billyO

Hello all. While making some integrated collars for a grille and gate I'm doing, I'm having a minor issue that may not even be an issue. What I'm trying to do is split the end of a 1/2 X 1 1/2" bar on the flat about 2"+ a bit, spread the split and forge into a "T" shape, with each arm of the T wrapping around a piece of 1" square forming a collar, with the 1" centered on the 1 1/2" flat. What seems to happen is a thinning of the material at the end of the split when I forge the "T". I've tried a number of test pieces trying splitting the stock with a hot cut, band saw, and drilling a 1/8" hole at the end of the split, and all stretch at the junction. I can push material from the bend to the thinning with a straight pein, to re-thicken that spot, but it takes some extra work to do. My questions are 2: 1. Is there a better way (other than forgewelding) to make the "T"? 2. Should I worry about this? . . . I found out I can hide the thinning on the inside of the collar (but I'll know its there) Let me know if pics would help. Thanks.

Although I love the idea of capturing "waste heat" for use, and wish our society did more of that (especially in industry), I'm pretty sure you'd be violating some fire code, or insurance policy clause so beware. (boy, I HATE our lawsuit culture...) :angry: I'm not saying don't do it, merely don't expect any sympathy or empathy from authorities in the event of an accident.

As far as expanding product line, garden tools are good additions for farmer's markets.

Fotunately, just had my first painful injury directly related to hammering yesterday. Whie bending a piece of 1/2 x 1 at the anvil, a dime-sized flake of scale popped off and landed flat on my tongue. Either I apparently "wanna be like Mike", or, more likely I just need to keep my wire brush closer to the anvil, AND use it!

Good suggestion, Matt. A trick I've used a few times (and need to use more often) comes from my old school days 40 years or so past, and one of the good lasting things from my ex (second only to the "ex" part <_< ) is an overhead projector. Works great for grills and gates. You can use any size sketch pad, make as detailed a sketch as you want, trace with the clear overhead screen, then project/trasnsfer onto a board that's as close as needed to make a full sized version.

It seems as if the topic has shifted from the scrap pile to Paul, a bit unfairly, I think... I've noticed that there are more scrap yards that won't let customers browse/shop than will. I've got to drive over an hour to get to the recycler that has a bone yard to pick through, and on the way I drive past at least 6 others that will accept, but not sell scrap.

It does seem as if the NWBA is going through a shift as the finanical realities are too big to deny, which in my understanding, is why they are moving towards a monthly hammer-in format. The monthly hammer-ins in Longview are free to NWBA members. I won't be surprised if this is the last year that the NWBA puts on 2 conferences. The COST of EVERYTHING, from renting facilities paying for demonstrators, lodging, etc is continually increasing without a similar increase in the way to PAY for ANYTHING. The NWBA, like most of the rest of us for the past 30 years, are nothing more than another casualty of our completely free market

Hello all. Now that I've got my generator/welder running, an OLD Marquette AC stick welder/220 generator with an Onan engine, on the fuel tank is a big sticker that says, LEADED GAS ONLY. Do I need to worry about this, and if so what type of additive do I need to look for? thanks

where do I get one?

Whew! Thanks for clarifying, I tend to look at the pics first, and when I got to the last one, I thought, "Oh, No!!! What happened?" :huh: I guess, once a FIB, always a FIB, eh cheesehead? :rolleyes:

I found out a solution when I was first learning, both smithing and the twist: if you aren't dead straight with the twist you need to straighten it, and if you use a copper hammer to straighten it on the anvil, at the right heat with the right force you will soften the points.

New/beefier lock has been purchased. I understand that power tools could get through, but the time and effort that would take would most likely draw notice from the road and neighbors (the gate's by the road). Re dogs: Up until a month ago my oldest female husky camped out next to the driveway, but old age took 2 of my 3 dogs in the past 2 months and well, and I can't keep one young husky at home alone (escape artists). I'm looking at a 4 y/o female resuce this weekend, maybe then I'll have 2 and leave them home occasionally. The sherrif recommended the motion activated cam as well. Thinking about it.

Another type of 'practical' blacksmithing, but first a little backstory: I came home from work Wednesday and my front gate was wide open. Now I'll admit that in the past year, I have forgotten to lock the gate a couple of times, but I can't ever remember not closing the gate. After parking and walking back to close the gate I saw that the lock was in the middle of the chain hanging on the pole, and sure enough there was the cut link. Hopefully it goes without saying, but I started looking around the property to see what was missing, went into the house, and right on the corner of the counter was my digital camera, right where I left it. So was the stereo, computer, fishing rods, various hand tools, etc. Went out to the shop, and almost tripped over one of the caps to my oxy/acetylene outfit in the yard and saw a welding handbook and pad of notes next to it. Got to the shop/garage and sure enough, my entire oxy/acetylene outfit, caps to cover my head, cutting goggles and auto darkening welding helmet were gone. Odd thing was, they took it out the hard (but perhaps quicker) way, and they didn't take anything else that would have had equal if not more value and easier to take/load into a vehicle, so that tells me they were doing an inventory, planning on coming back. I spent a couple hours driving to various stores looking for a more stout chain, but, finding nothing big enough NOT to get bolt cutters around, I realized I had the means to do this. Fired up the forge and made a new lock. No bolt cutters getting through this, I'll wager. U is 1/2" x 2" and bolt is 1/2" x 1". As I was finishing up, hot and sweaty and kinda angry that I had to spend time on this project as well as others to secure the property better, I saw a practice piece of different ways to do hands, and had a thought.... (that's the lone cap in the background) ...this is out of 1"square, I could flex the index finger into the palm and wrist to 90 degrees, draw the arm out to 1" x 1/2", punch/drift another hole for the padlock and use this as the bolt for a greeting when they come back for the rest. (and I'm wondering if the middle finger a common enough sight that it's not offensive to the IFI population. If not, I'll post a picture, cause that was kinda fun! B)

Hello all, last fall I was given an old (late 50's?) Marquette gas powered generator/AC welder with an Onan engine. I've got the engine running pretty good, and now is time to learn to stick weld, but am having trouble starting/running a bead and need some assist on what to change first. I think I should get some new rod to practice with, and think that should be my first change. I was given some 3/32" 7018 rod from a friend. It's not been protected from the atmosphere, just laying on top of his forge, I also don't see an AC designation on the rod. Or should wait until I get someone here who knows how to weld to see if it works and tuned properly. thanks

I've often imagined meeting my guardian angel and that's the only thing I'm afraid of about crossing into the next beyond. S/He's probably gonna look pretty ticked-off and worn out and no doubt will ask why I NEVER gave him/her a day off..... :rolleyes: .

that'd be a pretty long day, eh? Too bad it's not next year when I plan on driving back to visit family in the midwest, including my brother in Ann Arbor....

Sometime it does, sometimes not. 2 non-smithing stories, but both still give me goosebumps: The time I listenened to the voice was about 10 years ago, snowshoeing with my sibes up at White Pass, around mid-night with a full moon. I was in the rhythm of breaking trail through waist deep powder, came out of the trees to see the full moon cresting over Mt Rainier, and I was enraptured of the moment. After about 30-40 steps I stopped suddenly with that feeling. I pulled my gaze away from the horizon and focused on the task at hand, and realized I was starting to break a trail right across a steep draw, and as I moved my gaze up mountain, I saw that at the top of the draw about 200 yards was an overhang of snow. I immediately turned around and went back to the tree line, took one last look at the moon and started back to the tent. The time I didn't listen was when I was fishing for steelhead on the Toutle river about 15 years ago. I was hiking yup river to get to a boulder garden when the deertrail on the sidehill I was hiking, came to a point where a small slide washed about 4 feet of the trail away. I didn't feel like bushwhacking through the blackberries, so I thought I could just swing/stride/hop over the washout, but as I tried, the trail crumbled below my feet and I found myself scaping down the hill, trying to dig my fingers into the hill to stop the slide to no avail, and found myself sliding into the whitewater right over a huge hole with chest waders on. Luckily for me, when I was about waist-deep into the rushing river, my feet hit a ledge or rock and I stopped sliding. I can't remember whether I relieved myself in my waders or not. Needless to say, the blackberries were not that big of a deal on the way back to the truck. I'm pretty sure I was fishless, but as I drove back home, I thought it was great day nonetheless.

When done correctly, possibly, but VERY damaging if done incorrectly. IMO, to risky for most, there are safer alternatives. Now, for those of you who have been doing them for years, this isn't me telling you to stop, because obviously you've trained your muscles and have the proper balance between strength and flexibility to be able to control the dynamic motion and momentum caused by the kettlebells, so, by all means, "Use it or lose it!" I'd just advise those that want to start, BE CAREFUL and make sure someone who knows what they are looking for watches you do the exercises a few times to ensure that you're building. not destroying your body.

While I agree that the touchmarks from the above company are high quality and will last a long time, I feel I must give one bit of advice when ordering one. Make very sure your design will work adequately. On mine, I approved the final design based on a computer drawing (CAD?) over e-mail. However, when I recieved it, I found that it doesn't have enough negative space between the lines or something, and doesn't leave a clean, well defined mark. As such, I almost never use it. When I approached them about how to fix it after using it the first time (and IMO, they are the experts and should have either warned me or modified the drawing a bit to better define the lines), the response was, "You could order another one." as the adage goes.... buyer beware, ask enough questions.

Nobody should... :rolleyes: All true, but there is Work Medicine, only it's usually referred to as Occupational Medicine, as I'm sure you know. I ran a PT clinic for 4 years that was attatched to a physician group that referred to themselves as an Industrial Medicine clinic. And exactly the same thing. This is what I'm attempting. . . I'll look into those titles, thank you. And I think psychology has a significant part too. An example is how I've approached this topic on this site: I've been thinking about this since the first day I got involved in Blacksmithing when I heard that the "correct" hieght of an anvil is where your knuckles are when standing upright, etc. 2 thoughts ran through my head almost simultaneously, a result of my profession, I guess, which were, "Is that true for everyone, and if so, what are the joint mechanics we are trying to idealize with that statement?" (An example I deal with in my profession on a regular basis may clarify: The "textbook" says that the correct height of hand grips of any assitive device such as cane, walker, crutches is the crease where the wrist meets the forearm when standing erect. But I often have to modify that up or down one or two notches depending on the specific body structure of the individual patient.) So instead of coming right out and questioning thousands of years of tradition, I thought I'd sneak up on it by asking for info on injuries. :wacko: Wow, I forgot how much I hate psychology.....

Or did I mean yoga is just as good as tai chi?.?.?. :unsure: What I do mean is that there is no "gold standard" for specific exercises, only the exercise principles.

That's next, like I said, when I'm sure I'm giving 100% accurate info. The reason why I put my thoughts on the physics of hammering is exaclty to avoid any questions in the future about specific equipment when I get into the biomechnics/postural recommendations. I also brought up the physics to point out the need to separate the apples from powerhammers from the repetitive discussions on the topic.

Hello again all, and thanks for the comments. I think I'm ready to put some of my thoughts down for everyone to read. Here goes: Smithing Mechanics - Hammer head weight v. speed – myth v. fact. What is it that we do? We move metal, and in order to move metal we need to break the forces that are holding the metal molecules in a certain positon. So what we are concerned about from a metal moving perspective is force, not work as I've read before. Therefore, from a theoretical/physics/mathematical standpoint, it's the mass of the hammer head that is important, not the speed(velocity) of the hammer head, because although it's likely that everyone can swing a 3# hammer faster than a 5# hammer, you may be able to swing a 5# hammer faster than I can swing a 3# hammer. So from a mathematical standpoint, when one simith is trying to convince another that a 2# hammer is better than a 5# hammer, and another smith chimes in with the opposite, this is an apples to powerhammers argument. However, we don't live in a purely theoretical world, but rather in a world where we -- living creatures with more soft tissue than hard -- try to shape and form materials that are almost always much harder and stronger than our strongest hard tissue. From this PT’s perspective, then, the argument is not whether to use a heavy hammer a little slower or a lighter hammer faster because from the standpoint of moving metal, the more metal you want to move, the heavier the hammer you will want to have. Period. (I like to use what I call “Limit Theory Thinking” in cases like this, so here’s what I mean: with enough control, you could draw a taper on ¼” stock with a 500lb powerhammer, (how many have seen videos of closing a matchbook with a power hammer?) but I challenge ANYONE to draw a taper on a 3” square with a 2# hammer. ) So, the issue is not how heavy a hammer you should use, because that will vary not only from person to person, but throughout each of our lives as our bodies change. Normally, the progression for any individual would be this: lighter hammers when starting, progressing to heavier hammers as we develop our forging muscles, plateauing at whatever a manageable weight is until we age to a point where the body starts its natural deterioration process and we need to return to progressively lighter and lighter hammers (if we’re lucky to still be forging at that point). So the argument shouldn't be about WHAT tool to use, since there's no one right answer to that, but rather HOW to use the correct tool safely. When I get specific biomechanical reccomendations fleshed out a bit more, I'll start down that road. PS- regarding the personal anecdotes, there's a good pattern amongst all the success stories that would be worth paying attention to. Let me know if you'd like my specific input on anything.

Thanks, all! Looking back on it, it was a fun process, from thinking about it to doing it. I hope I don't get cocky now. :unsure:

If you plan it correctly you could take a piece of flat bar and make a 2-sided taper on each end for the points. Then, chamfer what you want to be the inside curve first, this will curve the bar the opposite way. Then, by doing the other side, keeping the same flat on the anvil, work the other angle, and if you planned it correctly, as you chamfer this side, the curve will go the other way and end up where you want it, no grinding necessary. LIke a knife, like you said. It just may take a few tries to figure out what size you need to start with.