ausfire

Still playing around with fire poker handles. This one is today's experiment.

I like your mantis, Das. You have really got the triangular head shape and the mouthparts well defined. It has the proportions of the baby mantises we often see here. And the typewriter parts worked well, despite being a pain to weld.

Thomas Power's Applied Anvil Acquisition Technique. In short, tell everyone (yes, everyone) that you are searching for an anvil and one will come your way. Proven to work!

Nice idea for the mantis, Das. I can see where you're going with the typewriter keys. I remember using some keys from an old shop till for the skirt of a ballet dancer sculpture. As you say, horrible things to weld and you have to beware of the plating on some of that stuff. Can't recall if I posted a pic of her, so ...

And that looks like a guinea fowl on the outdoor setting in the background. I recognise the shape. We have 30 of them.

Thanks for the look at that texturing hammer, John. I have one too, created with the help of an angle grinder with a thin metal cutting blade. The grooves on yours are much deeper, and I like the coarse effect it produces.

Lovely knife. I like the rough look on the horn. (On scrolling quickly through the topics, I read your subject line a 'Buffalo steak'. I thought we might have a BBQ recipe).

G'day Brian. Good to see another Australian on board here. There is so much to be learnt from these forums. I have a Rapco (Sydney) blower on my forge too. What are you using for fuel? I see you are down on the Murray - plenty of big old river red gums there that could supply you with magnificent charcoal. Looking forward to seeing your work. Hooroo from the tropical north.

Can I borrow him? Marauding mopsies are a problem here.

John, I really like the coarse texture on that split cross. Can we see the hammer that created it, please?

Thanks for the suggestions. I guess I have done so many long horn bull heads , it was a bit hard to make the transition to antelope shape. As your pic shows, the nose is much more slender. I did bend the horns a bit like that to start with, but it seemed to be out of balance. I hammered the chin down hard for the same reason. I will experiment with more configurations, but I definitely prefer the head looking back to the handle. As with all these things - a learning process.

OK, so I tried JME's suggestion of having the head facing upwards. I've had this idea of making a toasting fork using the horns of an antelope, so I made the head a bit longer and skinnier and twisted the horns. And yes, unlike the bull's head, this one faces upwards. Not quite right yet, but getting better:

Marc, thanks for the reply. I'll be down in Cairns soon so I'll have a look in Bunnings and see what they have. I bought an Ozito orbital sander a while back and it's still going. However, I do a lot of scale removal, so I might look at one of the better brands. Effective scale removal has always been a problem. I don't like the mottled , patchy look if you only get some of it off and the residual bits are often well attached. I have had to resort to a flap disc at times, but that leaves scratches. PS. I feel your pain with the bat invasion. We have those noisy, stinking flying foxes here by the millions. Flying rats. I hate them.

That Merrill Bros company made a lot of steel clamping devices, plate lifters etc. Are they perhaps heavy duty wire cutters??

Thanks Marc. I have a few Ozito tools and can't complain about them. Cheap, but seem to work well. So do you use some other attachment for scale removal? Sand discs would seem a bit aggressive and would leave scratch marks. Polishers would be too soft. I was thinking they may come with a flexible nylon pad like you can buy for angle grinders. So what do you use?

Ha Ha. She may well be right! I would not be surprised if they have a veterinary use. And I agree with Wayne. The tone of your response would indicate that you will fit in well here. Welcome to the forum.

Marc, could you give more details about the above mentioned machine? I clean up scale with a wire wheel on a bench grinder. I am careful, but well aware of the inherent danger. More than once a ram's head bottle opener has rocketed past my ear. A 6" buffer at a lower RPM sounds like a nice option. And I'm asking you because you are Australian, and what you can get in Sydney, I can probably get up here. In Cairns anyway. If it's a car buffing thing, then perhaps Autobarn, Supacheap or Repco?

Frosty, you need to come over here for a tour and sample the billy tea and damper. OK, a billy is a steel tin used to boil water on the fire. Tea leaves are thrown in to make billy tea. Whirling the whole thing around your head three times to settle the leaves is optional. (I can forge special handles for executing this manoeuvre.) A blackened billy was often carried by swagmen. Damper is a sort of heavy bread made in a camp oven. (Perhaps you would say Dutch oven) This delicacy was often served with cocky's joy. There you are, Frosty, another Australinism for you to google. Since you are 'lazily curious', I'll make it easy for you. This is what we serve: https://www.aussieproducts.com.au/damper-with-cockys-joy/

And he never did get back to us. Don't you just love these one-post wonders?

Yes, I'll try the next one with the head facing upwards and horns back. I reckon you could make a convincing antelope like that. Ah! Another idea!!

I've quoted your questions so I don't have to scroll back. And no, they are not too personal. 1. We try to make our museum as much 'living history' as we can. It's nice to have lovely exhibits like our pristine vintage John Deere tractors, but people do appreciate the human interaction as well, so we do demonstrations and involve the visitors wherever we can. 2. Our demonstrators are not paid. I am the curator at the museum and that is a paid (part time) position, but my daily blacksmith demos are voluntary. I do them because I like blacksmithing and enjoy the interaction with our visitors from all over the world. I usually do some work around the Village first and then start the scheduled demos at 11.30. This varies if we have special school groups or coach tours. We also have volunteers who work in our old printery, people doing vintage engine starts, and we have a wood turner doing traditional woodwork. At times we have a camp cook doing billy tea and damper for the guests. On special days our volunteers include a farrier, whip maker, tin panner, axemen, quilters, rock drillers, and so on. As a retired teacher, I take children into our 1880 classroom for an old time lesson. 3. Materials and coal … well, firstly I never use coal, only charcoal. Sometimes I'll toss a piece of coal on the forge because I like the smell of it. Reminds me of steam locomotives. I supply all my own materials. Charcoal is easy to get after the bushfires and I usually have many bags in reserve. I buy my steel locally and use a lot of 12mm,10mm and 6mm square, along with a few round bars. I am fortunate in that we have a massive supply of scrap at the village and I can avail myself of any amount of axles, springs, and wrought of all sizes. I am fortunate also in that we have a souvenir shop at the Village and I can either market my stuff through there or sell straight off the forge. I usually like to clean up the work at home and it returns to the shop next day, priced and labelled and with a coat of Rustoleum Clear. 4. Yes, I had been doing smithing at home (but not every day) a long time before starting demos at the Village about 8 years ago. I still have a well equipped smithy at home, but most of my work is done at the museum. Sometimes I'll do the more tedious stuff at the home forge and save the more interesting work for visitor time. After the visitors go I will often stay back a while and try some different ideas … some work, some don't. Hope that answers your questions adequately. As you can imagine, the Village is a great place to work. Every day is different, and it's good when you look forward to coming to work. Mod edit: https://www.historicvillageherberton.com.au/ Mouse over the front of the steam engine and click on red rectangle.

Well, it's not a pretty anvil, but what are you forging that it can't do for you? The horn and table are reasonable, you have a smooth radius edge and a sharper edge. I would just use it as is until something better comes along.

I like that style. However, I think I would have to modify the H so it's not so much like the N. Same with the D which is a lot like the O. Good old style lettering for signs, labels etc.

Not really a show, Jennifer, I just like trying a few different things after the daily demos. I get a bit tired of billy lifters and bottle openers all the time. I don't often try new stuff during the time we have a lot of visitors, and I never forge weld the ends of those pokers with visitors close. People don't like getting covered with sparks. No sense of adventure at all. It's nice to have a range of items for people to look at. I keep one of most things, and the rest go into our shop.

Not really sure if this works. The idea was to create a toasting fork using the horns of a longhorn bull as prongs. He looks better looking straight down the open end, but it was a poor camera angle for focus. Probably would be better using heavier stock (this is 10mm square), but you don't want toast forks that are too heavy to hold. It may be better to make a barbecue fork and make the horns shorter. Has anyone else tried something like this? Suggestions welcome!