Bryce Masuk

Good luck to everybody having troubles,

the body is only made to do so much and as a trades person your always doing whatever it takes to get the job done.

hopefully you guys can keep going its just a matter of keeping moving no matter what

I know its gonna be me talking about this kind of stuff X amount of years from now

I know old guys with metal feet and all kinds of stuff
my old man broke his back 3 times
both his pinkys are paralized
once a giant sign fell on his foot with a steel toe boot and sent it though the floor and shattered his heal.

I personally have shattered my thumb knuckle I know I will be paying for that in 20 odd years

after awhile you no longer have hands they become mitts

easy money huh lol

tell my flithy hands it was easy haha
it seems like people who saw it liked it alot in the hour or so I had it finished before it was gone

I hope I can get some pictures of it soon I need them for my website which I am going to entirely re-do and spend some money on getting it easier to find on search engines

among my projects

I have began to construct a giant cross for a marker for my great aunt
I am going to taper the one end and pound it into the ground on the island she lived on off of vancouver island

I took 6 ft of 1 inch square bar and upset one end to 1 3/4 inches

and then took a 3 ft 1 inch square bare and upset both ends and then
slit it drifted out to 1 inch square and slipped it into position.

since the cross bar can move up and down my plan is to forge a few nice scrolls for this piece and then rivet them in preventing the cross bar from being able to move up and down since that is the only way it will move.

I plan to wax it and then let it rust in the ocean air.
it would take a long time for it to entirely be rusted away I like rust it shows that its still alive

rust on tubing in no good though since it rusts inside and out and quickly nothing is left

I cheated on these they are plug welded.

I made them in santa fe if I had planned to use them this way I would have forged 2 shoulders before upsetting the ends

Hey Grant don't joke now, thats the only way I can get my mill and lathe in my matchbox workshop

Think I might write an article on surviving in the small workshop for that Baptists website of yours

This reminds me of when my buddy moved his milling machine into his moms garage and it fell over though the bathroom, breaking a few pipes and tearing out wiring at the same time
nearly burning the place down

He did get the machine for a really good deal though 300 bucks with some tooling and a vice.

I guess this evened everything out lol

great Idea looks good
mind if I use some of your ideas?

Sure just send a royalty cheque

I made a bed using 2 split ends in a similar way and wrapped one up and one down on each post


then I forged a rosete a real simple one and welded it on to the pipe that is the post and heavily ground a taper into it all

I havent gotten much done on this I was thinking of building the lampshade

but instead I am going to buy one, a nice one though or as nice as I can afford at least

with something like this I cant preemptively decide how things should be I have to develop the little pieces and play with it until its what I want

I just finished this I need to get a shot of it up on the wall
in good light

these pictures suck somewhat but here it is
you can get the jist of what it is

I am starting to build up sets of tools for offsets, I figure I need them

this thing is made from 1 1/2 x 1/4 flat bar and the hanger knobs are pretty big

Nice job

its a pretty funky looking fence/gate

reminds me of an amusement park entrance

I think you pulled it off just right it must have been really tricky working in your shop with that size of pieces

it probley seemed like half the work was simply moving them around.

I have similar problems its mostly my fault though my shop could be better organized

here are a few shots of helmuts treadle hammer

it has plenty of whip that's for sure

the pedal has a decent length of push and you are pretty connected with it

none the less it works good

he said he filled the bottom pipe with concrete and it all shattered and fell out

the top is a water drilling bit welded into a pipe

its a nice job I can tell it was a process that taught you well,

you have done well it is a nice project that shows what you can do as a smith.

good luck to you and hopefully you will have more projects in a similar fashion

I just bought some h-13 and s7 off ebay as well as some a2

usually it seems most people just anneal the steel these steels and put them to use since you need a digital oven with ramping temp's to heat treat them to the book

I have seen people using anti-seize as a lubricant and same with moly paste I dont know what works best but it all seems to make some kind of smoke as you use it.

I dont know what works best but I would like to know what other people do

how many hours do you think went into this project?

what is the tank made out of?

Looks good sam
the seat is a true frankyluckyman seat
is that 1/4 or 3/8 plate? hahah

not sure if i included the pic of the offset

I would say this is about 1/2 done maybe less its going to be a small lamp

we will see where it goes

making the fern has been tedious I havent been able to use my hammer all that much

hopefully this will turn out nice

Brian in there a top tool used with the v block? or is it just carefully done with a flat faced hammer

at first I couldnt really understand how this was working
but I think I understand most of it now

your fine forging is always amazing, Hopefully I can get back to work and come down to work with you. The only positive thing is I am getting to do lots of smithing right now.

I worked as a professional blacksmith for about 8 years but it is a difficult way to make a living. Either feast or famine. Now I am a welder, fitter, fabricator better paycheck.

brad

So you have your own company doing mobile welding and fabricating?

everyone has told me if you want to be a blacksmith its either feast or famine lol I dont doubt it either.

I really want to make it happen somehow, I dont care if fabricating or sheetmetal work is part of the job I can do that as long as I can have a shop and do what I want sometimes I will be happy.

I think the trick is in the business part because people around this area dont know what a blacksmith does, the other part is being able to make it without killing yourself in hours and hard labour.

I snapped helmut's drift for the rebar LOL

the first bar went mint and the second I popped it off

it was made from s7 I think and mig welded on it broke right at the weld


his press has at the end a 4 cylinders pushing on a single plate about 100 tons for straightening

we used it where the lock slips into by pressing a 1 1/2 inch bar into the 1x4 flat bar displacing the metal boy did that look sweet,

it was heated with his biggest rosebud and then pressed.

I chiseled out the cover plates and its a blind rivet (hole drilled and tapped with a bolt with the head chopped off)


One day down there I met this turley guy and he showed me how to make a lock :P

I know a few people who have either taken this course or family members of friends have

not to knock it but its probley not what you need, you would be better off going down to the states and either working with someone or going to a place like touchstone or penn land or something similar

if you want to smith than go somewhere that will give you direct hands on training contantly and consistantly

seems like there are quite a few good blacksmiths in alberta more than in BC or at least from what I have managed to find and I search all the time looking for someone to work under.

if your a fabber/welder you already have most of the skills for fitting, straightening, so forth once you get into a good forging groove you should be able to take off with it

I will put more up later I need to finish my table up and start to pound some scrolls out

a few more pics

I have been meaning to post some of this for awhile but I havent really had enough time to think about it.

the squiggles are wrought iron, there arent many straight bars in the 240 ft of fence if any.


I cant say that I did alot of it myself, helmut knew what he wanted to do so he most of it himself
we had finished most of it for the first house when I left but he went full tilt on it for over a month and entirely finished the project.

all panels had to be made standing up because it goes up and down and back and forth.
its made from
1 3/4 inch rebar for the posts
1 1/2 x 3/4 bottom rail
1/2 inch rebar
1 inch cap
1x4 flat bar arch

Consider adding a foot peddle to open the doors on your new forge. It is very handy when trying to put a long piece of stock in or out of the forge.

brad

sounds like a good idea, I will have to think about how to do it though

do you work as a blacksmith, welder, or fabricator around here?