Candidquality

Duct Tape? Glad to hear it's going well. Adding you to the list.

Might want to think about getting a small toaster oven for about $30. Can probably take to heat and hold easier and will not heat up the house in the summertime. Quite a few here use them with success. Plus you won't stink up the house with smoking oils, etc. Wastes less energy too.

There are other forums covering armor design which someone will post shortly i'm sure. If you want to be authentic there's a bit of research to do. If you're not really concerned with that, then do what you think will work. Though I have to mention that forge welding 10,000 links might get a bit tedious. I believe the best loop technique I've seem was to heat and wrap on a bar. Then hot cut(or hacksaw if preferred) across the spring you've made and make individual links. If you're going to weld them, then you might consider leaving enough at the ends to overlap. Good luck and have fun.

Blacksmithing, never had a major disaster. Think I learned young to be a bit more careful.... I had a stuffy nose so we'd started up the evaporator(humidifier). It was time to fill it up to last the night again and being the big boy I was(7) I knew how to fill it up. So I unplug it, off to the sink I go with this 1 1/2 gallon tank. I reach the edge and set it down. Only to find out that I hit the perfect spot to shatter the amber colored glass base(now they are plastic for a good reason). This proceeded to spill a quart of boiling hot water on my stomach from the top of my elastic waist band, 8 inches across and 3 inches down. Temperature dropped enough to not burn anything lower (luckily). 1" Blisters and a trip to the e.r. later, I gained a respect for heated things. Suprisingly, no scarring.

Bog iron can be fairly easily located by looking for that rainbow oily slick on the water, now assuming that it is not actually a bit of old motor oil that's been spilled, it's where to start looking. Use of a magnet increases your odds greatly.

Hello Chris, I'm James. Best way to find a post vice tis to go to the local chapter's meetings. I know there are some in that area, and i'm sure you'll find em soon enough. Good luck and welcome to the club

Yes it does . There are actually a few good google books about household implements from the turn of the century if you'll look in the blueprint section for resources you'll find them. Or just do the search yourself. Might give you a good idea of the types of items that you might need to learn to make. And once you see it, it's no more complicated than taking a ball of clay and hitting it with a hammer until it's right. Good luck and let us know what specifics we can help out with. Check out all the blueprints we have here and you'll notice quite a few little tricks for when you start hitting hot metal. Thinking about straw bale construction for the houses?

This might give you an idea. Possibly ask for a few more of the details you need. BP1014 Bloomery Process I've also a book coming, but it's not arrived yet. Tis a 1934 edition by two metallurgists on wrought and its processing. If there's anything useful I'll pass it along.

Glad to hear it Jimmy.

Best bet is to talk to one of the maintenance gents working the tracks. they'll be more than obliged to help out normally. hot cut would work well for a nice smooth edge ;)

How about if I win it Bill can bring it back with him? sounded like a good idea

Hello and welcome. Self employed, so you're broke, halfway to being a professional smith already . Good luck and let us know what we can do for you. We have a group here from south Africa, though i've no idea if they are close to you or not. Might be able to help you out a bit finding odds and ends that you need. Feel free to ask questions as needed, we're a pretty good group here. Hope to see more of you soon.

on the list.

Welcome to the group. We've quite a few who are doing this in the suburbs, so tis possible. Might use a charcoal forge (cause you can call it a barbque pit ) or possibly build yourself a propane forge. Good luck, feel free to ask questions. Blacksmithing is more about coaxing the metal to do what you want. hopefully you'll find it a bit more rewarding than how you treat it now. Then again you might want to mix the two as most here do.

Welcome to the fold. Yeah, I remember the death grip I had on my hammer for a few days. Just relax a bit and remember to get it hot and hit it hard. Once it cools off a bit, throw it back in the fire and grab the next piece.

Any way we could talk him into doing a blueprint on this one?

Actually as long as you are using a long enough piece of stock to begin with you can forge out a pair of tongs without anything to hold them with. Just remember to cool the end you are holding fairly often. There's a blueprint by Bill Epps that's fairly easy to follow and make a great first set. You could also beat it with a rock using another rock as the anvil(thought do watch out as some rock likes to shoot off small pieces at you: safety glasses) Might be a good idea to but at least one hammer and some stock you could use to make chisels and punches. As they say, "Necessity is the mother of invention". Some will say you must have the basics to start forging and others will say that by figuring out what you can use to meet your needs you get a better understanding of the tools you are working with. Do what makes you comfortable. And again, be safe.

Stunning piece Robert. Lotta love went into that one. Congratulations and thanks for sharing. James

Nice job. Always interested in locks. If you get a chance, work up a blueprint on it so we can give it a go as well. Thanks for the pictures.

I actually have plans for just that. It's not complicated, just time consuming and it is more expensive to make than mild steel by current processes. Of course when it comes to a home foundry I'm not sure which would cost more for the tiny production rates. The carbon content is negligible. There's about 5% silica slag. There are those out there who are already making blooms and beating out the impurities. I think Hofi even has a BP on it. There are even people out there making wootz(completely different type of material also no longer found). You wouldn't call any of these processes cost efficient. http://www.iforgeiron.com/blueprints-1000/bp1014-bloomery-process.html

One last question eh? Yes you can use old metal to practice with. Look up junkyard scrap rules for an idea of what some of the metals are that you might find. And no, folding the metal you find at home depot is a waste of time. It's going to be mild steel and very well blended to begin with. BTW Folding it 1,000,000 times is a bit much. fold 1 time and get 2 layers, fold 2 times and you get 4 layers, fold 3 times and you get 8 layers. continue this up to 21 and you get 1,048,576 layers. Divide that by a 1/8 inch thick knife blade and you get .000000119" thick layers. Not sure how thick an iron molecule is, but it's probably getting close to that. basically you wouldn't see any layers which is the normal reason for making anything layered.

Great to have you back. I always love getting around a group of active blacksmiths. It's amazing the amount of knowledge that can be passed around in a day's time of forging. Hardest part is leaving at the end of the day. Let us know how it turns out next weekend, and do post pictures if you can.

Glenn's right. Lots of information to be had in the blueprints and the forums. We have people here who have been smithing their entire lives, and we even have one 10 year old who's well on his way. A mixture of everyone in between. Read up, and ask questions (after you've done a quick search for the info as it's usually faster than waiting for a reply). We're more than happy to share the few things we've learned. Good luck and above all be SAFE. many of the things we do can hurt you pretty badly. So if there's any doubt, don't do it until you ask someone who has. One small bit of advice. Practicing with clay will give you an excellent idea of how hot steel moves and is much safer, costs practically nothing. And is easy to re-set if you make a mistake and want to start over.

Can't help on the spring but the wrought looks like this It hasn't been made in the us since 1907 and the last plant in Europe shut down in 1972 or so. There's a place that recycles it now and rolls it into new stock overseas. But no actual new production. Notice in the picture that it appears to have a wood like grain when broken. this is due to inclusions of silica slag(about 5 percent) in almost pure iron. Carbon content is below .03% or so. Works at a white heat and moves like butter, easy to forge weld (probably due to slag content making it self fluxing). Wonderful stuff. Pretty sure we've got a blueprint with a decent amount of information on it. edit: click on the picture that pulls up in the gallery for an extremely large closeup. edit 2: found the blueprint http://www.iforgeiron.com/blueprints-100-200/bp0104-wrought-iron.html

25 pounds followed me home for $9