HWooldridge

Slightly OT but I am planning to fab a side blast (water cooled) so this brings up an important point. Is 25mm too large for the blast opening? Should it be closer to 19mm (3/4") or does it make much difference if a damper is used to control the air to the fire? Another idea I had was to take a solid piece of stock (maybe 4") and drill good sized holes into the back that don't go thru (like bubblers in a mold). This is easier to make if one has access to lathe or mill and saves all of the welding that would occur with pipe and plate. A half dozen 12mm holes drilled from the water side to within 6mm of the tue end should allow quite a bit of water into the nose for cooling.

A very inspirational solution to the handle problem and probably one of the best overall knife designs I have seen recently. Award winning for artistic creativity and workmanship.

It appears the edges may have been welded on at some point - which would detract from the value to a degree.

Looks to be in great shape - wonder how much use it received in past lives? That's a cool picture with the mold form.

When I was a teenager, my grandfather would occasionally want to hand drill limestone blocks for repair on old German houses in this area (at the time, he was a carpenter by trade who also did some masonry work - and he had also worked as a blacksmith in the mid-1920's). I was petrified the first time he gave me an 8 lb. sledge and held the rock drill in his hand but I managed to never hit him. He always said the full circle overhead swing was better suited to work down low, like driving stakes, because you had more time to make adjustments as the hammer came through the top of the swing - but he preferred the short stroke style when working at the anvil. I never thought much about it then but makes sense as I remember working with him. The funny thing is that my grown sons also trust me not to strike them when holding something driven into the ground - but I use tongs when holding for them...

I cannot imagine a 30 lb hammer - I have a 16 lb. sledge and it is a beast to swing at the anvil. I can use it for about one heat if someone is holding the work while I whale away...

Goliath's coat of mail supposedly weighed 125 lbs - this old boy might be pretty stout if he wants to wear a costume piece...<LOL>

I liked the cat on the anvil...

Peter Ross at Colonial Williamsburg had some antique dies that were impressed to make lag screw threads in one hit. The work was forged to an approximate taper then placed in the dies and finished with one swat. I'm sure a little bit of flash occurred but probably not enough to worry about with regard to function and the period smiths may have employed a "grunt" to finish the threads by filing. I'd bet someone could use a modern lag to create the dies then have something to make hooks and such.

Is your ash dump a flapper or screw off? You could open the ash dump every time you turn on the blower and it should diffuse the gas enough to stop the backfire. Although that would be a pain with a threaded cap. You can also leave the blower on all the time and choke the air with a damper. A slight trickle of blast should prevent gas buildup.

It happens because the volatiles in the fuel occasionally build up combustible gas between heats. It usually only occurs when first starting up the blower after it's been sitting a few minutes. I'm told it can wreck a traditional great bellows but it won't do much to a blower.

Wow, that's a real bruiser. Nice score!

There are some really good cast welding rods on the market but it's always problematic that the repair holds without cracking later. Brazing might hold, depending on the location. I realize the nose gets pretty hot in the fire but the water inside should be enough to keep it from getting so hot that the braze melts while you're working. I brazed up a bottom blast (with no water cooling) and it has held for several years. Just a thought.

My son is a roper and trains quarter horses for a living but I like those big draft horses. Strong and gentle. I like Arabians too, but that's a different story... Have fun - you've got a great job!

Alan, Yes, the circular saws would sometimes shed teeth and they'd go flying - exactly as you recall. I worked in that mill for about a year and never saw it happen but apparently it was not an infrequent occurrence. I never saw a band saw there but I only worked in the welding/machine shop and on the plywood line. The place was old and huge so no telling what was in some of those buildings. It's an OT comment but they had an old Sherman tank chassis that had a cherry picker mounted on it in place of the turret. That was fun to drive in the yard and pretend I was attacking a hedgerow in Normandy...<LOL>

Alan, I worked in a lumber mill during the late 1970's and they had a "saw doctor" in-house. He would dismount the blade, put it on a balancer and check it, followed by laying it on a surface plate and hammering, then he'd repeat until satisfied. These blades had carbide teeth that were riveted in place so he would replace those prior to balancing and setting the warp. After it was remounted, he would sound an alarm so everyone could move out of the blade's path then he would turn on the saw and watch how it ran before releasing to the veneer cutters. These saws would cut a 3 foot tall stack of veneer in one pass so the blades were quite large (and NO guards - just spun on the bearings over a conveyor that pushed the wood through the blade). Not sure how fast they ran but the tip speed on a 6.5 foot diameter blade was howling. Was a very noisy place to work - probably part of the reason I'm about deaf now. I should have paid closer attention but I was still wet behind the ears and more interested in the machine shop at that time...LOL Hollis

I used to throw a lot - axes, knives, shuriken, etc. It's amazing how good someone can get with practice - cutting playing cards and all that jazz...

Steel is somewhat poor in compression and great in tension, which is why rebar works so well inside concrete. The concrete has great compressive properties but isn't good at stretching. Combine the two and you get an outstanding structural material. So as a general statement, I would always design steel in tension if possible. An example might be an L-shaped sign bracket hung on a wall. A support bar that forms a closed triangle would therefore hold more load if the hypotenuse was on the upper side. However, in decorative blacksmithing, we should also consider the fasteners and other elements as potential failure points. A large gate collared together might fail of its own weight only because the fastening method was not sufficient. That's essentially what occurred on the Titanic - the rivets failed and started the path to destruction.

Mild steel or carbon? Nice design - I can see those tossing well.

Arftist - I assume that was a commercial unit? 500# of bronze is a big pour - I haven't checked lately but bronze was running $5 a lb so that's an expensive charge.

I'm no casting pro but every setup I have seen has a movable ladle or crucible that is heated to melting temps in a stationary furnace. Even the big carbon arc setups in steel mills use a monster ladle on a crane while the electrodes are lowered into the melt. For 50# pours, it might be easier to design a furnace on the ground then use a set of two man tongs to pick up the crucible. A tilting furnace gives me all kinds of chills - like how do you handle fuel fittings on a moving setup that is well above 2000 degrees F. If you are trying to do big pours with no help, I think you'll need both a motorized lift and pivot on the crucible or it could get away from you and dump when you least expect it. I've had trouble with 15 lb pours working by myself and would hate to see what 50 lbs of molten anything looks like when it splashes. Think safety at all times...

I've owned several 400 Champions and IIRC, all had a drip oiler or spout that fed the large gear which drives the fan shaft worm gear. None of them actually ran in oil because it would generally leak out at the fan housing. The shaft bearings were generally lubed with white lithium grease and I used ATF for the drip oiling. Even when well lubed, this style of blower has a lot of gear noise in the primary drive train.

I suppose I should have described in more detail. I made mine 30 degrees from perpendicular (i.e., from what would be flat surfaces) so the resulting block is less than 45 degrees. I will say that I've seen several power hammer tools that are 45.

I don't know if it was "proper" but I cut my guillotine butcher tools to 30 degrees. There are different types of butchers depending on use so I'm not sure whether there is a rule of thumb to cover all flavors.

I made a very small poker for the purpose - piece of 1/4" rod with a point that hooks back only about 3/4". I can reach down into the fire through openings in the coke, find the "clink-clink" piece and usually fish it out without destroying the entire heart of the fire. Sometimes, only part of it comes out and I simply work a while longer then clean again. My coal generates a lot of BTU's but will clinker up in short order so regular cleaning is mandatory for me.