Bryce Masuk

I just couldnt turn these down

Looks great to me

good job did you do all the cuts with a chisel? Its not easy,
you need to use coal or shorten up the heat with water if your using propane

I see some people using a zip wheel to cut horns and such

Well since I asked them for 220 in the begining they told me its somewhat too late to change my mind,

Why they asked me whether it was the right motor or not I dont know,

Anyways they took the time to find out from the engineering department and found out the same answer I found,

It really doesnt matter 220 times + 7 percent is 236 volts so its probley fine to run it at 240 if i am getting a true 240 either way

either way it really doesnt matter in the end Im glad the hammer is on its way,

I will give bc hydro a call and see what they say,

the problem is the hammer can take 1-3 months to make its way to canada and still need to make the base for it,

I still havent found the right location my friend has a crane truck and will move it anywhere within reason for 100 bucks so it may be in my garge for a month before i get the right place

I told them I need 60hz I know that much,

I am going to move my shop into a real industrial bay so I will have true 3 phase unless I find the right place that will allow me to run a powerhammer that isnt a long ways out of my way,

(I may move the shop to downtown vancouver as I know there is always work down there and the shop I work for now has decided to give me jobs to take home, I will struggle this is certain my hope is that i can get someone to be an industrial roomate)

so it seems either will work I may opt for the 220 because of voltage drop and from i have investigated the difference of 20 volts may reduce the output quite a bit

steve h what are you typically importing when your getting your hammers they told me they are normally sending 240 volt motors, they also could have been giving me one of those trick questions when the 220 motor costs more money hoping I would just say yes (who knows I dont)

more than a good deal at a buck a pound

Looks good john,

I may try to make a bowl in the near future

typically I dont care what a bowl looks like from the inside because thats where the cereal goes ;)

Looks like a good deal to me,

congrats

I attempted to contact my electrician friend earlier today but he didnt pick up,

anyang wants to know whether I want a 220 or 240 3 phase motor, I thought I needed a 220 motor however though searching I have found the 240 volt motor seems to be more common.

I am unsure of what I need now I am leaning towards the 240 volt motor.

electrical is something I dont know much about but at least I know that much

Man my posts are rambling, I guess this is what happens when the right side of your braid controls your life,

I have some big pieces of flat bar and angle kicking around I am planinng to finish this tomorrow since i dont have to work

I am definately not as good as Uri Hofi But I dont give up so at least I have hope



the positioning isnt great in the picture its made from several pieces that i cut with a zip wheel I made a few other pieces for fun to see what the scrolls looks like

looks like tomorrow will be a solid day of testing and adjusting if it isnt right

When did you work with Alfred habermann?

forging is forging but doing everything by hand limits you in someways for producing many pickets and such unless you had a good team of strikers which would eventually cost more than the hammer in a couple months I would think,

but the reality is it probley forces you to work on smaller things in finer ways such as some of your animal heads or use designs that lend themselves to allowing you to produce things without needing to move huge quanitys of metal resulting in the desired effect,

You do some great work you remind me of style and idea's of mark asprey in someways, It shows your knowledge in the forming of the metal, you can tell you knew far before the metal was touched exactly what was going to happen.

I am constantly trying to improve my tools it takes a number of years in order to know exactly what you need and exactly how to strike it, I am not there yet

All of it stems from the fundamentals the basic idea's of how to punch properly how to split, slit and drift
how to properly draw out metal square octagon and round,
I know all too often I lose focus and forget these fundamental rules these idea's that form the base of the craft.
Eventally I wont need to think about them I know that they will become automatic if i continue on the path of constant improvement.

I rember seeing that awhile ago and not making it because I lacked a piece of plate

I guess it was just good practice, I started making the jig
but I dont have the piece of plate I will have to see what I can come up with,

I guess for the most part this is all made from small pieces not one large one like how i was making my jig,
I will cut the end off and bend and cut the end of and so on untill i have a complete jig

now i need to figure out what i will do with this one piece that i made because i cant match the other piece to it lol

I dont really care about production, finding something I cant do gives me something to fight for right now i dont need to make a profit in the future this will make more of a difference however I will be more practiced and also have made many more jigs by then i can imagine

I have made plenty of small scrolls and armrests for chairs and such getting them 95% the same entirely by hand eyeballing where the bends are

I noticed the counterbend part as well is using a jig, I should also make something similar

I do eveything by hand and eyeball
I draw on the floor with kids sidewalk chalk (pink panther pink!)
measure with a single wire and try and match it up

I guess everyone uses jigs and this is why there is no discrepency in there work?

this makes all the scroll work seem less interesting to me but none the less I guess i chose to do everything the hard way which is just my personality type

It was 1/2 inch i was using I know i could have done it cold but I forged both ends already and the heat was on so i used it,

I decided to make a large mirror frame in order to make the pieces i wanted I needed a 14ft long piece of roundbar, the scroll is about 19 inches diameter

in order to bend it I had to drag the anvil outside because my shop walls and roof are too close to bend a 14ft bar as I have found.

I didnt have a large enough scroll jig so I figured I would wing it,

I need to make 2 matching sides the one side I am "happy" with will need a bit of truing up in the end but they will both need to be matched up more before I spend time on that,



this is the one that is supposed to match the other one



things I have found in my adventures are.

The larger the scroll the larger it is to manage and prevent spining on the heavy side in your hands this causes problems when bending and heating because it will move on you or when you are bending you will move it on the wrong axis and your scroll wont be flat and when the scroll is this big its hard to get it to sit right on the anvil or to get 2 forks on it for concentrated bending.

its really hard to heat it evenly in my forge so you need to know where you want to heat and focus on that one area,

once you heat it up and let it cool now you have some spots that are much softer than others,

once you get kinks in it its really hard to make it smooth again

perhaps in the future I should be making jigs instead but for now this is good but frusterating practice the reality is in making the 2 scrolls I have probley 12 or more hours in and about 4 more or maybe more to get the other one close

maybe someone can enlighten me or at least encourage my efforts :)

Yes, they are. They are made like Alfred Habermann taught us by hand with a striker. I have come up with a few innovations on my own in order to adapt the methods to our anvils here with smaller hardy holes, but the approach is basically the same. I'll be doing a class at Yesteryear School of Blacksmithing in Virginia in November on making hammers and the tools to make hammers. Once you get familiar with these techniques, top tools and hammers are a simple matter and can be forged in less than one hour. I wish I would have been exposed to this infomation when I got started.

Nice setup, Are all your hammers handmade?

Looks good, maybe you can post a picture from a side view?

I like them definately much better than the typical "ace of spades" leaves that most people continually make

these actually look orginal and the ripples show the nature of metal very clearly

In canada as an apprentice you go to school for one month to 2 months a year depending upon the trade,
and the government gives you EI money

The reality in this world is that there is no place in the world for a blacksmith,
everyone will doubt you can do it,

You will have to simply prove them wrong

Being a blacksmith is a nobel trade something that FEW people manage to make a living from in comparison to any other trade its among the rarest,
its like being someone who takes a sheet of metal and forms it and fits it to something, it takes incredible skill to do a good job, nearly 100% of the price directly goes to labour, it takes very little to entirely ruin it,
And no one can really truely teach you how to do it they can help but its all practice and determination

Honestly you cant limit yourself to one thing though I hope one day I can become the complete metal sculptor, someone who takes metal and makes image's in the mind reality
Regardless of the medium whether it is forming sheetmetal or forging, casting, engraving, whatever it takes to make your vision complete

If your willing to sacrifice everything to achive it, I seriously doubt anyone could fail

sorry horseshoe I wanst asking you however it looks like you got the job done,

the question was for iron falcon
i dont understand why he couldnt get it to hold together unless he was using the a 110 machine or with a large rod or something like that

Yeah needle scalers are nice to have,
I rember my buddy used to use it for pranks at work he would hook it up and when someone went to take a dump he would run in the bathroom and take it to the metal door and it would litterally scare the sh@t out of people lol

Yeah I usually buy my books from Jim at Artisan Idea's,

however you really cant examine the content until they arrive,

when I put in my next order I will probley buy both or all three of the francis whitaker books

my dad likes them as much as i do we usually end up sharing them because of the cost

I agree, work hard produce good work and you will get to the point where hopefully you will earn admiration from your peers and they will teach you somethings but most of what they can offer you is minor improvements to things you already have hopefully done.


No one can really teach you how to be a blacksmith or a welder or a sheetmetal worker,

they can point in the right direction, offer you knowledge but the rest is on you

make some good investments not to promote anyone specificly but ArtisanIdeas.com is specialized in hard-to-find books and DVDs for blacksmiths, bladesmiths,knifemakers, gunsmiths, coppersmiths, metalsmiths and jewelers. ArtisanIdeas.com also has an excellent selection of foreign language audiobooks and books for
has given me amazing customer service in the past and that's who I will continue to buy from

Knowledge has a untangible amount of value, and books can help you quite abit

you are correct the title is the "blacksmiths cookbook"

they must have not printed many copies, because the price is pretty high the book is only as old as i am yet its value is this high?

being a person who is always searching for information, charlotte in a previous thread had mentioned this book has some useful information,

however looking for this book used I have found copys only in the price range of 400-1000 us dollars

Personally I dont need it as a collectable or anything like that nor can I afford that amount for a book,

does anyone know if there is a reprint or a Ebook available of this book?
or could provide me with a few excerpts?