steveguilmette

I wound up flipping over the bricks... Seemed easy enough. Wound up relining the roof too. I used some refractory mortar (sairmix 7) on top of kaowool for the roof because that's what I had laying around. Seems to be working well so far....

Greetings, My gas forge has a firebrick floor, and after what is now 4 months of solid 10-12 hrs a week use, the floor is covered in a sludge of scale that becomes molten when operating and sticks to my work like thick honey. My only thought is to forge up something like a small garden hoe and get it hot and scrape it out. Not expecting that to work. Anybody have any suggestions for dealing with this or how to prevent it? Thanks, Steve

With the proper fits, these joints can transmit a large amount of torque as well. When runout is critical, shrink fit tool holders are often used to hold endmills and other tooling in CNC machining centers. It's somewhat analogous to putting something in a collet. Steve

I feel comfortable calling myself an Amateur Blacksmith. I think it serves as a fairly universal disclaimer as well as concedes to my much more experienced peers that I understand my seniority. That said, if I made a living doing it, I would consider myself a blacksmith, by trade. Should I take courses, apprenticeship, etc, I assume it would come with some kind of prefix. Similar to "Professional Engineer" or "Licensed Electrician", or "Journeyman Blacksmith". Without some kind of sanctioning body to bestow such a prefix upon me, I would never feel right calling myself such. Regardless, personally I don't put much weight behind such standards or earned prefixes beyond the fact that the possessor of such completed whatever was required of him/her to receive it. Almost universally, to earn any degree or prefix of any kind one must do specifically what they are told to by their teachers and success is nearly a guarantee. Performing a learned task or say, calculating a learned set of equations, speaks volumes about what you can do when given direction, but nothing about what you can do on your own. For the most part all any prefix or suffix does is tell potential clients, customers, and employers that should you choose to be a good worker, you can perform well as part of their team. "You can send a man to college, but you cannot make him think" Should I have the means or time or opportunity to pursue any formal education in blacksmithing, I would jump at the chance, primarily for the education. The titles themselves will mean little to the people I'd like to work with or for, I'd still have to put up or shut up. What does speak volumes about somebody is the caliber of their work, but again, this is subjective. In the end the only earthly judge who matters is the one signing the front of your check, be that your employer, customer, or client. All that said, there are a few very popular members of the smithing community who personally stick out to me as people who will have had a great impact on the craft and will continue to have a large impact even after they are done, and I don't know their official titles or prefixes or even how they all make their livings, and they range in age from not legal to drive in some states to legal to retire twice anywhere, and what makes them special is not their work (while it is often stunning), but their teachings. Without them, I wouldn't have even known where to start. Steve

I find myself much more productive if I have a plan first. Typically I'll draw something in chalk on the table or on the floor. I usually will deviate to accommodate happy accidents or design changes along the way. I'm a mechanical engineer for a living so I'm often tempted to make CAD models first but when I have it feels like a waste of time. It's fairly complicated to model even simple forgings and the details I'm after (mainly what material amount to start with) don't read well from CAD, as we're redistributing metal, not removing or adding (for the most part). That said, scrolls and hooks I will typically mock up from aluminum armature wire ahead of time to figure out how long of a piece I will need. It bends cold (until it work hardens) and unbends just as easily. I highly recommend this. I will use about 24" of it a month, just bending and re-bending the same pieces. Steve

Hi All, Sorry for so long to post these, I rarely get onto a desktop computer and I can't figure out how to link the images from my mobile phone. Anyway, I had to make a pretty long/weird rivet set to get in past the wide scroll end and get on the rivet. It worked, but I didn't leave myself much room to decorate the strap ends, and I decided they would take away from the overall look of the pieces. I do have a picture of my finished mock-up with the strap however. I decided to just go with drilling and countersinking the backplate and then plug welding. It worked extremely well. I've also attached a picture of the unpainted finished bracket and then the two of them installed. They are holding IKEA lanterns until I can make some sconces for them.

I started to make the straps tonight, I made quite a few extra to practice riveting. Here's some pictures of the jig I made and the process. I could do about two per heat. Basically after getting it started by driving the 3/8 rod into the hot stock, I took a piece of flat bar scrap and drove it all down flush. The material for the straps is 3/4 x 1/8. The trough in the jig is 5/8 wide + two pieces of sandpaper I used to space it out for some clearance. I also welded 3/8 square stock on the bottom, the width of my anvil, so it would saddle on the anvil and not walk around. If I had stock to make a hardie shank, that would've worked better. Once I make the backplates and get everything welded up I'll give the straps a final tweak to fit exactly in place and rivet them down.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I really like the idea of strapping it down (chinobi), I think the look of that will fit really well with the piece, but with that in mind, to keep it from being able to spin I think I'll fillet weld it at the contact and then rivet on the strap to cover the weld, similar to collaring over an arc welded joint between two elements. John, the thread you posted above has been a huge help for me on various projects thus far. I'm actually going to attempt the hot cut decoration technique used on the top for the backplate here as well. Thanks everyone for the kind responses. I'm looking forward to learning as much as possible from this great community. Pictures of my progress to follow. Steve

Hi all. This is my first post, I'm pretty new to blacksmithing, I've been at it about six months. I need to join this scroll to this backplate (mockup shown). I would like to do this without a visible weld. Typically in other work I see these riveted but I am unable to get a long enough rivet into the joint. I suppose I could open it up, slip the rivet in, and then reform the scroll, is that typical? I also thought of punching a hole in the backplate and rosette welding the scroll from behind. The scroll is 3/8 round and the backplate is 3/16 thick. Any other suggestions/examples? Thanks a lot, Steve