Jacques

Baie welkom hier, ek is bly om te sien jou Afrikaans is nog nie te erg verroes nie, my neefs se kinders kan dit nie eens skryf of praat nie.

Is Boksburg to Minnesota an improvement or not?

Notice to the foreigners: (I'm trying to be funny here, thanks for the effort Frosty.)
Swahili is spoken in East Africa.
We are in South Africa, specific the Highveld

So Hello here can be done in any of the following languages:
Afrikaans: Goeiedag
Sepedi and Tswana: Dumela
Zulu: Sawubona

And just to confuse everything the word to greet a single person and a group differs with some languages.

The other languages like Venda, Xhosa, South Sotho and a few others aren't very wel represented in this area, so I don't know them, and I have enough difficulty with English as it is.

A friend of mine used to work at a place that made medals, and they had a few of these presses about twice the height of yours. I stood and watched as the guy punched medals with it, and it was very impressive.

I would just not allow anyone to work with one of those without very good safety measures and a healthy dose of cowardice.

That's the first Art Deco forge that i've ever seen =)

So THAT is what Art Deco looks like.

Any specific reason why you didn't use plate steel for the base and sides?

I spend six months looking for thick steel, and couldn't find anything even remotely thick enough. The only other option was buying new steel, in full lengths, and that was very expensive. The square bar is available locally, and then I got it a bit cheap, so I went with that.

The first fire was interesting. If fire tending becomes second nature I'm afraid I'm not even at first nature. It was my first coal fire, took a while to get started, but eventually became very hot. I made a taper scroll as an exercise but managed to burn it while being distracted just when it was starting to look good:mad:. That is also a first for me, never had a forge that could get that hot.

I also understand now why people make stuff like fire pokers and coal shovels, just using pieces at hand just wasn't good enough, so coal forge equipment will be my first project.

After about two hours I stopped, pulled the fire apart and seperated the clinker, coke and coal by hand to see what it all look like.

Intersting enough, the air from the blower kept the clinker breaker cool, so the paint didn't burn off, just became dirty. The underside was still looking brand new.

Welcome here.

The only local people I have found so far that do training is Conrad Hicks in the Cape ( Conrad Hicks - the artist ) for general smithing and two knifemakers, Heavin Forge in Belfast ( Home ) and Stuart Smith in Johannesburg ( Stuart Smith Forged Knives )

I finished my new coal forge today , and will burn it in during the weekend.

I do have a gas forge, but since I am trying to forge a lot more the expense of gas has made it difficult. And since I'm living close to the biggest coal fields in South Africa, coal is cheap. I can buy 350kg (770#) worth of coal for the price of one 19kg bottle of gas.

The basic design considerations were:
1. Must be mobile, since I am going to forge outside (so a chimney won't be neccesary)
2. 600mm wide, must be able to go through a single door.
3. cheap.

The firepot were welded from 12mm (1/2") square bar, that I got as off-cuts with a discount from the metal dealer. The clinker breaker were also welded from square bar. The table were an old gun safe door that had some jigs welded to it that has been lying around for ages, the wheels come from the concrete mixer that got car wheels a while ago, and the other pieces were whatever I had lying around.

I hesistated a bit about painting the contraption, since the paint will burn away, but realised that even the most beautiful woman in the world will put on make-up before going to work. And the paint will also hide my welding a bit. The primer is a fire resistant etch primer for stoves, and the black and yellow is a catalysed lacquer I had available.

I still have to make some handles for the clinker breaker and the air gate, but I ran out of ideas, time and inspiration at the same time. For a blower I have got a very old Tedelex vacuum cleaner motor until something better come up.

Time:
Making the tuyere, air gate, clinker breaker and ash dump, 15 hours
Welding up the firepot, 5 hours
Making the trolley, 15 hours
Cleaning, painting and assembly, 10 hours

Total cost were R200 ($20) for the square bar and R100 ($10) for the primer, of which I used about 1 cup.



(I just can't manage the pictures to come up as attached thumbnails, so forgive this.)
copy the Linked Thumbnail: from the gallery and paste into the post

Baie welkom, goed om nog iemand te ontmoet.

Ek is nog besig om myself te leer en is nog nie op jou vlak nie. Ek het my nuwe steenkool smeeoond amper klaar en dan gaan ek laat waai.

En ek bly in Bronkhorstspruit.

Nice to meet you, don't worry about the foreigners on this site, they don't seem to worry too much about tenses (thank goodness) , they are so good at spelling, they sometimes even invent new ways of spelling. :D

Silly me, read the advance notice in Beeld, decided to go, forget to keep the article and only last night remember to check on the dates.

Anyway, the people who did the fighting was the Medieval Armed Combat Society of South Africa
Welcome to MACS

I've seen the Eisenkraft machines demo'ed at a show last year.

They only sell at trade shows, and not through dealers, and if I'm remember right the company is in Austria.

The price quoted to me for the entire set was R95000, that is about $9500.
It is also possible to buy the machines separately, more expensive of course, and the quote for the ring roller only was R18000 ($1800).

Interesting sort of sales technique the guy had. He would demonstrate something, and the spend the next ten minutes telling you how expensive the stuff in the shops is and how much money you can make, and how easy it is to make money with his machines. Very effective too, I have to say.

There is a book about the salvaging of the German fleet at Scapa flow. It tells the story of why the ships were sunk and how they were raised.

"The man who bought a Navy", by Gerald Bowman

The Wikipedia entry: Scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And a quote from that: "The remaining wrecks lie in deeper waters, in depths up to 47 metres, and there has been no economic incentive to attempt to raise them since. Minor salvage is still carried out to recover small pieces of steel that can be used in radiation sensitive devices, such as Geiger counters, as the ships sank before nuclear weapons and tests irradiated the world's supply of steel"

From Science and Mechanics, December 1947

"The entire procedure consists of cutting the striking end of the tool down to sound metal, where this is necessary, and grinding a small shoulder all the way around the cut end. A reinforced band of bronze is then deposited on this shoulder, by means of the oxy-acytelene torch, and the striking end of the tool is ground square, completing this operation"

All this is accompanied by a series of pictures about the process, one of which is a group of blacksmith tooling that has been treated that way.

I've once been at a safety show and at one of the exhibits there has been a badly mushroomed chisel. A piece breaking of had blinded the guy working with it.

I've got an article from the fifties at home about how to safe-end tools. Will try to find it when I get home and give a few pointers.

Since everytime I finish something someone make something better and quicker and easier here is my take on a bicycle part blower I roughly assembled today.

The only manual forge blower I've seen in my life is this one. It works, sort of, but I agree that this 3:1 gear ratio isn't enough.

What is the typical gear ratio of a commercial blower? I couldn't find anything about that anywhere.

My investment in this so far is a few hours, off-cuts and $10 worth of bicycle parts. Back to CAD again.

Oh an I'm a bit partial to cannon (every home should have one!).

Pictures please, lots. Please, please, please.

Finally something I can manage, I just not sure if any grown-ups would be willing to help me.

Blacksmith's Shop

. It was well worth it.

That must be the understatement of the year.

I'm reading a book, The Story of Writing, and it the writer tells of a fragment of hieroglyphics from ancient Egypt that has been translated, in which a father is trying to convince his son to become a scribe.

"I have seen the smith at work beside his forge, his fingers are like crocodile skin and he stinks worse than roe."

I've uploaded some pictures of the Forge in at Coenraad's place.

It can be seen here: Vegter Forge-Inn, 28 Feb 2009 - Blacksmith Photo Gallery

It is a Round toit.

For years you have been saying "I will do that as soon as I get around to it".

Now that you have got one everything will be easier. ;)

I don't know much about printing machines but when I saw it my first thoughts were that it could possibly be an embossing machine.

As for the metal application it would seem to make a very nice planishing hammer for sheetmetalwork if you replace the table and top tool.

I wouldn't mind having something like that.

My hardy hole had been worn to a very awkward rectangular 29 by 34 mm. I made a little insert from flar bar that I welded around a good 3/4" piece of square bar and grinded to fit. The flange on top is to make it removable. I thought about welding it in but decided that is too permanent. So far it gave good use.

just be careful when the bit starts break through as the work will catch and start to spin I know this is not the safe way but it works

And I used to do it that way too. It is not really fun when the workpiece and vice try beat the hell out of the poor drill press and the operator.

And it is funny how the off-switch can become so complicated.:o

Some interesting information on fans types. (open as PDF)

ebm-papst UK Ltd, How does a fan work?

Great latch, I'm going to borrow that idea for my garden shed.

Welcome

At least you seem to know a little bit more than me.

Wim mentioned a possibility of a forge-in during February in Akasia.

Lots of info at CNCzone.com-Machinist Community Forums - Welcome Page .

But a word of advice, the difference between the component parts and a finished machine always seems a lot, but the most important part of a CNC machine is the integration between the hardware and the software, and that is what you are paying for.

On the other hand, I've been drooling about Torchmate (Torchmate CNC plasma cutters, CNC cutting tables. Automated computer numerical controlled plasma cutting machines cut complex metal shapes.) myself a bit, so if you can look at a complete kit with software and controllers it can be worthwhile.

Anyway, post lot of pictures.:)