Nobody Special

Well then, with a gas forge, much less of an issue. My mistake for not asking. It will get hot, don't think it'll make a huge difference which way it faces, but then with gas, I've only done casting furnaces, which I was able to do in an open garage with a fan without issues.

Wouldn't think it would matter as much as what you've got coming out of your forge. Will a hood be involved? Don't know how far from the door your garage is, size of the building, etc, but why not put a chimney on it, even a simple side draft? Search the forums for examples, lots of people on here forge indoors. Better than risking CO exposure, even with monitoring.....since some of the symptoms include feelin' sick, dizziness, confusion and even unconciousness.

So, saw 556mp's version of a gary huston folder, and had to try it. Need to clean it up a little and put a finish on it. Blade was an inch and a half or so of an old file. (left some of the tooth marks, but not as cool as i had hoped.) Handle was some mild steel from part of the sign from when i moved in here two years ago, and the rivet is a bit of stainless from a pegboard peg I cut down. Blade locks pretty good between springiness of handle and friction from rivet. Normalized thrice, hardened in veggie oil, and tempered to straw....except for the very point which got a little warm and was more towards plum. Close enough for a cool if slightly crude....I mean rustic pocketknife. Biggest pain was blade pushed against handle enough to make really hard to open at the begining.......only after the rivet was set. Lots and lots of filing to set right. http://www.iforgeiron.com/gallery/image/37508-folder1/ http://www.iforgeiron.com/gallery/image/37509-folder2/ http://www.iforgeiron.com/gallery/image/37510-folder3/

That would work. Fire clay generally goes something like 7 or 8 bucks for a 50 lb bag at a building supply company. Might find it at a masonry place. I dunno. I use homemade refractory in mine, using the recipe from backyardmetalcasting.com (since i started into this from doing casting, portland cement, sand, perlite, and fireclay). Worried that the portland would slag, but I've only had to patch it once, two years ago, when it cracked a chunk off near the pot. Mine's about 2 to 3 inches deep (brake disk in an old lawnmower, so variable height). I like mine throughought the pan so that it's an even space and easy to move the coal around. Not sure about over the pot. I wouldn't have thought so, but the dire tales around cast iron are making me paranoid....if it's a cast iron pot and not steel. Somebody will surely correct me. :)

Hooks, triangles, hooks, cheese slicers, hooks, door knockers, hooks, bottle openers, hooks, drawer handles, hooks, tools like punches and tongs, hooks, feathers, hooks, nails, hooks, split crosses. Oh yeah, and hooks. I like hooks. Seriously though, depending on the style of hook (say anywhere from simple j hook, to s hook to fancy coat hangers) it can be used to focus on drawing, tapering, twists, rounding square stock, squaring round stock, bends, straightening, using the edge of the anvil, flattening, and peening. All depends on what you want to make. A lot of the time if I'm stuck on something, I'll crank out a hook or something simple and fast I know I've got down to keep my hands moving while my brain is catching up or until my frustration's drained off.

Good idea, right now mine's stuck on the side of the forge.

True, but talking about for a specific project. Like, in a recent example, grinding a small rod, to serve as a "negative" to forge the end of a new punch onto to get the right shape for the eye on an animal head on a door knocker I was working on. (only two layers in this one.) Sure, I used a hot cut, and a hold down, etc. but those were already made.

So, I saw a cool pocketknife based on a Gary Huston style folder (on here of course), and decided to try one this morning (left mine in Texas!), and got annoyed. I was cheating with some pliers (yeah, I know) teeth ground down so not to mar the stock because I didn't have the right tongs, and got fed up after I dropped the stock for the fifth time and decided it was a good morning to catch up on my tool making. And then I didn't have the right size tongs to hold the bar stock for the new tongs after I finished the first half and cut it off the rod, so........... I guess my question is, what's the most layers back have you gone into making a tool to make a tool to make a tool to make..........etc, for a specific project?

Melted marbles into split crosses. Let it sit on top and run down into the gap. But I usually dunk mine to crack 'em deliberately. Cool crazed glass effect. Word of caution, can shoot off little glass splinters when ya do it, or break off more than you want. Sometimes comes out right, occaisionally not. Tried pushing it with a rod, but it doesn't work well unless it's good and hot. If you put it onto a coal fire, might want to put it on a piece of steel bar to keep pieces of coal from getting stuck in runny glass.

Busy busy, love the curves on the hook rack.

I seem to remember cheating when we made electromagnets for the kids. You can use prewound stuff like a transformer coil or the guts of a old school (car) starter solenoids they used to mount on the firewalls instead of on the starters themselves. The solenoids are pretty much already an electromagnet anyways. Or, you could.......pick up a rare earth magnet, very strong, and not THAT expensive, or, stack together a bunch of normal ceramic type magnets. Not uber strong, but stronger than one or two by themselves, and fairly cheap.

Farrier's supply'll have bitumous coal. Sometimes find it at a welding supply. Nice, easy to light, easy to control. More expensive, but ya use less of it. Anthracite heating coal works in a pinch and is cheap, but takes a lot of air and burns very hot and fast, so less control and easier to burn the metal. Used to get mine at a feed store. Making lump charcoal in a 55 gal drum is a fun project, I use lump charcoal a lot of the time to cheat when I first light my forge. All of it seems best to do best for me at around .5 to 1 inch.

Look for limonite and ochre too. Ochre's basically iron oxide, and limonite is a common ore, often yellow, or sometimes a brownish color. http://www.iforgeiron.com/gallery/image/37236-ore/ I put a pic of some hematite I pulled out of the ground near cartersville, ga, but iron ore comes in a lot of varieties and appearances. Mine varied from reddish brown to almost a brownish black, and was very mildly reactive to a magnet. It may not be very magnetic until you roast it.

If ya want ta make something pointy out of low end steel, railroad spike knives are fun to play with. They don't keep an edge (because they're very mild steel and don't harden) but they're cool looking, make good letter openers, and offer a lot of possibilities to mess around with. Just don't steal 'em from the rails, they're really really sensitive about that. Can be found cheap at garage sales, flea markets, online etc. For cheap steel, try going to a fabricator, welder, or steel supply and ask them for their "drops", or their drop pile. It means the leftover cutoffs from other orders or bits that are a bit mangled and cut off. They sell real cheap next to buying full bars of virgin steel. Beer is a good tool for bribery, so are simple forged items, hooks, bottle openers, etc, that are also good projects for a beginner. Hot rolled steel (milled through rollers into bars while hot) is generally cheaper than cold (ditto, milled cold), and mild steel (low carbon) moves a lot easier under the hammer, but doesn't harden, so not good for a lot of tools, like knives, chisels, etc. You can also get busted coil springs from a junkyard or mechanic and straighten them out, but you won't necessarily know enough about the heat treatment and what kind of steel you're getting yet. It's not so much that their judgemental, but you asked THE newb question - asking about rebar swords here is akin to going to a room full of mechanics and asking if it's okay if the gas and oil leak out of the car every day if you add more in and by the way you'd like to drive it in a pro-Nascar race. Only it gets asked at least10 times a week on here. Don't sweat it, a lot of people start by trying (and failing) to make a sword. I did and still haven't made one yet. It takes a lot of expertise and practice on knives first. Rebar sucks, and'll break on you, even for tongs. Maybe, maybe as a coal rake. Good luck.

I used to use sodium bentonite cat litter in a casting furnace using the backyardmetalcasters.com recipe with portland cement, sand and perlite. (yes, I know the portland slags in a furnace at much above brass melting temps, or in a gas forge when it gets crazy hot, but I've forged with this mix on a coal forge and it works well with patching once in a blue moon.) For about the same price though, you can get a 50 lb bag of fireclay at a masonry store (I know there's one in huntsville that sells it at $7 a bag.) or if you have to have bentonite, it's sometimes sold at feed stores as a clay pond liner, and....it's not pelletized and baked like cat litter. (dunno current price, last time was about 10 yrs ago at 4 bucks a 50 lb bag in texas, dcraven it's easy to get in texas cheap because it's mined in west texas.) Also, I've found it makes a pretty crumbly refractory no matter what the mix, but the dryer the better when mixing it and ramming it. Adding too much water is always a bad temptation because it makes it easier to mix. Also, ram thoroughly, let it dry well for a few days and warm SLOWLY the first time, as trapped air or steam explosions blowing out chunks of refractory shrapnel are scary and can tend to hurt. Not that I did that the second time I built a casting furnace or anything (too much water, fired too soon/fast)......and good luck!

What???!!! You miss a few saturdays... :(

What????? Huh????? Too late for me. No power hammer, so unless I'm grinding, ear pro's not as much of an issue; but the Army got a lot of my hearing, so classical, folk, or rockabilly, my music has to be LOUD.

Now I'm sad. Excuse me. I have to go outside now. My one tiny anvil is lonely and needs a hug.

So, simple question, what music do you like to play when you're forging? Zepplin? Bob Dilan? Bluegrass? I've known people to beat metal to Slayer, and I always get tickled watching a Technicus Joe video with jazz playing over the top. It's a nice feel and adds a touch of class. Me? If I'm hyper and full of energy, Irish rock. Say Flogging Molly, Pogues or Dropkick Murphys. If I'm feeling more mellow and gonna be at it awhile then classic rock or old school country. I can keep a nice rythm to Hank or Johnny Cash. How about you?

Thanks for this, been doing it on the rainy days around here. Made one out of a quarter and all my kids wanted one.

Been using a bunch of my old leftover army issue ballistic eye pro from deployment. I figure if they were meant to stop shrapnel............