Nobody Special

It's a gorgeous piece of work.......provided I don't have to help you move it to a new campsite. :rolleyes:

If you take out the wife in said new convertible.......and she doesn't realize the old one is gonna be cannabilized for scrap.

Ft. Richardson maybe? Mmmm.....beats ft. drum, kinda.

Bet ya got welders somewhere on post. Find the mechanics shop or the engineers. Seabees will do in a pinch. Steel scrap abounds if you look in the right places. At the very least, you can probably get bits of tie-rods and leaf spring, stuff like that. Avoid rebar.

Also, make sure someone friendly in your nco support chain knows what you're doing. Unless you're fairly isolated, they can be very touchy about mucking about with fire, electricity, or......lets say trying to build a full size ballista on the back side of Taji near the boat graveyard without their knowledge. Not that I would have any experience with that..... :D

I remember seeing something in Andrew Weyger's book where he modified a wood bandsaw to cut metal by regearing it to run slow. Haven't tried it.

It's a lovely knife, but how exactly do you skin a ball bearing? :)

I worked with anthracite at the beginning because it was all i could get. Takes a lot more air than bitumous, harder to get started, and yes, it doesn't coke really or form the "cave".

Air control was a big issue, too little and it went out or wouldn't start, too much and it stayed around welding heat all the time, which made for short reheats, but used up a lot of fuel and would burn the steel in a minute if you let it.

Smaller anthracite is definitely easier (aside from breaking it up, which is a pain), no more than around an inch and a half across. For my money though, much better control with bitumous, and I use so much less fuel that that alone made up for the extra expense.

For starting it, I like to use wadded up paper with some lump charcoal mixed in. Light, wait for the paper to catch good, turn on blower, add the charcoal, wait for it to catch good, add coal over the top. Should be ready to go in 1-2 minutes. Good luck!

Mmmm....Little fuzzy on what's going on with your furnace.....A tuyere is used to introduce gas to a furnace (in this case air). It slows the entry of the gases (if it's conical), and can affect how much oxygen is going into the blast, which in turn affects how much carbon is in the iron.

Also, without a tuyere the entry of oxygen can create cool or hot spots. Also also.....You want something between whatever you're blowing from and your fire that doesn't melt.

You should roast your ore prior to smelting, break it up, and pick out any obvious impurities. Alternate charges of charcoal and ore. (and it takes a LOT of charcoal). Basically, the slag melts and runs off, and the iron that's left falls down to the bottom and sinters (think of it like mini-spot welding from heat and pressure) sticking together into a big spongy mass.

You let it sit in the slag for a bit, then tap the slag out of a drain hole and let it run out the side. Then pull apart the furnace and beat the bloom so that it welds into a nice solid piece, and so the remaining bits of slag and what not are beaten out of it. Get help, this part is doable alone, almost, but much more user friendly with.....well, friends.

If you end up actually melting the iron, by getting it too hot, say especially by using something like coal, then the carbon in whatever you're burning will act as a flux, and when the ore melts, you'll have lots of carbon in the metal, ending up with good old cast iron. Hard, but very very brittle....basically not forgable

Much as it hurts me to use stock removal alone, why not just cut down a leaf spring? You should be able to easily get at least 150-200 lbs of pull depending on what you're using and the length of your draw, which'll probably be 8 inches or so. (Note the crossbow in my avatar pic, I think there's some more pics in my gallery). That should be sufficient to the point you'll darn near nead a goat's foot lever or cranequin to pull it.

If you're just getting to spring tempering, this is NOT what you want to start on. Imagine what could happen if it cracked and split while you're tensioning it.....or worse yet, while under tension with a bodkin headed bolt in it ready to fire. They don't always just bend. Trust me on this one. The multi-part prod suggested by Charles works well too.

Additionally, you might want a weaker bow while you're sorting out the technical bits. The really heavy ones can cause all kinds of additional problems, such as.....say, the nut splitting in two and flying apart, whilst and at the same time even, the string releases throwing your bolt forward when you're not ready for it.........not that I've experienced such a thing........... :)

I used ta could tell you for metal colors when I used the color to tell temps for casting. I THINK it was around 450-500 dark red, 500 to 850 or so med red, around 900 for cherry. orange at around 1200, moving to yellow at around 17 or 1800, white hot at around 21, 2200 and up. Also, color interpretation varies alot from person to person and depending on background light/shade.

Yurts are fun. Cordwood sheds are kinda cool too, and "relatively" cheap, but I don't know how much building experience you have.

It's a coal rake, the second thing I made, and looks a lot like mine. Good job on it and the hammer, and welcome to IFI.

I think it looks awesome....and I would need a nice fluffy cushion. If those are the ones I think they are, I like those trucks, saw them at a copper mine in Utah. One of the publicity picks showed an extended Dodge Ram parked sideways in the wheelwell.

Got something like tennis elbow using a hammer trying to use a 4 lb hammer first few months I tried forging. Lighter hammer and fixing the anvil height helped a lot.

Typical airman overcompensation. Just think, if he'd joined the Marines, all you'd have to make was a k-bar.

Go Army. Beat Navy.

New crucible's cheaper then a trip to the doc . Don't muck about with 'em, Don't make em out of refractory and don't get cheap. Molten metal hurts.

Not that I tried something like this..........

To some extent, if you're not melting high temp stuff like steel, you can make a steel crucible, works nicely for aluminum, but the walls have to be fairly thick, they eventually rust through, and you'll get a little bit of iron scale in whatever you melt.

If you do try this, don't use them for too long, don't take it too hot, and don't try something with thin walls, no matter how many times you've seen some schmuck on youtube with a cutdown propane can or soup can.

Been watching CL for several months and hadn't seen one under 150. And those, broken. Then two weeks ago, found a guy with 15 of them, 40 each. Mine cleaned up nice with a little lube.

Don't go out of your way to provoke her, but ignore her and move on. She won't be the last person to complain.

Welcome,

Love the sun, nice effect with the rivets.

It stems from different mythologies, but the sun cross is common in lots of parts of the world, including my favorite, the celtic cross.

And your "bad English" is better than many native speakers. Thanks for sharing, I now have something new to add to my long wish-list of projects. :)

Toxic metals? Zinc and zinc containing metals, like brass, some "bronzes", pennies made after 86.

Lead, some steels with chromium in them. Some titanium alloys. The patina (green or blue stuff) can be toxic on copper, and it can be toxic if used to cook in.......and on and on.....although not as likely to run into cadmium and such....

Zinc's the really nasty one to watch for. Looks greyish, or whitish on steel, like on galvanized chainlink fence. Don't try to burn it off or melt it. Trust me, zinc poisoning sucks. Good ventilation is pretty much key anytime working with a furnace, forge, or metals.

Same thing happened to me the first time I tried smithing, using anthracite and managed to get the darn stuff lit. Fire management is a lot different with anthracite. It burns a lot hotter, and takes more air to keep going. (I still finished the knife. It's a terrible knife, not even much good as a letter opener, but I kept it anyways.) In my experience, no it doesn't really coke much.

Try bitumous, it's more expensive, but you'll use a lot less coal and have a great deal more control over the fire, so it more than evens out. If you are still using the anthracite for awhile, don't keep your steel in as long, especially as it gets drawn down. And watch the fire. If you start seeing sparks or hearing the hissing sound, your steel's burning.

I'm green next to most of these guys, but used anthracite a lot whilst working on the basics. Good luck and keep at it!

In georgia, paid 40 for a four and a half incher couple of weeks ago, not sure on the weight, fells like about 70, 80 lbs. I've seen similar go for around 200 here, but kept my eye out, and if I'd wanted more, the guy I got mine from had almost 10 in various condition for the same price.

Ditto what thomas powers said. Great site. Start with a "coffee can" furnace, even if bigger. Stay away from melting pennies or brass  until you have a lot of experience unless you like getting sick as all get out. Find a mentor. Keep it simple, and read up so you don't blow something up in your face.

The bottom of a firepot doesn't burn out because the sweet spot (where melting temperatures can occur) of the fire occurs a few inches above the bottom. Since the coal uses an updraft to achieve decent forging temperatures, a lot of the heat is moved away from the bottom. Possibly the tray also helps act as a heat sink? 

It may eventually oxidize through, but this should take place much slower than with thinner metals, and shouldn't actually melt. I did lose a loose screen over the tuyere one time when it got tilted on end by my coal rake.

At least that's what I think. Someone with more expertise can and probably will explain it better. My firepot is homemade refractory funneling in over a brake disc, and it takes a couple of years to slag away the portland cement in it so that I have to patch or replace it. In my experience from making casting furnaces, this refractory recipe would start to slag at anything much above 2300 degrees, or brass casting temperatures.  

Please post when it's done, I'm in Marietta/work on Dobbins, and would love to see it.

Nice tutorial. Ever try "lost foam" method of sand casting. Make your forms out of insulating foam and leave in/burn out during the pour. Makes a kind of pebbly finish, but worked well when I tried it.