RustiePyles

Thats very cool!

Is that a hot blue?

The handles are braided so paint is out. Plus I just don't have any desire to paint my work. Most likely used inside.

I've made a nice fire set and people are starting to ask about buying my work. Up until now I just spray my stuff down with a light weight oil, but I would like to use a better and more uniform finish for paying customers. So I'm going to start using linseed oil, mineral spirits, & Japan drier but I'm not sure how to get the nice even black color & luster. Oxy Act torch with no oxy to soot the work? Green wood fire? What's the best method?

Sounds like you may have kept striking your RRS after it had cooled, thats how you get a lot of hammer marks. Try keeping the temp of your work up and not striking for so long, I had the same problem. It makes for a lot less finish work.

I know a lot of people want a tig welder but think they cant aford one so I thought I would share this bit of info with everyone. As many of you already know you dont have to have a high dollar MIller syncrowave to tig weld. Any (DC for iron&steel AC for aluminium) stick welder can be converted to a tig welder even a cheap old tombstone. All you need is a TIG torch with a gas valve built into it like a WP-17V (air cooled), an argon bottle, and a regulator. The first step in converting is attaching the torch to the -or ground side of your welder this can be acomplished by hooking it direcly to your machine or simply clamping the lead to your torch lead lug, Then you need to hook the torch to your gas bottle via the regulator. The +or positve side of the machine now becomes the "work" or ground lead. It is as simple as that, you now have scratch start tig welder. Now keep in mind that you dont have any fancy stuff like foot feed amperage controll or hot start but after you get the hang of it its a relly great system. I have done this several times with great results, with DC tig you can even seudo braze brass and bronze to mild steel and iron with brazing rod.

If you want really pretty beads wiht a stick welder pick up some 7024 rod. Its "drag rod" drag it at shallow angle with constant work contactand you will end up with what looks like tig welds. Its not for out of position though.

I was a heavy equipment mechanic for a concrete flat work company and my boss came out to the shop and told me to weld up some rebar forms, afer a several hours (what sould have taken 10min) I had sucsesfully "glued" my work together. got some books and sated teaching myself at work. Then I joined the Navy and ended up being the LPO (forman) of the comand HT (welding,pipe fitting, ship fiting) shop. Now I work on industrial food processing equipment, ALL stainless tig.

Your right around me, Im in mission, ks

Hi all, My name is Fletch I have long history wiht welding and fab but am new to the hammer and anvil. Recently built myself a forge with some stainless steel that was laying around the scrap pile at work (after trying a charcoal/brake drum forge and realizing that it was totaly worthless) I also picked a nice 50lb post vise at a local junk store for $20, Im using a piece of RR rail until I can locate a decent used anvil. Because anvils are not plentiful and falling from the sky on unsuspecting roadrunners as the Brothers Warner would have us believe.