ausfire

Wow! A dragon on a grand 'scale'. A spectacular piece - great work!!

That's a nice idea. Saves having him stand on a plate or something. And it would help give some rigidity to the legs rather than having them separate. Thanks.

A mate of mine grabbed a photo of this anvil for sale in a second hand shop in south Queensland. I like the casting on the side with the Australia and kangaroo design. Emerald is a central Qld town so they must have had a foundry there at one time. Guy wants $485 for it and I reckon if I could get down there (1000 km away) I would come home with that. Whadyareckon the two circular lugs are for? Would be handy for bending?

And @Ian - I just googled Planter's Chair, and yes, very similar to the squatter's chair. I would imagine they would have a common ancestor. Those in the days of sugar/cotton/coffee plantations, ours in the pastoralist setting. I had never heard of a planter's chair - ya learn something every day!

@pjh66, the chair is remarkably comfortable despite the lack of padding on the swing rests. The buggy steps I used on the ends are quite wide and offer considerable surface area for the calves to rest on. Probably not as much as the wide boards on traditional squatters chairs but adequate. @njanvilman, Yes, I think 'squatter's chair' is an exclusively Australian term. It derives from the early colonial times (mid 1820s) here when there was a bit of a free-for-all with the acqisition of land. Pastoralists moved onto vast areas of land and grazed their cattle illegally. They became known as squatters. The style of chair was a popular feature of many station homesteads. ‘Squatting’ became widespread, became under government control, and the term developed a class association, suggesting an elevated socio-economic status and entrepreneurial attitude. Squatters were recognized as being amongst the wealthiest men in the colony. Eventually the term ‘squatter’ came to refer to a person of high social prestige who grazes livestock on a large scale (whether the station was held by leasehold or freehold title). Here in Australia the term is still used to describe large landowners, and the 'squatter's chair' still has pride of place on the homestead veranda. If you Google Images 'squatter's chair' you can see the traditional examples. @Thomas Powers: Yes, I have a book of Australian Bushcraft which has some wonderful examples of squatter's chairs, but I have never seen a steel one before.

How did you make the feet and how is it anchored to the ground?

Australian members will know what I mean by a squatter's chair. I decided I would use up some of the stuff from the scrap pile to make one. I drew the basic profile in chalk on the shed floor and found the bits to match. Had to bend a couple of things in the forge to make it stable, but the result is OK. The front legs are cams and it just happened that the end of the cams was a press fit into the hole of a slasher blade. This formed the swing-out leg rests when a couple of old buggy steps were welded on. The arm rests are buggy spring leaves, which I have loads of. A pack saddle tree forms the decorative bit at the top. The front cross bar is the barrel from my old .22 rifle - if you look closely you can still see the sights. I pinched the canvas of a busted deck chair to test it out. Very comfortable!

Great lilies, T.J. Wife was suitably impressed no doubt.

They look just fine. Like everything, you get better and more confident with every one you make.

Had a look at your website. I like how you got the tempering colours on the fish and the lily pads. Neat.

Yeah, some of the finishes you get are not too good. I use a White Knight spray product called Rust Stop Clear Finish. It's Ok for inside things but for outside I use Extrol or Rustmasters, painted on. It darkens the metal, but is good for protection against the weather. Supposedly solar stabilised too. I have heard of folks using Penetrol with a 25% mix of marine varnish which seems to work pretty well.

An iron casting? Well done. More information please!

Very simple ... and cool!

Very clever. Nice work with the lilies. Did you make the frog too, or is he real? It has a metallic look.

Nah, not too good at puzzles! Haven't got the time. Not too many vintage tools in the kangaroo, Jimmy. A couple of halves of an el-cheapo multigrip pliers, a few horseshoes, some old scissors, and a couple of no-name open end spanners. The feet are arms off a busted pair of boltcutters, and the legs are halves of an old engine stabiliser bar from my son's race car. The ears are off a radiator fan. Only thing I can think of that's vintage are the horse hames tug hooks on the upper arm. I have a collection of those with different stampings on them, and they were extras. He's pretty much all junk.

Yeah, I know what you mean. On occasions I have been called a 'tool vandal'! I remember one guy complaining that I used a perfectly good 3/4 Whitworth spanner in one of my creations. Well, he only saw one end of it because the other end had been broken off. I have a collection of nice old tools I have come across and they are displayed on a 'not to be used' wall. The other wall contains masses of broken spanners, seized up pliers, blown out sockets and worn out tools of all kinds. Hundreds of worn out files and rasps, chipped axe heads, worn machinery bits - anything useful. A lot of my stuff comes from the dump, garage sales, charity shops (I got a nice 3lb crosspien hammer there, which I use all the time) and scrapyards. So,Jimmy, I do have an appreciation of good old vintage tools and do not use anything that could be considered worthwhile. And yes, the 50 cent drop forged, heavy duty (?) Chinese made rubbish spanners in the discount stores are fair game for scorpion nippers!!

I like scorpions. Here's another I made yesterday. Nippers are halves of a motor armature, spark plug front legs, batten screw legs, body is an old socket wrench and tail is half a big bearing race. The bearings still roll. Sting is the handle end of a wiltshire triangular file.

Heck, no. Save us from the silver spray paint! They are just fresh out of the sandblaster. I usually give them a coat of lacquer to stop them rusting. These are aviation spark plugs and don't have a label, other than the make stamped in the metal. I have used standard spark plugs too, but there's not much to weld (or braze) to on the terminal end. The porcelain section looks good though and I like the ones with Champion written on them.

These are easy, fun things to amuse kids. A spark plug, coach bolt bent in the forge, an old spanner and a few nails:

I'm no expert, but it seems to me that hollow pipe would not be the best choice for a hold down. I have found that plain ordinary rebar works pretty well. Just find a piece that suits the pritchel hole on your anvil and away you go.

That is one spectacular heron, sir! Great proportions, realistic stance. Great work.

Very nice roses there! Brass left, copper right?? Interested to know how you connected them to the stem. The Valentine recipient will be most impressed!

Threaded rod does create a different effect, but I've never been able to make it as neat and as even as a rose leaf's serrations. And I find it hard to get threaded rod that's not galvanised. I'm not putting that gal rod in the forge, it's deadly.

Yeah, he's in a gallery at the moment but I had to put a NFS tag on him. Until I can build another one, I want to keep him. Don't know if you ever get to Brisbane, but if you do, have a look at the ones in Queen Street mall. Very clever pieces. Here's a pic:

Ah, good ol' Wagga Wagga. Don't ya love those double-barrel names. I'm not too far from Millaa Millaa myself.