Nobody Special

I thought the ballpein would be useful for cold rivetting small stock. Looked up the toolmark, it's a Westcraft, apparantly a brand made by Western Auto between late 30s and early 50s. Another time travelling tool. :) (one direction, and veeeeery slowly) Crosspein has a 200 on it, and an I like a roman numeral inside a hexagon. Dunno. 200 maybe 200 grams, so made overseas cheapy?

So, today I stopped by the house of one of the people we buy eggs from (we run a small hatchery), and the owner asked if I wanted some scrap. There's more garden variety stuff not shown, tools, lawnmower blades, etc, but I love these three wee little hammers. The ballpein is about a half inch wide by 2 and a quarter inches long. I didn't tell him I don't have the heart to repurpose these little guys and a couple of the wrenches. The long pointy spanner appears to be handforged, and a couple of the others were definitely modified by his father (the man I got them from is about 70). Not sure what it's for exactly. The wrench end is just that, but the other, dunno. He mentioned his father using it on bridges and that it was possibly 90 plus years old.

Reducing atmosphere helps a lot with copper, bronze, etc. What's the setup you're planning on your burner? Naturally aspirated? Weed burner? Multi burner? Flamethrower? Are you green sand casting? Using investment? Lost foam? Did you already put it together? If so, hows it working? Pics please! Backyardmetalcasting has a decent homemade refractory, it worked for the small scale casting I did...took to using wool underneath on later furnaces, saved time. If it get's REALLY hot, the portland may slag some. It occaisionally spalled a little, but then again, it was cheap, and it didn't take long to repair either. Setup depends, is it gonna be a once in awhile hobby? Or something you're doing on a regular basis? (dang it.....now ya got me missing it, may go look for some pipe, my regulator and something to use for an outer shell......)

Wow......that's impressive. S'better by far than what I came up with. The beer's in the mail. :) Dunno, yahoo's rooster 3 has got attitude. Possibly that as a touchmark, and chinobi's as a logo? Maybe vice versa? Like them both. I'll have to try them out and see how they look in metal. Wicked cool art. Cool idea on the electrochemical etch. I've messed with electroplating a little, but never tried that. I'll search the forums. Judson, cool rooster. We're starting to have chicken decorations coming out of our ears though.

Thanks to both of you, I'm trying a variation on your suggestion, Billy. I don't have a projector handy, but......playing with photos on powerpoint, blowing 'em up, and tracing them is similar, and working pretty well. I like it and may start looking for an old projector when i go to auctions. (thanks also to Stan aka trying it who suggested something similar.)

Awesome, stylized is fine. Willing to sacrifice detail for clarity. Was just hoping for a clean enough design to put on small pieces like knives, hooks, bbq forks, etc. Maybe a couple of sizes. I just can't even draw that much of a chicken without putting in some extra lines to keep it from coming out like a lump of oatmeal. As an anvils go, ummm, London pattern, no really thin waist, more peter wrightish, normal taper to heel, horn flat on top. For chickens, rooster, not hen. Thinking one shaped like a Jersey Giant or a Rhode Island Red. Hard to explain the look, but they feel a lot different than say an Auracana or a Polish. There's no kinda hurry, I really appreciate it. Been thinking about making or getting one for awhile, and I really, really can't draw the design to send in or work from.

Help! I've got a cool idea for a touchmark, but can't make a straight line with a ruler. After redrawing this is the best I can do. Can anybody do a quick touchup to something that's reproducable on a punch? The YBF is for Yardbird Forge. (yes, I know yardbird is one word, just like the look of the letters this way, but wouldn't mind YF either if it looks right.) And now the darn things sideways.....sigh.

Done asked it, everybody's gonna respond with a color, not a temp. (because how many of us have a thermometer in the forge, especially us hobby level guys?) That said, to help with all the responses by color, steel incandescence starts at just visible red at about 1100, cherry at 13-1400, orange at 16-1700, yellow around 1900, and true white hot at about 2200. S'how i used to rough gauge temperature when I did casting and was to cheap to buy a high temperature thermometer. Why temp? Trying to be more accurate in changing light conditions? Colorblind? Or just curious? Now I'll stand back and let people kabitz about how different amounts of light makes different colors, how it's subject to interpretation, and how it's affected by the amount of carbon, vanadium, carbon nanotubules, and what the phase of the moon is when Jupiter aligns with Mars.

Funny, i feel that way when i bring stuff back from the scrappy.

Well, now I know and can stea.....I mean try it out for myself. Thanks! Neat post.

Sucker rod? Steel rod used in a pumpjack (read oil pump). They have to be replaced often, so they get scrapped a lot. Mid-grade carbon, but tough. Lot of oilfields west of ya, towards San Angelo and Midland I believe, so they should be available at some scrapyard near you.

I love ferrous metals. Iron is where it's at for me, but if you want to cast, it's much easier to start in something like aluminum or bronze. It'll give you some of the basic elements of casting metal that'll you'll need for the much more difficult task of pouring cast iron or molten iron. And a lot of other metals are "forged", copper, brass, bronze, aluminum.............you get the idea. Key to learning casting is finding somebody that does casting and is willing to teach you. It helps a lot in preventing mistakes and SEVERE safety hazards. Such as metal fume poisoning, molten metal burns, fire, missing eyebrows, etc. Finding teachers and mentors is extremely important to learning metalwork. Making steel is hard as all get out, even if you've studied up, have resources like good ore available and "think" you know what your doing. Don't believe me? Search for "bloom" in the forums and find my last failed attempt. Or wait three or four months and catch the next one. Mentorship. Work. Repeat.

Well, at least in kingwood you should be able to get cheap sucker rod. I you want it bad enough, offer maybe 3 a lb and wait til he calls back in a month. Then offer him 50 cents a lb less. Or just wait, something good'll come along in time if you keep your eyes open.

Well, that makes perfect sense......only one question. I can see that the dials would be held in by the body of the lock while locked. What holds them in when it's unlocked? Do you insert them by cutting only half circles into the front in the opposite direction of the half circles in the shackle? No.....thinking about it, that wouldn't work because you wouldn't be able to turn it.

Awfully long offset, isn't it? Ever say I wouldn't touch that with a 10 ft. pole? This is the hammer you would hit the pole with.

Atlanta area? Depends on how you look at it. I can find anvils, post vises, etc. But...........everytime I do, they're always somebody who went up to North Carolina and bought a bunch of blacksmithing tools for resale here. Not sure if they're mining them up there, or maybe the Hay Budden is the state bird. Almost never see local tools. Weird considering this used to be one of the biggest mining and metalworking areas in the country.

Alex Bealer group is meeting this Saturday in the a.m. at Mountain Park in Alpharetta. Open forge. I was invited to come play at somebody else's forge about 5 minutes into my first meeting. Very likely to meet someone near you, if not in Carollton.

Chickens can be MORE neurotic?

Snake in with the chickens! Or did some aspiring young-(ish) weekend smith have some fun with rebar this Sunday? Wife was not amused....... :D

First step is admitting you wish you had a scrap problem.

Looking good, jealous of yer rounding hammer.

What Vaughn said. That one is a ball bearing, welded to a rod, welded to a hardy shank with a shoulder. Can't tell from looking how they made their shank. (but you can see the cartoon network t-shirt reflected in the chrome!) I guess the hardy shank would be easy enough to make, the rest.....how's your welding skills? And do you want to spend 80 bucks on a giant ball bearing? Again, whatcha planning on making? Shaping sheet metal?

Chrome? Sounds like a trailer hitch with the bolt on bottom forged into a shank to fit the hardy hole or a vise, but they're usually only what, 2, 2.5 inches across? What are you trying to shape with it?

What, nobody's mentioned the 55 forge? Easy to make out of a 55 gal drum and a little pipe, just search 55 forge in the forums. Mine's an upside down lawnmower with a brake disc in the bottom, and a homemade refractory liner. Still using a blowdryer, but a blowdryer with a rheostat (dimmer switch) hooked up to it. Or you can control airflow by making some kind of gate in the intake to restrict it. something simple like a piece of metal in a slit, or a valve, homemade or otherwise, lots of options. http://www.iforgeiron.com/gallery/image/36990-cam00122/ http://www.iforgeiron.com/gallery/image/36989-cam00121/ I'd tend to think that the plate might be mild steel since it's not being used for applications where it's directly stressed. And that's not approaching the problems of manipulating that much steel by hand and dealing with the hole in the middle. Far less work to scrounge some better steel. Have you tried any knives yet? It's a great way to start learning some of the things you'll need to know to make a sword you'll want to keep and use safely. There's a ton of great info in the knife making classes. Why go ahead and beat out a crude SLO (sword like object) when you can take a year or two, make some cool knives, and then work on a blade you'll be proud of. (And yes, i tried cranking out a gladius hispanius out of leaf spring about 2 or 3 months after I began forging. Heart breaking to put that much work into something to watch it crack, take out the bad part, reform, watch it crack, start over with a fresh piece of steel, and watch it go wrong again....)

I think it's got eyes, and looks like a mouth too. Just hard to see with it turned sideways. Love the curves, now I've gotta try one to leave on the front porch....