Chinobi

for what its worth, heres a pic of the ones I have at home. regular wire screw and what is most likely a cheap knockoff of the other version. you can plainly see the casting seam on it, and I cant stand using it because it doesn't bite into the cork for beans!

hard to get those disks into tight corners, but they will do for straighter areas. get yourself some smaller burrs, but mind the little splinters they throw. they are the devil to get out of skin and clothes. eye protection a must as well.

I have not mastered this myself, but here are my notes and experiences... don't try to heat and upset to change the dimension of the slot, that wont work. you want to undercut the bottom of the slot with either a very fine chisel or some kind of burr on an engraving tool or a rotary tool of some sort. don't flatten the copper wire too much, slightly oval that will just barely fit into the slot will do, too flat and it will want to fold over on itself before it upsets into the hole. this video has finally come back up! it was busted when I was looking for it a few weeks ago, and the name and description of it make it really hard to find!

I make no promises :ph34r: use the outline of that double edged short sword you did, that's one of my favorites :)

as promised, pic's of the bear:

I had to teach myself how to do my first pineapple twist (written instructions from the good folks herein of course) on a 14" long segment for the handle of my engraving vise, had to work it in thirds for each step of the way and it was a bear to get it where I wanted it! '?do=embed' frameborder='0' data-embedContent>> I suppose so long as I am in this thread ill share my 'life is good' moment from two weekends ago. Mark Aspery came to Adam's Forge and taught a class on how to forge Darryl Nelson style bear heads on 1 1/4" square bar, plus forging the tooling to do so. I ran out of time so mine isn't complete but its at least bear flavored :) and I got him to autograph my MTF volume 3, which completes the my set with autographed copies :) ill get a pic of my bear when I go home, pretty rough though.

its just the abstract online for that particular article unfortunately, they don't get into the tools, just a discussion of the history of the Riotinto mine and Delgado's family history working in the mine. Is the stone hammer featured on the page one of the forward weighted ones? hard to picture how it might have been used from just that one shot with very little perspective to work with.

glenn posted 2 or 3 dimension charts for different tong styles a few months ago too, I cant recall if one was for bolt head or not, but they could probably be modified to get there. you can always take or find a picture of a pair that you find pleasing or functional and scale your dimensions from that design.

per the Aspery line of training we make all sorts of hand tools from sucker rod hardened by quenching the working end in the slack tub and tempered by allowing the remaining heat in the shank to travel back to the tip and quenching that off at the right color, repeat as many times as you have heat remaining. I always forget which but we generally assume that its 4140 chrome/moly, I gotta write that down somewhere.... Steve, is there any way to visually determine if the rod has come from a sour well (contaminated with sulfur/hydrogen sulfide right?)? what would be the failure or unwanted side effects stemming from such exposure? safety hazard or material hazard that could lead to failure of the tool?

'?do=embed' frameborder='0' data-embedContent>> I remember that too Vaughn, took a bit to find but worth it! Came from Haiti apparently.

I had the same thought about the sillhouette as a t-shirt, but they are your products, so be pretty shady if I did it :p Many thanks again for them James! I can't wait to put mine through it's paces :)

That is a lifetime of tools.... And the same for your children, and your children's children's children (etc) Load up!!! :-D

Dave, what metals are in your ring?

Hey look! It's Frosty!

Thomas, if he keeps the forge all the way in the corner like he has it drawn there will be a masonry wall on two sides of the forge blocking the pass-through. Henri, as you say you do not have many tools right now (patience ;) they will grow soon), when you plan your layout in sketchup or by hand include a small box or rack or something as a placeholder for a future rack or cabinet or whatever. it would be a shame to design a nice cozy shop and be happy with it only to find that it becomes congested because you didnt allocate any floorspace for future objects. that being said, I don't see anywhere in the drawings or text a mention of your slack tub! I don't know what size you will end up using but plan to have a bucket or barrel or something filled with water possibly located just under the tongs glued to the wall of your sketchup drawing. hate to see that get overlooked! I know squat about solid fuel forging, but I do see a window already cut into the wall at about top of head height, could that be repurposed as an opening for the chimney or would the bending kill it? otherwise, those walls look like old, THICK brick plus the stucco, that's going to be a job to break through! what material is the roof made of as well? how tall are the nearest neighboring structures?

might be more efficient from the shop time perspective to just cut at the angle points in your leftover piece to create a handful of post anvils, some tapering from top to bottom, some tapered top to bottom with a little foot, and some that are uniform rectangular prism's. if you want to get fancy from there try cutting a series of half round (or other profile) swages down the length so you can use it as an anvil, flop it over, and use it as a swage block. concave shapes in the wide faces a plus for dishing, maybe some holes that penetrate all the way as well. it wont have a hardie hole, but its not that difficult to work around that. that way you can reclaim the largest mass of steel, rather than carving so much of it away to 'londonize' it :)

i don't think its the entire timeline because the hole in the pictures looks a LOT bigger, and you can only see two cars take the plunge, but its close! security cam's from inside the building http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/12/us/national-corvette-museum-cars-fall/

nice work :) too funny to have all that labor in the hanger and then the little mass produced cheapie lamp on it though! look forward to seeing the sconce design :)

that would be some very interesting security camera footage to watch!

Alec Steele, is a member of these boards under that name, search him out and PM him directly, or try Brian Brazeal or some of the UK guild members, they can probably contact Alec. He's also got a YouTube channel.

I chased this down in pursuit of something else but it applies directly here so I thought I would share. I know you are already aware of the illegality of it, just wanted to cite the reference for posterity. plus, melting them down specifically to harvest them as a raw material was specifically illegalized on its own to prevent shortage and costs incurred to re-mint them, entirely separate from the clauses covering defacing and mutilation. it appears that the interim rule against melting down nickels and pennies was finalized in 2007 and is in effect http://www.usmint.gov/pressroom/?action=press_release&ID=771 "Specifically, the newly enacted final regulation prohibits, with certain exceptions, the exportation, melting or treatment of one-cent and 5-cent coins. Some of the exceptions allow for small amounts of these coins to be exported as pocket change, and for recreational and numismatic purposes. Other exceptions include the treatment of minor quantities of these coins for educational, amusement, novelty, jewelry and similar purposes. However, the public should review the regulation for precise terms and limitations of the exceptions." excerpt from the usmint link

we had a discussion about the defacing of currency a while ago, ironsmith is correct with respect to not misrepresenting them as a different coin. '?do=embed' frameborder='0' data-embedContent>> however it appears that the interim rule against melting down nickels and pennies was finalized and is in effect http://www.usmint.gov/pressroom/?action=press_release&ID=771 "Specifically, the newly enacted final regulation prohibits, with certain exceptions, the exportation, melting or treatment of one-cent and 5-cent coins. Some of the exceptions allow for small amounts of these coins to be exported as pocket change, and for recreational and numismatic purposes. Other exceptions include the treatment of minor quantities of these coins for educational, amusement, novelty, jewelry and similar purposes. However, the public should review the regulation for precise terms and limitations of the exceptions." excerpt from the usmint link

You can use a hammer too, look up Curly's thread on making a ring from a half crown (I believe) good discussion of it there, light taps and patience will keep things from warping, so a hammer can be tempting to thump it too hard (guilty). According to some of the former Navy members here it can be done with silver coins. It's probably a different process and product from what you have in mind, but it's got it's own bit of flair too:)

Iv never made wearable jewelry from steel so I can't make any solid recommendations there = just that it should be considered :)

If you are planning to forge them from sterling do not hammer it when it has any color, black heat only or you risk cracking it. Soldered silver rings are entry level jewelry projects, very forgiving and fast to learn. If you make them from non-stainless steel you will need to protect them with some kind of surface finish, and more than likely line the inside of the ring with a sterling silver inner sleeve to prevent it from rusting when it constant contact with skin. Google up sterling silver jewelry techniques, or find yourself a beginning jewelry book, because once you see what techniques you have at your disposal you won't want to stop at a simple ring :-D