DSW

Nice looking forge. Did you stick weld or mig weld it? There are all sorts of welding related projects. In addition to those mentioned, a steel layout table, vise stand, bending forks, guillotine fuller, hardy tools, tongs ( forge the jaws and arc weld the reins ) Or you could use welding to assemble larger projects from forged parts. Shelf brackets, pot and plant hangers pieces of a gate before you collar them... You get better thru practice. If you want some help, fell free to post up some picts of your unground but cleaned welds and the information to go with them, Machine used, rod type/size, amps, (wire size with wire speed and volts if mig) material thickness etc and I'll be glad to help.

I still remember that for doing castings in basic metals shop in Jr high. You need to remove all the scratches from the last grit before moving to the next one. If you don't, chances are you won't be able to remove those scratches when you are 3 or 4 grits down the scale. Way too many people get in a rush and want to jump grit sizes and expect to make do with power tools vs going with the basics.

IR digital thermometers have also come way down in price. I'd have to check how high mine goes, but since it was marketed towards welders needing to monitor preheat/post heat and interpass temps. It probably goes up moderately high. I'll have to try and remember to take it with me to the shop on Monday and see how high it goes when I get a chance to play at the forge.

Thanks for serving from a former Navy brat. There are all sorts of beginner projects that will help you build some basic skill sets. Coat hooks are a good idea. You can do simple spike drive hooks or fishtail scroll hooks where you drill the tail for a screw to attach it to the wall or backing board. They make nice gifts or "bribes" :P as well. You can do a lot of different things on these hooks for practice. Tapering, drawing out, twisting, bending and forming all come to mind off the top of my head. Fireplace tools, door handles/drawer pulls, candle holders, bathroom towel bars and TP holders and robe hooks, bottle openers, plant hangers, shelf brackets, forged crosses, hinges... I could probably keep going for hours.... Basic knives and letter openers are always popular with military personnel it seems. Knives don't have to be completely forged. Many times you can rough shape them and then do almost all the finish work cold with a grinder and sander before heat treating if need be. Nice finished goods can be traded to others on base for raw materials or access to tooling/equipment you want or need. Do yourself a favor and document in photos what you make. That way you can remember good ideas and what and where you may need work. Europe has a vast history of antique metal work. You can probably find ideas just about anywhere you go in and around some of the older sections of town. Tooling is always a good idea. However you may not have the skills and equipment to start forging tools right away. That doesn't have to stop you however. Lots of tools can be made with say an electric welder and access to some basic machine tools like a saw and drill press. Tongs, nail headers, bending forks, cut off tools, chisels, guillotine fuller, dishing tool made from pipe... Many of these things can be held in a vise vs a hardy hole in an anvil when you start out. A lot of these basic tools I made up using some scrap and my welder. I wouldn't go too crazy with tools though. Build what you need when you need it. A couple generic thoughts. I'd bet if you hunt a bit you have a fairly good chance at locating old tools and anvils, assuming the language barrier isn't too much of an issue. Keep one thing in mind about purchased and home made tools though. You can only bring so much back home... I have no idea what the moving allowance is today. I know we had a limit when we were stationed in Hawaii as far as what could be shipped back to the lower 48. The other moves were all in country and the moving allowance was different. I do remember cramming everything heavy we possibly could in the two cars and trailer when moving from Washington state back to Virginia in the mid 80's to keep the movers weight down. Keep in mind you may have to abandon some of what you acquire or make, so be smart. Chances are you'll only be there a short while anyways and can always get set up with more later. True antiques would be #1 on my list to bring back with me. Don't overlook the chance to learn how to arc weld if you don't already know how. I'm betting you can swap some forged projects to get someone to teach you the basics. Knowing how to weld, both with an arc welder ( mig stick or tig) not to mention with OA and with the forge can be a big asset in the future when doing this hobby. Avail yourself of the opportunity to learn if you get the chance. Good luck and stay safe.

Hello and welcome. Are you currently stationed overseas with the military? I ask because if so you may be able to avail yourself of any number of opportunities if you know who to talk to or what to ask about. When we were stationed out near Seattle our base had a fully equipped wood shop that was available for all base personnel, their families and most civilian contractors to take advantage of. The sub base nearby had a fully equipped auto shop complete with welding and some minor metal working facilities. However few if any knew those facilities were available. Also "available" were any number of base shops if you knew who to ask nicely. Frequently base maintenance shops would often sit idle and the operating personnel didn't mind if others made use of the equipment, assuming it didn't interfere with any military projects etc , you could operate the equipment safely and you asked nicely. A couple six packs of cold beer often went a long ways towards opening doors. While I doubt the have forging equipment, they may have other useful stuff like welders or OA gear that might help facilitate projects. .Making up a few nick nacks for the guys wouldn't hurt.

With a mass that heavy some preheat wouldn't hurt. You also want to use enough amps to make sure you get decent penetration into the material. Limiting factor will be the thinner piece however. You need enough amps so you don't get a cold weld on the heavy piece, and not so much that it's not controllable on the thinner material. Usually a good way is to try and keep most of the bead on the heavier piece and "wash" the weld over onto the thinner piece. I can't find my AWS manual or my Lincoln Electric book at the moment, but 250-400 sticks in my mind as an approximate preheat for heavy material like that depending on the base material alloy. That should prevent the heavy stock from sucking up too much heat and producing a cold weld. A big propane weed burner is typically used for jobs like this. Depending on the size of the piece your forge may or may not be practical for preheat. Some judicial beveling also wouldn't hurt.

I'm guessing from the look of the crank, that he's doing a traditional treadle to spin the wheel. I like the idea, but personally I'd do something a bit more "ornate" myself to show off a nice wheel like that and say a bit more "traditional". I lost out on the opportunity to get a nice pedal powered grindstone like that from a buddy of mine grandfathers farm. We'd been working to dig it out from under a partially collapsed barn roof when we were over there cleaning up the place prior to the family selling the house. Came back the next Saturday to find the other side of the family called in a scrap guy who hauled off everything that was and wasn't nailed down. They torched the really nice forged frame to get it out from under the roof we'd been working on jacking up ( took my new lally columns as well ) and then broke the stone to get the shaft out of the wheel. They also pried out or torched off all the antique hand forged hinges and barn hardware, both on the damaged doors as well as the good ones. I was just as xxxxxx at that since I'd been told I couldn't take any of the hardware until they decided whether they were going to save or demo the whole barn.

I'd have to see picts of the cut end, but I seriously doubt it. Every forklift blade I've ever seen over the years have all been solid steel. Concrete is very strong in compression, but super weak in tension. It doesn't do at all well when bending loads are applied to it without a lot of height to the structure and reinforcing. Thin concrete snaps vs bends.

Interesting thoughts. I'd have thought with thinner air, you'd need to lean out the mix to accommodate the reduced oxygen, thus cutting fuel consumption, though you would have a decreased heat as a result. I'd have also expected the reduced atmospheric pressure to have played havoc with the regulator, possibly causing the pressure settings to need to be adjusted to compensate for the lower pressure on the exit side of the diaphram.

Very nice work. Tagged for future reference.

It took me 2 or 3 tries before I found them at a local plumbing supply. My normal supplier of plumbing parts had them listed in the system, but only had the cheap import ones in stock. We ordered one of the Ward ones and when it came in, the main warehouse had shipped out one of the imports instead. We ordered a 2nd one from another store, only to end up with the same result. The next place I tried also just stocked the standard import ones. I then tried another local supplier who wasn't as convenient and they had them in stock.

Don't be scared of doing electrolysis. You really can't hurt anything as long as the electrodes are hooked up in the correct polarity and they are not touching. Red to sacrificial anode, black to the part to be derusted. I prefer to use carbon rods vs rebar as my sacrificial anode. I picked up some 3/4" carbon arc rods from McMaster Carr when I did my vise. They were cheap and I didn't have the mess like you do with rebar.

That depends greatly on your location. Around me they have recently started cracking down on the bigger permanent local flea markets. The State wants their tax revenue, and many municipalities want "dealers" to pay to have a business license at a minimum. All of this is because they are loosing tax revenue as more and more "traditional" stores close shop in the poor economy and people are starting to derive more and more income from less regulated areas like markets and the internet. As far as insurance, I don't know. I'd guess in a more "formal" market where you rent space, there's probably some blanket liability insurance that at least partially covers you as a vender. That insurance probably won't cover say injuries if you are doing a demo though. If the market is more of a public area where you can just set up, you probably aren't covered much if at all. I'd check with whom you are renting space from and see how much they cover you as a vendor.

I often deal with a lot of guys who are new to metal working since I help instruct. Often the only "supplier" they know of or can think of is places like Depot/Lowes or maybe the local hardware store or scrap they find laying around in the trash. Compared to buying 3' of 3/8 or 1/2" mild steel at Depot, rebar looks like a good alternative that's easily available. One problem many new guys have is that typical steel suppliers are only open 7-5 at best Mon- Fri. A few places have short Sat hours. This means the average home hobbyist has to take off work to go get material. Not always an option. However Depot/Lowes and ACE are open usually till 9pm 7 days a week. I'll also admit that many large suppliers don't deal well with small purchase customers. Many times they see the guy who is buying shorts or single lengths as a PITA and don't make it easy for them to purchase materials. They use all sorts of excuses to hinder sales to individuals or jack up the prices to offset the hassle or simply try to drive away the occasional small use customer. I find the biggest issue is simply lack of knowledge of the new guys. I often have students tell me they "can't" get material anywhere but Depot/Lowes. I can list maybe a half dozen places semi local and a few really good ones say 1-2 hours drive away, where they can get decent materials. There is at least one small semi-local "old time" hardware store that sells steel stock by the foot at roughly the cost of rebar at the box store, and they are open Sat, even though they have day time hours weekdays. I've also have a local specialty metals supplier who will sell even tool steel by the inch if need be. Downside is he's only open during the day. He is open fairly early so you can order in advance and pick up 1st thing in the morning on the way to work if need be.

Large 20 lb propane cylinders might be hard to store, but they aren't the only size available. They sell little 5 lb propane cylinders as well that have the same standard valve as the bigger cylinders. You can't easily exchange them, but you can get them refilled at any place that will fill the 20 lb ones.

Cheap containers are usually "warped" from having been dropped and often are no longer water tight. One guy I know has an insulated freezer box as his workshop. Sounds like a good idea in very hot or very cold areas of the country.

Rebar comes in a wide variety of "flavors". The stuff most people get is usually all remelt scrap of some kind designed to meet a minimum tensile value and that's about it. I've cut some that cuts like butter in the bar cutter and you can cut 2 pieces at once with no problems, and I've had stuff that was so hard a 250 lb guy could hang from the 4' handle of the cutter on a single piece of 1/2". When it finally cut after bouncing or adding a 6 foot cheater pipe, it snapped and rang almost like a bell. "Code" quality rebar is held to much tighter tolerances. Usually called out for critical structural applications it's seldom remelt scrap, but new steel. It's also not the stuff you find at Depot or the average yard, and it's quite pricy. Most of this stuff today I've typically seen is usually epoxy coated since many times they want to insure the bar against corrosion. Tensile strengths can also be significantly higher than "normal" rebar found at Depot etc. Thus it tends to be harder than "normal" rebar. One other thing I've noticed about hot working rebar. It often has a tendency to work harden and can get very hard when quenched. I've had bar that cut like butter cold with a hacksaw, that would strip all the teeth off the same blade after having been heated and cooled. At that point we had to cut it with the abrasive saw.

My best friend in high school was confined to a wheelchair with limited use of his arms. He never let that stop him from doing whatever he wanted. He'd find a way somehow. All this in the 80's. long before today's PC stuff and ADA. He looked at most of the newly emerging "handicapped accessibility" stuff as a crock and a cop out for those to lazy to find a way to succeed. If he could find a way to make it work, so could anyone else. Sadly he passed away due to an unrelated medical issue before he had a chance to graduate. To this day I use his monogram as my mark to identify my stuff. It reminds me daily that anything can be overcome with the right attitude and perseverance, and to never give up no matter what the odds may look like or what anyone else says.

Am I the only one having a chuckle about him holding the hammer head in his hand and the unconscious looking dog in the background? :P

I'm not sure that pot ever had a clinker breaker. I know my small pump forge doesn't have one, and my buddies crank forge also doesn't. Both simply have a grate.

Congrats!

Drawings or sketches would help. If you want something that braids like rope, how about steel cable? Getting steel rods to braid like rope won't be easy, especially if you are working with long lengths and little to no experience. Work out a basic frame work to support the structure and then wrap it in braided cable. For corrosion resistance, I'd look at stainless wire rope/cable.

Forging a sword is more than a do it yourself project you spend a couple of hours learning. Start out learning the basics on something small like a knife and progress from there. Expect it will take a couple of years of practice. The other way is to simply start with steel the right size and grind it all to the profile you want. It's more a machining project at that point vs forging a sword. I've seen at least one TV show where the host basically ground out a sword and then heat treated it. What he made pretty much any monkey with a grinder could do as far as shaping the steel. It was all stock removal, not forging.

I'd agree, some of my nicest knives are old carbon steel ones. They aren't "pretty" and shiny, but they have some of the nicest edges.

I agree nice job. They are a lot cleaner and crisper than the ones I can make right now. I'd also agree on the nice consistency. It's tough to get things the same each time.