Charles R. Stevens

Traces, or tugs are the strap that goes either from the breast strap of the hames to swingle (single) tree Some times mules and donkeys use chains, wooden hames use a hook and eye arrangement wich, as the angel of draft is adjustable is a better setup. .

Print on tyvek, lol

I use old "shark tooth" toolbox saw blades, at $20 not worth trying to sharpen. Either rivet them to a forged handle or make them full tang with scales like a knife. This is an old army cooks spatula out of my kitchen, note the right edge is sharpened .

It is light duty, as the large ring isn't welded and the small ring is slotted and drifted from the parent stock with out upsetting, or drawing down. It looks freshly forged, as in no rust and stock steel size. I'd guess 3/4"x1/4" bent the hard way . I would be inclined to think picket ring like John suggests as it looks like 1/4" or 5/16" shooing stock. I will admit to initially thinking it was 1x1 1/2" but the lopsided small ring suggests smaller stock

Gets a bit sticky late August, the newer one pad units are the best, with the older units double aspin pads and set them on low. Drain the water down once a week or by the end of the season it will be full of costic water and calcified. Unless it is one of the all plastic units dont forget to put in a sacrifitial anode. Whe never had an ac growing up, we had a solor hotwater heater, a wood stove and a swamp (evaporative) cooler in an all electric home. Dad worked for APS (the electric co.) they audited him 3 times, then they called him in to the head office to explane how he was "stealing" power. He wasn't, lol just a conservationist at heart. They now have duel systems for your home now, with springloades atic vents and automatic controles to swich from AC to Evaporative for your home. With a 6-8 month cooling season it dosnt take long to make your investment back. The neweest sustems even use the cooler to precool the evaperator for the ac. But it certainly can make a shop bareable in the summer. Just dont try to work under an uninsulated roof, the sun heats it up to 140+ and it radiates down on you. 116 in the shade is one thing, 130 is another thing entirely. If you build a shop, Tucson has a good rep for working with alternitive building, adobe is standard material, tires, cordwood, straw bailes, beercans etc are old hat. Flat rooves with an 1 1/2 of white stone over the membrain or 4-6" of adobe is pretty standard too. Shade, airflow, water (lay off the beer and gatoraid) and a reasnable work rate are key. 10 min breaks every hour are also a good idea. The simple fact is if some ol'boy can roof in an AZ summer, you can safely forge. I do recomend long sleaves, long pants, a bandana and a good straw if you work outside, the hat is optinal inside ;-) Lastly, unless your neighbors or prone to complain, adopt the siesta schedule. Do any heavy, hot work in the early AM, seek the shade from noon to 6 (no daylight savings time, so get up early in the summer, say 5:30) then get back at it at dusk. Siesta isn't "nap" as much as, "only gringos and mad dogs are out in the noon day sun" or "hid from the heat of the day" lol.

Grew up in Cave Creek, a swampcooler and an insulated or parisal roof dose the trick., shade, water airflow and a sensible pace of work

Not just liability but offen they have off shore contracts

Move up to a more solid piece of steel, but otherwise your other project looks very nice, if not a little to cleanly executed for such a "tustic" peice.

Will, Glenn askes that we watch the more colorful language, if you dont want your kid to use it, we shouldnt use it here As to comon sense, if peaple exercised comonsense we wouldn't have the Darwin Awards to enjoy every year.

Old school trick is ammonia laundry liquid in a squirt gun. Personally I just turn Little Miss loose on them. A 1100# Appaloosa who likes chasing dogs is a thing to behold, lol.

One of the members uses impact sockets on square stock as interchangeable bending die. Impact extensions are blued not plated and I would think that the larger ones would make nice interchangeable tooling for light work

Really better if you just back up and build a 12" pipe for your forge, dont plumb in your wood stove as it will still mess things up. You may consider a damper and make up air if you live in cold contry. Make up air is never a bad idea for a woodstove either, better to pull in temperd air from a controled sorce than cold air from anywar it can find a way in.

Been there SLS, lol. 110, -14, rain, snow, sleet, ice and gusts up to 60mph. Just another day in Oklahoma.. For those of you forging under a fly or un insulated roof move outside with a wide brimmed hat and a thin long sleeved shirt on hot days! Radiant heat can add 20-40 deg. And lay off the gator aid. Water, water and more water. A handful if chips (crisps for you all across the pond) will be just fine for electrolytes. For you in the cold, get out of the wind, and switch to wood/charcoal put yourself between the windbreak and the forge so a bit of the heat is reflected on your backside, wool underclothes are your friend, lol. And don't forget the water and a hat! Thunderstorms?! With a 3# chunk of steel held overhead on a stick? Nope I'm crazy not stupid.

In marine applications wood stoves are placed within 2" of wood walls. Bright aluminum sheet reflects 99.something percent of radiant heat. Aluminum oxide reflects 98. Something percent. Boats place it on 1/2" stand offs as stove surrounds. Bright tin or galvi sheet works fin at further distances. Most gas forges don't get that hot except in the exhaust blast The info on aluminum comes from a US army study on tentage, I think the decimal was .8 but of that I am not 100%

A forge is an open hearth, or in other words a type of fireplace. A wood stove is a different kind of heating appliance a fire place draws a lot of air to insure the smoke makes it up the flue, wile the stove, being enclosed draws less air.

We use caps for pipe fence (oilfeild and schedual 40)

Thats Ok Steve, it has certainly stimulated some interesting conversation

That, youngman is truly old school smithing. Be proud of your skills, i'm certainly proud to share this small bit of electronic real estate with you.

Creativity is one thing, teaching are children that they are too stupid to read and write is another. As to hold downs, maybe the anvil on the ground has its advantages, lol. We hay have to open a thread as to what foot wear is best to hold stock with...

"Ubonics" the idea was to "dummy" up english to improve inercity kids english grades. Didn't work and the district took a different tact (better teaching and higher expectations insted of lower) but the news paper and other publishing industry bought in to it. Just look at the headlines on your local paper. What grade would you have gotten in school? One shure way to tell is to look for "gray" as aposed to grey. My spelling sucks, but i take offence to dumming up our language.

It is a chalange to get a thought from your head (where we use a lot of mental "short hand") out of your mouth, threw their ears into their head. When its the written word it is no better, as there is now more dialects of english, including the compleatly idiotic stuff invented by boston schools that our (american) print midia has adopted)

Sinking feeling?

Sugjesting a new catagory in the forge section would be a good joke, if we didnt have so many sink to forge threads, lol.

First bit of advice, do a search for sink forges, forges from sinks etc. there was just such a thread last week. That said, i use an old bathtub for an outside fire place and grill, the coating will flake off if it isnt protected, but in this case, by the time you have built up the bottom of the sink to a resnable deapth it wont be a concern. I am assuming you are building a bottom blast forge for coal, you need to build up the botrom to 3-4" from the rim, just "cement" a 2" pipe inplace, so a 2" pipe cap will be at the desired hight (drill a 3/4" hole in the center) and form a bowl around the pipe so it is bellow pipe cap. The cap will shed the clinker and form a "donut" below the fire zone. As to "cement" just use sand and clay (10-15 percent clay) cement will breakdown. Most dirt that makes mudpies will work. Clinker sticks to fire brick, so unless its gas or charcoal stay away from fire brick. As to charcoal, make your pipe cap 5-6" shy of the top. To make it a combo, make the stand pipe interchangible. And on the subject of bathtubs, the overflow is about right for a side blast. So if you want a quick, dirty forge just block up an old castiron or stamped steel tub (most old mobile homes) and fill it with dirt, and dig out your "ground forge"

Forge welding steel over the axe edge iwas pretty standard practice for "resteeling" an axe