brimic

Hey! I broke my first one too! Forged from an okd file, WATER quenched, and mine made that same squeak-ping sound right before it broke as well. I went ahead and tempered and sharpened the handle end and use it as my 'garage' knife. It cuts cardboard and holds an edge like a champ.

I wouldn't bother. Plaster frightens me, especially if its green. I do lead casting - bullets, sinkers, jigs, etc... you can't or shouldn't use plaster for the reasons mentioned above for lead and that's only going up to 800 degrees max. I've made moulds using a product called 'water putty' which dries similar to plaster, and has to be heated to 400 degrees for a few hours to drive the water out. It worked for casting lead, but the moulds themselves burn up fairly quickly and would absolutely not be suitable for a forge. Like I said, don't bother. My first gas forge I made was with a paint can, lined with 3" of refractory wool coated with ITC 100, and powered by a bernzomatic torch that I adapted to a grill tank. It gets HOT, but only heats about 3" of steel at a time.Materials don't cost me much, we have a refractory supplier in town and the salesman was able to sell me scraps and leftovers for cheap. Fun experiment, but if I were to do it all over, I'd build something bigger with the Reil-style burners (which I'm currently working on).

I love this thread! I get so much free stuff thrown at me since I've put my feelers out to friends and family. Last time I went back to my home town, my Dad told me to go through my late grandfather's workshop (died in 1999) and take whatever I want, because its been picked through and everything is going to the dump soon. I got a 5 gallon bucket stuffed full of old files and rasps, mainly black diamonds/Nicholsons. I got another bucket full of punches and chisels. A dozen or so LARGE wood boring bits that are 2-3' long. (Grandpa was a linesman and never threw anything out) Two hand braces. 4 old monkey wrenches A few axes heads and a sledgehammer head. A couple of ballpeen hammers A couple of blocks of steel - 4"diameter x 3" thick, another one that was roughly 4"x6" x 1" with a few 1/2 to 1" holes drilled in it (perfect!) On the same trip, my brother-in-law gave me a 3' length of heavy gauge railroad rail. ----------------------------- Last week I got a pair of leaf spring sets from a trailer from my neighbor's shop. He also has a set of dump truck leaf springs in his scrap bin, but those were a bit too big for me to handle. He dropped off a box of diesel valves yesterday, but I'm not sure if they will be good for anything yet.

Sodium- I would have never known. Would be one nasty surprise to cut off a stem and throw it in the slack tub to cool :o

My neighbor, who has a heavy equipment maintenance business has been giving me scraps from his shop- leaf springs, mild steel, etc, dropped off a box of diesel valves at my house yesterday. They are all stamped 'caterpiller' with a few different numbers.... These things are pretty big- ~1.5" diameter valve, valve stems are about 5"x 1/4". They seem like they would be good candidates for punches. Anyone know what steel these are made of? Are the exhaust valves a different allow than the intake valves? Any interesting things that can be made from them?

DO IT! Part of what sets us apart from the other apes is that we can make tools to use to make better tools. There's a lot of satisfaction in being part of a fairly small percentage of our species that actually uses this ability.

It took me two failed attempts to make my first ueseable pair of tongs. I tried the same method you did in my third attempt and ended up with something that functions well, but like you said, isn't pretty.

That is a nice looking stand! I did mine in a similar fashion, laminating 2x12s. I set mine in silicone caulk as suggested by many since I live in a residential neighborhood and need to kill the ring, and kill the ring it did.

Whew. I thought a suggestion of sticking the anvil in the freezer was coming up! :D That's pretty much how I handled it when I got it stuck- drove it out from the bottom with a large punch, didn't flip the anvil over though.

Alright, I'll give filing another shot, I didn't want to put too much time into it as I plan to make as many of my tools as possible, and figured on hammering the hardy posts to fit. I wasn't sure if filing was the right way to go or if maybe my hardy was some really odd size to begin with. I've been using a sharpened old brick chisel for making hot cuts, but now have a few worn out jackhammer bits to make a hardie cutoff with. I'm more or less getting started up, and bought the fullering tool because I tried fullering with a piece of round stock laid across the anvil to be much harder in practice than theory.

Hi, been lurking awhile, finally need some advice... I bought a fairly old anvil awhile back, not sure who made it as the only markings I can find on it are '1 0 12' which I take to mean its a 124lb anvil- its definately the wrought iron type with a steel face forged into place. I recently bought a guillotine fuller tool off ebay with a 3/4" post. the post is solid steel and measures 3/4" and has nicely radiused corners. It will only fit 1" into my hardy hole from the top, it will also go 1" or so in when I try to put it in from the bottom, there is some sort of interference 1/2 down the hardy hole. Is there a way to remedy this? I tried filing inside the hole but that looks like a long, tedious road.