Bryce Masuk

Clenching your teeth when concentrating is a fairly normal reaction, If you were in a high stress situation where you might be attacked and hit in the jaw this would prevent you from being knocked out for the most part you may find it easier just you buy a guard of sorts, its pretty likely you might unconciously do this in many situations but not hard enough that you notice it because you jaw muscles dont get tired

Mine is sitting in a warehouse still I went to clear customs today, I sent the money to anyang yesterday I wasnt going to send it until it landed in canada, Soon I will have it I made a cart for the hammer so it can rest on that until I find a new location which should be pretty soon I just need to save up 6 months worth of rent before I am willing to open shop

its not a big deal it just means that your going to have to under fill it to be safe or use a scale if you have one this would probley be the best option usually the "spitter" valve is used as the measure I think most tanks weight 80lbs empty and 170 full

speaking of that mine need relining too jymm lol

I sent them my money at the end of june and my hammer hasnt been shipped yet either, It doesnt entirely matter because I still havent setup base for the hammer yet at least i know why nothing has happened yet

I decided I needed a sign as well Its not done yet I made my extra heavy duty lol I am going to add a few things it doesnt look entirely finished to me and polish the welds and such

Finished this for my brothers birthday last night, now he needs to sand/ desplatter it. Me and my brother installed my moms new bed for her birthday on thursday. He had to wait for his present but they are all done now lol Now im going to build a gate or a globe or something lol

Your doing well its all about the fun, as I have worked metal I have found the time alone spent with it changes your mindset of what is easy what is hard what is possible and impossible.

Either way the metal is worth more than the price you paid and likely better quality than you can buy right now, If you can decide what to do with it just let it rest and eventually the purpose will come from no where, you could also make some great punches/chisels from it if its a mid carbon steel but dont rush one day as a crowbar it might get you out of a jam

Thanks guys, Jeremy I put a flat spot on the end of the chairs so they wouldnt be a total razor lol but they could still gouge you quite well. I didnt want to ruin the look after I made them to this point I really wanted them to look like they were an evil triangle of sorts.they need that end to complete them everywhere is fully polished and smooth even where you cant really see under the top of the chair they do need the table to match though because you could never find anything to match them The bed is NEARLY done lol it made it so it is a Day bed or corner bed it has a Head board and a Side board but nothing at the front. i also made a separate 1x1 frame 11 inches tall for the matress so it would support it without any weight on the front or side because as a corner bed or whatever it wont be able to support any weight. I still need to polish and clean up a few spots on the boards but all in all it came out pretty good LESSONS were taught to me by me in the process numerous ways. Luckly a mothers love leaves her blind to the beds flaws I will post a picture after I paint and bracket it all possibly tomorrow because work is slow and I have free time,

no one likes them lol maybe this will spark some interest this is a headboard i am working on for my moms birthday, it definately has some flaws lol im going to adjust the larger scrolls with the torch later on

Took me quite awhile to make these I bent all the tubing by hand They arent blacksmithed as you can see but they wer fun to make besides the hours of grinding Just a little design that was in my head,

I have been looking at this website quite often fort he last month or so I dont know why I did not post it on here earlier, I am sure some of you have seen it It gives a whole chart of different jig sizes that produce different radius's I am sure one could adapt many uses for it I really REALLY want to make a sphere/globe now I have about 200 ft of 1 inch square tubing kicking around from when my buddys at the steel place got a whole bundle of slightly bent tubing (sometimes when you cut the straps they explode in every direction) Hopefully at least one person will have not seen it and be able to make use of it. anyways the site is Language alert This link takes you away from IForgeIron and contains language not appropriate for the IForgeIron site. How to Bend Tubing and Pipe by Hand

So your using the golden ratio or a true logirthmical Sprial and slightly adjusting it? I still cant entirely see how you can make the c scroll without having to pull the one other end above the jig a bit this is a problem I have ran into quite abit when making c scrolls i just use the dog fork or whatever you like to call it and tweek it abit I havent actually tryed to make a scroll that is a golden mean scroll all of mine are "special" they dont look nearly as nice as yours Looks like its time to work out a drawing and make some more jigs. So when you talk about the length of the scroll this is the length of the flatbar as a cutsize for that section correct? Seems like your system is worth understanding in many ways, I will do my best to use the information given to best of my abilitys lol

How old are you? To start a business you dont want loans, you NEED surplus money to begin with Say you start this business and the first 3 months you break totally even, Now you are bankrupt and foreclosed on because no company will let you miss three months of payment. The problem with trying to be purely a blacksmith is there are old guys retired everywhere that smith to get some money beyond a pension or JUST for fun. if your plan was to make small craft items and make a living from this it going to be nearly impossible. The guys who made a living are well established and have worked plenty hard for a longtime for little money and are desired because of previous works and reputation. many things I have found that take alot of time for me personally are done my experianced people in one tenth the time at a better quality, meaning to make the same money you would have to get 10 times the money for a worse quality product, that isnt going to be easy. Reality is though if you refuse to give up for better or worse nothing on the planet can stop you, if your mentality fits this description your already on a set path.

This is great Brian, I think alot of people like myself try to do these kinds of things without making the tools and wonder why we are unsucessful in producing consistant results. I probley made about 300 scrolls all freehand in the last 10 months and put all of them into the scrap pile I also made at least a dozen scroll jigs and was honestly happy with one or two maybe, I constantly find myself making more and more tools in fact I make them and test them and hardly use them sometimes because I am either working or doing basic stuff to collect money to get more tools or of course making more tools I have made some crappy trivets and will be watching for the next installment,

Excellent job you should be proud of yourself,

Dave I work as a fabricator, currently and I dont mind it. I wouldnt work in any retail or resturant business. While I am watching other people fail in large scale business's and such I am currently using the weak economy to get all the scrap jobs others are leaving behind. I dont have their overhead and am willing to play ball with your average person while things turn bad I am finding away to make it all work somewhat and working with what i have all be it probley too much I am trying to gain ground and its CONSTANT work but i need to keep focus

Looks like you know what you are doing shipbuilding is quite the industry some of the boats I have seen have inch and a half gaps filled in between plates it must take a long time to fill those puppys

My problem is this when I become interested in anything I really, really, feel compelled to do things that are far beyond my reach, I figured that i should build the gate in the front of book in colonial ironwork in old philidelphia the gate at St paul s church, (for some reason I figured this would be a good project with 2 months of knowledge) I knew I couldnt complete it yet the desire was there so traced it and then i drew it again and then i drew it to quarter scale then i put the drawing aside because I know I still cant do it yet. (one day I will and right now there is probley some wiz kid somewhere who can do it already at age 18 there is always someone who will absolutely blow you away with skills you just dont ever meet them they are always at work) I figure If I can make money I will have time to do as I please or at least have the option of that chance. maybe one day I will be able to do what I really want all the time, and i know that probley is not what other people want me to produce. but the reality is I need that security in order to do that. I really want to make huge sculptures on my own time and dollar who knows maybe one day someone will want to buy one for a price I can make a living from.. but who knows maybe that will never happen, would that stop me from making that a reality... Of course not. but it doesnt mean it will make me a cent or even make it so I will break even. I still want to do metalwork nothing will ever stop that, I just want to put other people to work doing it if they want to do the job, and still be involved in the design aspect. I think i have a few things that I can do in my area that most people dont do and provide it for a reasonable price. I am also trying to partner with more experianced people to better myself and run the shop, but primarily they dont know how to run a business they are skilled tradesmen but not involved in this aspect, So I must take up this role to further everyone involved, I Must come up with all the bases, Where most trades people do not take care of and do not become successful as a business because of lack of knowledge. I see alot of people barely making it by with tons of skills and knowledge in their field but no concept of how a business should be run. as an instance my dad was an incredible tradesman yet our family could not afford a television or any other luxury items,

if your refering to my signature its quote of Frederic Bastiat this link has more of the story

hahah what exactly does that mean

I thought some of you may have some interesting imput on this I am not specifically looking for advice but rather speaking my mind for personal clairity, However I should hope that I am not blind or ignorant enough to refuse knowledge. I specificly see many people who make a living from blacksmithing are working incredibly hard and are sustaining themselves and perhaps putting some money away for the future of themselves, family, and other important things. They do this because they LOVE the craft and could not imagine doing anything else and would probley not be able to keep themselves in once piece as a insurance salesman or something like that. However most arent really making more money that say a skilled plumber or electrican and they are probley working much harder and spending alot of money on day to day expenses than most tradesmen, WHY because they need a actual location that is steady you really dont want to have to move your shop unless you have to you wont be making money for quite awhile. Plus your burning fuel all the time running powerhammers ripping though constant consumable materials and powertools might last you a year and a half or two but thats nearly the end of them. I also see people fabricating eveything with small cast cheap pieces making garden gates for 1500 bucks and simple decking railings for 5000 dollars and producing 3 of these gates in 6 hours and all that type of railing work in 24 working hours and installing in about 4 hours. I also see people who are making incredible amazing blacksmithing work, mind blowing infact. I know they charge high dollars because there clients are kings queens governments so on and forth right. but are they still making alot of money.... I am thinking probley not vs the fact that its ONLY them producing such works it takes many hours with one man and a assistant and to become this good at blacksmithing not only does it take many years but it takes many years of working for FREE and or for nearly nothing... I wonder what it really takes, I truly love blacksmithing I make no claims of being a skilled blacksmith however I know I have the ambition, desire and am willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen. At one point I was high concidering selling EVERYTHING I owned and leaving to tour the world to learn from whoever was willing to teach me. Slowly my ideas changed I ran into several good deals on equipment and continued to study marketing, sales, advertisement, and numerous other things everyone should read (amazingly most people in philosophy are also economists not just marx) But I decided I have always had NO MONEY few things have been handed to me and i greatly appreciate whatever has been and all support given by family and such, It seemed my choice of path to become a blacksmith would also lead to NO MONEY, Most people dont even know people still swing a hammer for a living even framers have pneumatic nailers, Unfortunately not by my choice but the way the world works no money typically means no choice, you cant find a job as a blacksmith so you work at mcdonalds, you cant afford a car so you take public transit, you cant afford a home so you rent one for your entire life, Personally when I have no choice, this is when the unhappyness begins. The reality is what do you choose to do, a degree does not guarantee success as many would like to think it does, A ticket in a trade gets you a certain wage in a union this is guaranteed but is that wage all that great meaning once you get your ticket, now you get 30 dollars and hour say... well what you get 20 years later probley the same thing plus inflation whether its on top of you or on the bottom is a different story. I realize this reads as a sales pitch or some type of internet scam type deal but I have read probley 80 books and watched 20 movies in the last 2 weeks discussing these types of ideas so that is how my mind is functioning.

yeah I need to burn some more thick plates I just picked up a deltaweld 302 so i will be able to weld some really thick stuff once the new shop is set up my friend is a cwb cert welder as well as a teacher I am learning everything i can from him those first 2 welds look like xxxx but you have to start somewhere

im pretty sure your canoe would sink before it left from the shore