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I Forge Iron

Nobody Special

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  1. Minor setback today. My dog ate two molding boards, a pattern, and the parting powder! Bloody pit bulls.
  2. Can see writing, but a bit much for me to make out. Usually oblique lighting is your friend for this. A bit of a rorschach test and guesswork at this point. There's clearly an A, and maybe an HOL above it. That makes me want to guess Mousehole but I doubt it, especially without the dots between the numbers. Dunno, maybe someone more experienced than me can see it. I would try the other side too, they often have stamps on both sides.
  3. Be glad it was rain. There's nothing like finding out the hard way that you should have kept your coal covered better and a cat has been peeing in it.
  4. It doesn't really tell you who made the anvil, and if there is an A, I would tend to think it most likely an inspector's mark., although Lord knows I could be mistaken. It does eliminate most of the ones that had depressions in the bottom. Unfortunately, that still leaves a few hundred makers or so. Did you have any luck tilting it and rubbing baby powder or something similar into the sides to bring faint depressions into relief? I've had some that the marks were completely unreadable on until I did that. Even then they were often faint. I liked the show. There was a lot of silliness, drama, and contrivance, but it was fun to watch and heck, every once in awhile I saw someone I knew.
  5. I'm sorry to hear about your wrist. Guessing not enough grip strength in it to try and learn to hammer with the other hand. Nerve damage is incredibly hard to come back from. That's a lovely chisel, regardless. My shop day wasn't nearly so productive. Rainy, windy day so I mixed some new green sand, a lot finer than what I've been using. 200 lbs of 70 or 80 mesh sand, I forget, 20 lbs of bentonite, 2.2 lbs of regular white flour, and about 10 lbs of water. Mixed it up and mulled it a little bit, now gotta let it sit for a day or two before I can mull it properly. It's barely into the fine sand range but compared to what I was using it felt like powdered sugar. For that matter, the way it wants to bunch when you first add water reminded me a lot of mixing cold butter into flour when making biscuits.
  6. The local welding supply is, I kid you not, over 30 miles from here. Go north to Anacortes and hang a right on WA-20, you can't miss it. This is why Amazon loves my house. I had the same problem this weekend; the sequencing relay is shot on my electric furnace, so you have a choice - heat on all the time, or no heat at all, just flip the breaker to the choice you want. Drove 90 miles this morning trying to find a $20 part at any industrial supply or hvac place open on a Saturday morning, only to be reminded that I live in western Washington. Got home and ordered it online; easier then going 40 miles away to get one on Monday or 20 miles to try to talk the local repair guys into selling me one at double the price. I made another flask, Friday, and some ingot patterns before running a few castings. Getting there but still making mistakes; didn't remember to vent the first run (still came out better than I expected, considering). The last one I poured a bit cold and is rough on the bottom of the ingots with some blowholes near the gate; I think because it was cold it stopped and started in the sprue, leading to air mixing with the metal and getting trapped in the casting. Not too upset, they're only ingots, but still want to get it right before I do the bits that matter. Still not quite happy with the medium sand and since the weather's supposed to be messy tomorrow, I might go ahead and mix up a new batch with the fine sand I got at the pottery supply last time I went to drill. Every day it's nice I'm going to run one or two batches of transmission housing until I have thirty or forty pounds.
  7. Well, the only welder I have now is a couple of tombstone style arc welders, which presents two problems, one I haven't run 220 out to my work area yet, and two, I suck hardcore at arc welding. I can forge weld, a monkey with a five minute tutorial can mig weld (although it's like clarinet, any idiot can do it; it takes learning and practice to do it well), used to be able to a bit with the blue tip, although I did far more brazing, but arc welding is one of those things I've meant to learn and haven't got to yet. Fine state for an aspiring amateur smith, no? That's why I was going with the pigs in a sand mold, although I was debating on whether or not to do it open-faced. I love the idea of the splitting maul and can't believe I've never thought of it; I've got three of them. And now I also kinda want to try a splitting wedge...incidentally, busted the first whole transmission yesterday and got 28 lbs and change, plus a few bearings for later, ball bearings, a couple of what strongly appears to be brass pieces to melt later, and some mystery shafts. Not sure what steel they are or how forgeable - I hit the torque converter shaft early on by accident and it sheared off beautifully. Looks like I'll probably end up with around 70 lbs or a bit under.
  8. If nothing else, there's no way that they were finishing the blade without tempering, so you know that they didn't jump straight from the quench to the handles the way that it appears to.
  9. I was thinking more about running around with a lantern in the daytime looking for truth and honest men, but I can understand drinking yourself to sleep too.
  10. Squeeze test is the way I go, but I'm probably not experienced enough to be certain I'm doing it right. It breaks clean, and feels damp, but doesn't leave any visible moisture. I finally got down to a junkyard and chatted with the owner for awhile, walked out with two and a half front-end drive transmissions I got off the recycle pile on the cheap. No idea the alloy, some cast aluminum alloy with Si, Mg, and a little copper. Maybe 356, maybe adamantium. Either way it breaks up lovely when struck properly. Busted up the first (smaller) half of one the fun way - with a big sledge and a three-pound ballpeen hammer on a ridiculously long handle that I got at a yard sale for two bucks with just such a purpose in mind. Got 10.5 lbs out of it and a large bearing for fun forging later. I'm sure there are more pieces in the yard near where I broke it that I'll find in the morning. So figure maybe 50 lbs of aluminum before cleanup, maybe a little more. Even if I'm off by 20 percent that should see me well through the lathe and take me into the shaper, if I get that far. I was going to build a larger flask and start casting ingots tomorrow, off a long runner like the old pig iron pours. I even thought about using an open mold. I don't care if they come out perfect, just want to get rid of the worst of the oxides and oil, gunk, and any steel I missed. If I end up with even close to 50 lbs of aluminum, and it's that's around 500 cubic inches. The bed as Gingery calls for it uses about a quart of metal, which I think is about 57 cubic inches, about 5.5 lbs. Some of the versions I've seen call for taller or thicker beds to cut twisting or chatter but I haven't decided whether to modify it yet.
  11. And now we've made the complete circle from giant puppets to "Moose and squirrel" with a quick run by a Greek inventor that made a weapon that sounds like Boris would want to steal it. Every day Diogenes starts to make a little more sense to me.
  12. I think you're right about the sand steaming back on me. When I cut into it to take the gate off and to get a look at a cross-section, all the pinholes and blowouts were all at the bottom with a little bit on the sides at the outside edges. The rest was clean and solid. I did feed and gate it from the middle - wanted to follow the Gingery pics to a tee, although it's a bit lazy, and also because I haven't done any casting in years so I wanted to follow the "recipe". I did change the plates to a half inch thick rather than the 1/4" he recommends, not the least of which because I didn't want to drive 20 miles each way into town for 1/4" plywood. I think maybe he left the feed that way for simplicity, he's too smart for it not to be deliberate, but I've noticed for some of the people that tried his feed systems either ended up doing multiple castings to get a good casting or had to make considerable adjustments to the recommended feeding and gating, especially for the lathe bed. I also don't recall Gingery talking much if any about the use of risers - he certainly didn't for this casting, but he also plans for shrinkage by deliberately building molds oversize to compensate. Doing the hardest casting (the bed) first is like doing the boss battle at the beginning of the video game. I'm also sure to make errors from inexperience and not having played in years. I dunno, gonna plan it out and I've got some time while I source aluminum and turn it into clean ingots, but in the meantime I was thinking of recasting this pattern using a tapered sprue and pouring basin at one end, and an open riser at the other (and also the rest of that pressure cooker).
  13. Agree with all the above. May want to radius the breaks and test the face, but no milling. Yours is in better shape than my favorite by far. Non-knotted wire brush for the cleanup, followed by maybe paste wax or boiled linseed oil on the sides. Linseed takes a couple of days to dry and don't leave application rags exposed - they tend to spontaneously combust. Before you oil it, you might want to rub a little baby powder or something on the sides with the anvil tilted slightly - it will bring any markings that are hidden by shallowness and the patina on the anvil into sharp relief and make them much easier to read.
  14. Well, got the first test casting done Thursday, following the Gingery books; he suggests casting core plates and since I haven't done casting in years, seemed like a good idea. I used a moderately thick stainless steel bowl as a crucible (I still haven't given up on pottery ones, but I've kind of gone sideways a bit). I'm a bit wary of steel crucibles, but it held up well under the heat and seems perfectly intact. Preheated it and the aluminum prior to charging and melting to make sure everything was warm and dry. Made a few mistakes but perfectly happy with it as a proof of concept (i.e. that I'm not a complete idot who's going to melt my face off). I underpoured the casting due to guessing shy and not having enough aluminum yet (this represents about half a busted pressure cooker). Usually I prefer to have too much and make ingots.The casting wasn't completely level - hence why one side filled up before the other. And I got more porosity than I would like - on the bottom though, not the top. That could be from overly wet sand, but I don't think that was the case here. I think I maybe over rammed it a touch and didn't vent well enough. I also stopped by a pottery supply in Tacoma on the way to drill this weekend and got some finer sand. Was also thinking about fluxing with crushed shell, never been entirely happy with borax for casting. Haven't decided yet whether to set the medium sand aside or to keep using it and use the finer stuff as facing sand. Probably less work to replace it all in the long run since it will save finish work. Pic 1 moulding board and patterns with parting dust. 2. Drag rammed and vented. 3. Same thing reversed. Pic 4 - the pattern removed. Could have been a bit better if I had lacquered them and had put a bit more draft onto them. Pic 5 - A cold chisel for a sprue pin. Don't judge, I couldn't find my dowels anywhere. I think my wife played with it with the pit bulls and it's now splinters. Pic 6. My furnace in action. Built it about 7 or 8 years ago and only used this one once. I honestly can't remember what happened to the original and the gas burner I had for it. Been deployed, two divorces, and slept since then. Pic 7 - My casting. Flawed but still fun. I can enjoy my aluminum I-phone and slice of bread, or I can always remelt it and go again. Oh yeah, and Frosty - I found an old book on green sand casting that discussed using the burnt sand from prior castings as a favorite for parting sand. Since it's already vitrified, it doesn't really stick to the green sand.
  15. That is wicked cool, but the style is so industrial/brutalist it almost looks like a device for torturing misbehaving battle robots. Makes my little japanese drill-press look like a punk.
  16. Good morning, It varies a bit from version to version, and is sometimes known as the blacksmith's epitaph. It appears on a number of tombstones in England, Wales, and occasionally the US, usually early-19th century. It was used on this site to remember the passing of Paw-paw Wilson. I've seen the version with "steady" before, but couldn't tell you what it is, maybe a holdfast, playing on the word steadfast? One version I've seen from 1792 goes like this: My Anvil and Hammer lies declind My Bellows have quite lost their wind My Fires extinct my Forge decayd My Vice is in the dust all laid My Coals is spent my Iron gone My Nails are drove my Work is done My Mortal part lies nigh this stone My Soul to Heaven I hope is gone. I dunno, I've spent way too much of my life googling obscure bits of doggerel and trying to find out who streets and bridges and such are named after.
  17. It's in better shape than my 1816 William Foster, and that's my go-to anvil. Looks great for her age. You might try a light brushing with a non-knotted wire brush and then rubbing a white powder over the side to bring out faint markings. It really makes them pop - I used to use baby powder but now that it's considered a carcinogen I have to use something else. I have the same C, which I think I remember reading was an inspector's mark. Another common mark was an anchor to indicate that it was approved for export. As far as treating it, I'd give it light go with the non-knotted brush and then I like to put boiled linseed on the sides and use it as intended to keep the top clean. Linseed for the top too if it's not going to be used for awhile. Takes a few days to dry, but pretty good protection and lasts for a long time.
  18. And now you know why so many hobby blacksmiths are also into brewing and distillation... Caveat to the copper warning, copper bowls are prized in the kitchen by the cognescenti for whisking eggs. The copper ions get in the eggs and stabilize the foam. In short, nothing you couldn't do with a mixer, but better and faster. Copper has mostly been phased out due to toxicity issues, but it's still used for that; the caveat is usually to clean the heck out of the copper before using it for whisking.
  19. The flasks ain't huge, except for the one specialty flask for the lathe bed, which I haven't built yet. Going to start easy, a couple of core plates, maybe the handles described in Book 1. We usually have a puppy whacker or two laying around if it requires a bat. Wasn't gonna be casting so much I was vastly worried about the dust...yet. Graphite works just fine from what I recall but is bloody messy and hard to clean up the few times I've dealt with it. To TLBH, I was going to suggest building a small ball mil for the kitty litter, but you've already finished. They're not hard to build if it's small and meant for one or two jobs. I've done the sifting sand through a splatter cover. I'd rather drive the several hours or work some overtime so I can pay too much before I would do it again voluntarily.
  20. Frosty - honestly hadn't thought it through fully. Two solutions - either lower the alignment cleats on the drag (the ones on the cope still extend far enough) or use a moulding board the same size as the flask. If it's rammed with the moulding board on top of sand in the moulding table it shouldn't matter if the cleats go a little deeper than the board, but I'll probably just move the cleats a little. After all, I imagine I'll want to just use the table sometimes rather than have a board for each flask. I was letting it temper for at least a day before use, and more if it needed it, as I have not enjoyed steam explosions enough in the past to do it again...accidentally. Right now, water is 6 lbs out of 118, say about five percent, which is more than I like but not out of the question since both the clay and sand were sealed and pretty dry. Squeeze test it felt damp, but not too wet, and broke okay-ish, but I wanna see how it does when the moisture has had more time to even out. It was a little sticker than I like last night. As a cover, I had a piece of plywood almost large enough, and tarped the rest; gonna cut a piece of plywood to size later. Tamper for now is an old hammer handle, although I'll probably sand the end down into more of a wedge shape to fit the corners better. For parting powder, I was planning on something sophisticated, like diatomaceous earth in a sock dusting bag since I have a bunch of it already. If I decide I don't like the mild risk of silicosis, I may try chalk dust or give charcoal dust a whirl - I've been swimming in fines I started busting it up for the forge. I'm not sure that charcoal would work, but they use coal dust and graphite, and they're both similar-ish forms of carbon. Also need to get a larger mesh for a riddle; not counting window screen the only meshes I had at the house were box wire fencing, which is a tad wide and steel 1/8" mesh because I use it for the bees. It works, but it makes for godawful slow riddling.
  21. Fishplates? They're not generally illegal to own, although the acquisition might be. You can talk to road crews sometimes and they pop up in various places, including uncle's farms. As a former conductor, I strongly encourage everyone to stay off the rails; it's not the eight bucks in stolen scrap metal that offends so much as nearly killing people one in every two or three trips. I've got high enough blood pressure. Molasses water does make for a nice core and smells kind of good cooking. I'm going to give the medium sand a whirl; if I'm not happy with the surfaces, all I've lost is 10 bucks worth of sand or so. If worst comes to worst, there's a foundry in Port Townsend and I might go begging for some of their used sand. You wouldn't think, living on an island, that fine silica sand wouldn't be hard to come by, but none of the six brands of local hardware stores in 45 miles of driving carry it anymore, including the orange one, the blue one, and the one from the playing cards, and I will never make the mistake of sifting my own sand from scratch again *shudder*. I may have to hit up a few masonry or pottery stores closer to Seattle the next time I go to drill. That's what I finally had to do for the bentonite. A few of the pet stores have the fine sand, but at about two dollars a pound.
  22. Some of the homemade foundry refractories use various types of grog - fired ceramics ground up or crushed silicates that melt down to glass. The old backyard metalcasting site had one that used perlite, a volcanic glass, for that purpose. The basic idea is that it adds porosity and also changes the plasticity so that the mix doesn't tend to crack through expansion or contraction as the water content changes. I've used some of the recipes; they're cheap and somewhat effective, if not as high a refractive value by far, as the real thing. They also tend to eventually vitrify or crack and need repair or replacement. I wouldn't want to play with clinker for that purpose when there are established recipes. I'd keep it for traction or to sell as "dragon poop" instead. Also, be careful ramming homemade refractories for foundries - they're prone to steam explosions if not dried fully and brought to heat slowly on the first firing, or if you leave a void when you ram it into the shell (it pools water in the void). It's exciting, but nothing you would want to volunteer for.
  23. Evening all, I've almost got my green sand casting set-up back and running, because my wife has been after me to show her casting. Thought I'd try to do the Gingery lathe, and if that works well, go through his series: the lathe, the shaping machine, etc. For those not knowledgeable (although I expect most of you are), Gingery starts with the idea of making a simple charcoal foundry, then pouring the pieces of a metal lathe, and using the partially finished lathe to turn the parts as you go. I've got a couple of small flasks made, and today I did the moulding table as well as mixing the green sand. It's not as fine a grade of sand as I would like (commercial medium grade), so I expect more scraping and finish work. Part of living on a bloody island, getting materials of any kind can be a pain. Otherwise, it's more or less out of the book: 100 lbs of sand, 11 lbs of bentonite, 1.66 lbs of flour, and a little more water than I would have liked - took three quarts. I'm not touching it until I see how it looks after it goes through the riddle tomorrow and dries out a little if it needs it; I'm not fond of steam in my mold. It shouldn't need more bentonite either, but it sure feels like it does, possibly because of the greater porosity of the larger sand. I'll know better tomorrow when the clay has had a chance to absorb the water more evenly. The big thing I'm still missing is aluminum. I've got a few lbs I can melt down, but not enough for the whole thing by far, or even much more than the bed. I may drive out to the junkyards in Sedro Wolley tomorrow and see if I can find a busted engine or transmission case, something that's only good for scrap value. They're a pain to break up but have a lot of aluminum. I know the Gingery design is imperfect and I don't mind incorporating improvements. If y'all have any suggestions, please feel free to shout or to just show your builds.
  24. B Co., 15 MI BN, 504th MI Bde, out near Robert Gray airfield, mid-03 to late 05. Used to see Air Force One come in to restock when Bush flew in at Waco. Had a 73 Mustang back then and a few times I got buzzed by the fighters escorting him when they wanted to get a look.
  25. Good afternoon, I didn't make the dies. I would think that might be thick enough to warrant it, but I would tend to err on the side of too soft rather than too hard and see how that goes. Many people on here have far more experience than I do using power hammers and can probably give better advice. The area where I experienced something similar was making hand-held hammer heads; on a couple of hammers, steels that were oil quench when making blades didn't harden fully when doing an oil quench for hammer heads. Of course, it can be counterproductive to have hammer heads too hard. Also, in one case when I water hardened, I had the hammer crack at the eye after a couple of days of use, even though it was tempered softer at the eye.
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