01tundra

No, I just welded a piece of 1/8" smooth round stock to the vine on that one. Made the peg about 1" long.

Or possibly use small (maybe 1/8") round stock and wrap the two together at the intersection.

Rivets, unless you'd rather weld it. To weld it, drill a small hole (maybe 1/4" or so) through the back piece and plug weld from behind so that it becomes a blind weld. But if you're not planning on putting any finish on it, the heat signature from the weld will end up showing through on the front piece. I think rivets would look good personally.

On items such as my driftwood centerpieces with stone bases, I typically weld a small steel dowel on the bottom of the forged steel and drill a small hole in the stone to receive the dowel, the same could be done with wood bases. This also makes the parts where I can separate them for shipping/transport.

That was one of my main concerns. Of course I could make adustable height end plates to accomodate different uses? Maybe 12" dia pipe would work better.

Redesign #1 -

Sorry, as usual I got ahead of myself and didn't do a good job explaining the entire situation / intent. I can easily build pipe legs for it, I was just trying to keep it out of the shop and out of the way since this would only be used occasionlly and would not be my primary forge. But with drain holes & a cover it could easly sit behind my shop on legs, so that's probably a better solution. My primary forge is a gasser, my forge for heavier work is my current coal forge shown above, this new one would just be for the rare occasion when I'm working with really long/heavy material. I understand the concern about it being at ground level and I had not factored that in until now.

For reference, I already the coal forge below. I was just thinking about making something simple and with a longer fire box for longer work.

Sorry - coal. Was just thinking about insulating quality of the ground.

Hey all, I'm getting ready to build an in-ground forge for the larger, heavier work I'm starting to get into and was just wanting to put my plan in words and gather some opinions/advise. I have access to free, large-bore, Sch. 40 steel pipe scrap so that's what the design will be based around. Was going to use an old excavator bucket, but they are usually very deep, plus I can get any size from 1/2" to 24" diameter pipe scrap for free off our jobsites. I'm planning on cutting a piece of large 14"-18" (?) pipe in half lengthwise, about a 2' long piece. I can get any length, so maybe 3' long would work better, not really sure where the line of diminishing return is on fire box length (If I can heat a 3' section of work stock, but only have time to forge 2' before the piece cools off that would just equate to a waste of fuel). Then will weld 1/2" plate end caps onto it. I'll cut a hole in one end cap and run a piece of 1-1/4" or 1-1/2" Sch. 40 steel pipe through the end cap and the entire 2' length of the forge body, welding the air pipe to the end caps. Planning on drilling somewhere in the range of 3/16" holes in an array across the top of the pipe, the air pipe will be mounted about 1" to 1-1/2" above the bottom of the forge body to allow for space clinkers to fall/settle (similar to the my portable forge that has proven to be a sound design). For air I'm planning on using a variable speed pet dryer/blower (non-heated). The one's that I've found within a reasonable price are metal bodied and have a range of 0-100 CFM or so (http://www.amazon.com/Metro-Force-Steel-Commander-Variable/dp/B005J87DN0/ref=sr_1_8?s=pet-supplies&ie=UTF8&qid=1415200372&sr=1-8&keywords=variable+speed+pet+blower). They make variable speed blowers that move a lot more air, but surely 100 CFM would be enough to supply a fire box of this size adequately (that's actually a question)? I want the blower to be portable so I can keep it inside out of the weather when not in use. Planning on burying the pipe in my gravel driveway with a small lip above grade to keep water runoff out. Thinking that I'll bed the hole with gravel and drill drain holes in the bottom of the pipe, but will also most likely fabricate a lift-off cover for it. So........does this all sound like the makings of an epic fail and waste of energy :lol: ? As always, I really appreciate everyones input.

Jim, your bat opener is what inspired me to even attempt a wall-mounted style bottle opener, I was actually studying a picture of yours while I was forging (hence the almost identical bottom portion). Someday I'll get the confidence up to attempt a bat opener, it's an absolutely wonderful design.

I decided to move this over to this folder for more discussion on technique (instead of cluttering up the "Show me your bottle opener" thread with general tech stuff). Anyways, I've been wanting to try forging a wall-mounted bottle opener for a while now and I finally got a chance to sneak in my first attempt a few weeks ago while finishing up a product run for the day. I used 3/8" round stock, split on one end about 3" long in a 1/3 - 2/3 thickness (instead of splitting equally down the middle). I chose unequal proportions for the split because I wanted the smaller portion to be a vine and still have enough material on the other leg to make a leaf. One thing I learned was once I split it, it took a lot of work to square up each leg while trying to avoid cold shuts, due to the relatively tall and skinny profile of the individual legs. I didn't think much more about it until I was making a candle stand for our house the other day, utilizing the same split technique, but this time a 50/50 split on 5/16" round stock. I experienced the same difficulty in squaring up the legs, but this time it was even tougher to do. That night I was thinking about it and it all of the sudden hit me......why didn't I square up the portion that I intended to split prior to splitting, instead of splitting round and then struggling with squaring up each individual leg to draw them out?! I was kind of embarrassed that I hadn't thought about that in the first place, but unless I'm missing something, squaring up the entire end of the stock prior to splitting would make life a lot easier.

I have a factory GM 14-bolt axle shaft that's 1.5" diameter and based on my research I'm pretty sure they are 1040 CS. From what I've found, most of the OEM axle shafts (for trucks at least) were mostly either 1040 CS or 1050 CS.

Great work!

I use a 7/16" or 1/2" open end wrench (can't remember which size) on the pyrmid screws.

Ok, thanks for the clarification.

Is anyone annealing the tongs prior to doing the forge work? I thought you would anneal them to make it easier to work with, then if necessary (probably not so much) heat treat them when finished? Whenever we made chisels out of coil springs in class we would heat to critical temperature (non-magnetic) and then let cool over night in a bucket of ashes to anneal, then forge, then do final heat treatment. Of course that was a while ago and I could have the process completely mixed up in my head. Whenever we go to Missouri to visit my wife's family these nipper tongs can be found in about every antique shop for little money. I bought a few pair a couple years ago because they were labeled as "blacksmith tongs", this was prior to me learning about blacksmithing. I was bummed that I had wasted a few bucks on useless nail clippers, but I'm glad I decided to chuck them in the scrap bucket and hold onto them now!

Beautiful work, I can only hope to get to that level of detail and consistency someday.

Not sure what I'd call it, but I know I'd rock it on my wall as well. Nice job, very cool piece B) .

Finally got around to taking a picture with our display sign. The sign is 1/8" laser cut plate with an acid etched finish & clear powder coat.

Yeah it's 1/2" round stock. I split about 3" of the end at about 1/3 / 2/3, leaving the smaller portion for the vine.

Of course, extensive further testing is in order, but it seems to perform quite well thus far :D.

Just finished up my first wall-mounted bottle opener.

Great work!

My first attempt. Not very fancy or technical, but it does its job well. Inspired from another design I saw on here (Secor's) that I really liked for its simplicity.