Joel OF

That's nothing, several times I've had adults ask me "what can you hang on a hook?".

Always wanted to be a craftsman since I was a kid but never had the time. Played drums in death metal bands for over 10 yrs but they always fizzled out so I thought it was time for a change. Built my 1st brake drum forge August 2012, built my workshop November 2012, bought my 1st stick welder early 2013 & fabricated a bigger forge, quit my job to focus on blacksmithing August 2014. Learning from IFI, books & YouTube.

Hi folks, can anyone point me towards a product that will quickly clean forged mild steel surface oxides and possibly some light rust back to a bright sheen? I'm working to a tight time frame so I don't have time to concoct a homebrew unless it's really basic. The outdoor bench I'm making will ultimately be weatherproofed with a clear acrylic lacquer. Ideally I'd use some kind of spray on cleaner or a wipe on cleaner that I buff up after it's done it's work. When I say quickly I mean half a day maximum, I.E, wipe or spray on the product, give it a few hours to do it's thing, buff it off. I'm trying to avoid using a flap disc or manually sandpapering the bench because it's a big piece and I want a cleaning agent to do the majority of the work for me and I don't want flap disc marks on it. A wipe on/wipe off cleaner would be particuarly good for me because I'd like to vary the brightness of the finish across the piece so I can highlight certain areas more than others. I'm in the UK so if you know the generic term/active ingredient in a product rather than a product name that'll help me a lot. Telling me to get a particular Home Depot product won't help me because we don't have Home Depot. Thanks in advance! (P.S I get the feeling that this is a big ask and I might as well be asking for world peace and a million pounds whilst you're at it.)

I've heard from other forum users that spray on acrylic laquer works as an exteriror finish. It comes in a variety of colours, including clear, and comes in matt or gloss. Automotive shops sell it because it's used as a cealant over car paint work.

If you're necking in & tapering offset to one side & then centreing everything afterwards instead try necking in with a top &:bottom fuller. Less stress on the steel when it's very thin.

It could be the steel rather than a fault in your method. I'm told that mild steel nowadays is a load of junk, especially the foreign imports, try a supplier that stocks British mild steel & see if you get better luck?

Sounds great! I.M.H.O I suggest making a TV company aware of this or at least your regional BBC news, it'd make a great documentary. Beer in the UK is never warm, lager is served cold and ales are served either slightly chilled or at room temperature.

Ta-da! Just finished my first commission and thought I'd share some pics as I'm kinda proud despite it being very basic. A local antiques place has a cart out front in a car park with their shop signs hanging off the sides, they wanted metal legs to replace the bodge-job wooden ones (not yet taken off in the pictures). They just wanted something basic with only a touch of decoration as cars are always reversing into the cart so they didn't want to spend a lot on something that'd get knocked about. Of course I made every amateur mistake in the book and undercharged, made errors that took ages to undo, forgot to take a particular measurement and had to go back, but it's all part of the learning curve and the customer was happy and has offered me more work so it can't be all bad!

Cheers. I don't have a touchmark yet as I've only been smithing properly since June but it's not a bad idea for when I do have one!

This may be too amateur for what you want but the way I display my work at stalls & when I leave work at shops on a sale or return basis is to fix it to a block of oak. Each block varies in size but are roughly 8"w X 8"d X 12"h. People LOVE the displays & I even get people asking me to make them up blocks as decorative pieces or for a function they have in mind. The beauty of it is I get the oak for £1 a length & the lengths go up to 8 foot so I get plenty of display blocks out of each length. With a chainsaw & an electric plain, an electric sander & some finishing wax it literally takes minutes to make them & it almost doesn't matter whether you get it back or not because it's virtually free in the first place. I get the oak from a tree surgeon/timber framer/woodsman but some local timber suppliers also do offcuts, maybe you could find somewhere similar?

Thanks again Charles, you've helped me a couple times around these subjects, cheers very much.

Charles, are you saying that I shouldn't be worried about the black surface oxides because mild steel isn't poisonous? I haven't tried pickling, would the vinegar need to be hot?

I'm after a cleaning agent that'll thoroughly clean mild steel without affecting the colour, does anyone know anything that might be suitable? My usual process after forging is: sand it to bring out the texture, clean with household washing up liquid using the scouring pad side of a normal sponge, food safe finish it. Cleaning it that way is a laborious process that takes several goes but it gets me there in the end however yesterday I was having problems with one bowl where regardless of how many times I cleaned it every time I started smearing vegetable oil over it to start the food safeing process the tissue came up dirty...despite no dirt coming off on the dish cloth whilst drying it. Needlesstosay I'm not food safeing that bowl. The reason I don't want the colour to be affected is because I need the crevices that are created by the ball pein to stay dark so the contrast between the sanded and non-sanded areas stays sharp. I'd really appreciate any tips, thanks.

Holy smokes Batman! Now I don't feel like such a wuss for being lactose intolerant and having lactose free milk.

Does milk coming in contact with finished mild steel pose any rusting problems? I finish the bowls I make by food safe baking them in the oven with vegetable oil, as you would a cast iron skillet. A lady that bought a bowl from me at one of my stalls asked if it was ok to put milk in it as milk is acidic, I had no clue as to the answer.

Hurrah, I'm getting electricity soon! No more of that *insert a chain of swear words* 50 meter electricity extension cable that I swear is designed to tangle, especially when it's raining. A CD/mp3 player will be top of my list of non-essentials. Can't wait to be able to use my welder in the workshop too, at the minute I have to go back over to the house and plug in.

Nank, I 200% sympathize. For months I went through the exact same situation as you with the YouTube videos/books/anvilfire and I've only just figured out where I was going wrong. You know the process so I'll just share some pointers that were key in me finally understanding where I was going wrong Don't do too much in one go - get the basic shape first, don't do more than two 90 degrees in one go and don't make each turn perfect before moving onto the next turn - because you've moved from one the another doesn't mean you can't go back and tweak the previous turn, in fact it makes it easier - swiveling your wrist 45 degrees when working on the hinge does a lot to create the shape It's not a crime to stop and look at what you've just done. - quench and look and the underside of what you've just done, it's the only way to fully appreciate what's going on with all the 90 degree turns and 45 degree swivels - if you follow the processes in the videos you're always working from the outside of the hinge and you never see what's going on inside the hinge which is the most important area, so quench and look up close! What isn't in contact with the anvil face is just as important as what is. The nearside of the anvil can be just as useful as the far side. Hope that helps!

Dave/windancer, do you remember any details about tools used in the process or stock choice? I'm trying to visualize the process using the bare essentials but I'm beginning to wonder if there was some kind of top & bottom fullering tool designed for the job...

There is something womb like about your piece John, got that shape of a fetus curled up. If that's not the "conception" you meant then call me a taxi.

It's funny sometimes where you get design inspiration from, (probably subconciously more often than not), got any examples of places you've gleaned ideas from? I'll start the ball rollin at my peril... A friend has aked me to some abstract scolled bars as garden ornaments, I've got some ideas for the tops which that are like bracken leaves unravelling from their coil and flicking out.

Cool. Don't be too much of a drill sergeant with yourself, no two will be dead on exactly the same and in a way that's helpful because you'll see differences between them. If you pay attention to each hit as you're doing it you'll quickly pick up what made them different and that will lead you to understand a million and one things like what angle you need to hold the steel at to achieve what you want to do. I'm not at a stage yet where I can get things right first time/with one hit, but because of doing what I've suggested I've learnt how to correct/tweak things so they are right.

Ha. My girlfriend's mum texted me to ask me how my "stool" went.

Hahaha, on your scale I'd say I did "Good". Like I said it was a slow day but I sold £125 worth, the pitch was £22.50. The larger picture though is that I already quit my job at the end of July for health reasons so now doing stalls + DIY odd jobs for neighbours is how I make money.

Cheers. A few things I learned from my first stall: People will miss things right under their nose. Men that did metalwork at school many moons ago but haven't done any since are like flies to drawn to... Making someone's kids go "wow" can pretty much sell the item for you.

Good start! Relatively speaking I'm still a newbie and am self taught so take that into consideration when deciding if you want to take on board what I suggest or not but my suggestion would be to hold off on the tongs and tools for the minute and make a dozen of one thing. I've found making multiples of one small thing can be really educating and can serve you better in the long run by saving you time and effort on the bigger projects because you've got a better understanding on how metal moves, how much material you'll need need, how much heat you'll need, do you need to spot heat a certain area, how to correct mistakes etc etc etc IMHO it's better to drill the essentials into your head on small items at the very start because you'll be more efficient with future projects which will save you time and money. Better to eat up 6 foot of mild steel getting tapering spot on than screw up a useful pieces of tool or spring steel by folding cold shuts into your punch tapers. With mild steel taper an inch at a time of square and round bar, cut it off, do it again, cut it off, do it again... Try making a dozen hooks like the one you've already made - finial scrolls the same tightness and length, the hook curve the same shape, the flattened area for the screw the same shape...it ain't easy.