Quarry Dog

The most important safety tool around the forge is situational awareness. After that is safety glasses(welder shade 3 if you stare at the fire) and earplugs (I like the banded style, so I don't stuff a bunch of coal in my ears). Gloves are good for a little heat buffer, and for accidental contacts, but not for holding on to metal that's already too hot. I can't think of anything, besides "mickey mouse" gloves, that would hold up to that heat for more than a second, if you're lucky. They're really heavy, bulky, uncooperative things that are only good for heavy air arc gouging and super heavy duty welding (think 400 amps +) and resemble the old asbestos mitts. Even then, I'm not sure they'd handle a high black heat for very long before melting/burning. The only time I wear gloves around the forge is when I'm working on heavier stock (1.5" +) and I can't keep the #4 rebar (1/2") porter bar that I welded on cool enough to handle comfortably, even when dunking it in the slack tub. I like Tillman "driver's" gloves, although you have to make sure to take the elastic out. Once you've done that and worn them for an hour or two to loosen them up, they come off in one shake. They're very durable (I get at least a solid month of abuse out of them, sometimes 2, and the leather goes first. Home depot's knockoffs give me about 2 weeks before the stitching blows out the side of the fingers, at which point they're useless.) and they're heavy enough that they give you a little bit of a buffer from the heat. There have been a couple times at work where I started feeling heat creeping through from a piece that would have certainly burnt me had I grabbed it bare handed, and they have completely protected me from accidental contact with things that were still running the second blue from being welded. I've had similar things produce the smell of "bacon and smoke". Accidental contact is still a far cry from trying to hold on to something like that though.

Forbidden again. gonna try an edit. Hey Frosty. Could you post T/Nipple/Orifice and your recommended volumes for the burner sizes? On a side note, Plumbers have some odd jargon. We had a propane guy come out to install the tank and jets at my Mom and Dad's new place last year and the words the guy chose were priceless when she asked what he was switching out on the dryer. "Well lady, your orifice is too big." I guess she had fun with that one.

New design Frosty "T-Burner" in "more stupid questions from a Newbie". 1/2".

Forbidden as usual.

I remember a story about a bunch of blacksmiths gathered around an old black and white book with lots of photos of the most vivid and realistic vinelike scrollwork they had ever seen. All the captions in the book were in a foreign language that one of their friends understood. They took the book to him and he said it was a garden book.

I like the look I get from cold setting rivets, but it is such an everloving pain to do.

I'm inclined to disagree with you on the order of those words. Then again, I got hooked as soon as I saw fire and smooshed steel. Every time I go to the shop, or here, I answer a few of the questions I've been pondering, and leave with twice as many questions that are twice as in depth. What's more, reading books on the topic compounds the problem even further, and has me using funny, old timey words for at least a week, thanks to characters like M.T. Richardsen, J.M. Drew, and John Lord Bacon.

There are 4 very important things that I can think of that you don't want to do with hammers: 1) Don't hit hardened surfaces with your hardened hammer faces. Striking a hardened piece of steel will at the very least mark your hammer face up. Worst case scenario is that it might shatter the piece, or chip the face off of your hammer, and the flying chips are usually fast and sharp. This is also why I dress any mushrooming off of my struck tools, as I've had a mushroomed chisel nick my earlobe and it did not feel good. 2) Don't let your handle get loose. Keep your wedges tight. Nothing worse than the head going airborne while your six year old is helping you knock down a termite eaten fence. There's no telling where it will land. Just ask my dad, it's been 24 years, but I'm pretty sure he still has a scar right on his crown. He taught me how to rehandle a hammer immediately upon regaining his composure. 3) Don't set your hammer next to the fire pot. It will rapidly dry out the handle and shrink it, making it loose, and possibly causing number 2. 4) When modifying/dressing the hammers faces with a grinder/belt sander/etc., don't draw the temper. It's pretty easy to prevent, as it is a sizeable chunk of metal. Just cool it off with a soaked rag every couple of passes. Drawing the temper won't really cause anything dangerous, but it will make the hammer face more easily marked during mis-strikes (they happen to the best of us), which will show up in your work. All of that said, modifying hammer faces is perfectly acceptable practice, and abrasives are pretty much the easiest and most accessible way to go about it. One of my favorite hammers is an engineers sledge that I took to the belt sander and put 3/4" radii (1.5" peins) on the faces, one cross and one straight, although I wish I had put the cross "pein" at 30 degrees clockwise so that It isn't so awkward when drawing stock towards me. Hopefully I've been helpful, and not too loquacious.

Forbidden! Swage block/ Anvil? Broaches/Drills/Mill?

It is free on google books. Very dry but informative read. Lots of detail.

Forbidden for the first time in a month. Oh well had to happen some time. Try using recycled fryer oil or something like peanut or canola.. Motor oil/ATF has some gnarly stuff.

We start classes back up the third Saturday in September, but you could stop by or call the first Saturday and see where you stand on the list. Look for the big guy with a ponytail, name of John, just don't tell him I sent you. All kidding aside he's the guy that teaches, and maintains the list, although adult education and the historical society surprise him every once in a while. In the meantime, there are a lot of good books that would give you a leg up on the rest of the new guys. I have physical copies of Lorelei Sims The Backyard Blacksmith and J. M. Drew's Farm Blacksmithng if you're interested.

Kinda looks like a shortened up cruise box (I don't know what else to call 'em, and google images doesn't pull it up for me) with legs.

Simpson-Strongtie "Set" and "Set XP" work really well and if I'm not mistaken are approved for earthquake anchoring and ledger bolts in Los Angeles county. I believe Hilti "Hit" and Rockite are in the same boat, but I have an easier time getting Set (they sell it at Home Repo).

Don't forget that it's pretty easy to resize a pair of tongs, within reason, and you can always adjust the reins for a better grip. Just don't forget to clamp the bits around the intended stock in a vise when you're doing it or they might come out all wonky.

Sure looks like clinker to me. Gotta say, that's the first time of heard of this problem being associated with something other than coal, not that that's saying a whole lot. Did you have a hard time forge welding in that fire? Clinker will cause that problem as well.

The shop that I hammer at has 5 JHM Shapers (160#) on our student forges. They all still have fairly good edges (they were never dressed, not my call), and are surviving the abuses of novice hammer control and somewhat heavy forging (hammers, axes, one guy even did a gun barrel when classes were slow) very well. They've been used 6 hours solid, every saturday (excepting during the summer [mostly] and the winter holidays), for the past 10 years when they were bought new. Even though the edges weren't dressed, they're slightly rounding on their own (1/8" - 1/4" radius) in the high use areas, without any serious chipping. All in all, a very solid competitor...oops, those ones weigh 250#. Haven't tried one of those yet. Hope this helps.

Tug of war is surprisingly dangerous when you think about it. I've seen someone seriously injured when a rope snapped pulling a truck out of a ditch, and it is about the same effect.

Abrasion Resistant, 400 is the brinell hardness (scratch resistance) and makes good wear steel for rock chutes and feeders. Air hardening if I remember correctly, and I can tell you it is very hard. I flattened a known good center punch on it marking an unmarked scrap for drilling at work, and all I did was take the scale off. I decide to use a torch instead. I have a few bars that dropped off of plate cuts, but I haven't tried forging em into anthing yet. I'm thinking about testing them out as hotcuts. I believe T1 is the stuff they use for armor plating. Oh yeah, forgot to mention, it is durable too. I've never seen the stuff crack except right at the weld after it is badly worn, and it gets 1 ton bolders dropped on it or thrown at it all day, every day at work.

Just throwin' my 2 cents in. Wasn't aimin' fer toes. I've been looking at building a gasser for a little while now, I just can't seem to find a local pottery/ceramic/kiln/HVAC supply that I have easy access to and can/will help me, and I've even been being nice. Even firebrick seems hard to come by. I'm a pretty firm believer in doing business locally, but I'm seriously thinking about going online.

No, his math sounds about right, as long as he's going round. Even a flat floor doesn't throw the numbers off by a whole lot. I did a good bit of math for a twelve inch air tank similar to this one. For those in doubt the formula for area is r²pi (3²pi). Multiply by length for volume. pi6(pi2r) is for circumference. Multiply by length for surface area. The calculations for volume with a floor are obnoxious, involve some basic trig (which I hadn't used since high school), and might shave at most a third of the volume, unless almost half of the thing is floor, in which case you've pretty well nullified the purpose of a round forge body.

Typing "site:iforgeiron.com xxxx" (the xxxx being your search) into a google search works great for combing IFI for things that hold your immediate interest.

Centered twisted C-hook with rat-tail scroll ends. Looks good.

TP: Well, that provides an explanation for the phenomenon that I had not heard yet. And what's more, it makes a lot more sense than steam going into the tuyere. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're implying that the watering of the coal/coke in the fire creates steam, which creates a condition similar to that used to make producer gas. This gas goes back through the tuyere and mixes with air there and in the blower. When the mix is right for combustion, the live firepot is the ignition source and KABOOM!!! The rafters have received their yearly cleaning, and hopefully the precious blower/bellows didn't grenade.

Your tuyere might backfire if air starts to draw into it while you aren't cranking. It's rather loud. I usually see it happen when wetting the fire to control it, or wetting the coal to help it coke. Best solution for either situation is to make sure that the blower is going until all excess water (not soaked in) is steamed off.