HWooldridge

Rather than mess with leather, a person could glue some fiberglas or carbon fiber mat around the spring. It would likely stay put in use but still slow down any broken pieces.

Making and using tongs is somewhat like forge welding. If you are capable in the required skills and thought process, it lends itself to other things. People who are good at forge welding are not afraid to incorporate it into their work - the same goes for tongs. Poorly fitting tongs invite streams of blue invective and are dangerous to boot but light and well fitting ones are a joy to use. I can make a pair of standard tongs from start to finish (with a fire already going) in 30-45 minutes but more important than speed is that they are exactly what I want when I'm done. In addition, factory tongs are rarely usable for the job at hand so you have to adjust the jaws anyway. The other problem with most factory tongs (Grant Sarver's are the exception) is that they are too heavy. Most smiths don't realize until they've worked a few years that fatigue in the off hand is as debilitating as fatigue in the hammer arm. For example, I decided several years ago to stop holding the reins with my hand grip and that all my tongs would either have an attached ring on the reins or I use a separate ring to hold the jaws together. This very small change has allowed me to work longer and with less fatigue than having to fight the pieces I forge throughout the day. I can't talk anyone out of buying $4 tongs but I'd wager that in the presence of lighter and better fitting tools, the factory ones will rust on the rack...

I always make my own tongs - and most other tools as well. I believe that is one of the basic tenets of being a blacksmith, we make the tools for all the other trades and for our own use...

Looks like it's moved east and going into Galveston with a full head of steam. Y'all need to get out and head west to San Antonio or Austin.

A tortilla press would work but they probably don't have those in Finland either...

Those episodes were recorded several years ago. Some of the folks shown have made great strides and are doing more these days (plus a few more are long in the tooth and others have gone on to the great forge in the sky).

Yeah, I'm 130 miles inland from you but I think the eye may go right over the top of my head. I sent my sons who live here to visit their brother in San Angelo but the wife and the dogs and me are a-staying put if we can. I'm on a slight hill and endured 26 inches of rain in 48 hours in the '98 flood without the house taking water but I'm real concerned about the tornadoes and hurricane winds. Local news is saying sustained winds of 100 mph here - I'm probably going to board windows tomorrow. Everybody stay safe - this one could be another Rita/Katrina.

Check out HABA if you get a chance (Houston Artist Blacksmiths Assoc). HABA Houston Area Blacksmith's Association

I never knew they broke but of course, anything is possible with 75-100 year old steel. I would simply drill holes in the frame on either side of the ram ways and bolt something there.

I kept some form of facial hair pretty much since puberty but started shaving about 5-6 years ago. I now prefer bare-face so doubt I'll ever go back to a beard and/or moustache.

It's starving for fuel so the problem could simply be the tuning screw on the carb but modern gas varnishes up pretty quickly so it may have all sorts of trash in the carb or the inline gas filter. Since it runs well enough, change the filter then buy a can of Chemtool and dump it in the gas tank. Open the throttle and let it sit and run until it runs out of fuel. Put in fresh gas and adjust the hi-speed screw on the carb. If none of these things fix it, you'll have to clean and kit the carb. That's is no big deal if you have a little mechanical aptitude. There may also be an adjustment on the governor - but it's best to get the right Craftsman manual and see if they address it there.

Interesting thread...several of the older folks in our family hunted to live when I was growing up in the 1960's. The meat on the table was more often than not either fish caught out of the river or some type of game. They butchered hogs when their children were living at home but had stopped that by the time I was born so the only meat they typically bought in town was bacon - everything else came off the land; having a garden and chickens helped with the rest. They also shot deer all year long - being born before 1900 and living through the Depression probably affected their views of game laws. I was given a .22 Marlin at age 6 (supervised) and allowed to go out by myself by the time I was 9 or 10 to hunt rabbits and squirrels. I would be given a full magazine of shells and expected to bring something back for every one fired. I was chastised if anything took more than one bullet so careful head shots became the norm on most everything. I remember once coming back with 6 swamp rabbits - my grandmother and aunts were ecstatic and cleaned them for me; there was a family reunion that weekend so we had rabbit stew that night and fed about a dozen folks. All those people have now gone on to their reward but I have great memories... I didn't hunt deer with handguns until I was in my twenties but have killed a few over the years with either a .45 LC or .44 Mag. None took more than one round but I broke all of them down with a shoulder shot - head shots are best left to rifles, at least for me. I process my own deer and make dry smoked sausage out of everything. I'll make venison chili occasionally but the meat lends it so well to dry sausage that I prefer that over most other things. Usually, the sausage is 100% venison but sometimes we'll put a little pork in it for binder and some extra flavor. Maybe ten years ago, I "larded/barded" one venison neck roast with bacon stuck down in slits made with a knife. IIRC, it turned out well but I never repeated the experiment. Based on what y'all are saying, sounds like it could be developed into a really good recipe. You might also try deep frying a neck or ham - makes for a really tasty roast (similar to frying a turkey on T-day).

Our company sends out a wide variety of parts for heat treatment. The heat treat suppliers all use natural gas for a fuel source (except in vacuum furnaces, which are electrically heated). By modifying the air/fuel mix, they can alternately reduce, increase, or maintain the carbon level in plain steels. In most cases, they want to leave the carbon as specified so the flame is neutral but for example, in a case hardening application, they will increase the carbon and add other gases to the mix (ammonia is one type) to impart a hard case to a prescribed depth. This industrial processing is very repeatable but the average blacksmith cannot control his fire so closely, so most get some level of decarburization or scaling while forging. To answer your question, a gas forge would actually be easier to control than coal or coke if you pay attention to the fuel mix because it would not tend to change much, once set.

There's really no volume demand for them as I seriously doubt there is a need for small forging hammers outside the artist-blacksmith community (anything under 500 lb ram is small by industrial standards). Of course, WE all want one but that's about as far as it goes. There is an overall lack of interest in manufacturing in the US - as evidenced by the loss of jobs in those sectors and it's indicative of the epidemic that has sent all sorts of work to the Far East for the last 20 years. Now, all that money we sent along with the work will come back in the form of foreign ownership of our banks and companies. It's the great whoring of America - I'll get off my soapbox now... With the advances in CNC cutting and welding, I think a very good machine could be made from fabricated parts. People like John Larson work by themselves and build a fine product but they are essentially crafting the hammer completely by hand. For a commercial venture, you'd need to make a variety of sizes and be able to produce at least 30-50 hammers per month. I'm quite sure the mechanisms can be engineered to reduce the manufacturing tolerances so close fits and finishes are not necessary but as I said earlier, the sustaining demand for power hammers is so low as to be almost nonexistent. Look at what happened to the American lathe industry - and lathes are many times more extant than forging equipment.

I know nothing about epees or foils but triangular cross sections can easily be made in a 60 degree v-block. You start with round stock and forge, rotate, forge, rotate, until the shape is correct. This can be done with either sledge or power hammer.

I saw a pretty neat deal in a fab shop once - they weren't blacksmiths but sometimes needed a good heat on a piece of steel. I never built one but probably should at some point. It was simply a large blown burner pointing vertically, set in a ring of steel and cast insulation (basically, just a big "turkey fryer" burner). They would light the burner and lay the material over the flame, then drape kaowool over the whole thing. Not sure about welding temps since the shop didn't need it but they could definitely get to a yellow heat. It ran on natural gas and used a lot of fuel and air - probably a 300 cfm blower.

You can shorten the belt and it will work fine for a while but will eventually stretch again. The best thing I've seen is an idler wheel on a loosely fitted shaft/bracket that rests on the belt by it's own weight - too much tension and the belt will slip off the drive wheel so you don't need much more than gravity to assist. You can find old flat belt pulleys with "ears" that will keep the belt centered or just use a fairly wide one so the belt doesn't walk out from under the idler while running. It's pretty easy to shorten leather belting. You cut it on a bias then glue the skived ends with contact cement - works like a champ.

Re lighting a propane forge: A long time ago, after some singed hair and other exciting incidents with "extinguished" matches and bits of paper, I started lighting my gas forge with a little Bernzomatic propane torch - you know, the one like your old grandpa had when you were a kid. Spark light the torch, turn on the air, turn on the gas, light the forge - no more burned fur...priceless.

It never gets that hot. You are talking about a chemical process that functions around 280 F. You can blue heat-treated parts with no ill effects. As mentioned, cold bluing can be done at room temperature with decent results. If you are referring to torch bluing, the heat can be around 600-700 degrees so again, that will not affect mild steel (although it might cause issues with heat-treated parts).

Thomas, Based on that, do you think gas or stick would be better for his application?

That's a very good suggestion; would definitely be period.

IMHO, I think this should be a "sticky" - it is a very good summary of the various fuels and advantages/disadvantages to each.

6010, 6011 or 7018 would work. They are all mild steel but it's the best you can do with no wrought iron electrodes to buy. The best thing would be to TIG it with some wrought iron wire but not sure from the description if you can do that.

My gas forges won't weld reliably but my coal forge will so that's why I keep it around. If my propane forges welded every time, I wouldn't need coal at all - except maybe if I were working on something large that would not fit in the gas forge. Depending on what type work you are doing, this may not be an issue. Gas may not be such an advantage where coal or charcoal are readily available, but a lot of the country does not have readily available solid fuels.

No, I'm referring to the downward feed on the drill for the revolutions being used. Every cutting tool has a proper feed/speed combination. Too much or too little of either can overheat the cutting edges and/or simply break the tool. One of the reasons people break drill bits in manual drill presses is that there is enough slop in the quill to allow a bit to jump and pull itself forward, especially at the end of a cut. This also happens when people don't clamp the work and just hold it on top of the table (I know, everybody does it - and I'm probably one of the worst offenders around). A machine that has power feed will go through at the same rate and is less likely to break drills, all else being equal.