lefthand forge

Hi, hope you don't mind a few random thoughts from someone in the same boat with a bit of rigging experience. In my opinion there are several factors to consider. First is cost(which includes equipment,frequency of moving things, and setup/breakdown time). Second is available storage space for your lifting equipment. Third is experience/safety. Fourth is do you need to lift things strate up or just move them around on the floor. So a few suggestions from my perspective. If you can afford a forklift/tractor and have someplace to store it and feel that you will use it enough to justify tripping over it, then this is by far the best option as it is both versatile and quick allowing both vertical and horizontal movement. Next best would be to build a rolling Ibeam H frame crane w/a good! chain hoist or simular. This is also quick and gives you both horizontal an vertical movement at a greatly reduced price, SHouldn't cost more than a couple of hundred dollars to build + hoist if you scrounge, however you lose a lot of maneverability. So add a pallet jack to squeeze things into odd corners and you have a pretty winning combination. Next would be to scounge up some heavy wall pipe, and chain and make yourself a teepee lift+chainfall etc. and a pallet jack. again this will allow you to both lift things up and set them on a pallet jack to be moved around the shop. however it takes some time and skill to set it up each time you need to lift something, and you are severely limited to how high you can lift things. and last but not least everybodies favorite levers,rollers,and cribbage. essentially free,but slow,hard,and dangerous if you don't know what your doing. Don't get me wrong, I've moved whole building using this technique, but it is truelly terrifying to get a really large piece of equipment up into the air using levers and cribbage. Especially if it is something you just spent rather a lot of money on. Hope this helps John

Hi Ed. Rereading my post I'm afraid I may have come off sounding a bit snotty. I'm sorry I certainly didn't mean it to be. just not used to talking on a computer. As to the forge welding you are correct of course. What I was envisioning was wrapping or collaring the rods as discussed and then forge welding the whole mess together to gain mass then forging or grinding to shape like you would do a detail in the middle of a picket. If that made any sense? At any rate, I agree that next time it would be better to use large enough material for support, and to allow for some interesting manipulation of the metal. John

Hi John. I'm constantly amazed at the number of blacksmiths I meet in arvada!! Must be something in the air. So far I've had two neighbors who are smiths and one whose brother inlaw is a smith in wheatridge. Not to mention a world class knifemaker a couple of miles away, and what is probably the largest collection of power hammers in this part of the country just down the road. Anyway, As I said feel free to give me a call. So we can get together and B.S. Maybe hit some Iron. John

Well, if your dismissing welding them, or wrapping them. (which I personally wouldn't, but then I have to pay the bills doing this.) what about a forge weld or braze? Or I might forge a flatish ball or some other interesting shape, then drill 3 very slitely overlapping 1/4' holes in a cloverleaf pattern,heat the piece and slip the rods through the holes so that it would heat shrink onto the rods. BTW if you will make yourself a set tool with the profile of your collar ground, or forged into it you can finish your collars without marring them. Just make sure all the edges are well relieved. Hope this helps John

Hi,lugnut. Whereabouts in colorado are you? I'm in denver. Arvada specifically. feel free to give me a call at (303) 456-0102 after 5pm. There are several other options to pick up blacksmithing skills in colorado depending on where you are, and what your interested in. I am of course always happy to get together with another smith and share what meager knowledge I have also. John

I've actually worked with a couple of twisters made from pipe threaders. one was just a standard threader, I believe it would twist up to about 3/4 solid square if I remember correctly.The otherone had an additional gear reducer mated to it and would twist a bit heavier material, and was easier to control as it was really slow. Both were mounted to one end ofa fairly heavy I beam with a sliding plate on the other end to adjust the length of the twist. Sort of like a tailstock on a lathe. Hope this helps John

I showed up to the welding shop one morning when I was in college to find a merry little blaze from a couple of the guys throwing linseed soaked rags down after finishing a wooden trailer bed. John

Julian, unless I miss my guess Tyler meant that the fellow " Arc welds" the edges before putting the billet in the forge, so no air can enter. But I could be wrong. Hope this helps John

Hi woodtick. annealed or not an arc welder or forge wont care. As Chris Pook said heat to dull red and weld a porter bar on. By the way try to make sure that the material is nice and flat on the anvil when you hit it or the leverage created will tear your weld apart pretty quick no matter how good it was. If you have access to a grinder of some kind you might consider spark testing your material before wasting a lot of time forging down a block that size by hand. Also don't forget to leave yourself enough extra material to do some quench testing before trying to heat treat a blade of mystery steel. Hope this helps John

HI, I agree with Swamp Fox more or less. Instead of spending a bunch of time trying to fix the jaws, I would fabricate myself several sets of jaw covers. say one parallel steel set, one bronze set so you don't marr delicate work,and a couple with different sized holes in both round and square. Hope this helps John

Rick. Check dover press. I belive they are the ones who carry a whole line of books like that. Hope this helps John

Hi Rick. For me, one of the best ways I've found to train myself to think creatively is to take a particular technique and sketch all the variations of it I can think of even the really weird stuff I don't think I can do, or don't think will actually work. This does three things for me, It narrows down my focus from trying to create a whole masterpiece in one bite,It forces me to visualize in 3D what I'm trying to do, and it hopefully increases my nonexistant drawing skills through sheer bloodyminded practice. I also read lots of books on design, color, art. Whatever I think I can translate to my medium. Not because I use all of it, or even agree with a lot of it. But because it's interesting to see what other people think art is. P.S. This was a technique I read about in one of the blacksmithing books. Not my own Idea. Hope this helps John

Hi, I suggest you drill a round 1/2 inch hole, then use a jigsaw w/a fine metal cutting blade to make the corners. I'ts faster than the file (which was going to be my other suggestion). The mandrel and cold chisel idea would also work, But I don"t think I would drill a hole, or make a corner chisel. Just use a one inch strait cold chisel and four cuts. Hope this helps John :)

Evening All. I like to use lead cane "stained glass supply" for both measuring. and drawing scrolls. But personally I usually find it is easier and more accurate to grab say a four foot piece of the intended stock, forge the scroll I want cut it off and measure the remainder, subtract that from four feet and you have the length of materiel for your scroll fancy end and all. Plus a template that you you can't possibly burn or smudge out. For S scrolls forge each end seperate rotate them till they look good together match mark them, measure and subtract each piece and then ad your lengths together for the whole scroll. For C scrolls, you just do one half, and double the number. I know everyone else probably does this also, but I didn't see anyone mention it so I thought I would. Johnny :)

Evening. If your looking to build a simple effective tumbler, Then scrounge up an electric treadmill." I suggest looking on craigslist.com" . which will give you a ready made drive system with a great speed control. A couple of 30 gallon barrels laid on their side on the walking belt w/ vertical rods welded or clamped to the frame to hold them in place and keep them from rolling off and you are in buisiness! If you need a longer container for your fireplace sets, I suggest large diameter Pvc pipe W/possibly some second hand store roller blade wheels as coster rollers on either side of the tube. Hope this helps Johnny :)