rthibeau

The original question..."How much does a LG 25 weigh?"........reminds me of the last time I moved one all by myself. It weighs nothing once it's off your foot, otherwise it be Heavy!! Steel toe boots are a marvel......

Now this is not a gate, it is a one section panel that matches the gates. It is 3.7 meters high.

SEE??? I told you all so.....................

4140 in 1" rounds? Not worth your time...send them to me and I won't tell anyone you took them in the first place.

well, dude....start forging..... ;)

Old hammer handles of hickory make good wedges, just have to band saw them to size and shape or split them off if you're good at that sort of thing. Metal wedges can be made from any steel....forge them out to size and cut off from the bar.

1) Richard Thibeau 2) Traverse city, MI, USA 3) Nowadays I make hammers, tooling, small decorative stuff.....when I feel like it. I'm retired. 4) About 12 years ago, I was doing rendevous(s) and wanted some camp ironwork. No one was selling any then where I was, so I got hooked up with a blacksmith who was willing to teach me and helped me make it. 5) Shop anvils at Black Rock Forge. First anvil I bought was a 100 lb Fisher (tail was broke off, but a good anvil to learn on). Now I have Fisher anvils in 100, 150, 180, and 200 lbs. 6) My first forge was a Centaur firepot set into a 4'x4' SS diamond plate with 1" sq SS tube for framing set on concrete blocks. It is still the main shop solid fuel forge. I have both hand crank and electric blowers for it. 7) Dan Nickels, Black Rock Forge. He taught me and still has people over weekly to meet and play. 8) Attending first hammer-in. Fun at blacksmithing in a group setting is great. 9) 4 1/2" angle grinder, belt sander, band saw, gas forge, flypress, power hammer. 10) Find a blacksmith to work with and learn from. Read all you can, but having it shown to you in person is invaluable and will save a lot of wasted effort and time. 11) Not going there. 12) I travelled to Australia and attended a "Get Hammered" at Glenn Moon's shop...met a lot of the Aussie smiths. Other hammer-ins in the States were all interesting and fun.

I have the owner's manual for Chambersburg Steam Drop Hammers, but it doesn't list any gross weights.

Hot work tool steel......H13 is a good choice for punches and chisels and drifts.....I suppose you could make a blade out of it. 4340 is a good tough steel for hammers or anything like that. O1 is another good steel to have on hand and flat bars of it make good blades.

good progress Nick....only question I got is using the term "mentor" and Dale is the same sentence ??? ^_^

Gee, Ted....I just wanted an excuse to go out and visit with ya.......didn't realize I was asking for you to do so much. Maybe you can get stan (trying_it) to cater it for you???

"the pole barn is skinned ".........Bryan, what do you do with the hide from a pole barn? A pole cat I know, but from a pole barn ???

oh yeah, price of admission will be a box of Twinkies.

Sir Ted Throckmorton in Utah is one of the nicest people on IFI. We should have a hammer-in at his place so that he can experience the full IFI ambiance. Sometime in June 2012, after the details get worked out, we can all meet at the Salt Lake City airport, convoy up to Ted's and have a wonderful weekend. We will need to find our own accommadations or tent out nearby. This will all be worked out beforehand, but we need to have an idea how many people might attend. so anyone interested, please post to this thread and we shall see how this might be accomplished. Details will be forthcoming.

tungsten carbide and tungsten itself cannot be forged....it breaks apart. The tungsten Hofi uses is from the penetrating tips of anti-tank ammunition and is mostly tungsten, not a carbide. It's not forged to shape, it is ground or sanded to shape. And it is not struck directly by a hammer but attached to a mandrel to absorb the shock. Used in a press it is great stuff for making holes in steel.

if he's looking for just the stand, then you need to see the bottom of the cross to know how to make the stand to fit. In our church, the cross has a pin protruding from the bottom that slides into a hole in the stand. Once you know what the bottom of the cross is, you can design the stand accordingly.

Here are the pics I took at stan's

Don't you wish you had a nice comfy hobbit hole on higher ground now ??

wood stove and a gas forge make the shop warm in the winter. it's trying to forge in the heat and humidity of summer that is the problem here.

Steve Sells finally got home from Stan's hammer-in and crashed..... :)

I'll tell ya how my shoe got wet.....Stan was standing next to me and a fluid splashed on my shoe. That gathering gets better each year and there are no harder working or better hostesses than Clara and Susan...many thanks to them. As usual, Stan managed to get us a nice rain storm and a good heaping of humidity, but it was an excellent fun weekend. For me it was a 10 hour drive each way, total of just shy of 1200 miles round trip and worth every bit of it. Anyone that can should definitely put this on their calendar. Thanks to Scott (Dodge) for help with the keg, but I still couldn't drain it.. ...almost though.. Ian from the UK was a delightful visitor and believe it or not, he actually knows how to smith... More pics will get posted later.

"The only inexpensive small quantity vendor I have found is Harbor Freight. They have junk hammers on sale for $3.99. Unfortunately, these have a hole in the middle of the blank, and there is no room to place the punch." I don't understand that comment...a blank with a premade hole should be ideal. Menards sells mexican made hammers cheap...the steel is good but the finish and handles suck. Buy the 3 lb double faced hammers and remake them as you see fit.