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I Forge Iron

Nobody Special

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    Male
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    Coupeville, Wa
  • Interests
    Smithing, casting, running, almost anything involving historical engineering. A shiny new hobby or bit of knowledge a day practically.

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  1. Don't know of any portrayals he did of metalworkers, but you don't have to imagine Dali having done metalwork, he cast and smithed a number of pieces. Sculpture partially, and some jewelry. It's weird stuff, go figure.
  2. Because you were too busy fighting a bit of sheet metal. Happens, you get so frustrated by the thing that you can't look past it. One time I spent three days cussing Mopar for not using brass freeze plugs BEHIND THE BLOODY FLYWHEEL (not that I'm still angry about it) on my 2nd generation Ram. To save something like $0.20 per car, they went with shallow stainless steel cups, which of course rotted out. So to replace an 80-cent part you have to drop the trannie, which means the driveshaft, exhaust, etc, and take a cross member out. Went fine, took a few hours, but then the cross member wouldn't go back in. After two days of banging, cussing, prying with a spud wrench and going deaf, I realized that with the cross member out, the frame had sagged inwards. Not much, maybe a quarter inch and a little, but enough that you couldn't make the cross piece go in for love or money. I didn't have a jack long enough, so I put a bit of 4x4 between the frame rails diagonally, then hammered it straight to push them apart, and wouldn't you know, it went back in and got the bolts in, in maybe 5 minutes. I swear the theme song for 2nd generation Rams should be the Masochism Tango.
  3. The rizzler, should you afford the glow-up, is Rennaissance Wax, a microcrystalline wax made from crude oil, or really, a blend of them, no cap. It was developed and is still used for conservation of antiquities and museum pieces. It's not going to be vastly better outdoors and is a lot more expensive though, last I checked about $70 a quart. Paint is cheap and effective. I like clear paints to preserve the grey of forged iron or black oxide layers, but they've got to be dry, dry, dry, or you can get rust spots under the paint.
  4. There's multiple things going on. With normal linseed oil, turpentine acts to speed drying time. This isn't as important with modern boiled linseed oil, which already contains chemical drying agents. In this case though, turpentine acts as a solvent for the beeswax. Oil also helps to soften the beeswax so it spreads more evenly and fills pores in the metal (or wood for that matter). When applied with enough heat, the oil smokes and kind of bakes in as well, similar to seasoning a pan, which adds color as well as helping it spread. Wax or oil either one serves to coat the metal and protect it from moisture and exposure to oxygen, both of which speed oxidation, i.e. rust. Oil by itself though tends to come off faster, and beeswax by itself tends to be sort of, well, waxy. Smells wonderful, but it's a bit gummy, and can eventually become brittle and flake off. That's less of an issue when mixed with oils. I've used mixes of beeswax and various oils on wood to, to pretty good effect, although I leave out the turpentine in that application. In that case, I also usually avoid a drying oil like linseed or grapeseed. Ah, the other thing. If you leave out beeswax, the oil will come off faster, especially in outdoors applications. Linseed is tough when it hardens, but not impervious. Leave out turpentine, and the beeswax doesn't spread as well and is more difficult to apply. Leave out the oil and the finish isn't as durable, is harder to apply, and doesn't smoke itself dark (if anything, the wax will want to burn off when applied with too much heat).
  5. Good morning, agreed that a hook would be useful for zombies, not just horsemen. I second the use of langettes - early weapons used them mostly on the front and back of the shaft, the side ones came later - sometimes they still used the front ones, sometimes not. It's partially support, and partially that it makes it harder to hack (zombie bite?) through the hafts. They're not essential with a polearm if the head is socketed but they create a lot of support, and that's important in an era when most of what you can get is new-growth wood, usually dried in a kiln. If you're looking for better hardwoods, try flooring places for scraps and cutoffs, although best is to put aside and season wood from people cutting down old trees in their yards if you have the space for it. Hafts break a LOT in modern reproductions. For sockets, practice those as much as anything. And make a mandrel to form it over, it makes things worlds easier. Nothing much, appropriate size stock and forge/grind to shape. Some of the earlier weapons used clinched nails instead of rivets, and I would say that although they're more prone to coming loose, they're easier to remove if you have to make repairs. Also, if you have too much trouble figuring things out with the shape, bardiches, glaives, and Lochaber axes offer simpler designs and still make pretty awesome anti-zombie weaponry. Good luck, sounds fun.
  6. Almost there - armadillos have been in the US for roughly forever. 9-band armadillos though, came into Texas and start north in the late 1800s, early 1900s. We had some dug holes under the house when I used to live in Texas, then after we got rid of them, skunks got under there and one died. Also, I think they recently decided that the 9-band armadillo may actually be two species.
  7. I hear that in Oklahoma, you cook them like a country fried steak...as they already tend to come flattened and pre-tenderized.
  8. Looks like a good start; I've got nothing useful to add to the above, so I'll lightly kibitz. The line about "to hit with and to hold" cracked me up. The phrasing just struck me as a remarkably apropos wedding vow (my latest wife being a redhead that plays to the stereotype)..
  9. As I recall, if it's dry you grind the clay up. Add a little water in, and then knead it, let it rest awhile and go again, adding just a little at a time. Get it too wet, let it set out a while to dry, then knead it again. People make ball mills for the grinding sometimes. The stuff I made, I took out of the ground, almost completely clay, fairly clean to start, and very damp. Ran it through sieves to clean it, then into a bucket with a bunch of water. The clay ends up as fines, and settles to the bottom anywhere between an hour later and a day. Pour the water off the top carefully put the rest in a high thread count pillowcase. Be careful, if it's part sand, rocks or whatever, it'll be in a layer under the clay. The clay's still full of water, but it leaks slowly out, leaving the clay. When it's mostly dry, mix in about eight or ten percent of a really fine silica sand for temper, knead in a touch more water if necessary. Let it set for a day or two before using when possible. Wrap the result in plastic wrap and through it in a container or a plastic bag and it stays good for a long time. I made a bunch of it back last winter, made and even fired a few pieces. Came out okay. Problem is, I forgot I had a few pillowcases drying on the porch...from around springtime. They'll be bricks by now.
  10. Yikes. Y'all made me remember I had like four pillowcases worth of clay I made a slip setting out on the porch that I forgot about. All dried out now. Guess I can powder it and mix it with water again.
  11. We used to catfish all the time, put a couple of lines in the water, and then fish with a just a line, hook on a swivel, and a bit of hotdog or bread for perch, bream, sunfish, pumpkinseeds, all that mess for hours while we waited for the "real fishing". We'd catch 40 or 50 an hr and tossed every one of them back. I was in my late 30s before someone came along and told me I was crazy and you could eat the things. Pain in the butt to clean them all, but they're delicious with butter and maybe a little onion and garlic. Can't do that in the great Pacific Northwest...sigh.
  12. This time of year, a handful of greens is good in soup too. Wilted, or otherwise. It's a bit early, but those first mustard greens or collards from down south add great flavor to a soup, and you can do radish greens pretty much all year. I'd just about have radish and beet greens all day long than either of the roots. Neighbor gave me a bunch of radish greens last year. Made wonderful creamed greens, but looked a bit funny since the stalks turned 'em bright pink.
  13. Depends on when they get the dandelion pollen/nectar and how much. Late in the season and its bitter. Ever have dandelion greens in a salad or dandelion wine and they got picked too late? Reminiscent of that. Early and not too much of it, it's a pretty decent flavor. Try selling it online. There's a bunch that like to take it medicinally. I won't tell them it's any good for your health and personally I think they're right there with the people that turn their skin blue taking colloidal silver, but they buy it. What blew my mind is we got down to one hive last winter, made four splits back around April, had five hives, lost a queen and merged it with another to make four. This was the second time we've robbed them this year, last time was around seven or eight gallons. Fed them at the beginning of the year, but stopped in April, and I still left them two deeps each with the top packed with honey. Heck, I've had established hives that didn't produce anything like that. Saskatraz's are a little more spicy than Italians, but the cold doesn't get them as bad, they do much better against yellow jackets and hornets, and varroa mites haven't hit them nearly as bad.
  14. Busy day. Y'all don't need to hear about work or laundry but took maybe 140 or 150 lbs of honey out of the hives today while getting them down to two deeps each for the winter. Nursing a cider and a sore back. Gotta harvest it and let em clean out the empties later in the week. Those Saskatraz bees don't mess around.
  15. I'm not familiar with the tool, but my Google-fu found a few sources - motion industries and travers tools for two. Oddly enough, M.A. Ford doesn't seem to carry them. There's a few machinist forums that discuss resharpening though through milling or using a cut-off wheel.
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