HandsomeRyan

Here is a "hot coke" shot. The way it was taken makes the forge look like it is really close to a bunch of flammable stuff but in reality there was a pretty good buffer (and plenty of water/fire extinguishers near by)

Here is my brake drum forge. The fire tools are actually tied to the cross bar with string in this pic but I am making some S hooks for them to hang from. I will be using a blow dryer for air. Here is a better picture of the ash dump...

Some nice toys showing up in this thread. Keep em' coming!

Just like the title says- show me your toys (metal working or otherwise). I'll start. This is my latest toy/project. It is a 1952 Simplicity Model W walk behind tractor that I pulled out of the woods from behind a guys barn and completely rebuilt to bring it back to life. It has a fully cast iron B&S model 19 engine on it that puts out about 7.25hp. It has a 3-speed + reverse transmission I have a moldboard plow, cultivators, and a cordwood saw for it but the attachment I'm most proud of is the franken-blower I made for it. The blower auger is an unknown riding mower auger that I picked up this spring at an auction for $5 and then I modified the drive shaft parts and welded a mount for it. I'm still working out the clutch mechanism to engage the auger but (as you can see in the video below) I'm making progress. The thing is mean looking, mean sounding, and if we get some snow this year I hope to be able to not just clear the driveway in record time. After using the thing I can understand why walk behind tractors fell out of fashion around the 1950's but it is a really cool thing to play with. Here are some pics and video: Franken-blower. Still needs a little work to be complete but we're getting there. Moldboard plow in the garden: [why yes, I am that bald] Cordwood saw: And if you are having trouble imagining how the cordwood saw works, here is a picture from the promotional literature: The 50's were apparently AWESOME! Franken-blower video: Plowing video:

Awesome!

Just as the title says, how did you decide on what to use as your personal touchmark to 'sign' your work? Tonight I complete the "Blacksmithing 101" class I enrolled in. I have acquired enough materials to fake my way through doing a little forging at home with my homemade propane forge and my RR track anvil. I still have a long way to go but I hope to start making some gifts for family and friends. I'd love to be able to mark them as things I made but I'm unsure what to use as my mark. My initials would work or my entire first name is only 4 letters and could probably be made into a reasonably sized mark. How did you come up with your mark? (Pictures of your mark stamped on your work are welcome too!)

Very nice. I have some friends who just had a sheep/agricultural themed wedding and they would have loved something like this.

So what kind of wine did you make that is in the bottle? [i assume from the cork and lack of a label that this is homemade wine.] I just bottled a Dragonfruit Raspberry White Shiraz wine [well, more of a wine cooler I suppose] last month. I've been making wine for a couple years now but I just started blacksmithing and have not made any wine related metal items using these skills yet. I did make a wine bottle thing using non-blacksmith metal working @ http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/28675-wine-bottle-torch-wedding-present/ /Wine making blacksmiths unite!

I like it.

Good eye. The first one was bent around what I believe was a 3/4" jig by heating only that section with an oxy torch. The second was cold bent around a 1" die on my compact bender in my home workshop. Jeremy- That is beautiful!

This is the first triangle that I made during the class. And here is a second that I made at home with my little home made propane forge, a set of channel lock pliers for tongs, and a piece of railroad track as an anvil...

Nice! After using the "real" tongs at my blacksmithing class, I am especially cognizant of how terrible it is to try to use a pair of plumbers channel lock pliers in my home forge. I'll have to make or buy some appropriate tongs soon and your picture gives me hope that I can make them.

Thanks to everyone for the great advice and insight. It is amazing to me how much deeper into all things I have to look and learn as I have become interested in smithing. A triangle seems like it would be the simplest thing in the world to make but there are so many little details that affect the quality of the finished product. Abraham Lincoln once said, "I don't think much of a man who is no wiser today than he was yesterday" and I feel like blacksmithing has enough to teach me that I'll not soon run out of ways to become wiser each day,

Any musical triangle experts in here? Last night at my blacksmithing class I made one largely based on the design in Lorelei Sims book. It looks nice but the way she shows it hanging it doesn't ring at all and with it hung properly it rings but not beautifully. I did not have 1/2" round so I used 3/8" round instead which looks fine but may have been part of the problem. The class instructors had different ideas about the exact proportions that each side needed to be and there was even talk of "super quenching" to try and improve the sound but they didn't have a lot of specifics other than "we know there is a correct way to do this, we're just not sure what it is". I'm reasonably happy with what I made for a first attempt but if I make another I'd like to improve so does anyone have any words of wisdom or links to helpful advice on triangle making? I tried a search but shockingly "triangle" is far too broad a search term to bring up many results about what I am looking to make. Any help is appreciated. Best, -Ryan

Awesome! Thanks for the tip!

looking good!

Thanks for all the replies. I'm excited to give it a try if I have a little extra forge time in my class tonight. I think I'll start with a cultivator and work toward something like a shovel later. I'm not really interested in selling them but I think it would be cool to make a set for myself and maybe a set for my mom who is an avid gardener. I mean, what good is blacksmithing if you can't make presents for your mom, right?

Thanks. Right now I've got a couple options on air supply. I have 2 old blow dryers available to me. I don't know why my wife keeps buying new blow dryers when her old ones still work but as long as it benefits me I won't ask too many questions. I also have the blower out of an "aero-bed" that I could use. It blows a startlingly large amount of air but only has one speed. Not sure what I'll use yet but open to suggestions.

I spent a few hours this afternoon working on my brake drum forge. The hardest part was fabricating an ash dump [from stuff I had laying around] that is effective at dumping ash but only on command. I originally made a 'counter weight style' ash dump cover but I couldn't get it to work exactly right so I decided to switch gears and go with this sliding style instead. The forge itself is a brake drum off a 3/4 or 1 ton truck and the piping is all 2". The ash gate is reasonably thick (14ga. maybe?) sheet metal salvaged from an old lawn mower which pivots using a lever with a classy plastic ball at the end. I still need to complete the grate to keep the coal from just falling down the piping and I need to make a stand of some sort bu I'm feeling pretty good about what I've put together so far.

I stumbled across this website full of hand forged garden tools. Some neat ideas here. http://www.redpigtools.com/servlet/the-Red-Pig-Originals/Categories

Howdy, I tried a search but didn't come up with much in the way of pictures or information. Anyone here forge any garden tools (trowels, hoes, cultivators, etc.) that they would care to share pictures of? I am a professional horticulturist by trade. I currently manage a research greenhouse and plant transformation lab but I've done a little of everything from production to retail. I am just starting out with blacksmithing by taking a class from the Blacksmiths Guild of Central Maryland (which is amazing and I highly recommend to anyone in the area looking to try out blacksmithing) . I am hoping maybe I can combine a couple of my hobbies and use my new-found blacksmithing skills to forge a few of my own tools but I am interested in what other people have made because I feel like hand forging offers a lot more options than just cloning the cheapo factory-made tools that they sell at the big-box stores. I did find some examples of hand forged tools but I'm interested in any other information or pictures that any of you might care to share. Also, you'll have to forgive my ignorance but should I be concerned with what type of steel I'm using to make something like a hand cultivator? Some examples I found of hand forged tools: Beautiful! The description of these tools said they are hand forged. Ginseng hoe.

I considered throwing the handles in my sandblast cabinet to strip them and refinish with boiled linseed oil or some other hand-friendlier wood preservative but I opted to try them "as-is" for a bit. I like to wear "mechanics" gloves when I work with any kind of handled tool from hammers to shovels so blisters aren't usually a big problem for me. I guess only time will tell if the slicker coating causes grip problems and sends hammers flying across the workshop though. :wacko:

Thanks. They say necessity is the mother of invention and I believe the father of invention is almost certainly all the junk I have laying around the workshop. I had to wedge a piece of scrap metal between the burner and the flat plate of theu-bolt because the threads were not quite long enough to tighten everything down but it worked just fine.

So I had planned something much fancier but I decided that like many hobbies- you build your first forge to figure out what you want our of your second forge. I intended to fasten it together somehow but I didn't have the angle iron I needed so I figured I'd try just stacking the bricks. after a few different tweeks I got the thing running pretty good. It is far from perfect but it shoots fire and heats metal hot enough to bang on it with a hammer and reshape it so I have no complaints. I ultimately covered the front with a firebrick suspended on come really large (3/4") nuts so the stock I was heating could just be slid in underneath. I need some proper tongs as channel locks and vice grips aren't cutting it but I guess I'll learn to make those soon enough. On with the pictures: Just after lighting with the washer "choke" in place. A little later while I was still playing with "doors" for it.

The handles from handlehouse are great. Took a little time to get them sanded and fitting just right but they feel really good and the handles are blemish free.