ausfire

Like Das said, 4 discs (or 3 will do for a start) cut from mild steel. (Suggest you avoid stainless until you've had some practice). Make the discs progressively smaller - eg 100mm, 80mm, 60mm 40mm etc, but the sizes are arbitrary. Drill a 6mm hole in the centre and cut towards that centre hole to make 5 petals. (72 degrees if you want to be precise, but it's OK if they are not perfectly equal). It's handy to make a plastic template for this if you intend doing a few. Round off the corners of the petals a bit to make them easier to overlap. I usually put the blanks into the forge to a dull red and texture the petals. Be careful - it's thin metal and easily burnt. For the stem I use 6mm round bar, textured, or at least with the smoothness taken off. I weld a stop about 15mm down from the top of the stem. Put the sepal star-shaped disc on and then slip the petals discs on that, large one first of course. I then get the whole thing to an orange heat in the forge and peen down the top of the stem to grab the petals tightly. Then bend each hot petal upwards and overlap them. Needle nose pliers are useful to bend the lips of the petals over. Sometimes you have to repunch the centre if things become loose. Forge a few leaves with serrated edges and you're done. Thorns (pointing downward) look good, but I have never done any of those. A brush with brass can look good, or finish as you desire. Heat colours are nice too. I guess there are lots of ways of forging roses , but that's my take on it.

You have everything you need to get going there, but I would find it pretty uncomfortable working in the mud all the time. You need some drainage and a weather wall or two. But a great start nonetheless.

And hand forged furniture too, alexandr. What a lovely room for a little girl!

Well, either way it's uncomfortable, but I think I'll take the heat. The media is bleating about Cairns getting 300mm of rain tomorrow. That's nothing unusual - a normal wet season, monsoonal downpour for us. Media hype again.

Australia has everything at the moment. Tasmania is on fire, Adelaide was the hottest city in the world yesterday, 49 degrees C in Port Augusta, Cyclone Ryan off the WA coast and Cyclone Savannah about to give us a touch-up here in NQ. Never a dull moment.

Yes, the weld joining the bolt to the wrench is a bit ugly. I follow what you're saying there, but I think the forge weld could be a bit tricky. I'll do another one and have a go. Maybe you could post a pic if your method works out.

Would like to see that one. Hasn't your mate got a photo he can send you?

Perhaps more information? How thick? How long? Mild steel or ? A photo?

Ben, What is your idea for the feet? I only use wrenches because they are stable and I have a lot of them. Small lag bolts welded together make good feet too, but more time consuming of course.

No way. They are probably the ones we see most. I have a few. We also see the American 'Buffalo Blowers' a lot - in various sizes. There is an Australian made blower called a RAPCO (Sydney). The one I use on the forge every day is a RAPCO, and topped up with oil occasionally, it performs very well.

It is the right direction - just left-handed !

Exactly! And you guys get the horrific hail storms causing millions in damage , while we pay the high insurance premiums up here because we are in a cyclone area. The media love rough weather - we get the same somber faces, dire warnings, State Premiers seeking the limelight on TV complete with signing interpreters, all predicting doom and gloom. All it does is scare people away from coming north. Our visitor figures have been way down. Sure it's hot, but we can handle that. The media is so patronizing it's ridiculous. And Marc, I have visited Penrith once. Never again. Your traffic is horrendous.

I would take to the edges with a cold chisel, lightly at first to see how it goes. It may crack easily and come away in sheets. If it doesn't you could back off and try something else. Doesn't look like it has bonded all that well, and the cast looks pretty robust. Nice antique by the way. Let us know how you get on, and please post a pic of the restored piece.

Yes, indeed; a Champion 400 blower and working well. The air duct looks like a bit of old gal down pipe. Some homemade 'make-do' around there. When I next rebuild the work forge I would like to use a similar water cooled tuyere set up like that. We have all the required pieces to do it.

This old forge and blower are there too. Seen a bit of use, but blower still turns OK. I like the water cooled set up.

Friends out west having a clean up of the shed. Old blacksmith shop had these 'things' lying around. Makes you *sigh* doesn't it?

Nice rasp snakes, IF and TP. I have only tried that once - very tricky to keep the fold in the rasp straight. Finished up in the scrap.

Can't recall if I have posted this before, but these are the usual threaded rod cobras. Much easier to work than rebar.

Rebar can be a pain, but it does make good snakes. I usually use threaded rod for these, as it is much easier to work and I hate drawing out tails in 1/2 inch rebar. But the rebar scales look good. Could we see some more snakes? Files? Stainless? Textured? Whatever?

What happened here? I have done many hundreds of these bulls heads, bent round to make the handles of billy lifters and such. Never before has this happened. Steel was orange hot as usual, nothing different and it just opened up like this. Is it possible to have a piece of rubbish steel? It was new 10mm mild square bar. Right in the middle of a demo too!

Aha! Yes, the hoof jack sounds like a good bet. It is on a western pastoral property where they would have done all their own shoeing. Thanks! I'll let the owners know.

Friends of ours in Western Queensland have an old blacksmith shop they are cleaning out. This is one of the items they are unsure of. To me it looks like it could be a rest for long stock beside the forge. The screw would adjust the height. But why the hollow sphere below? Any ideas?

Ha! My Russian is worse!

Hey Shoshinjoe, fellow Australian, welcome and congratulations on the Kohlswa! A finer anvil you will not find! (But I am biased because my work anvil is a K). Have you done a rebound test on it? 95% for sure. We had Swedish visitors to my forge recently and they said that the town still exists, but it is Kolsva.

Well, if you've been in Brisbane and travelled to Perth, you've seen a fair bit of Australia! I googled FESCO … what a huge company! 5000 employees and 70 offices around the world. Container ships, ferries, ice breakers - the whole deal. How long were you here and did you enjoy your stay in Australia?