Ramsberg

If it is a real combustion(I think that we can safely say it is edited regardless of what it is) it appears to me to be an oxygen/acetylene explosion or some mixture of a combustable gas and pure oxygen.

Caleb Ramsby

Fantastic, the combination of materials and techniques really makes it stand out!

I like how from bottom to top it gets lighter, really well proportioned too.

The only criticism that I can think of is that I like three legs for items like that over four legs, but that is as much a matter of choice then anything else.

Caleb Ramsby

What has me a bit perplexed is that somehow the arm got up through the middle of the bridge but didn't break completely through the side that it was coming from!

The top front of the cab appears to have been riped up, so this indicates to me that when the back hoe struck the bridge it tilted back and started to slide under the bridge with the arm going more horizontal. Then this lifted up the cab enough to strike the underside of the bridge which produced a see-saw action which shot the arm up through the center of the bridge.

Something like that must have happened since the upper part of the bridge on both sides are intact, but the arm is sticking up through the bridge higher then them, very odd.

As to the calculation, frankly I don't think that the back hoe is capable of completely cutting through the bridge, the arm acting as a lever would pivot the cab up regardless of how fast it was traveling and what happened is what would happen. I hardly see a mark on the bottom of the walkway on the side that it entered from.

Cool stuff, thanks for bringing it up.

Caleb Ramsby

Hey Swiftden,

A horn isn't required, in fact few of the early anvils had one, they used a stake horn.

My first "anvil" was a lot like what you have, just do the scrolls over the edge of the anvil striking towards yourself or with the work piece held at an angle to the top of the anvil. Much easier to figure out at the anvil then writing about it.

I would be tempted to cut/grind 2" or so of your anvil face into a 1/2" radiis bottom fuller for quicker drawing out.

Caleb Ramsby

Freeman,

You may want to try cutting a piece of it off with a hacksaw. If it has a coating then you should be able to see a thin shell on the outside of the shoe.

You could also ask the person that you got them from what type of shoes they are. Most people are pretty particular as to what type of shoes go on their horse.

Caleb Ramsby

Bow tongs. . . the most diabolical tongs in the universe!

I am curious about the leverage relationship also, so I took some measurements off of the computer screen and deduced some ratios.

For the nut cracker tongs from the tip of the handle end to the fulcrum of the long lever is 8 1/2" and from the fulcrum to the joint input for the second lever it is 1 1/4" which gives a ratio of 6.8 to 1.

For the second lever from the input point to the fulcrum it is 2 1/4" and from the fulcrum to the middle of the jaws it is 1 1/4" which is a ratio of 1.5 to 1.

Just like gears one multiplies the ratios so that is 6.8 times 1.5 which gives an overall ratio of 10.2 to 1.

The standard tongs are just about 10" from the tip of the handles to the fulcrum and 1" from the fulcrum to the center of the jaws which is a ratio of 10 to 1.

So from that rather rough analysis and with the input at the handles tip, the leverage of the two tongs are just about dead equal, then of course there is the added friction of the second joint of the nut cracker tongs.

Which goes very much along with your more practical grip experiment.

I can see shiny spots where it appears the tongs are held when in use but don't know exactly where the center of the hand is when each of the pairs are in use.

MacBruce, if you used where the center of your hand is in lue of the tip of the handle such as I did and then measured the various lengths to the fulcrums(joints) then we would know very precisely what the leverage relationships are.

Very neat tongs, I have never seen anything like them before!

One other experiment that you could try is to crush a bit of wood that fits nicely in the jaws of the tongs and see with the same grip which one digs deeper into the wood.

Caleb Ramsby

Hey Meeekyh,

To me the biggest aspect to blacksmithing history is that the blacksmith provided tools for darn near every other trade out there.

The other great thing to me about blacksmithing is how beautifull a tool can be made to be. I really like to make prybars that have ornamental aspects to them. One of my favorites is a one ended prybar with only a mild curve on the prying end and a good looking twisted handle end. I came up with the idea when I was making tongs for a place that forged aluminum bits in closed dies, the bits would get stuck in them and I figured that a dedicated one ended pry bar would do the trick, the worker wanted it but the boss didn't see the point. . . oh well.

What if you made a good looking prybar out of say 3/8" stock and then when finished let them use the prybar to tilt up one side of the BIG HEAVY anvil. Maybe a bit larger stock if you have time to forge it out inbetween the lecture.

Caleb Ramsby

Hey Shop Teacher,

One option is to build a firepot bottom blast type forge with a hand cranked fan or motor driven fan as a blower.

The firepot would be shaped like a pyramid with the top choped off and used upside down.

The dimensions for the large top should have sides 10" long, the bottom sides 3" to 4" long and the depth 4". It is pretty easy to draw one up and produce templates for various perspective drawings of the firepot. I have made them out of metal as thin as 1/8", although 1/4" to 1/2" thick metal will stand up for much longer. In your case though it may be adventageous to make it out of thin metal that will be used up after one class has graduated from your shop so then the next class would learn how to make one to replace the old one!

The grate can be made from anything ranging from 1/4" round stock to 1/2" round stock, it just needs to keep too much material from falling down through the grate, or one can drill a bunch of 1/4" to 1/2" holes in a sheet of metal to use as a grate. One can also make a clinker breaker, which is a bit of steel on a rod which acts as a grate to keep the fuel from falling though the bottom of the firepot and can rotate to break up the clinkers. Clinkers are composed of the silica, ash and other bits left after the coal burns and forms into a glass like substance which can clog the grate, these can be picked out with a fire iron, no problem.

For the air delivery I would great suggest that you get a copy of "How to Design and Build Centrigugal Fans for teh Home Shop" by David Gingery from http://www.lindsaybks.com/ . That would be a nice project for the kids in your class. They also have a booklet which has plans for a full sized portable forge which looks to be exactly what you are after, here is the link, http://www.lindsaybks.com/bks8/meador/index.html

For the fans output I would suggest that it be able to produce at least 5" of water pressure and at that back pressure move at least 12 cubic feet of air per minute. For a hand cranked blower the alrger and more powerfull it is the better, then just turn it slower. A system of belts, gears or sprockets and chains can convert a slow hand crank to the thousands of rpm that the fan requires, yet another good project for the young metal workers!

As to the fuel equation, charcoal, that is true charcoal made from solid wood, not the briquette grill stuff, is the "traditional" fuel and it works very well but requires a deeper firepot, which can be acheived by stacking firebricks up around the firepot to increase its usefull depth. The charcoal will send off "fire fleas" which are little sparky bits that will try and leap into your arms, it also burns up fast. Charcoal can be made with a variety of cooking schemes, I don't know how your school would look upon your producing charcoal there, but it could be an option with all of your scrap wood. Good smithing coal can be hard to come by but I believe that there is a healthy ABANA chapter up in Oregon where you are and they would probably be very happy to point you to a blacksmithing coal supplier in your area.

If you have any other questions don't hesitate to ask them, that is what this place is for!

Caleb Ramsby

Willis, would you post a photo of the 1700's hair blocked hair style that you use.

How about a small scale model of the bridge to get used to the material and commemorate where it came from?

Caleb Ramsby

I think Thomas is right.

If the blower is getting that hot something is wrong. Those things would never have sold if the belts burnt up what quick!

From the belt it looks like you were right too, the blower is getting really hot, not good! Those bearings should be oiled and it if it hot enough to burn leather no oil is going to survive that!

The air going through the blower keeps them cool on all other forges, even ones with that short of a run to the firepot. Like Thomas said, the fuel must be dropping into the feed pipe between the blower and the firepot. Even just a few bits of round stock welded together will work as a grate if you don't have anything else, other wise a sheet of metal with holes or the rotating clinker breaker will work to keep the fuel where it belongs.

Caleb Ramsby

I have always been fascinated by how the definition of a given word changes over time.

One hundred years ago if I said that I saw a gay man conducting a queer experiment last night. Back then, said sentance would meen that I saw a happy man conducting an odd experiment.

Now in the days of wikipedia. . . well here is wikipedia's definition of queer, "Queer is an umbrella term for sexual minorities that are not heterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary."

With the specilization that is occuring in the workplace now it doesn't suprise me at all that the general definition of heat treating has been droped for a much more specific one by those who practice metallurgy.

From the definition that Frank found, "By common usage, however, the term has become restricted. . . " and that was back in 1933!

Caleb Ramsby

Hmmm, what we have here is a case of the answer becoming the question!

Caleb Ramsby

Silence is golden. . . until it is tarnished by a fart!

*****************************

You are not what you were,

You are not what you have been,

You were nor what you are,

You are who you shall become.

*****************************

Both quotes are mine, the first a modified classic of course, the second original.

Caleb Ramsby

Hey Thingmaker,

Same thing in my 1948 ASM (American Society for Metals) Metals Handbook, it goes way deep into the heat treatment of basically every metal known at the time but still doens't have a clear cut definition of "heat treating" either. Where it starts to talk about heat treating in general it just leaps into specific definitions and doesn't really have "A" general definition.

I think that what we are talking about are really two different things.

One being, "treating something with heat", which would be anytime that something was "treated" with "heat" to produce a desired result.

The other is changing the internal structure of the steel with heat, which from my perspective seems to be a very narrow definition of "treating steel with heat".

So Frank. . . what are you up to?

Caleb Ramsby

Now how about heating the steel to burn on oil or brush on brass for a finish. If "heat treatment" is defined by heating the metal to give it a require property. . . well the required property there would be for it to be hot! HAha!
I think that there is a big riff here between the very techinical focused aspects of metallurgy and general broad metal work definitions.

That definition I posted was from the 40's and made a distinction between a general(metal working) definition and a more specific(metallurgy) one.

Do any of you metallgury guys have a modern technical dictionary and if so, would you post the definition(s) of heat treatment here?

Caleb Ramsby

My vote is YES!

I had this one guys ask me why blacksmiths heated the metal to forge it. At first I thought that it was the stupidest question that I had ever heard. . . but the more I thought about it the more I realized that most people wouldn't realize that heating the metal up that hot makes it that soft. One thing I like to do to show people what heat will do is to have them try to bend a long 1/2" square bit of steel, then heat up the middle of it, put it in a vice and have them try again. They are usually astonished by how easy it is to bend.

A quote from the description that Ric found, "A process where solid steel or components manufactured from steel are subject to treatment by heating to obtain required properties, e.g. softening, normalising, stress relieving, hardening. Heating for the purpose of hot-working as in the case of rolling or forging is excluded from this definition. "

In that quote it states one form of treatment as softening, so thusly one would have to treat the steel with heat prior to forging it!

OK, this is the definition from my 1942 Chambers's Technical Dictionary:

"Heat Treatment. Generally any heating operation performed on a solid metal; e.g. heating for hot-working, or annealing after coldworking. Particularly, the thermal treatment of steel by normalising, hardening, tempering, etc.; used also in connexion with aluminium and other precipitation-hardening alloys."

So I supose that one could say that the heating of the steel prior to forging it, for forging it is a heat treatment operation, but maybe not the actual forging of it.

Inless one imparted enough energy into the forging that it was re-heated. . . then that could be considered heat treatment! HA!

Caleb Ramsby

Hey Bill,

Since you are considering everything, have you looked into cordwood walls?

They are very fireproof, cheap and act as their own insulation! They also defenitally have a very old timey look to them

I havn't had the chance to make a building with this technique as of yet, but hopefully I will some day.

Here are a few links to some more information about this very old building technique.

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=cordwood+walls&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&sa=X&ei=r-91TcydJJSFtgfIt8WpBg&ved=0CDEQsAQ

http://www.daycreek.com/dc/html/dc_cordwood_masonry.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordwood_construction

Note that they have also been made in very wet areas and they hold up fine there, as long as the ends of the wood are NOT treated! The wood must be able to breathe!

Caleb Ramsby

Hey Dave,

Sorry to hear about the problems encountered. Sometimes we can be our own worst enemy!

Say, I checked out your blog to see if you had any photos of the damages valve bit and saw your wheel barrel project.

A few years ago I replaced the handles for a 20 some year old fiberglass, heavy duty wheel barrel. They didn't sell the handles by them selves(although they were seperate in the store) so I made my own like you guys did.

What I am getting at is that I used my drawknife to form the handles from rectangular wood to a smooth surface. To make it really smooth I used the drawknife as a scraper, didn't need to use any sandpaper. In total it took me around 5 minutes for each handle, if it even took me that long.

For making organic forms like handles it is very diffucult to beat a drawknife, when you get some time you may want to try your hand at making one.

Caleb Ramsby

Hey Brian,

Okey, thanks for the info.

I noticed that you gave it a few more wacks with the round punch in the center of the flower after the inital hit and the punchs in the pedels. This must be to spread the pedals out more after dishing them out?

How much does the angle of the segmenting cuts by the curved chisel have to do with the spread of the pedals?

By the angle I am talking about if you look at it from a side segmental view and going from the left to the center, the angle of the cut going from the bottom left of the flower to the upper center of the round bit in the middle. I hope that makes some sense.

He elaborated. . . The curved chisel cut would be deeper on the outside and shallower towards the center mound, which seems like it would help the spread a bit.

Maybe a rather shallow cupping strike in the center after forming it to hex, then using a straight chisel held at an angle(down at the edge and up in the center) to segment the pedals, then a harder cuping strike in the center to spead the flowers.

Will have to give it a try when I get around a shop again!

Say, an idea for you, take it or leave it, ever thought of making a medusa head? If you started with larger stock and made the center of the flower into a simple face, then draw out the "pedals" into snakes, probably have to bend them 90 degrees to be able to draw them out. . . well you can easily come up with your own ideas of how to accomplish the drawing out process. That would be wild!

Caleb Ramsby

Hey Brian,

Ok, so the main reason that you do it that way is that you like the cross marks in the center of the design. Sorry, didn't meen to anything by it, different people like different things.

Caleb Ramsby

Hey Brian and Lyle,

Thanks for sharing the experiences via photos with us! Very enjoyable as always.

I have a question about the flower.

Is there a reasont that you don't use the center punch(which mounds the center of the flower) before you make the segmenting chisel cuts?

It seems that way you could make the segment cuts with the chisel to the center circle that is formed by the punch without marring the center of the flower like is done the other way around.

Caleb Ramsby

Hey SilkHope,

That was a neat episode, I enjoyed watching it.

I have a question about laying out the sand and blocks.

Did you compact the sand prior to laying the blocks or just make it level?

DId you have to compact the blocks after they were layed or just let the treading upon it do the deed?

Caleb Ramsby

Does anyone know if he started blacksmithing so that he could make that axe?

Thanks for posting this Brian, he was a man after my own heart.

Caleb Ramsby