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I Forge Iron

Jason L

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Everything posted by Jason L

  1. Put them in vinegar for a few days. If the plating isn't too thick it might eat it off without damaging the underlying metal.
  2. Nothing to worry about there Brian. The bolt is rusted pretty bad and the building I got it out of was a 150+ year old railroad depot. I don't think it was ever galvanized. It seems to me that years ago we lost a member here to welding galvanized metal. If I remember correctly it was 10 years ago or more and it was somebody who obviously knew the dangers because I seem to remember them sending everyone out of the shop before he started. I could be misremembering but I'm sure some of the old timers here remember who it was or if it even happened the way I remember. I haven't used galvanized metal since.
  3. I see where Thomas used a bolt to make a hammer. Even though he's gone he gave me the idea to pull out a giant bolt (1 1/4" x 14") I've had for a few years and see if I can make a small hammer out of it. I suppose I'll see if I can salvage the nut and do something with that as well. Even though his anvil rings no more his wisdom rings loud for those who care to listen. I can only hope I might inspire a single person half as much as he has inspired so many.
  4. I've said the same thing many times. As soon as there's a deadline, it's a job. I do things at my pace these days and I enjoy it more. There's no sense in rushing when there's no money on the line. On the subject of niche products, while looking through Etsy for something in particular that was blacksmith related, I came upon someone selling little vials of forge scale for witches or some such. I dove down that rabbit hole and found several people selling these little vials of scale for $10 a vial! I've been sweeping it off on the floor all this time! I also found that nails were being sold in lots of like 3 or 4 or something like that for an equally ridiculous price for the same target audience. They all had quite a few reviews for this stuff so it's apparently selling. I showed the wife and a few days later she brought me a package of empty vials lol. I stuck the vials off in some corner somewhere till it was forgotten. I don't want to get into making a business out of my zen time.
  5. I wouldn't worry about trying to make it. It looks like a simple enough design but it appears to be operated by winching the weight up with a rope and pulley system. That would require an extra person to operate the mechanics and it looks like most of your time would be spent waiting for the weight to go up. A treadle hammer would be more efficient as it's operated by a single person and the weight automatically returns to the up position as soon as you take your foot off the treadle. You could try a trip hammer if you want massive amounts of weight and fast operation, but it's a lot of work to build something that probably won't offer a major advantage. A treadle hammer could be built with scrap materials that you may already have on hand and could theoretically be operational in the same day depending on how simple you make it. Just remember, the more complex something is, the more things can go wrong with it.
  6. Wirerabbit, you may be on to something there. Once I give up and let the chips fall where they may, it's like everything just falls into place, and yes, it does seem like time stands still and everything else just ceases to exist. The only thing is me and whatever I'm working on. And you are also right about the beginning being the exact opposite of that. It seemed like I fought to control the chisel and every movement I made looked right but turned out wrong. Once I gave up trying to control it and just let it land where it wanted to, it all worked out. My anvil sank into the depression and even though the feet are uneven, it sat perfectly even with no wiggle at all. It even completely muffled anything that might be confused with a ring. I didn't put anything under it because I was just test fitting it and had intended to go deeper and put sand or silicone under it but it was so perfect, I put chains on it and picked the whole thing up by the anvil with no wobble or wiggle at all. The whole thing only weighs about 200# or so so I can still pick it up and move it around. But it's solid as a rock. I'm going to look into this flow thing. I think that's exactly what it sounds like. I've just got to figure out how to summon it at will now so I don't spend half an hour in frustration.
  7. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one this happens to. I think it needs a name. I've also noticed I tend to do my best work when I'm tired. Late at night seems to be when my mind kicks into high gear and I'm able to think more imaginatively so my precision is much better. I think you're right Billy. I think overthinking seems to hurt more than it helps and I think that's exactly what happens to me. It usually works out in the end but it does prevent me from doing things sometimes. Fear of regret is my nemesis.
  8. I got up this morning and decided to finish my anvil stand so I grabbed hammer and chisels to set about carving out an indention to set my anvil in. I don't use chisels much since I don't do mortices or anything like that so my skill level is what you might call low. I grabbed my coffee on the way out and sat down on an old truck tool box that I use as a bench as well as it's intended use. I taped off the top of the stand, traced the outline and set about my task. I ran a line with my chisel all the way around and then, very carefully, started working down towards that line. It was a train wreck. Blowing out end grain everywhere metal touched wood. I slowed down and worked even more carefully. It got worse. At some point in the early stages, when everything was going badly, I decided that since I was intending to put sand into the cavity, it really didn't matter how it looked, the sand would level it out. I threw caution to the wind and just started pushing through as hard and as fast as I could and all of a sudden everything was going perfectly. This leads to my question... Is there a term for this phenomenon? Does it happen to anyone else? I fight trying to be careful and everything goes wrong but as soon as I give that up and barrel through it like a bull in a china shop, I do some of my best work. There has to be a name or term for this. If not, why have we not come up with one yet?
  9. I know what you mean George. I never sell anything though. Everything I make I give to someone or throw it back on the scrap pile. For me it's my zen time, I already got paid for it in the time spent doing it. I never want to get into a position where I'm obligated to do something I enjoy for money. It puts me on a someone else's timeline and takes the joy out of it.
  10. You get it man. The fulfillment sometimes is worth the trade off. It's the little things like your hammer that fill the tiny little holes in our lives that keep our soul from leaking out. It's the person that pats you on the back and tells you "good job", or that little item that someone gave you just because they noticed you look at it a certain way. These are the little kindnesses that make you look at a bad day and see a great day. That's what it's all about and you can never know what some little thing you did might make someone's day a little better than it was. For the record Frosty, our conversation here has made my life a little better and I want to thank you for that.
  11. You make a good point and sometimes I do Let someone else handle it. This year has been been pretty slow with me going sometimes over a month without a call and I still get paid regularly. I feel like the few odd busy times is a small price to pay for such an opportunity to work with people who show me their appreciation at every opportunity. Being valued is sometimes worth more than the paycheck. Not all the time, but every so often.
  12. Not gonna lie, if I hadn't been that exhausted at the time, I wouldn't have said a thing. I used to work a job with a 100 mile round trip commute every day and worked sometimes for days on end. I worked one weekend so one of the other guys could have off and worked for 36 hours straight with a total of two hours of breaks, the longest of which was about 30 minutes. I can't do that any more. Being on call has good times and bad. I can go weeks without a call or have several in a day. There's no telling what the fates have lined up. But I'm blessed to be working for great people and I'm allowed to offer what little comfort I can to people on what might be the worst day of their lives. It's not only therapeutic for me but it has taught me a lot about the value of life. The one thing I tell everyone is to never assume tomorrow, it's not guaranteed, but now is. Don't waste it. Also always double check a parachute
  13. Thanks Frosty. The trend carried on for another day but I finally got a chance to sleep, unfortunately, I couldn't sleep well or very long lol. Oh well, it was enough to recharge. I appreciate you Frosty.
  14. TLDR... I just needed to blow off a little steam, sorry for the rant. It's ironic that the topic has come round to emotions. Mine have been put to the test the last couple of days, yesterday in particular. I work nights for a funeral home, let's call it mortuary transport. My job is to pick up the deceased, take them to the funeral home and prep the body for embalming. It's quiet and my passengers never complain. The last few days have been rather busy for me since I'm the only one working nights. Monday morning my wife took a friend of hers to lunch for her friends birthday. Her dog was acting funny since Saturday so we were giving antibiotics which had worked in the past. We figured this would run it's course in a few days like it always had in the past. Well, I noticed the dog lying in it's bad and when I went to check on her, she was lifeless and had purged a big puddle. She still had a heartbeat but I knew the end was near. This dog belonged to our daughter who committed suicide 5 years ago so my wife felt like this was her last tangible link to her. She was distraught to say the least. I got called out so I had to go to work and at some point the dog appeared to get somewhat better. Long story short, We got up yesterday morning early and took her to the vet who told us she had a stroke and was now completely blind. We made the hard decision and had her put to sleep. Not gonna lie, I cried with my wife as the vet gave her the shot. Right before the vet came in to give her the shot, I got called by work and asked if I would make a run today to Georgia, a 3 hour one way trip. Not a big deal, I've made many such trips before. The catch was, I was still on call last night. We got a call for a 700 lb person, which takes a few people to handle so it was all hands on deck. That finally came in around midnight. I came home crawled into bed and had just dozed off when I got another call and had to leave again. I've had very little sleep since Sunday and exhaustion had kicked in by this time. But I still got up this morning, made my run and got home just in time to have supper and a couple of Tylenol PMs. At this point, I'm too tired to sleep and too exhausted not to. The worst part is, I'm still on call tonight so I may not get any sleep tonight either. Here's hoping though. Sorry for the rant, I just needed to vent a little bit.
  15. Making my brain behave is like trying to push rope uphill. I'm not sure If my brain was defective from the factory or if I voided the warranty by doing things with it it wasn't built to do but it gives me fits these days. I've taught my self to think of everything as a lesson though, so now I look for the lesson in everything, even if there isn't one. It keeps me occupied. M3F, thanks for the tip, I'll look into it as soon as I get a few minutes. The last few days have ben an endurance trial for me and my family but I think I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I just hope it isn't an oncoming train.
  16. It looks like it was forge welded together in pieces. Maybe it was a practice piece, made by an apprentice or something. It seems asymmetrical not only in the offset center tine but the angles of the outer tines don't quite match either. One seems to be more of a curved transition while the other seems to be a sharper bend. I wonder if it might have been made by someone who was going off a description from someone who knows a guy who's neighbor told him about one they saw years ago from a distance? That can't be just a modern thing. That might explain a lot of mysterious unexplained artifacts as well.
  17. I completely understand and I take things as they come. Life is too short to worry about the little things, which I usually forget anyway. I've got a few projects I'm thinking of starting soon so I'll need more materials than I have in the past and that's what led me down this rabbit hole. I've started doing more wood projects because I find it easier to handle something that won't burn a hole in me if I twitch the wrong way. I've still got a few things on my to do list that I'm hoping will make things easier for me. That's interesting about the brain. I can't claim to know how it works, and in some people IF it works, but I know that I should have gotten the extended warranty on mine.
  18. No apologies necessary. I value your opinion, even if it might not be what I want to hear. It's easy to forget that advice comes in many flavors and not all of them are palatable. And I'm afraid I can get muddled from time to time so what I say only makes sense while it's in my head. Once out, it becomes unintelligible. The platform makes sense but I removed it and I think it got tossed out. It wasn't very stable anyway and I couldn't put it in the right place anyway. I mostly use the wheel for sanding curves smooth and the platform didn't fit there. As for the grit of my paper, I bought it years ago to polish something at work, I think it might have been a fence charger circuit board or something I was working on. I forgot all about for a long time till I was looking for something else and found it. Working nights now has my sleep schedule messed up so now I usually do my best thinking around midnight or so. Another problem I have is remembering what I'm going after. I've tried writing it down but I always forget where I wrote it so now I just repeat what I want out loud till I get there. It helps but not foolproof. Just the other day I went after nuts and fender washers and for some reason getting 16 nuts and 8 washers seemed perfectly reasonable so I had to go back the next day for the other 8 washers. I swear getting old didn't look this bad when my parents and grandparents did it. Thanks for the words of wisdom though. Someone always comes through here and often enough Frosty, it's you.
  19. Good information Frosty. I have noticed that my paper did clog easily the first time I tried lapping the sole of my plane but it was too fine for the job. I really needed to start wit something coarser than 1000 grit but I just worked with what I had available at the time thinking I would get better materials later. I actually got it pretty flat but there's still some to do on it. I did mention in my original post the need for all three types of abrasives but after I read it back again it seemed as I mentioned it just in passing. My bad. i work odd hours so I should probably not post things when I first wake up, it's just not as clear. As far as my unstableness (is that a word?) is concerned, it's from an injury so it won't ever get any better. It's been a long, hard road but at least I got to keep all my parts. I apologize if I seemed like I was wasting your time Frosty. That wasn't my intention. I just don't use abrasives that often and never really gave it much thought until I need some the other day and after searching around, I saw a few brand names but not much recent. I was just wondering what people's opinions were now. I grabbed stuff on the fly before but but I've been more or less disappointed in the past so I'm looking for better materials and methods. I'm also now on a fixed income so I have to cheap out once in a while. I do take every bit of advice into consideration, but I have to weigh it against how badly I need something based on what I'm able to do with my physical limitations. Being not able to do what I used to is the part that pains me the most, but I do much less these days, much slower and with a lot more breaks. A simple S hook that used to take me a few minutes can now take me over an hour to make but I'm happy when I'm making it. Again, I apologize if I seemed like I was wasting your time, that was not my intention at all. This is just one of the things I always took for granted because I never used it that much but one project the other day made me rethink that and I wanted to pick the brains of people who do use it and might point me in the right directions.
  20. I mostly use sandpaper to hand sand things so that's what I need at the moment. I seldom use the belt sander and mostly use the angle grinder to cut metal with. I mostly hand sand because of my bum arm making it hard to control subtle movements with electric grinders. I mess up much faster and more often because of the odd twitch or I lose grip in my hand so I tend to work slower and powerless these days. I've looked at several sites but I don't know what the quality might actually be so I figured I would ask people what they've had success with so I can kind of hedge my bets. I see a lot of talk about the machines, the attachments and so on, but most of the people I've seen recommending products have been paid to do so. Since I know the folks here are knowledgeable and trustworthy, I figured this was the perfect place for suggestions. I'll not be buying from the big box stores anymore after the last belt I used couldn't handle smoothing out a radius on a 3/4"x4" piece of pine. The belt was smoother than the wood was after about 10 minutes and the seam on the belt made it terribly hard to control with the wood bouncing up and down. Didn't enjoy it at all.
  21. You are correct Frosty, it was a wood belt sander. It's more all purpose now that I've tinkered with it a bit. It does what I need it to do but the belts I've been using are, in a word, garbage. They last maybe 10 minutes or so at full capacity then it tapers off quickly. like I mentioned, it's my fault since I only buy belts for it sporadically, mostly when I walk by them and think about it. It doesn't see a lot of heavy use. But I would like to get some quality consumables for a change. I just don't see a lot of information about it that isn't sponsored. I can't really fully commit to believing someone's endorsement if I know they got paid to provide it. I've looked on here but the info is slightly out of date so I was just curious if there were some brands that were considered top of the heap. I don't like using it so I mostly hand sand things but I have the same problem there. I used my angle grinder yesterday to sand an anvil stand that I just made and the flap disk lasted all of 5 minutes before it was as smooth as my brain. Again, cheap materials bought on impulse.
  22. Cool. Thanks for the info. I'll check it out
  23. Just like the title, I'm looking for good quality sandpaper and 4"x36" belts. I've got a frankengrinder that I repurposed from a Harbor Fright grinder. First thing I did was take the motor off and throw it away. It's a little faster now and more powerful. Once I added a new motor it made it even more faster and more powerful. The abrasives I've been using are all just impulse buys wherever I happen to be and when I think of it but that stuff lasts a few minutes and then it's done. I'd like something I might be able to use again sometime. I need belts, paper and some flap wheels for an angle grinder. For what it's worth, it's not all for metal some will be for wood and occasionally plastic. I keep them separate so that one is metal only and one is wood only, etc. I looked through the forums and found some information but it wasn't fresh so I don't know if the info has changed over time. By the by, typing "abrasives" into the search bar yielded no results. I don't work well with todays technology apparently
  24. This is exactly my situation. I'm planning on the same size shed for the same reasons. I've been planning on doing it for several years now, just haven't started. I thought about the hinged wall when I saw someone nearby had done it for a party shed. It looked amazing and offered much more space when opened. When I saw it I knew that was an idea I'd have to consider, although I'm still working out where to put the bar so as to not take up too much space lol. Just kidding. I'm lucky that we don't have snow here but storms are a concern. My forge doesn't have accommodations for a draft hood so I'm still figuring that out.
  25. You sound like me George. I've had so many different types of jobs I can't remember most of them unless I put some effort into it, but I can remember a little trick or two from each. Frosty, your knowledge is showing again. You're probably right about a lot of sayings being passed down from a lot earlier than is known. It's sad really that we learn from the students of those great people who sometimes are completely forgotten. Imagine what ideas were lost simply because someone didn't pass it down.
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