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I Forge Iron

eggwelder

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Everything posted by eggwelder

  1. this is what i want to do for my retirement, add wood working as well. have made my first batch of charcoal today, hope that its charcoal anyway, and not some white ash. i`ll find out tomorrow. propane is getting expensive, pallets and pine branches are free. this, and own a pub. already have the bar, just need to finally say goodbye to the uniform, move back to the town where the bar/pub is, and put down roots. then a power hammer. the military frowns on moving heavy floor mounted tools every 2 to 4 years. addicted, yes, but manageable. moving a lot keeps scrap pile down, and keeps tools to a minimum. not sure if those are benefits. i only have 3268 lbs in tools, about 2000 of that in blacksmith related tools. ex wife hated it, new one is happy it pays for itself, and sometimes dinner.
  2. Guy at work wants me to make a giant (5 foot x 1/4 "thick) pair of scissors for his wife`s hairdressing salon. no idea how much to charge, and no specific details. never made anything that big.
  3. my hobbies come and go, but wood working and metal working always rise back to the top. other than that, i cast my own bullets, paper wrap and reload for my .303s. i also always seem to be building / renovating kitchens, i move a lot ( Military)and always never like the kitchen. getting sick of kitchens. but i do build my own cabinets from scratch. wood carving, pencil sketching, stuff like that for the winter. my wife is a stamping up demonstrator in her spare time, her first endeavour into the crafty stuff. i am pretty sure that in time, it will open up more of her talents. i do get to build the cabinets and work tables for her.
  4. up here, i just place my selected handle blanks on top of the furnace ducting in the winter, and forget about it. adds a bit of humidity in the winter, and come spring, those are dried out wonderfully. paint or treat as desired to prevent checking or cracking. hawthorne and ironwood are my handles of choice. not sure how this will work where no furnaces are required... you can also hang the pieces in your chimney near the top , just keep an eye on them to prevent creosote buildup if you heat with wood. these will come out hard as rock and fairly rot proof.
  5. the last ball pien hammer i forged down moved like hot butter at an orange heat. surprised me,easiest tomahawk to date, but was hard to get the temper right. when i did, it held the edge thru a lot of abuse.
  6. i live in ontario, pm me and i`ll give you my phone#. then we can go from there. i`ve done a little bronze, but a lot of aluminium and lead, making bullets.
  7. looking for preferable Canadian foundry to do a small run(100ish) of cast steel rifle barrel bands. many are interested in this piece. PM for details or with details.
  8. when you heat aluminum, then try to forge it, it will crumble, crack, what have you. it is called by back yard casters, Hot shortness. we use this method to break up large pieces of scrap aluminum such as BBQ and transmission housings into manageable pieces. heat it up, smack it with a hammer, bust it up, then repeat. dropping a hot solidified ingot into water will just cool it faster. dropping water on to liquid aluminum, or any liquid metal at those temperatures will result in an explosion, sending molten metal and hot steam flying everywhere. it is not steel, or remotely like steel. it forges cold, and you anneal it for forging by, yes, applying light heat to bring the piece to maybe 100`C. then you must let it cool to the ambient temperature. all the above mentioned stuff can happen to cast aluminum, and with different alloys, you never know what you`ll end up with. as a hobbyist, I`ve never degassed a melt, and if i end up with a bubbly poruos casting, i toss it, and don`t reuse the metal. scrap aluminum is relatively easy to come by.
  9. you could try super quench on the spike. i use it exclusively for the spikes around here, and it gives a decent hawk edge if you use it for throwing or light work. that being said, thats all these are good for anyway. and for gifts. people love them. as for steel buckets, try the local janitorial supply/cleaning chemical warehouse. some of the enzymes used for cleaning garberator drains in industrial kitchens (think army base) come in steel buckets. most cleaning chemical comes in plastic, but a very few react with the plastic and must be in steel. wash it really well before you stick your head in it
  10. i`ll be contacting the guy this weekend. i`ll let you know how it goes. he lives a fair distance from me, so any deal will be done on the phone. unless all my gunstock parts sell, and i need more walnut
  11. i was out buying some walnut for some gunstocks, when the topic turned from woodwork to blacksmithing. the guy then showed me his setup. champion crank blower, cast iron fire pot about 6 inch deep, the casting half inch thick. sitting in a 1/2 thick steel table with pipe legs. a good rack of tongs that i didn`t get a good look at, a pile of assorted tools he had no idea what they were, and i didn`t see the anvil. i was in kind of a hurry, (had to pick the boy up from school), and he had 15 years of junk piled on top of everything. best part is, he wants it gone, but wants a fair price. it is all in good condition, and comes with 100 lbs blacksmithing coal. i didn`t get any pics, but hopefully i can get a good ballpark price to offer. i don't know what a fair price would be on this stuff as i have not really used coal, hope to get a little help.
  12. would show mine, but yours is a stellar example next to mine. good work.
  13. that would be tight joinery. lol especially since i don`t know of a time that i ever over filed something…...
  14. i made one, still have it, still not done. stock removal, hilt is welded up square stock(arc). not heat treated, never will be. about 5 lbs of arm exhausting rustiness. maybe i`ll post a pic after i grind the negect from its blade.
  15. very nice once again. hope to get some time to get some made soon.
  16. steve, i have looked at the work you do, i say you would be very good at it. making damascus and carving are both painstaking and labour intensive, and i hope equally enjoyable. i hope to be able to make my own damascus by the end of the summer, even if i just get better at cable. i must work on my welding, as carving will be mostly set aside till next winter or really rainy days. gerald, thanks, but in the way of carving tools, i only ended up forging about 4 gouges, 2 chisels, and a few decorative background punches. i gave two away to some very close friends of mine when i left Alberta, one is very large that i made for carving spoon bladed oars for my boat, the two chisels have been awol for awhile, and the rest are in my tool roll. i think i may experiment with a few different shapes of gouge shafts, like knuckle bent and back bent. nobody really makes these anymore, but were extensively used by my great grandfather's family back in germany before 1900 thomas and frosty, i`ve read that elsewhere as well. few people start smithing to be a smith, they start because they needed a tool or a hinge or something else they could`t find or afford elsewhere. how did you start?
  17. i`ll be making a few new heads on monday, i`ll mark them cold for centre and go from there. thanks for all good ideas
  18. carving tools. they are expensive, and then you come across Alexander Weygers "the Complete Modern Blacksmith" well, thats pretty easy to set up and make a few gouges and chisels. shows you all about it. then you look around, piles of blacksmith related stuff, probably more money and time spent than just buying the good chisels. and you`ve only made 3 chisels/gouges that actually turned out. but you have absolutely no regrets…...lol finally got back to the carving with this winter/start of the next ice age. this unfinished rendition of st george and the dragon is from another long winter. and some odds and ends
  19. i used a tire iron, squared off the socket to fit the hardy,and bent 90 degrees to form the hardy post. flattened the middle of the iron and bent over the horn to get two "parallel" bars. light heat treat and it works wonderfully. only gets stuck in the hardy hole when you have to take it out in a hurry. different size irons will get you different size fullers i think that i saw that on the internet somewhere.
  20. guess that settles it, i see a build coming in my future. most parts are available at Princess auto
  21. thanks to all for the comments. i think gromgor might be right on about the beard. i`ve filed and rounded the top portions to make it more comfortable, and some judicious grinding after a blade straightening is in order for the beard. snow is melting slowly, am finding things i forgot i had under the snow.
  22. thank you for posting that, very nice work, and you just helped me out with a finishing idea.
  23. Has anyone built one, and do you find they work well? am seriously considering one, but looking for feedback from people who would actually use one.
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