SK-Buckwheat

I use borax, sometimes with iron filings in it. i heard if you mix boric acid (roach killer) with the borax you get an extra aggresive mix, A few years ago I heard Jim Hrisoulas refer to a mix that he would not divulge as it eats refractory at an extremely high rate and used dangerous chemicals.

I always wear one when I am working at with hot stuff. That hide takes a lot more heat than mine will. Mine has sleeves, collar down to my knees.

I have used my Red Ram bib apron for years.

To answer your original question it is about 4140 or slightly better. Yes it can contain nasty crap, but I have welded lots of old well casing and forged sucker rods before also. For forging I pick the ones that are better looking and not pitted. I have made so hard that none of my drill bits would touch it. Just my 2 cents worth.

Also it would probably be easier for you to find a broken leaf spring from a semi truck or trailer, most of the new leaf springs on them are near 1" thick at the center of the spring and near 4" wide. Should make a killer hot cut too.

ok thanks everyone...sk how did you make the hot cutter?

Forge lighting is actually pretty darn easy.
Just go to my Youtube page and pick that video, easier to see it done than explain it. Hope the link works.


YouTube - cussedcreekforge's Channel

You got the basic idea of how I do it now. I do get them all stretched to the thickness I want on the anvil, and then there is a concave shape to all the disks. But then I do put them all onto the stem drive them down with a hollow punch and then rivet them down. Then, yes I heat & pull all the petals up into position from the center outward with a pair of small scrolling tongs I made. I was pleased with the end result. With everything all accounted for, from cutting out the disks to the end when all the engraving was done on the base of that one pictured it was somewhere around 15 hours work....maybe I am just really slow.

Also what would work real good that I have had luck with it get your hands on a old McPherson strut or a shock absorber from a vehicle and use the shaft from that. It is good hard steel and I found it makes good punches and chisels. With them I temper to a straw colour. That has worked well for me so far. Welcome to the forum.

The petals are 16 gauge sheet. 5 disks starting at 5" down to 4" I believe it was. Cut 5 petals into each one. Square your stem and square punch the holes in the disks, but position them so the petals will offset over each other. Then heat the disks and draw the petals wider so that they will overlap each other so that they can be brought up in a clockwise rotation. Draw the ends out thin so they are more lifelike too. Put them all on the stem with the petals offset half of their width from the one on top of it Then start in the center and start pulling up the petals and forming the center like normal. Once you are happy with the look of it, start heating the tips of the petals and roll them down a bit. All the heats I done were in the forge. I like to use traditional methods when all possible. The disks were cut out with the plasma though. But that is all. I hope I helped you some here, if you need more clarification just let me know and I will be glad to try and help more.

I like how spiraling your rose pattern is. Will you do me a favor and give me an explanation or a walk through on the process you use or you've created?

Welding really thin stock can be difficult. Getting it to the anvil while it's still at welding heat may be impossible. Sooooo, take the anvil to the forge. Not the "big" anvil, you don't need a large anvil, this is thin stock. Right?

So, how about a sledge hammer head? Perhaps just any old piece of steel that weighs 10-20 x the weight of the stock you're welding. That way you can have the "anvil" (Hey, forget those quote marks, it IS an anvil!) right on the forge table or right in front of your gasser so you lose almost zero heat between fire and anvil.

My Mother and Sister moved to Nampa, just outside Boise about 8 months ago and Mother was really taken with one of the local roads. Were Deb and I thinking of moving to the area we'd have to look REALLY hard to find a suitable place on it so I could name my forge after the road.

How does, "Chicken Dinner Forge" sound? Darned near irresistible isn't it?

Frosty

Thanks to Frosty about the opinion that you voiced about it. I appreciate it. I kinda liked that name for my little forge business too. We actually have a little creek that runs just past our place here and it is Cussed Creek. And I thought it was quite fitting....there is some cussing going on out in the shop from time to time:D

Yeah you are right Frosty, it was worth a little smoochin alright. That was my first rose I made, I think it turned out pretty fair. I wanted all forge welds, but I couldn't do it. I had to go start up my welder and hook up the wire feeder. I got one leaf forge welded on really nice with the help of my daughter being my striker. But the base and top leaf I couldn't get those. Part of it I think was the awkward spots I was trying to get into to do them. I did have all of them sticking in the forge, but I just was not able to get them out of the forge and onto the anvil fast enough to weld. They lost welding temperature fast because they were fairly thin material. The whole thing standing on it's base is about 16" high I believe and the rose itself is about 4 1/2" in diameter.

This was a Valentines' Day project for my wife.

Welcome to the forum. Good to have new people here, hope you enjoy your visits here.

Not trying to sound too stupid here but, I have a rather large vice that has a decent sized flat spot on the back of it. Would it be o.k. to use that for an anvil?

Very good looking rose there Mike. I have planned to try one of them today actually. Probably won't be as good as yours though. Hope the wife just doesn't beat me with it. :-)

What do ya mean it came out alright? It looks Great.

Wish I could get mine to turn out that way. Could be the fact I'm using stainless and trying to weld it to mild using a flux core that won't hold to stainless very well.

Those tables are incredible, great job.

Thanks for telling me where your photos were. Looks like you got things going there. Personally I would have tried to put the forge in near the middle of that side of your shop because of that long material issue. My shop is about 16 1/2 feet wide inside and the forge is in the middle of it. That seems to work out pretty good so far. I agree with shorting your blower pipe there too. My blower is on a stand with a flexible duct so if I have something weird shaped and it needs to be moved a little bit to the side or whatever I can. Also if you plan on putting a heater in your shop I would suggest making a blocker plate to put over the opening on your hood. Because if you are not needing your forge right away when you are out there, or just trying to get it warmed up inside to work, your heat will get sucked up and out the forge chimney I found. All you need to make it out of is some light gauge tin. I will try to get my daughter to do some photos this Sunday and I will post them for you to check out. And you do need a poker or two too. That was the first thing I made I think. I am going to be putting a high velocity stack cap on my forge chimney this spring too, it will increase the draw on the chimney, so that bugger should almost suck a basketball up it then. Good going!

Thanks for the pics Ian, I wish i had yours and buckwheats before starting..

I fired it today and man that super sucker hood sucks the smoke like a clock, even right on startup and if i dont crank the blower for 5 minutes it still works like a charm.
Tomorrow im building a heavy duty workbench out of wood to mount my post vise and a place to work.

Hey Element, did you snitch your brother's camera yet? Want to check out what you have been up too there.

I should be posting some more photos of my recent projects up here in the next couple days.

Thanks Adrian:-)

Well, mainly just with the dustpan part of it
I have a handle ready...but for the actual shovel, I was using a small bit of sheet metal...It got very wrinkled (which I was kind of expecting) and I just couldn't get the wrinkles out evenly afterwards. I believe the term is "shrinking" Although I have never done it before.
How did you make yours ?

Very nice !! I recently tried a similar style of dustpan...it didn't turn out so good...