'd made the tongs up and when I wanted to tap in the bolt thread, I found someone needed the Tap and Die set more that I did, and it weren't there, so had to oxy weld on some nuts to make it work. I then thought , well now I've got the tongs I thought of, better make some other bits to make them useful, so made a 'crimping' set for edge of light sheet metal (not that I need them, more to show the idea of the Tongs)


I made the centre of the bolt hole 15mm back from the front of the sockets, so when I made bits/jaws, I put them in to the depth I wanted and used a chisel to mark where they came out of the front of the socket, then measured back 15mm and drilled an indent for the locking bolt to sit in, then locked them in and made whatever shape I was wanting, or welded on the holders, etc.

Just for the thread, I made up a couple more jaws



and as VaughnT suggested in the last post, a hole drilled through the bits to take some wire to keep those together what belongs together


So there ya go. Something for those 'one-off' jobs. Instead of making up a full set of tongs to do the job, just knock up a set of 'bits' (which only take a few minutes, if you have things like a welder and oxy set on hand) I know it's not the answer for everything, but......

That's a really nice looking piece and I'm sure your friend will treasure it, I know I would if it were given to me.
Thomas' comments have weight, beer can/will do those things to a person, and a beer festival? Man, anything goes.
Perhaps a hole in the end of the handle and a leather thong and hang it around his neck, to down near the waistline? Still useable and not easily misplaced/stolen.