ausfire

Thank you all for the pictures and comments. I think the 1/2" stock seems the best, and the higher tensile, the better. I'm inspired to make a whopper out of a torsion bar.

But doesn't the whole piece vibrate to make the sound, rather than each arm independently? Something to try though. Thanks.

Had a request for a dinner triangle thing. Chose some 8mm stainless for the first try but the resonance was less than I expected. Looks nice, but a bit tinny. A larger one made from a higher tensile steel about 12mm had a pretty loud ring. Anyway, got to thinking … who made triangles the boss of dinner bells? Why don't you see other shapes? (Maybe triangles are the easiest to make.) And what steel is the best? Tried a few different steels - mild, stainless, wrought, but found that by far the best was spring steel from an old car coil spring. Rather than straighten it out and make a triangle, the curls themselves make a very strident bell. The picture shows a couple of my experimental 'gongs' and my testing set up. The heavy coil spring stock had the most satisfactory resonance. These are just test ones - obviously they could be enhanced with scrolls, twists etc. I would really like to see others' designs for dinner triangles/gongs/bells, whatever you like to call them. And what other factors have you found that affect resonance? Whether the steel is quenched to a brittleness, or allowed to normalise, the length of the vibrating 'arms', thickness of metal, etc. The method of hanging is important too. A light twine or fine leather strip works well but chains don't.

Here's another take on the old longhorn bull. The horns make good holders for keys.

Made a few toast forks with these leaf wrap handles. Stock was old 8mm rebar. Knock the old concrete off and they polish up pretty well. People like recycled stuff. Quick and easy.

Jennifer, as you would know, pricing work is always tricky. You want things to sell, but you know how long things like this take to make. I have found these card holders sell at $85. That's Australian dollars of course, which would be around about $60 in your money.

I was told by an experienced smith that hammering with the thumb along the shaft of the hammer is not a good practice. For most hammering I use a full grip - thumb around the handle. For some light work though, I get better control and accuracy with the thumb along the handle. Is this poor technique?

Great variety of openers there, Mark. Love the bulldogs. Did you use the same tool for the ears as for the opener tab?? Very neat!

These card holders have been selling well over the Christmas period. They take a while though - hard to keep up the supply. Heads are forged from 19mm x 8mm MS bar, bases are scrap offcuts from heavy beam:

Yep. It must get kinda warm in there.

Any other southern hemisphere smiths feeling the heat? Nice to get away from the forge for a day or two to visit Townsville where our grandson has just turned one year old. Very hot there. Even the wallabies joined the party and found a cool spot in the shade of a tree in the yard. Can you spot the Joey?

What a popular topic this has been. I wonder if young 'littleblacksmith' would have thought his initial post would receive over 10,000 replies and generate nearly half a million views! Just sayin'.

Yes, the stairway twist (others might have a different name) has a light line cut down each face and then cuts made to meet those lines on two opposite corners only. The cube twist is done cutting in from all four corners. And yes, the gold is just a bit of burnishing with a fine brass brush (copper is a bit dark) while the steel is hot. Black heat only - red will vaporise brass.

A couple with heavily textured handles. One cube twist and one 'stairway' (?) twist. Both forged on the diagonal. I've made that the default method now.

G'day Tim. Good to see you solved the problem amicably. I did think that the two marks were significantly different, but anyway, all is well. Cheers from FNQ.

Indeed we have. I am lucky enough to have all the scrap steel and wrought iron I could ever need. And that's only a fraction of what went away to the scrap dealer. I saved what I could. And thanks, Randy. I have found the photo.

Mr Pnut and Mr Griffin, I thank you both profusely! That is exactly what that object is and I am now able to satisfy the queries of may of our visitors. Would it be OK to use that photo?

I like to put labels on the things we drag out of our scrap piles. Does anyone know what this thing is? It has quite an attractive casting: GAR- WOOD, Detroit. Part of a GM truck perhaps? We stood it up as an ornamental piece, but 'twould be nice to know what it is.

Thank you, Mr SLAG. That is definitely worth a try.

Thank you Irondragon. The bench has been on the Herberton Station platform for a couple of months now and receives a lot of comment. The station master moves it inside each night because he is afraid someone might pinch it. I have been asked to make another one. We have thousands of old rail spikes, so that's not a problem … finding the time is. And the worst part is cleaning the spikes before welding them together. (The MIG hates rust). Someone suggested getting a couple of dozen spikes and putting them in a concrete mixer with a load of dry gravel and small rocks. Like a rough tumbler. Maybe that's worth a try?? (I imagine it would be noisy so it's lucky I don't have near neighbours!)

C-1 That little tractor is sure to inspire kids to learn how to weld. Great work!

Mark, thanks for your PM alerting me to your response to this old thread. Yes, I am still around, and I did manage to dig out a couple of pics of the Greg Steel hide hammer from the file. I don't use it anymore, as it was difficult to find replacement hide parts, and the cost of a new one on line was quite reasonable, so I bought one. They are a handy thing and I use mine daily for bending heads on rams and bulls without marking the metal. How are things in Perth? I'm just watching the WBBL cricket on TV with the Perth Scorchers doing it tough against the Melbourne Stars. Anyway, here are the pics I found:

OK. I have heard of par for the course etc, just never heard it used in the way you did. If we do another video, we will make it during a quiet time after the visitors have gone. And I don't do the full horns first because as they are very thin there's always the risk of melting them. I leave them thick until all the face bits are on and the large bend is done. I'll see if Brasso is willing to make another 'Aussie video'. Not sure what though.

That is a really cool little opener. It's stylish and functional … well done! I remember the one that Vaughn did because I copied it to my 'inspirations' file. Never did get round to trying one. I'm inspired again.

Here's another variation on the 'cobropener'. I wanted to get a scale pattern … this done with a cutting wheel, nicks on each edge and twisted tightly. Mouth takes bit of tweaking but it works!