Francis Trez Cole

Re bar is a very inconsistent metal made from a lot of scrap. Great job keep practing.

move to florida USA have no truble with frozen tanks

I was given a old beer Keg stainless steel works great.

the british one is great brain trust meeting in a pub. I am working on one like the blacksmith magican but larger. As I work on it I will post pictures. One of the important things in using a Guillotine is to keep the work piece level and square to the tool.

nice welding I used pieces of 5/8 rebar for my last fire pot it is holding up great. Ialso used 4x4 square tube for the piping.

Mousehole anvils with a prichel hole are made in the 1800 but should have a weight stamped on it. Ken at Abana forum has done alot of identifaction for people

nice I would agree with frosty use it as is and find out all its quarks I have an old one also and after 15 years od use I took the time to resurface it. But there is no rush to repair if it works for you, a wire bursh on a grinder and some oil will do the trick

Mine would say "Hay I am real old please be gentil" "did you really think that is the right way to do that"

or it makes you look real strong dodge. along that line of thought it could be made of sheet metal welded together. but if its weight you want go for the solid bar stock.

the big tip on making Damascus learn how to forge weld first a good book is on metal web news under blacksmithing it is a war department manual.

In my forge I use a dayton blower Model # 99080464 picked it up nat granger $65.00 My fire pot is 12"x12"x4"d and I have no truble reaching welding temp. been using it for the last 10 years

speeking of home depot they carrya a stanly Hammer 2.5 lb with a fiber glass handle that can help with shock around 20 bucks

It worked ok Back to the ratio drawing board need a little more air flow. The blower is made out of 16 gague with 2 pillow block bearings. the frame is extra pickets 3/4" tube. the top wheel is C channel I bent inside out on a ring roller. it rides on pillow blocks bearing as well the whole thing sits on 2 pieces of 4x4 tube steel as a base. I will make a bigger wheel soon. I made it for a demo for a middle school. Civil war day. The day was a lot of fun showing how to make nails made some other stuff. To go in the for sale pile.

Well I got tired of trying to find a hand crank blower that I could afford so I built one from scrap. $0.00

Chris could not have chose a better example Francis whitiker was awsome.

The way it was explained to me is that modren steel (not wrought iron) has a crystalline structure. The easist way to visulise it is like a cell in the human body you heat it it expands. You cool it, it contracts. If you heat it evenly it expands evenly. The same with cooling. In welding to high of a temp will expand some cells and not others leaving uneven growth. leading to cracking. hope this helps.

I find that I fall into the school of thought of wearing a glove on my holding hand. I like the feel of the hammer in my bare hand. The new work gloves that are sold for working on cars and general repair do not have leather in them and they melt fast. Save hammering no glove no love.:cool:

Stanly tools are selling cross peen hammers 2.5LB and 4 LB about $20.00 with a fiberglass handle good starter hammers

For those enviromental green folks when you burn 1 lb of coal you produce 2.6 Lb of carbon dioxide. So light the fire, plant a tree and pound some metal.

adding salt to water raises the boiling point it also lowers the freezing temp (ice cream making). I use the gunther super quench. I use a misture of Used motor oil 2/3and diesel fuel 1/3. I have seem molten salt bath to bring the steel up to an even temp Albion swords ltd use this method. egg or potato when brineing a ham I use a potato

I have one that only fits 2 points of attachment I use wing nuts so I can put it on and off.

I saw a class on making scrolling tongs out of railroad spikes once on the web. but cant seem to find them. I have notes on making them but wanted to print out the pictures for a class I am giving.Has any one seen this class?

Here a couple of snakes I have made over the years

have to be carefull some od the roach bate has sugar in it. I use 20 team borax. Have used boric acid with iron powder it works well.

Where I am they do not reconise blacksmithing so I regestered as a welding service. coast $13.00 a year. Most of my work is from word-of-mouth or the yellow pages. I do it part time. but make twice as much as my full time job. I do structural welding for a few construction companys in town they know my work and my rate. I have done work in restoration of old building and pieces as far away as Japan.