01tundra

Nice work!

I like the copper top. 

What did you use to solder it, soft roll solder or sil-phos?

How did you antique the copper?

How would one go about forging a dragonfly as shown below?

Looks like they possibly started out with 1/8" thick flat stock and split it for the wings?

Doesn't appear to be forge welded anywhere.

I'd like to be able to make these, but they would need to be very small - maybe a 2" long body with a 2-1/2" wing span.

Ha, I can't take much of the credit for it, my wife is the one that makes all my ugly, hacked up work so colorful.

I always tell people at the shows that I'm just the dirty old blacksmith, she makes everything pretty :D

Attempt #2 for an advent wreath candle -

I like it, nice work!

If you could tweak it into a bottle opener you could move to Florida and retire :D.

I like them, very cool design!

And the most important part........"wife is happy" :D

What kind of attachment did you use at the wall?  Plastic anchor and screw with a textured head on it?  It's kind of hard to tell from the pictures.

I'd like to see how you're doing that, I've had my G2 for six months and have yet to actually use it.

Your leaves look wonderful.

Are you using a chisel to get the edges shaped like that and then a fuller for the veins?

We finally found time to make the second table leg.

Being able to make two smaller matching items is tough enough, making two large, heavy items match was a fun challenge.

We were finally able to get the second leg to match up very close to the first.

At the rate I'm going, her sofa table should be completed in 2017 sometime :D!

Thanks.

Base color (darker) is Iris Blue Gilders Paste, the highlight color is Patina.

Just finished up a custom order for a repeat client, I'm pretty satisfied with the end result......sure hope he feels the same.

I did pick this one up from him today for $15, I've been looking for a decent sledge for a while.

This one is 10# and says "Drop Forged Japan" on it.  Not sure if it's worth the price I paid, but it should serve me well for now.

(or pein :D).

Best I can tell from limited research that's what it is at least?

Just ran across this at a local guy's old salvage store.  I'm sure he'd want $25-$30 for it since he typically puts pretty high prices on his stuff, but it caught my eye none the less.  I've never seen a hammer quite like this, I'd guess it to be in the 10-12 lb. range. 

Don't think I'd have much use for it, but thought it was pretty cool.  If I thought I would find a good use for it I'd make him an offer on it.

Found this reference on Wikipedia's website, it's the only thing I can find that looks close -

Thank you sir.

My hammer looks similar, but the grooves are not as deep or wide. 

Time to get the grinder back out.

Wow - thanks. 

I wonder if bronze plumbing fittings have Beryllium in them?  I need to do some research since I've considered using bronze plumbing pipe fittings in the past.  Wouldn't think they would, but can't be too safe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryllium_copper

Thomas - What is "Be Bronze"?

I tried looking it up online, but found nothing.

Pneumatic power hammer and possibly a larger propane forge.

Make the hammer by doing the grooves with a cut off wheel in a side grinder. I then polished the hammer face on a Craytex wheel on a bench grinder.

If you get time could you please post up a picture of the hammer head?  I've made one similar but can not get that level of detail out of it. 

On the other side of the hammer head I laid random beads of weld from my mig with the gas turned off and it does well.

I think I need to cut my grooves deeper on the other side.

Tundra, good ideas all around, and I really wish people would hop on here and share photos of their booths, it's tremendously helpful to see others' setups.  I'm not familiar with gilder's paste at all but will be looking into it, I LOVE that on the crosses.  Crosses were a big seller for me this weekend.   Do you clear coat on top of the gilder's tint or just apply the tinted wax instead of beeswax or ???  

We apply the Gilder's with a heat gun, then bake it afterwards, followed up with a clear acrylic coating.

Some of my early attempts.....I'd like to think my later ones look a little better.

Made from 5/16" round stock, colored with Gilder's Paste.

Nice work!

You did great!

Your booth and your sales approach will always be evolving as you go. 

Remember - Presentation is key.  It's what draws that potential customer in.

We've done about eight major shows over the past 1.5 years and have learned a lot.  We plan to really ramp up the shows for 2015 and are going to be covering about four states in the process. 

A lot of the stores that carry our products are due to them seeing us at shows.  We've learned that shop owners "scout" arts & crafts shows for potential vendors.  We also usually get many custom orders after the shows from people that saw us there.

I always seek out the veteran vendors at each show and get great advise from them.  From this last 3-day show we did over the weekend I've learned a few new tricks (like making adjustable table leg extenders out of PVC pipe to bring our products to a higher level and prevent people from having to bend down so far to view our products).  They also use the extenders to level their tables when at ourdoor shows.  A very experienced couple who attend shows full-time also gave me the "list" of all the successful shows they've done for years within a three state radius, it's kind of like the holy grail for crafters.

Might want to think about making small display pictures of you working at the forge/anvil, people like to see that kind of thing.  You can say "hand forged" all day long and it simply doesn't click with a lot of people, the response is usually "you do all of the metal work?"......errrr.

I've learned to have a back-up battery for charging iphones/ipad - http://www.amazon.com/Compact-10000mAh-Portable-External-Technology/dp/B009USAJCC/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1416405472&sr=8-9&keywords=phone+battery+external+charger. 

The ipad is our primary checkout platform, but I always have my phone with me as well for backup.  We now carry at least two card readers, since my ipad slid off my chair and damaged the reader at one show and we barely got by.

Also, (I may get static from some of the more experienced people here on this) but don't be afraid of color.  We've seen sales of our heart and cross key chains and necklaces jump substantially when we started using Gilder's Paste on them, this increase in sales has been realized both at the shows and at every gallery/store our products are in.

So don't be afraid to talk to other vendors to get new ideas.  Our booth is always evolving and we are always looking to add more dimension to it to catch eyes.  It's all about getting that potential customer to stop at your booth for a split second so you can greet them and tell them about your work.  If we were to sit back in our chairs and go on autopilot, our sales would suffer greatly, you have to engage people to draw them in.  At first it was difficult for me to do, but now I have gained the confidence to talk to anyone at the shows, I especially like the challenge of trying to break through with the difficult ones :) .

This was our booth setup from this past weekend, for the next I'm going to add a mirror section to one of the tables to help display items from all angles, raise the tables up higher, forge one more business card holder, add LED up lighting to our keychain/necklace display tree and add at least one additional table  -

I have a friend cut my round blanks out on his CNC plasma table.

I used to cut them out by hand with tin snips, but as the required quantities went up it wasn't worth the wear & tear on my body to continue cutting them by hand, plus the time it took to manually cut them wasn't in line with my goals.

If you decide to plug weld from behind, you can remove the heat signature by using a torch, or reheating the entire piece in the forge to bright red/orange.  After it cools to a black heat, you can apply wax or oil for an even black finish.

Yes, I should have mentioned this.  Whenever I decide to weld anything like this, I use my torch afterwards to even out the colors.

I still think small wrapped round stock or even copper wire to connect the two would look good, I may have to try this.

You can also forge braze it. Sand the joint shiny, sprinkle a LITTLE borax flux, laundry borax or commercial flux all work fine. Scatter a few BITS of brass on the joint, brass brush snippings are perfect. Place it in the forge or use a torch to heat it, put a bit of brass on top of the joint as a gauge so you know when it's reached brazing temperature and let it cool.

 

If you don't use too much brass in the joint it won't bleed out and be visible, if it does bleed just file and sand it clean, same for the bit used to gauge the temp on the surface of the cross, it will clean off easily.

 

Giving my druthers I'd rivet it if a two piece cross was what the customer wanted, otherwise I really like the Fredric's cross even though they're more work.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

Interesting, I'm going to have to give forge brazing a try.

I've tried several times to braze steel to steel with various brazing rods and fluxes with absolutely no luck at all.

Maybe forge brazing will work out better for me.