Joel OF

Amen! The only time I'm conscious of "how many heats" is when I'm punching and drifting a bunch of holes.

Creasing stake gets my vote.

What happens when it flies away? Seriously, great idea.

Denis Frechette - The Iron Workshop I find that thin stock can dogleg so easily, even with spot heating and quenching, that hammering it back straight often means leaving a bunch of hammer marks you didn't want, and getting out a hide mallet & wood block gets time consuming. Better to keep it straight and scuff free from the start.

I'm going to make a tool to help keep bars from dog-legging when upsetting the ends. I've got a couple ideas in mind but I'm curious to see if anyone has come up with a tool like this and how you went about it?

Ah I misread the first post didn't see the word "iron".

Coke spits when there's moisture in it, to stop it spitting dry it out on the outside of the forge before raking it in to the middle. Once I was hit on the bridge of my nose so hard by a piece of spitting coke that it cut me. WEAR EYE PROTECTION.

I had a 20lb Peter Wright anvil I sold to an American member of this forum for £300 + £125 shipping. He is a collector & calls small anvils like this "travelling anvils". I had been using it as a doorstop.

This is just due to a lack of experience but... Do I spend an hour making a jig or shall I just forge them free hand? They should only take 2 hours. I'll just crack on and do them free hand. 5 hours later & 10 unforseen problems later, I knew I should made the xxxxxxx jig!

I had the angle grinder wrench 2 seconds ago?!?!

I have recenty started sharing a workshop with a fabricator that won't throw anything away. Luckily for me that means scrap galore & I'm never short of the right size piece for jigs. My biggest fluke yet was when I found an off-cut of pipe that was exactly the right dimensions for some Art Deco style open wardrobe brackets I was making. Saved me making the circles!

I have a bottom blast forge but have used a water cooled side blast & definitely preferred it, the main reason being I could clean the clinker out without destroying the fire. I have no proof of this but I have a hunch that side blast would be better for forge welding because any junk + oxygen isn't getting blown directly up into your work.

I think that's most commonly known as a "keyed" mortise and tenon. I've not tried shrink joining yet but I'm going to give it a whirl. I expect a rivet would hold best if it had a square shank but the blind hole it was going into was round. I'd imagine tapering the tip a fraction would be required.

Hi, anyone here used shrinking joinery before? My terminology might not be correct but by that I mean joinery where a cold piece of steel is hammered into a hole in a hot piece of steel and as the hot steel cools it shrinks and grips the cold piece. I don't think I've seen another thread about it. How, where, when, why did you use it? Opinions, anecdotes and pictures all welcome. I go weak at the knees for a nice bit of traditional joinery!

I sometimes use a very humble system I thought of, though I'm sure I'm not the first: Tenon & shoulder a piece of round bar so it fits into your pritchel hole without sliding through. Separately, weld piece of pipe onto the corner of a hardy shank so that the shank won't fall through. Because the pipe is offset on the top of the shank it means you've got 4 preset bending sizes between the round bar and the pipe depending on which way you drop the hardy shank into the hardy hole.

Exactomundo.

I didn't know the answer to either (because I didn't know how corrosive milk was or how long "over time" was, as opposed to about steel) but I gave the best answers I could.

I should have made it clearer that by "headscratcher " I meant sensible/worthwhile customer questions that you don't 100% know the answer to.

Had any real headscratcher questions from customers? So far I've had, (regarding a food safe bowl), "is it ok to put milk in it?" And regarding a burnished finish on some interior brackets, "will they dull over time?"

I make my own beeswax, turps & linseed oil wax that goes on cold & gives a nice traditional looking finish. You most often see people say to use equal measures of the 3 ingredients but I like to make it a tad heavier on the beeswax side. Mix equal measures of turps & linseed oil, melt the beeswax then pour in the fluids & mix like crazy to stop it separating in clumps. Keep the mix warm until you've finished mixing or the beeswax will set. A little goes a long way.

My usual homebrew mix of beeswax, turps and linseed oil. It's not having food directly put on it/being eaten off so I didn't feel the need to food safe finish it. The homebrew is surprisingly rust resistant too.

I've made a couple, just small wall mounted ones to sell at market stall. Being able to slide the hooks along the rack and/or lift them off is a plus. Flat bar for the rack is good at stopping the hook from swinging about when weight is put on it.

Phew! AND...BREATHE. Sent out drawings & quotes for various commissions over a month ago, didn't hear back from a single one, then they all reply on the same day.

What do you guys and girls do to generate business at the quieter times of year when the craft fair season is over and markets are virtually dead?

Cheers for the replies.