ciladog

The gear is made from Phenolic laminate. It may look badly but will probably last another 50 years.

http://en.wikipedia....maldehyde_resin

hey Sam, your mail is full, whats the cost for the PV meet on the 14th?

Michael, I usually don't comment on member's work but that is just awesome and stands out as exceptional. All of it, the construction, the finaly assemble on site, the design. You are one talented man.

I weld them up on the last temper.

Frank has it correct. Stay away from the oil and quench in STILL air. And it is critical to temper immediately.

You can weld H13 successfully if it is held at about 1000 degrees F. I make my hammer dies from H13 and have never had a weld crack. I have everything ready to do the welding while I am tempering. When they come out of the oven, I do the welding and let them cool slowly.

You know i always thought the same thing until I started really looking..Me and my wife watch a lot of cooking shows,chef competitions and the like..Ive noticed several chefs who had knife sets with forged flats..Heavily forged flats at that..

FieryFurnance is an excellent example for younger people today.......some are willing to work at it and can be taught. Keep it up FF.

John, that is a wonderful video. May I ask if the initial shape of the socket is cut or forged?

Cildog my comment was about the thread in general and in no way was directed at your last post
If I offended you I am sorry as it was not meant as a reply to what you had just posted

sounds like a lot of HS to me as it doesnt even approach BS

I consider myself a rank armature when it comes to blacksmithing but I try. It says, over my avatar that I am a junior member and that is just about what I am when compared to those who have been at this craft for so many years. When I see a smith make metal move with such ease as though it as second nature as it is for them to breath I am in awe. I doubt that there is enough time left in my life to ever achieve that level of proficiency. But again, I do try to learn what I can and I practice what I have learned.

A few years back I watched a video on Youtube where I think it was a UK blacksmith make a ram’s head poker. And I thought to myself how cool was that. I never had made one but thought that through the courses I had taken and my limited experience I thought that I had the skill set to try. So I printed out a bunch of freeze frames from the video depicting the different step of the process. I went into the forge and I tried again and again until I had made my first ram’s head. That was a big self-achievement and it felt good. Even though I was copying another smith’s method, I felt I was teaching myself how to do it. Over the few years since I have changed the way I do it always trying to refine and get better at it. Some of you may have seen the video I recently posted on making a ram’s head. It’s not the best head yet but I’m getting there.

Why did I make that video or the other videos I posted on Youtube? They are my personal achievements. I post them when I think I have figured something out that I have not seen before or when I think that I can help someone try something new the way I felt when I watched that video of the making of the ram’s head.

From time to time I do answer posts on IFI. But I never offer my help or opinion if someone else has already posted a response that I think is a good answer. What is the point of that?

Now today I had a visitor. He was the head engineer of a company that I had interview with for a job as a prototype mechanic when my architectural woodworking business was tanking. Well I didn’t get the job because of internal politics and salary but he and I connected as kindred spirits in the world of machine building and metal working.

Little did I know that he would get laid off after working there for over 17 years? It’s about money. Some GM’s thing that you cut based on salary and not on skill sets. This company will never be able to replace his sill set at any salary.

Well I guess job hunting is not going so well and he reached out to me to take up my invitation to come and play in the forge. Today he came.

We checked out the woodworking shop, the machine shop, and then got into the forge where his eyes lit up. I showed him the press, the power hammer and all sorts of tooling and finally asked, “Do you want to make something?” To which he answered, “I want to make this.” And he proceeded to draw it on a piece of paper. george.pdf “What is it”, I asked? It’s a coal pusher and puller for my coal stove”, he said.

We talked about different ways of making it with the stock we had on hand and decided that we would make it from a piece of ¼ x 3 x 9.

Now I was a bit nervous because I had never done this before and I was supposed to be the teacher. After 3 hours of forging taking turns on the power hammer and the anvil we come up with something acceptable.



My point in telling you this saga is to say that with the basic skills of blacksmithing and some thought you can probably get through something like this that you never made before. It may not be perfect the first time around but down deep you know how it must be done.

Steve,

You always say it like it is. Don’t you know that you are not being politically correct when you just blurt it out? Take a cool shower and don’t take it personally. :)

You know what makes me laugh. From time to time a real master smith, author of books, been a smith for maybe 40 or more years, on this forum gives an answer to a question. Most of the members don’t know who it is because he/they use a screen name and yet have mentioned how revered they think this smith is known by his real name. And yet, when they answer a question the instruction is contradicted by the weekend warriors.

Now that is funny. If they only knew.



And how many members that are real craftsman and masters of the craft have been driven away by egotistical and narcissistic attacks on them in the past? That is a loss to us all and, I for one would wish for them to come back.

What a surprise that you Beth would have such a strong reaction to what I wrote. So this is also a social network. Yes it is. It is also about learning the art and craft of blacksmithing.

What is a beginner? How long must someone be a beginner before they move to someone that is learning the art? It’s easy to say, “Hey, I’m a beginner so take it easy on me.” You Beth are no beginner.

Even a beginner has certain thresholds that they must attain to continue learning. If they want to dabble in blacksmithing then they should say so.

Randy, I agree with much of what you say but I’m playing a bit of the Devil’s advocate.

I owe you a debt of thanks for if not for you, I would still be posting, “What did I do wrong?”

While I thing that is great that so many member have strong opinions and have responded to this thread with a good dialog, you have changed the gist from entitlement to giving or offering your knowledge or experience. Passing on one’s knowledge and knowhow is a good thing. But do you pass it on just because someone asks for it? That is the question.

The question of your willingness to give of your knowledge was not posed. The question was about an entitlement mentality that seems, at least to me, to becoming pervasive in the world society that we live in today. More and more people are less willing to work for an achievement and believe they are entitled to have it.

Now we can not get into a political discussion and we should not. What I wanted to know is are you willing to give of yourself to someone who is not will to ‘pay their dues’ and work for what they want? I’ll give you an example of what happens here on IFI at least every few weeks.

Some member posts that they are trying to learn how to forge weld. They have read all about the subject on this forum (maybe) and went into the shop and tried it. Well it didn’t work so the very first thing they do is post a thread asking, “What did I do wrong?”

But what I want to know is how many times did he or she try it? What kind of weld were they trying to make? What did they learn from their failures? What do they think the problem is? Like looking into some crystal ball they want to know what you know so they can make that weld. But unless they figure it on their own or you take a class or have someone proficient at it teach them (one on one), the only way they will learn is by doing it over and over again and paying attention to what happens each time. But they don’t, just tell me and miraculously I will be able to do it.

It’s an attitude about self-achievement and/or entitlement.

Ten Hammers,

I think your signature says alot about this subject.

You can't clear the water till you've got the pigs out of the creek.

erietuna
I think you get what I'm after.

Hey can we get back on track here?? I intended the thread to be about a person’s desire or capability to solve problems. Are they entitled to the solution or do they have a duty to try and solve it on their own with the information that is provided to them?

So tell me what makes you feel better, you figure out a problem or someone tells you how to sove it. Is it the same or different?

if you dont want to answer a question, dont answer it.
when my kids incessantly ask "why" i try my best to answer in such a way as to enlighten their learning experience.
i dont tell them- dont talk to me until you know as much as me.......
do you throw someone in the deep end when teaching a language? or do you help them along and teach them to say "hello"!
people who arent willing to learn are as frustrating as people not willing to teach.
its all swings and round abouts......
thats my $1.50

So Bigred1o1,

If I give you the music for Beethoven’s 9^th could you play it on any instrument? I give you the music; I give you an instrument, could you play it? Unless you are a seasoned musician the answer is undoubtedly no. Unless you are some sort of prodigy it would take you years of practice to play it. That’s not to say you shouldn’t try or ask for help. But at least acknowledge that you are not going to play it without a lot of practice.

It’s the same thing with blacksmithing. I can tell you how to forge weld but until you have tried it and maybe succeeded or failed over and over, you learned nothing until you figured it out for yourself. What did I do correctly and what did I do wrong. Use the information you receive but it is up to you to figure it out.

A member recently posted that he tried to forge weld a hardy tool. He tried once and then posted, “what did I do wrong.” Everyone comes in with advice. Nothing wrong with that but do you think he will get it done the next time he tries. That will be good but I suspect that he will figure it out if he just keeps trying with the knowledge he has been told. It’s not that someone tells him what to do but rather his desire to achieve with the knowledge he has. It will take practice and persistence and not “just tell me what to do.”

It’s about attitude.

Thanks for the link, now I am a musician.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsBCcUQ-5CA&feature=related

Enjoy this interlude.

I know that I will ruffle a bunch of feathers with this post but I have been thinking a certain way for a while reading posts on IFI for the years that I have been a member.

Let me say, at the onset, that I am no master blacksmith (whatever that means). I have been in this craft seriously for maybe 6 or 7 years. That’s not a lot of time in this craft. But I don’t expect someone to impart their knowledge upon me as of a matter of my right.

Am I entitled to your knowledge and experience without the least bit of effort or experimentation on my part? Am I entitled to know what you know without any effort what so ever just because I ask?

Well I submit that I am not. If the blacksmiths of yesteryear waited for someone to tell them what to do we would not have had the industrial revolution. They figured it out for themselves.

Not so today. I don’t have to know anything. All I have to do is ask and someone will tell me what I need to do. Think about it. If you can’t figure out how to make a simple rivet with all the information available then you don’t belong in the craft of blacksmithing, you would be better off pursuing a hobby or career in classical music. Oh, wait a minute; it takes practice to be a musician. How do I play Beethoven's 9^th?

Tom is still around but you cant buy one of his machines new currently What I was told is he has a govenment contract via his company RECIPRODYNE and is not building any hammers to be sold...

I found new videos posted on Youtube on the tomtroszak channel this morning. Good to see he is alive and well, I think.