Marc1

Mm ... why not indeed. One could make a stand that is a water tank, a bit more solid than a 44 gallon drum and with the opening in the back of the vice to double up as a quench tank ... why not? Not less than 30 gallons though or you end up with the same problem of rocky vice ... . (pun intended)

Pros ...Blacksmithing is a trade, a bit like old school metalwork. It will allow you to make things in steel the way most modern metalworkers are unable to do. Just to clarify, blacksmithing is not bladesmithing. Con ... it is hot, noisy and smokey and requires a strong arm Coal forge, if you can find coal needs more room, more ventilation and it smokes and stinks but is quiet. Gas forge can be done in a smaller space, needs ventilation but is cleaner yet noisy. Money? if you invest in a forge an anvil and a few hammers, you can blacksmith, if you don't, you can go for a holiday. PS a railroad track is not an anvil, it is a way to get your neighbours offside and lose your hearing without making much progress

So instead of using your own weight you use the car's ... not a bad idea if you have the room to do that. The car qualifies as a fixed point of sorts. You could weld a square tube up the leg of the stand and slide it in the towing hitch. it can have a gose neck so you don't trip as bad over it. Many solutions to a simple problem that has a simple solution ...

It has to do with insurance. if the landowner insurance does not cover it, he is unlikely to allow it. The owner on the other hand may see it as low risk and do it without telling the insurance. Unwise, but possible. The tenant does not have that choice. Thne there are council regulations that vary from state to state (in Australia from suburb to suburb) Some time ago making your own biodiesel was all the rage. A few people burned down their house in the process only to find out that the insurance did not cover them.

I like it! Add a whammy bar for effect

Don't sell yourself short Das, The fact that your chosen medium is discarded metal parts, does not take away from what you do. Paint after all is but a bit of pigment mixed with glue. What about that lady in France that blows hollow vessels under water with dynamite to make sculptures? You should try that sometime

Interesting as usual Frosty. I think I made it clear that when suitable for some, the little round platform you stand on is not suitable if you want to apply lateral force even moderate. The reason is that your own weight is not a good idea because it forces you to to be stationary in one point. I don't see the controversy nor how this contradicts Newton, Vulcan or Mandragora's law. Swing at the little platform hard enough and even if you weight 20 stones you will tip it, turn it, rattle and shake it so bad that you will not like it one bit. Work at the vice standing in front of it, or just using your hammer with down blows and forge happy away no problems. It all depends of what you do and how you do it. THere is no one answer and not one right answer. The large platform i mentioned is an absurdity to illustrate a point and I doubt anyone is thinking in building it just now, caulking compound or not. It can be built of course. Just for you to know a 7' round plate at 1/2" thick will weight in at 660 lb give or take. I don't see myself rolling that in any way short of using a forklift. Much easier to anchor it from below with a steel cable to a bolt in the concrete. or ... why not just bolt it to a post as a leg vice is supposed to be? Having said that, I don't see why anyone should follow my advice. It seems that post vice on feeble shaky platforms are popular and make Newton happy, and my idea of a tripod anchored down with a cable is a total furphy worthy of disdain and scorn. So be it, I am easily pleased.

Great work as usual Alex. That balustrade is really nice. I would say ... i have my hands full ... or, I have work galore ... or I have oodles of work ...

Thank you Frosty, my concern is not turning but tipping or like I said, making the vice "walk". The answer is rather obvious, the platform idea is based on a small platform at the front of the anvil. if you stand on the front plattform, you will be able to do some work if you stand still in the same spot and providing you don't pull too hard back on a large long bar. Now clamp the same long bar horizontal and try walking around the vice with the bar in your hand to bend it and tell me what happened. As far as turning something you are standing on, it is rather simple. It is called inertia and action and reaction. Something I was well aware in my times as a gimnast. My daughter knows about it too when she skates. obviously the platform idea would be possible to use for me if I made a round platform say ... 7' diameter and may be 1/2" thick. of course it would make the idea of movable or portable rather moot. I could motorise this platform with tracks i suppose ...

Well done LMF, that is very ingenious. Reminds me somehow to Tom and Jerry's mouse trap ... You should send it to DeWalt and offer to post on YouTube for a fee

Thank you Anvil, was wondering what all the noise was about. if you work on light flat bar or 3/8" round bar, any type of stand will always be OK. The problem comes when you are bending big stuff in a jig or a fork and need to use a bit more muscle sideways. Your vice is on a stand that brings the jaws about 3' high. You want to stabilise it with your own weight on a platform that has may be 2' leverage or may be less. I invite you to stand on the last 2' of a 5' bar, tie a rope to the other end and pull. Now tell me you can not lift yourself. Come on guys, gravity in the US can not be that much different from gravity in Australia. A vice on a platform that small will be ok to work if you only use limited force sideways, Start pulling and rocking the vice to do your work and you will tip it. Sure if you just make pen knifes, forget what I said. You probably don't even need a post vice and a parallel vice will most likely be OK, on a platform or clamped to a dinner table. The vice I use the most weights over 80 Kg and the tripod is ~60Kg plus I added 30 Kg of weights to the back leg and I make it walk every time I need to bend something larger unless I tie her down. If I want to rivet little stuff together, I use a small vice that sits on a table without any anchoring at all. Lionel I like your vice and how you have made it movable, however I would tip that one in a heartbit because I need to work not only at the front of the vice but all around it. No good for me, great for you. We are all different. Well Dave ... I hope you try my trick that defies your laws of physics. It is called second class lever

i don't know how it is in your corner of the woods Rocky, but down here, digital piracy is rife. i post ads to sell something on two or three platforms every week. On one of them, invariably I get a text message the same day or next day asking to reply by email and not through the platform with some lame excuse of not having a phone or being on a drilling platform or half way to the moon. It is a known scam and i never reply. Paranoid! (not) On another platform, as soon as i post something I receive a text message that states in no uncertain terms. "This is your last opportunity to avoid escalation of court action in relation to a business matter, call xxxxxxx as a matter of urgency to avoid costly litigation ... or words to that effect. Sometimes they even use robot calls with a similar message. They collect millions with this scam. The idea that everyone's health history should be digital so that you can rock in the nearest doctor's surgery that don't know you from a bar of soap and they can pull your history from out of the cloud sounds very "modern" but is a crock. The number of opportunity for abuse that this practice would open up is frightening and anyone that thinks this is a good idea lives in a parallel dimension. The cashless society and the digital currency comes to mind. Everything that becomes digital is a compromise and an added opportunity for fraud. Las month I sold a boat and filled in the form that is required to inform the maritime authority that it no longer belongs to me. The form has two parts, one for the buyer and one for the seller. At time of selling you rip it in half and take your part for what we call "disposal of the vessel". It so happens that we, the buyer and myself, made a mistake and had each the wrong half of the form. i was holding the buyers form and was trying to dispose the boat. In normal circumstances that would have been impossible and I would need to chase the buyer and get him to sign a new form for me. However ... recently all this process was changed and now can be done online. The girl at the counter told me that if I use the computer over there, I can do it online without any forms. Great right! This has made the rebirthing of stolen boats or cars or any other vehicle that much easier. I am so happy now! Wohoo ... it is on line ... I feel so much better now

What would be the point of that Dave?

I think it is an Alfa Romeo I like the hammer deflecting protrusions on the jaws. Usually on expensive vices. Clearly repaired or parts replaced at some stage, but not a Frankenstein vice.

The depth of the firepot depends of all the other dimensions and the air source, not only fuel. As for fuel, i mix bituminous with coke to start the fire

Can you drill the floor and is it concrete? or that is not possible?

You vice will always walk depending on what you work on, unless you tie her to a fixed point. Using your own weight to pin her down by standing on plate works only for some applications. You are not heavy enough and you move around, plus your plate will be in the way. I have a vice bolted to a tripod and at first tried to steady it by adding weights to the longer leg at the back, but that did not really work. Now I have concreted a tube with a nut welded at the top in the ground. It is leveled and not a trip hazard. if needed I screw an eye bolt in the anchoring point in the floor, and string the tripod down with a steel cable and a turnbuckle. It still allows me to turn the vice around the same point if I loosen the cable up a bit, and I can move it if needed out of the way. It is rock solid and I can bend and twist with all my force without it ever moving. In your case what i would do is to drill the floor in the desired position and glue two anchor points with "Chemset" 101 or similar, flush to the ground and hold the plate in place with two bolts that you can remove when you want to wheel the vice outside. If you leave the bolts in the holes you will avoid the thread filling up with stuff ... although looking at your workshop it seems there is little chance of that I like you vice in a vice you have at the back

In his book "Craft", Alexander Langlands says that the ancient word craeft was originally an amalgam of knowledge, power and skill, and an extended definition where a sense of wisdom and resourcefulness surpasses in importance the notion of physical skill. (His words not mine) He goes on to describe how the word is a loaded term as it is a pragmatic description of how one earns one's livelihood. And how crafty as a description of character was always a positive description of an entrepreneurial character until Shakespeare in King John and Hobbes in Leviathan give this word the meaning of sly and cunning. The best use of the word crafty to me is to describe the person that is the outsider, the one that has a way to do things differently, describing the modern day blacksmith to a te. It was Alfred the Great who united the concepts of learning and virtue with making the use of craft. "For Alfred the labour and work associated with making and doing was comparable to the spiritual strivings of philosophy " Crafts, Alexander Langland says in his conclusions, "are a vehicle through which we can think, through which we can contemplate and through which we can be. Craft is a form of intelligence and ingenuity that can shift in accordance with a changing world. " The biggest merit of the author in this book is the ability to write 344 pages on this topic. Crafty indeed

On that topic, our clever state government developed in secret a new strategy to force everyone to have their health history digital and able to be accessed by any doctor with the loopy idea that such will "save lives" When it became public that they wanted to force everyone by stealth, they made it a choice but it was you are in by default unless you opt out and the opt out date was a month away. That also copped a huge backlash so they have now extended the time to opt out. We have not even reached that date and already there have been numerous breaches by unauthorised third parties, insurance companies, solicitors, employers .... It is a joke. Nothing that is digital is secure.

Perhaps the most important thing to highlight in a forum like this, would be to say that we can not consider one type of work over the other. I was hoping that defining what is craft and what is art would make it clear that they are two different animals and they can not be qualified as one better than the other. Is an artist of higher status than a craftsman? What is better to make, art or craft? what is likely to make me more money? ... and many other valid consideration perhaps are not possible to be answered but by the tradesman himself.

i don't think we can produce a definition set in concrete Thomas, we are just having a conversation over the original question. Wooden boats are most likely craft. And that would depend from the quality. I don't know much about lithography but I think they are a type of art that can be reproduced, and the value of the print depends from the numbers produced (?) Like I said not one size fits all as is usually the case. How about hand printed books? Before Gutenberg's mobile letters, books were printed one page at the time. Does that make them art? Unlikely.

Perhaps a reminder of the original post is in order. To me it is clear that the answer is in it. The art show had it very clear what the difference between craft and art is. An object of art is unique to begin with. Leonardo did not make a dozen Mona Lisa. Second ... that art object displayed in an art show are not cheap. Craft on the other hand are object that can be produced in numbers, all the same without taking away from what they are. My bottle opener is not less because there are many of the same. All the other considerations in relation to workshop management, sales strategy, inspiration vs transpiration are all very valid but do not cancel out each other or the original question of craft vs art. What constitute craft and what constitute art is one consideration. Who is a craftsman and who is an artist is a different one. It is the object that defines the person ... meaning that if I make craft I am a craftsman , if I make art I am an artist. Can I be both? I suppose that if i make garden tables during the week and sculptures on the weekend, I can be both. Will one detract from the other? Possibly in the eyes of an elitist customer, and something that wouldn't bother me and something I would laugh over, but we are not all the same.

I read what you are saying, and you are correct that experience can not be copied, but we go back to the original question of what is craft and what is art. A craftsman is not necessarily an expert. He can take 3 hours to make a bottle opener that someone else makes in 10 minutes. And the end result may not even be the same. However repetition will make most reasonably able people produce the bottle opener in 10 minutes or may be 20. There are two factors at play. The finish product and the time taken to make it. It is the finish product that matters ultimately. The time taken is at the craftsman expense. Can the bottle opener be copied? Sure. Can the same result be achieved? Sure give it time and practice. Take a sculpture for example. Can it be copied? sure, but it will take a lot longer to learn if the forger can do it at all. Repetition to produce lots of same sculptures may be possible too and may even learn how to do it efficiently, but the artist does not make the same sculpture like sausages one after the other all the same. Art is most of the time unique and the artist will make one of a kind using his particular talent. So the end result be it a painting or a sculpture can be copied. The talent to create a new art piece must be learned or be born with. In your example of the switchboard wiring, you have learned the art of making the work fast and efficient, and I use the adjective art for the work intentionally because I believe there is some art to any work, including electrical work especially in a switchboard. That can not be copied, must be learned, however the end result that is the finished wiring can be copied every time, it just will take longer. The bottle opener or the wiring of a switchboard can be copied with different degrees of difficulty. A nice landscape painting can be copied by a talented forger. The forger however will not be able to produce a new, different, unique landscape unless he is ... well an artist himself. Then it will be his own work and not a copy.

The advantage of the artist over the craftsman is ... most of the time ... that the craftsman work can be copied by someone who decides to work for less money per hour whilst the artist work is harder to copy. Not that artists don't sabotage their feeble chance of remaining exclusive in their own production by photographing and posting their work online for everyone to see and copy. Ego is usually oblivious to the risk of giving away talent for free.

We had a severe storm last week in Sydney, and a lot of damage done by hail and lightning. i was driving home yesterday and someone called the radio station to tell his story about the storm. The guy started by telling with great pomp that his house was all "smart" and proceeded to describe how he opened the windows, switched the lights by "talking" to the computer ... anyway you know the type. He then told us matter of fact that he also had a smart meter for the electricity that is so smart that the electricity company can, at the push of a button increase his rate because at that time of the day there is more demand ... very smart! ... When the storm came, the Oh so smart meter, loaded with electronics and radio communication gadgets, attracted lightening, got hit and caught fire. Apparently a common occurrence with this idiotic boxes. What happened next is the epitome of idiocy, from someone who was telling an audience of a few millions how smart all his possessions are. At the sight of the fire, he took to the hose and proceed to hose down the switchboard. Thankfully the lightning strike blew the street line fuses to kingdom kong and he got away with the less smart action of his life.