FredlyFX

I've got one on my wish list. I like that they are made in the USA, and I like the design of them. When I contacted Mrs Jaqua for a price on shipping several months ago she was very helpful and friendly.

I've bought a lot of stuff on ebay. Some times I got a deal, and sometimes I got took. I will never buy an anvil on ebay again. For what they are going for on ebay for broke down worn out junk I will buy a new one when I am ready for a bigger anvil. I have gotten a nice hand crank blower for $80 plus 40 shipping, and a nice 5" post vice for about the same. I also bought a power hammer that has been lots of fun rebuilding and using. I drove 900 miles ro pick it up. The key with ebay is figuring out your price and not going over it. I let a lot of auctions go. Don't get sucked into the bidding wars.

Has anyone tried this stuff: Boeshield T-9

Very nicly done. Definitly a work of art.

That looks awsome. Very nice work.

That's the main place where I blew it Apprentice Man. I tried to weld up 4 layers at once, instead of two. It went every which way but together pretty much. Unfortunatly, by the time I realized I had blown it, I already had a huge mess on my hands. I don't think I will even try to finish up what I started. It's now going to become some sort of sculpture maybe. I'll get another piece of chain and do it right the first time.

Thanks Ian. I'm doing this in a gasser though, not a coal forge. I know it will weld though, as I have done cable and normal billits in it with no problem. Yeah, experience is a great teacher. I will keep plugging away at it, and will eventually make one out of chain. If nothing more than to just say I did it. :)

Thanks for the advice guys. What I really should have done was come back here and re-read the answers to my origional question. That would have probably helped more than anything. Thanks for the advice Julian, that is exactly what I did. I learned a long time ago to put things down and quit for the day when I get mad, because I stop thinking right, and when you're not thinking things through while working with the stuff we do really bad things can happen very quickly. I'll be keeping my eye out for more chain, and will try again later.

I thought I would post a little update on my quest to weld some roller chain. I decided to give it a try this week, and was not at all pleased with the results. I had about 4 ft of chain which I cleaned with laquar thinner, then with a power wire brush. I then rolled the chain into a piece about 8 inches long and 4 layers deep. I then clamped that in my vice a tack welded it in several spots so it would stay together until welded. I got it up to a good red orange heat and used a 3lb hammer to just get things closer together. I then fluxed it and put it back in the forge. When it was up to temp I started trying to forge it together, and that is where the plan all kind of went to pieces, just like the chain. I got some of it to weld, but many pieces fell apart. After several attempts with the hand hammer I took it to the power hammer, and it went bad even faster then. I did get some of it to weld, but I eventually got po'd and just tossed it all in the slack tub. :mad: I'm not sure at this point when I will get back to it, if ever. Obviously at this point my ambition exceeded my skills. Hopefully, that will change in the future. In the mean time I will keep working on the stuff I know I can do. I have more than enough to keep me busy for a long time.

I love those lillies, my wife would go gaga over them. I thinkm I know what I'll be making her next year. Here is a hanging plant holder I made for a co-worker. SHe totally flipped over it. She has a big patio with lots of plants, so I knew it would fit right in.

Nice lillies. One of these days I want to do some flowers. I have lots of plans for them, but I have never gotten to them.

I've been very busy this season making stuff. Here are a few pics This is a RR spike/ Cable Damascus choppper still under construction. I need to polish it up more and etch it. Here is a belt & buckle for the boss. He just had gastric bypass in June and has lost about 125 lbs. I figured a belt & buckle was in order. Here is a crystal bud vase for the girl at the front desk. I showed her one I did for my wife last year, and she loved it, so I am making her one now. Here is a RR Spike knife for my nephew. Lots of other suff still in the works. I actually took my vacation starting tomorrow so I will have a couple extra days to finish things before christmas.

That's a nice looking knife Ron. You should finish it up. It looks like it's mostly done now.

Ok check out this knife I allways thought it was a good looker It might be a tiny bit large but why couldnt you scale it down?

I just use various sanding belt & pad sanders & by hand with a succedding series of grits until I get to around 400 to 600. Then, I go to the buffing wheel to get a real high shine. The one below was my first RR spike knife, and before I had my 2x72 grinder. I used a 3x18 belt sander to do the rough shaping and polishing, then a 1/4 sheet pad sander and went up to about 400 grit. Once I had it very smooth & shiny with the sand paper I went onto my el cheapo HF grinder with a buffing wheel and jewelers rughe (sp?) to get out the scratches left by the sand paper. Now I know there are better polishing compunds for steel. The brass guard was a brass door hinge I bought at Home Depot, then cut to fit and brazed to the handle. At the time, it was the only way I knew of to get a flat piece of brass. (Doh) Undernieth the wrap is just some thick leather glued to the steel with contact cement that I then shaped with a belt sander. Once I had it how I liked I wraped it with the final piece. The engraving on the end was done at a local trophy shop. Hope this helps a little.

Thanks much Ken, that is just what I was looking for. I will do it all in my gasser, but it should come out ok.

Yes Jens, that really helped. Thanks very much. Now I have one more thing on my to do list.

I got a nice large piece of roller chain some time ago and I am feeling the itch to forge it into something. It is not motercycle chain, but off of a piece of heavy equipment, probably a ladder type truck. My initial plan was to fold it over on itself about 3 or 4 times and wire it in place, then try to mash it with the power hammer and just kind of cut, stack, and work with it until it seems like a solid pice. I plan to use a lot of flux to help wash out the dirty stuff as I heat it. Are there any things I should partiulaly look out for or avoid doing? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I have enjoyed this discussion imensely. One thing I did notice was that no one answered the questions raised by easillyconfused about the basic steps of this process. "When you get the weld finished, do you just flatten it and fold it into a billet, or do you try to get the steel inside to the outside. If you do, how? Do you try to grind it away, or do you split the pipe and fold it?" I had the same type of questions and more. Do you just pound the pipe flat, or do you try to keep it round? What kind of patterns can you expect? Is it ok to use a thin wall tubing, say .090 or .065 rather than water type pipe? Curious minds are wondering if I should finally sweep up around the ol drill press some day. :)

I have some trouble with my back so I set my anvil up about 3 to 4 inches from the knuckle height to avoid bending over it. Unfortunatly, I found that this started creating trouble in my elbow, so I dug the stand down into the dirt back to the clenched fist knuckle height, and my elbow problems have gone away.

I use a felt deal I bought at my welding supplier, and he suggested to spray it with the tip cleaner periodically. It lubes the wire as it goes through. I don't weld every day, but I have had no problems with it, and the machine I have was very hevilly used before I got it by a body shop.

Glad the information helped out Alan. When you come to So Cal please give a call and stop by. The contact info is on the web site. I live in San Jacinto which is about 20 miles east of Riverside & 80 miles NE of LA. I bought my burners directly from Rex. For my first forge I bought the flare from Larry, but the second batch of burners I bought the flares from Rex as well. I really couldn't tell the difference in the way they worked. That may have been my lack of experience at the time. Making the burners yourself is definetly cheaper, but for me the performance is no where near what I get from Rex's burners. I have used other forges where the burners were home made and while they worked, there was more fooling with them. Others didn't work nearly as well. As for the size, you can get the smaller burner Rex sells, but later when you get to knowing what you are doing and want to do bigger stuff you may have trouble getting it up to heat. As for wether you would use propane or MAPP gas, personally I would never even consider the MAPP. I am a cheap sob at heart, and I just couldn't imagine spending that kind of money on gas. I can get my 20lb tank of propane filled for less than $10, but a 1lb can of MAPP gas is about $6. The math just doesn't work for me. If I want a hotter flame I just turn up the pressure and I get it.

If your going to build a mini forge but use full sized burners, you might as well build a slightly larger forge so you can get the full use of the burner. My freon tank forge can be easilly carried with one hand when it is not on the stand. Most folks build them to sit on a table or roll around cart. If you are not planning to do forge welding you can use a single burner in it. I have done lots of welding in mind with the two burners running about 10 to 15 psi. 1 1/4" cable, 100 layer billets, and smaller pieces of mild steel have all been welded easilly in it.

Vegimite: I had an Aussie friend offer me some several times, but I could never get past the smell to try it. The folks down under certainly have stronger stomaches than I do.

Welcome to the dark side Alan. Blacksmithing has been a wonderful hobby. I started off similarly to you in that I got myself going with coal. I built a break drum forge that I could hook either a hand crank blower, or an electric blower to. I found the hand crank worked better for me. Then, I built my first propane forge after taking the coal forge out to one of the Renaissance faires I do. I ended up smoking out a lot of people, so I built a propane forge. In the last 4 years I have only used my coal about 3 times. I love being able to start it up in a few seconds, and being ready to work in a couple minutes. With coal I found I spent most of my time on fire managment. Now I spend my time beating on hot steel. I wasn't comfortable building my own burners, so I bought the 3/4" T-Rex burner from Rex Price. They work perfect right out of the box and I can go from ideling at 2 psi to screaming at 20psi with no problems at all. I also found that the small freon tank forge I built as a traveling forge was more than large enough for the stuff I am doing. I've put up a lot of step by step photos on my web site that show how I built all of my forges. If you don't have a welder, they can still be built effectivly with a few design changes.