Jason L

the grinder I cobbled together is belt drive with the motor mounted on a hinged board so that the weight of the motor provides tension. The motor is really old and I got it for $20 from a flea market with about 3 or 4 other motors. I think I have 3 total that ended up working out of the pile. I have no idea what HP it is or the RPMs and there's no way to mount it other than strap it down but it works and with the 4 step pully that came on it I can adjust the speed to some extent. I have it set up so I can take the belt grinder off and put a bench grinder mounted on a pillar block in it's place. That setup had a broken wheel and the remnants of a wire wheel on the other side on it. I replaced the stone but not the wire wheel yet. I have another sort of attachment that has a cutoff wheel on it and another wire wheel leftover but it has no way to mount it to anything. None of it is permanently mounted, I just use clamps to hold it to the bench and a couple of bolts or screws to mount whatever I need for that day. It works but it has higher RPMs than it began life with so it eats belts like crazy if I use too much pressure. So far I mostly use it for wood but I have used it for metal and it works way better than it did in as bought condition. That said, I'm in the process of designing a 2"x72" belt grinder and as soon as I get the gumption I'm going to start getting materials for it. I just have to settle on a design that I think will do most of what I want. Since you have most of the expensive parts already, I would think it wouldn't be too hard to slap something together. On that note, I notice that Walmart has belt grinder wheels at a pretty reasonable price, I just don't know how good they are. They seem to have good ratings so you might pick up an extra wheel and build one like Frosty is talking about. I know I'm going to put some thought into his suggestions when I get ready to put one together.

We're lucky with our slush I suppose. Usually if it's slushy the ground never got cold enough to freeze. The accumulation only occurs because the snow lands faster than it can melt. Where the tires contact the roads it heats the pavement more so it's just wet asphalt with no ice. With enough traffic, even the black ice melts away. At night all bets are off. The temps dive and there's less traffic and no solar radiation to warm anything so the ice remains till something changes. We rarely have temps low enough to freeze the ground. Maybe less a week or so total and that's not consecutive. Puddles freeze but most of the time the ice doesn't survive past morning. I can remember as a kid having brutal ice storms every winter. Trees covered by a thick layer of ice would just start snapping apart and dropping limbs all over the roads. We don't see that much anymore. We used to have tons of tornadoes too, but now we get one or two a year. Every house around here older than 40 years or so has a storm cellar somewhere on the property. I have one on my land but it's overgrown and flooded all the time. I've never had to use it. Our weather has become much milder since I was a kid. Thanks for the lesson Frosty. What you are talking about describes what I used to see perfectly. I just don't see it much anymore.

We only get snow once a year or so but our roads freeze more than that. There are signs that say bridges ice first but it's been my experience that everything freezes all at once, usually in a single night. Most of the time it thaws enough shortly after the sun comes up and warms the blacktop. I don't think I've ever seen ice on our interstates, but to be fair, I don't spend a lot of time on them even when it's not cold. One thing I've noticed over the years is that the ground doesn't "spew up" as much as it used to. That's where ice juts up from the ground in jagged little shards. I don't know what caused it but it was satisfying to stomp around crunching the ice. Haven't seen it much in 30 years or more.

It's funny about black ice, I can see it fine when driving but I can't see it at all when I'm walking. I used to ride back roads a lot looking for snakes, lizards, spiders, anything I could bring home and add to the collection and maybe breed and sell, so I guess I trained my eyes to look for the out of the ordinary on roads. Funny story, when I was in Texas visiting family, I was driving my truck with my mom when I spotted the tip of a Trans-Pecos rat snake's tail sliding into the grass. I jumped out of the truck while it was still moving and caught it right as it was going under a barbed wire fence. My mom didn't freak out or anything, she just slid over and took over, turning around and coming back for me. I was only going about 5 miles an hour or so since I was hunting at the time so it wasn't a dramatic thing, but funny nonetheless. That being said, I guess there's a difference in texture or maybe shading in black ice that makes it stand out to me. Not sure what it is but being color blind I learned a long time ago that I see the world differently than most people so I don't think much about it.

Could you resize the hole for a bigger screw maybe? What does that screw do anyway? I can't tell from the pictures.

You could try to fill the screw hole with epoxy or JB Weld or something similar and rethread it. That's just a temporary fix though. The vibration would probably loosen that up before long. I would just send it back for replacement or refund.

I'm familiar with dehydration Frosty. I used to stay dehydrated when I worked outside. My urine normally looked like Folgers then. Since I've gotten out of the outdoors game, I don't have that problem much anymore. The other day I hadn't been outside but maybe half an hour or so. I had just finished my coffee. It's become a habit for me to take my coffee out with me but that day I finished it before I went out so I kept reaching for it out of habit. I was sad that it was gone. Down here we only get snow about once a year and it usually doesn't stick. On the rare occasion that we have accumulation, I had to walk to work because I couldn't get my truck out of the driveway. If I could get it on the road it wouldn't have been a problem but my driveway is sloped down into my yard and it iced up. Usually when it snows here it melts, then turns to ice or, more often muddy sludge mixed with ice. Either way it's not fun to drive in. Our biggest problem is black ice. That stuff will put you in a ditch before you know what happened.

Irondragon, the funny thing is it wasn't even that hot. I wore a jacket when I went out but took it off shortly after. It's all good now though. Being in the south I'm used to much higher temps. I don't like them, but I'm used to them.

That's a great idea Irondragon. I may have to buy a claw hammer and make one of those for the wife. I have tons of hammers but only two claw hammers and one of those is the wife's. I can't actually remember the last time I used a claw hammer now that I think about it.

I've never had problems with the heat before but in the south it's always a possibility. I also keep subtitles on, it seems there are certain frequencies that I have trouble hearing and they make the music so loud and the voices so low that I simply can't understand what they are saying. After careful consideration, I've decided the best thing for me to do is not play with the dog while I'm forging. I never had a problem till I threw that tennis ball so that must be it. I'll just have to concentrate on forging more and throwing tennis balls to the dog less. It breaks my heart but I have to do the responsible thing. I've got to have priorities.

My mistake was not realizing my limitations earlier. Normally I'm not bothered by such things and accept them as just part of life. This one was a painful blow though. Even up until last year I worked out in the heat for 10 1/2 hours a day 6 days a week and have done it for 20 years. Heat never bothered me until the last few years or so. The cold is what killed me. Now it's the other way around. The cold doesn't bother me too much but the heat will take me out. But you are right JHCC, I did learn that it is getting exponentially worse year by year. Let it be a lesson to all those young 'uns who still think they are bulletproof. There will come a day when you're not eve BB proof. Prolong it as much as you can by taking care of your body now.

The other day I ordered some steel with the intent to work on my forge welding some. I figured with some 1095 and 15n20 when I was done with it, I might have a small billet of Damascus to show for it. I've done it before a few times but I figured since I have more time now I could go at a more easy pace and make a billet with a few more layers in it. Well, the day after I ordered it, I went out to try and make a set of box jaw tongs out of a scrap of 3/4" square stock. My mistake came when I let our little dog out. Our other dog passed away recently and since her little friend is gone we've overcompensated a tad. She's a Jack Russel so she has more energy than I ever had and she loves to chase a tennis ball. I started heating the metal, banging out tong halves and while the metal was heating (hand crank blower so no fear of overheating)I would throw the ball and she would chase it. It was a great day. At some point, I went to grab the ball, I had to be quick or she would grab it and run away, and I started feeling sick. I got nauseous, light headed and generally felt terrible all over. I went and sat down until I felt a little better but I felt rough the rest of the day. The worst part is, I have steel on the way that I know is labor intensive and now I'm afraid I wasted my time ordering it. I can still use it for something even if I don't make a billet out of it but still. I'm glad I didn't order as much as I started to now. It looks like I'm going to have to be more careful around the forge and take it easy till I know where my limit is. On the plus side, I did make the jaws, boss and cut off for the reigns, but they are only flat jaws at the moment. I did try welding some reigns on but I was shaking and a little foggy in the brain so I couldn't get the pieces together properly. I kept getting them misaligned, couldn't get to the anvil before the heat dropped too much, dropped one or both of the halves, etc. I wasn't very steady so I gave it a pass for the day. I think I'll just wait till it's colder to keep from overheating myself. Lesson learned.

Really clean work there. I really like the hood design. I'm sorry but my eyes aren't what they once were, does the hood sit directly over the fire or is it offset towards the back? Either way it's impressive, great work. If all of your work is that clean I expect there to be some mighty fine project come out of that. Can't wait to see some of them.

I've never used a Swedish hammer before but they appear to have a broad square head and a relatively thin pien. It seems like it would be fairly unbalanced to me, but Blacksmith's Depot says they are the most popular type so what do I know. What makes them so popular? Does your hammer have any identifying marks on it? A photo might help identify it, but there's no guarantee. I have to agree with what others have said about starting with cheap hammers. You can decide which style you like best without a huge outlay of funds, damaging one won't bring you to tears and likely as not it won't cause too much damage to other stuff in the event of a poorly placed strike. I don't think there is such a thing as a bad hammer, only bad application. Like Frosty said, there is a place for cheap hammers in the shop. Don't sweat where it came from.

Thanks for the advice Frosty. My hammer is probably lighter than what most people use, 800 grams. But it fits my hand and doesn't fatigue me as much and moves metal as well as a 3lb hammer that I have but rarely use. I've found that I can use it by feel pretty well so I know what you're talking about there. My body has been used in ways that it wasn't designed for many times over the years so wear and tear is pretty much my biggest obstacle. Looking down causes great discomfort so quickly that even something as simple as cutting up an onion in the kitchen has to be done in stages. Once I throw on some music and get into the groove at the anvil, I seem to not notice it till I stop to wait on a heat or something. I overdo it sometimes. I also really need to update my glasses. I have a hard time telling where I hit sometimes and often enough I have to pick up whatever I'm working on to get a better look. I hate being examined though and it causes me to procrastinate when I really shouldn't. I value my personal space more than eye doctors do so there's a bit of anxiety there. It's so bad that I put up with blood pressure in the 200's for many years before I finally had it looked at. The highest I've still got a record of is 236/143, a personal best! I didn't get it checked out till it was higher than that but by the time I got to the hospital it had dropped to 221/125. The doctors still say I'm healthy as a horse. Just a bit of advice to the younger folks who might come across this, never try to prove how strong or tough you are, only how smart you are. The things you do today will have to be paid for in the future. Try to make that bill as small as possible or your catchphrase will become "ustacould"

Wednesday I went out and bought some coal about an hour from my house. It was a rough ride and before it was over I was suffering. I won't be making many more of those runs. I rested and recovered for a couple days and today I went out and decided to light the forge and see how well I could manage. I tried to make a pair of tongs out of a piece of 3/4" rebar that somehow appeared in my scrap bucket. I have no memory of ever having seen it before and I have no idea where it came from, but I figured I'd give it a go and see if I could make a serviceable pair of tongs from it. I could not. I fought with it for awhile Thursday but couldn't manage to move the metal very well. This morning, I was feeling better so I cut off a piece of 3/4" coil spring and to my surprise, it moved fairly well. I probably didn't fare well Thursday due to lack of sleep and a fair amount of pain from working the night before and the ride to get the coal. I figured the one thing I've never had problems banging out was a knife and although I was loathe to do it, I decided that would be the focus of todays efforts. I found the metal moved relatively easily but my hammer control suffered due to physical limitations. I slowed down and tried really hard to concentrate on where and how my hammer was making contact and I think I made a little progress. Not my best work, but I'm happy that I didn't make another piece of scrap for the bucket. It's my first time trying to make a dagger style knife. Still have lots of work to do on it, mostly filing and sanding I think but I'm ok with what I've done so far. I left it in the forge and covered it with coal to let it cool down slowly and after a few hours, it was cool enough to touch the tang (blade is still uncomfortably warm). Hopefully it's soft enough to do the file work but I don't know. This is more a test to see what I can do and not how good I can do it. If I do finish it, I hope to do more projects that I would really like to do that aren't knives. For some reason, I find the idea of making knives repellant and I don't want to do it.

Look around the scrapyard for stuff as well. I got a deep freezer for $20 there last year. The wife wanted something to put ice water in for a morning dunk to help with circulation or something. It wasn't big enough for her to fully submerge and I never could get it to stop leaking so I tossed it. I wish I had saved the sheet metal skin from it now. I might could have fashioned a reasonable hood from that now that I think about it. At the time I wasn't thinking about a hood though.

Nice! I went to Tractor Supply for something the other day after I mentioned the metal drums and lo and behold, right in the front of the store they had some 5 gallon metal cans of something, probably oil of some sort. I think the price was around $125 or something. I couldn't bother to remember what it was because I was there to get something specific and the wife was with me. She is my lighthouse in troubled waters when distractions invade my space, not an easy thing to contend with.

Around here those drums are hard to come by but I know they're around. I live in an agricultural area so anything like that is kept and reused till it's powder. I used to sell molasses blocks for cattle which came in drums that looked like a 55 gallon drum that was only about 1 1/2 - 2 feet tall. Now they come in plastic tubs. They made great fire rings, grills, washtubs, planters, water troughs, feed troughs, etc. They had a million uses. I once made a forge for a guy out of a 55 gallon drum that I cut a hole in the top of and put a disk blade into it for the firepot just to show him it could be done. It worked great. Drums area as handy as a shirt pocket and around here they are hard to get in any size.

Check with old timers, farmers, roofers, etc. They sometimes hang on to old drums in the 30 gallon range that tar or other chemicals came in. If the top rusted out they might give you one. I've seen hoods made from 55 gallon drums. It looks like they were cut in half then cut on an angle towards the top to allow for plenty of working room. There's an older thread here about it, here---> It looks like a pretty good arrangement and I may copy it later if I ever get an inside to put it all in.

I would leave the front just like it is. Having it lower like that will allow you to run a smaller fire and position your work further down in the pot if you want. I ran charcoal for many years and the only problem I had was the fast rate at which it burned. It got real expensive, real quick. Having said that, like Frosty said, once the fire is going it will spread throughout so make sure all the wood surfaces are sufficiently fireproofed. Another thing to be careful of is the charcoal dust mixed with fire and air sends sparks flying everywhere so make sure to keep all combustibles clear of the forge. I'm not sure how much good your hood is going to be without a chimney to draw the air up and out. It may end up channeling all the smoke and sparks back towards you. I'd be careful with that arrangement. You may be better off without a hood at all. If you decide to keep it I would definitely look into adding a chimney.

Rub it down with Crisco. I heard a story about that once. It didn't involve a vice and the fellow seemed pretty unhappy about the result

The horseshoe thing looks like a cowboy hat stand. Being made from horseshoes, it would fit the theme. There are so many ways to make crosses that it seems that wouldn't be difficult. Just talk to the person and throw ideas at them and see what sticks. I would ask for better pictures and closeups of the joinery if they need to be exact copies. As far as the horseshoe thing, if it is a hat rack, it's best to leave it oriented the way it is. Over time gravity will deform a felt hat and reblocking a hat every few weeks can get expensive, fast. The forked nature of the top shoe cradles the hat in such a way that the crease sits neatly between the gap and gravity pulls down equally all around preventing deformation. Really the best way to store a high quality felt hat.

That's the one Irondragon. I knew one of you guys would remember. I remember lots of talk about metal fume fever and warnings galore. He taught me a lesson for sure and I haven't let flame touch zinc since.

I only use vinegar to deal with rust on things I want to restore but I've seen people use it to take off zinc plating. I don't use vinegar on things I'm making simply because I don't need it. I just don't use coated materials, it's simpler and there isn't much that is plated that can't be found unplated.