Joel OF

And you gave them the "royale wid cheese" and "le Big Mac" :P (Pulp Fiction) Cool tool, loads of potential with that for variations! An idea that's easily transferable to a swage block too...

At the minute I'm making some very traditional looking gates full of scrolls for some clients who want some new gates on their property to match the design of their existing driveway gates, the picture below shows one nearly finished. This project is presenting me with a series of firsts as these are my first gates, first time of doing this kind of jig work and first time of doing this kind of traditional design. I'm using lightweight 20mm x 3mm (approx 3/4" x 1/8) for the scroll infills to keep the overall weight of the gates down. That's a very springy weight of steel so I also fabricated some rectangular templates (kinda like little windows if you will), from some 20mm x 6mm with internal dimensions that match the dimensions each scroll should be able to fit into. I did this because I knew that I'd never get the 20mm x 3mm material off the scroll jigs without it getting a tad mishapen, so I thought if I've then got these templates as a "second opinion" I'll know each one is okay. Nice idea but I found out after doing 1 row of scrolls like this that the scrolls were then shrinking as they cooled and reducing by approx 2mm in width and height which soon adds up...so I enlarged the template size and tweaked them. So like I say, this is first time time of doing this kind of repetative jig work and I'm wondering if shrinkage is a factor with heavier weights of steel too? Quantify "heavier" however you like. Maybe there's a weight where this stops becoming an issue, or maybe the shrinkage depends on the profile of the steel? The weight of steel I'm working with is bendy enough to be tweaked by hand when it's cold, but I can't imagine some 20mm x 20mm (3/4" x 3/4") square stock being as sympathetic to tweak!

Hi folks, I'm hunting around for a new workshop in the region of 500 sq ft / 50 sq metres to rent and I'm curious as to what folks in the UK would expect to pay for that sort of space? Obviously there's a lot variables that can affect a rental price (the main one being I live in the south east where everything's more expensive) so please bare with me and consider that I'm just talking rules of thumb on a no thrills workshop that's got electric, hard floor, double doors, 4 walls and a roof. I'm at a bit of a loss trying to understand if the quotes I'm getting back are what's to be expected or people are just being greedy with their rents. Maybe people could offer some opinion on private arrangements vs business park prices? The last 2 quotes I've had back were from business parks that only had spaces a bit bigger than what I'm after and their quotes were were £120 a week and £105. There's no way on earth I can afford those sort of prices at an early stage of my career. As I am tucked away on a farm at the minute (a very laid back deal with a family friend) I had hoped to find somewhere near other businesses so I have a little more exposure to the general public in the winter months when I'm not out there doing demonstrations/market/fairs, but if those are the sorts of prices I should expect from commerical enterprises I may have to go down the private farm route again... Cheers

Thanks but I'm looking for a UK supplier.

I've been rummaging around on Google for a while this morning and am struggling to find a supplier that does chainmaille in large sheets or rolls, approx 2m x 1m. Does anyone know of any? The best I can find is armourers' suppliers that do patches of approx 2 foot square. This would be for a life size bear sculpture that I'm in the early stages of designing, I was just thinking of something that could wrap round a skeleton/frame, like a metal skin. Cheers.

Y'know what's going to happen...a lefty is going come along and twig they hold the trump card as all the righties (the majority) want their left gloves, so they'll say they want 5 right hand gloves for every 3 left hand ones they swap. Crafty devils. P.S I'd love to see someone pitch "left hand only" gloves in the Dragon's Den.

Thanks for the idea John, I can't see myself doing it for everyday gloves but that sounds like a nice idea to wear at demonstrations.

I need a masochistic seasmstress to alter right handed gloves into left handed ones.

Try not to laugh, but... Would any left handers be interested in sending me their unwanted left handed gloves if I (a right hander) sent you my unwanted right handed ones? I go through left handed gloves at a rate of about 5:1 over right handed gloves - that cost mounts up. I propose we buy a box of identical gloves from somewhere like Screwfix, you take out the left handed ones and them to me, and I do the same with the right handed gloves. Even with the postage factored in we'd still be saving a fair whack. Yeah yeah I know, very sad, but money's money.

Cheers John.

Just wondering what are people's thoughts on the future of Monckton and the implications for UK blacksmiths... http://www.hsgplc.co.uk//divisions/production/coke-manufacturing-%28monckton%29.aspx

I was under the impression that as long as it's a private client Ian Wallance do cover you for installing work, but they don't cover you for contract work.

Cheers Alan. I'm aware of the pickling paste, my local welding supplier does it for £40 a tub. You could have gone to High Wycombe with 2 guys and a multi pack of chewing gum, chewed some up then stuck it down over the tannin patches & said the stone was now aged to match the rest of the street.

The village wide boy know-it-all who has no experience of blacksmithing came into the workshop the other day to (incorrectly) tell me how to make a scroll jig. He then tried to sell me some second hand t-shirts.

Yes. Most likely to use 304.

An oak framer told me a while ago to always use stainless fixings in green oak because the tanins ruin the fixing over time, with that in mind, if you re-forge a hex head stainless coach screw into a square head, do you need to passivate the threads?

Great stuff. I noticed Hector Cole's name and number in my Dad's phone book the other day, I'll tell him he should amend it to "Sir Hector Cole".

Hootenanny!

It'd take a bit of re-shaping of the heads & some forge welding but 2 together could make an Alien facehugger statuette - they had 8 fingers.

Good idea!

Just a hypothetical question...I'm curious which country people think is the best in the world to be a blacksmith? Qualify your opinion however you see fit. To spark some opinions maybe factors like apprenticeships, government funding, availability of tools, heritage, etc may play a part in your thinking...

I always feel I have to caviat anything I say with "I'm self taught and new to blacksmithing and only working with the lighter weight steels" so you may want to consider that when you're deciding on whether to pay heed to anything I say... I forge weld without flux and I watch for different types of sparks depending on how far I am through the weld. When I'm scarf welding two pieces together, for the first heat where I'm going tack the two pieces together, I wait until I see sparks that burst, then count to 6. I find that trying to weld when I've seen sparks that look like grinding sparks isn't hot enough, the sparks when they burst need to have that starry snowflake shape. In later welding heats when I'm just working the weld in I don't wait for those bursting sparks, I just wait for the regular looking sparks and let the metal "simmer" in fire for about 8 seconds before working on the weld. When I make animal head fire pokers to keep the overall weight of the poker down I make the head and neck of the animal from 12mm round bar and use 10mm for the main length of the bar. Forge welding the 12mm to 10mm is the first thing I do in the process. Again, I'm a newbie so it takes me 4-5 heats before I'm happy with the results. Each pic (except the first) was taken after working on the weld at a welding heat. The last pic shows the finished weld with a light bit of filing to remove any hammer marks and to make the roundness of the weld perfectly match the roundness of the parent bars.

Try Corralls?

LOL I wasn't asking for a diagnosis! I was just wondering if it was a common injury. Yikes, I've just noticed that a word I used in my OP was XXX'd out. In Britain that word just means unusual/weird, never imagined that word would have caused any upset across the pond. Apologies.