Jim Coke

Greetings Jim, Your blower can be used with about any firepot... I guess it depends on how much forging you do... Ya can by a super cast firepot from SOFA IN Ohio for about 250.00 ,, They have been making them for years and every one that I know that has one loves it. I too have wirlwind firepots and find that it takes alot of coal to feed them.. ( deep ) Good luck Jim

I just finished a few punches AKA (schneckers) for one of my studios.. My sugestion if you are on a limited budget is to start with good tool steel round bars the are not that costly.. and a flap disc grinder with 60 to 120 grit ; forge to the basic shape and grind away.. Enclosed are some made with H13 for hot work and 4140 for cold treadle hammer work... For eye punches , forge the bar to a taper with the tapered end with a small droop over of material... Take a 6 in flat bar stock heat to forging temp and sink a old small ball bearing in it.. ( aprox 1/2 way) After cooling set the plate on your anvil with the bearing in the hole than heat your punch end and drive it into the bearing.. It will form a nice eye punch.. File and grind to taste... Take your time and your punches will last a very long time.. Next read up on heat treat , draw tempering ect... I hope this helps.. Jim

Greetings Brian, Test weld , Test weld, Test weld.. !/2 plate at that angle allready has a bevel.... I think you will be filling a 3/4 or better gap... Check out the duty cycle of your machine... It's only metal have at it... reverse gear is a grinder... Good luck Jim

Greetings Brian, Ya going to have a bigger welder .. Preheat and tack it . You will find your welder is limited to about 5/16 stock... You will need a 225 or bigger stick welder to do the job right.. Good luck Jim

Greetings Ironsmith, Yep the flex or slack side of a belt sander works the best.. Buuttt if all you have to work with is angle grinders I suggest that you look at a new way.. Mount your angle grinder in a wood vise with your flap disc (aprox 80 grit on a new disc) and take the hammer to the grind surface... You will find that you can see the work being done much better and less flat spots... Keep in mind the radius of the disc.. The closer you get to center the less grind and on the outer radius you get more flex... I have done a bunch like this with great results... Hammer hard and have fun Jim

Greetings Mark, Your build looks great... It will serve you well... I think if it was mine I would consider lowering the blower... Hammer hard.. Jim

Greetings, Try the rough side of the rasp under the treadle hammer or flypress for a texture tool... Cool on copper.. Wings for your dragon Jim

Now that's a long story In my first life I was an autoshop/welding instructor and than off to operating a motorcycle shop for a few years. Opened an auto repair shop with a lot of employees and a lot of problems... Had enough of that after 20 years and retired.. Well that stunk so I opened a blacksmith shop for 15 years. It all started being a fabricator/welder/dreamer. I started collecting old tools and blacksmith stuff about 35 years ago for my northern Michigan farm for display. Back then no books or people to show how it was done. I did find an old boy who put on a demo on blacksmithing and it was off to rhe races. In my business, my blacksmith shop took off like gangbusters and continued for 15 years. If you could dream it I would make it .. I made tons of things including railings, gates. lighting,custom kitchen, interior furnishings, etc,etc,etc I am retired and spend most of my time teaching our trade to future artists.. On my farm I have many buildings: 2 blacksmith studios, a sheet metal shop, a welding shop, and a machine line shaft shop. I enjoy teaching new artists the basics and the advanced smiths tool making, treadle hammer methods and flypress operation.. I like to link english wheel /flypress/treadle hammer work into our trade with repousse.. Some multi-media.. I guess I can sum it up this way. My grandson now says MY GRANDPA IS A BLACKSMITH... A student of blacksmithing ( of 35 years) Hammer on Jim

Greetings Dave, Nice find... Most of the time the cranks and mandrels are missing.. It looks like you found a complete kit.. If you can find a old sears catalog you will find this in it.. I have just the vise portion and have seen many sold at swap meets... If it was mine I would not bother to fire it up because it worth a lot more in its original condition... 600 to 800. I think Champion tried to make a blacksmith /shopsmith.... Have fun Jim

Greetings youngun Happy wife happy life..... Remind her of the nice things you make when you invest in some new bs stuff.... It worked for me... Jim

Greetings Dan, Ya got some problems comming.... First puntching sgare tube for a square hole will make a mess.... I suggest drilling a 1/2 hole and file the rest to square. It will take about 5 min... Square tube if you don't seal the top rain will soon fill the tube and rust from the inside... If you try to twist 1/8 square tube it again will make a bigger mess.... You must collapse the center and controll the heat at the point you hold it... Enclosed a flick of twisted tube over the top gothic door pull... I hope this helps..

Greetings seasoned blacksmiths, My personal favorate is a small vise mounted on a plate of a wilton swivel vise. (expensive) One method that I show my students is to weld two squares of 1/4 plate in a "t" form and drill holes to mount a inexpensive drill press vise to the top so that it can rotate 90 d . You now can use it in your post vise in almost any position. ( the plates should be aprox 6in square) If you add to your work bench a versa-vise ( a cam lock multi position vise) you should be good to go .. They now make knock-offs of the orginal versa-vise Check out ebay Jim

Square tube has rounded edges unlike square bar... mixing the two stinks... You can get some nice texture on solid square bar cold.. Ive done it a thousand times under the power hammer ... Take a rounding hammer and a 1/2 by 1/2 place it on a 1 inch round bar and have at it... Good luck Jim

Yes I am retired and still trying to pass on through classes and meetings our craft.. I will never touch as many of us as Jack.. Rest my friend you will allways have a place in our hearts.. Jim

Greetings Mark, You will find one on ebay under cole vise#7 for 80 bucks.. Its missing the chuck and a fixture for drilling pulleys ( v block) The cool thing about this press is that you can take the small table off turn it around and bolt it to anything ... Kind of a mag drill .. Have fun with your vise.. Jim

Greetings, This vise is made by the Cole vise company. Its main use is for the oil and field fab business.. It orginally came with a slick drill press that fits in the round grove under the jaws.. You will find the vice pads ar very agressive and will mark your metal easy.. You can also field stake the unit note the hole on the bottom... The hole is also used so that you can clamp the vise jaws on a beam and use this hole to insert a lever... I have 3 of complete sets and the orginal paperwork... They work slick but you will have to work with it a while... (pull the jaw plates and grind to smooth.. ) Great find Jim

You just can't loose at 500.. Ive been smithing for 30 years and have 3 treadle hammers ... 2 in line Richard Sheppards and a Clay Spencer design... If you can dream metal work a flypress and a treadle hammer is all you need... LEARN LEARN LEARN To me a Stravivarius violin is just a wood box but in the right hands its a beautiful thing...