Latticino

Looking good so far. In the end run it is going to be all about the heat treatment if you want a usable tool. Leave yourself at least a dime's thickness on the edge before you go for the quench. Heat treatment of axes is a bit tricky, as the eye section wants to be relatively soft and the edge hard, but not brittle. It is a juggling act regarding quenching and tempering, and to some extent the procedure is different depending on what equipment and tools you have. Some heat and quench the entire head, then temper it back using a heated drift. Others differentially heat only the edge with a torch and quench that. Hopefully you started with a good quality hammer head that will benefit from heat treatment, rather than a cheap knock off from mild steel with a case hardened face. My first tomahawk was made from a 2# ball peen as well. I did drift the eye open larger though, so had a drift to use to accomplish the final tempering. Looks to me as though you are just using the former hammer eye as the axe eye, so tempering will be a little tougher (no pun intended).

My worst metalworking injury took place when I was setting up a shop for a summer camp at Bucks Rock in New Jersey around 30 years ago. I was on my own and had just had a 15 minute introduction to arc welding, so of course I was tasked with welding some cut off angle clips onto a convenient I beam column to be able to screw on a wood fascia board for mounting tools and notices. I welded the bottom two brackets on with minimal trouble, but when I got to the top two I had a problem: no ladder. I improvised by placing a cinder block on end, standing on the top 8 x 8 end and welding just above my head. Was having a bit of trouble welding in this position, and still didn't know all that much about what I was doing. I remember trying to decide whether I should strike the arc at the bottom of the bracket and weld "up" or at the top and weld "down". Then I realized how unstable my footing was and thought (incorrectly) that if I started to fall I would have to be careful not to grab the column with my left hand as I had the stinger in my right (now I know better, of course). Needless to say the next moment the cinder block cracked and down I went. Next thing I know I was picking myself up off the ground and trying to figure out why my tee shirt had blood all over it. The old beat up fiberglass welding hood I was using must have had a sharp bottom edge, as when I fell it grabbed my throat and opened it right up from around the hinge of my jaw to my Adam's apple. Got a photo somewhere, but don't need to gross every one out. 40+ stiches later on two layers of skin on my throat and a bunch of nurses in the emergency room telling me about how lucky I was to still be around had me looking suspiciously at cinder blocks for some time. Definitely should have known not to trust them, as a family friend lost his father to a cracked cinder block being used as impromptu jack stand extender while working under his car.

Looks great so far. Robust construction that should hold up well. One thing you may wish to add, eventually, is a side sucker hood and at least a short vertical exhaust to get the fumes up over your head. Normally I would suggest this be on the "short" side of the pan, where your slack tub is, to keep the larger pan side for a coal/fire tending tool/tong/stock dumping. Another nice accessory I've enjoyed using is a mobile arm for supporting longer stock to the side of the forge. I've seen swing arms and hinged style with a swing out floor leg both work quite well.

I discussed this with a couple of the contestants at a recent bladesmith gathering. As I recall they indicated that the daily "working hours" were clearly laid out and rigorously enforced by the camera crew that recorded every moment (to be heavily edited for the production, of course). Needless to say I'm sure all the contestants do a lot of outside working hours research, but as far as I know they only get 8 hr days of hands on working. I hope that Stormcrow or Rachelle can chime in to confirm.

Can't read the logo in the photo on the last one clearly, but it looks to me as if it might be an Arm & Hammer, not a Vulcan. If that is the case, in such nice condition, you have a pretty desirable anvil there.

Rob, Welcome aboard, with your interests you should fit in well here. You should also consider joining the New York State Designer Blacksmith's group. We are a fairly active group with several branches in Upstate New York. There are monthly meetings, workshops, and "All Hands" gatherings for weekends full of smithing activities. You can find out more about the group here: http://www.nysdb.org/. Please note that we have an upcoming All Hands gathering in Bath, NY May 5-7.

Suggest you forge weld the "end" of the link rather than the "side". Per the experts, this makes for a stronger link. You might want to view these two videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-SLRDPaV5U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB87GVPvM2I

IMHO you are still missing a key step that has been suggested by several parties: install an appropriate valve that can meter your gas supply adequately. For the level of stability you are expecting from your air supply, your gas needs to be similar to assure overall operation. There is a good reason that almost all well built commercial gas fired pieces of equipment are fitted with gas pressure regulators.

I'm not too familiar with use of pitchforks in a highland games setting. Are they thrown at a target (in which case toughness is more important than hardness and I would just straighten the times by heating with your torch and hammering to shape over a stump) or used to fork up large, multiple bales (in which case you might want to heat treat them)? Please note that many forged garden tools are not made from high carbon steel, so heat treating will not be effective. The easiest way to tell definitively if your forks are high carbon would be a quench and break test, but that is destructive and you would sacrifice some material. If I had to do heat treat I would (assuming they are high carbon steel): remove the shaft heat to just above non-magnetic (ideally all tines simultaneously, which likely puts you in a larger coal fire, but might be able to do individually depending on configuration) quickly quench in 140 deg. F vegetable oil (hopefully a relatively shallow pan that can take all times at once if that option is selected) temper twice in large oven at 450 deg. F for an hour each time If not high carbon, then you are pretty much stuck with just work hardening. With any luck you will get a better response from someone who has actual hands on experience repairing pitchforks.

Yeah, MEK is awful indeed. Back in the day we used to wash our hands free of grease with solutions of either MEK or Trichloroethane. Worked great, but I shudder to think what it has done to my liver. Fortunately it wasn't a regular habit.

Virtually all blacksmithing items on e-bay seem to be overpriced these days. For hand cranked blowers, I would recommend tailgating at larger blacksmith gatherings, SOFA or ABANA gatherings as better choices. Of course there is always Craig's list and similar, but it does seem most online sources are way out of line. For a powered blower you have many more options, as Thomas noted.

Very interested as regards the "flat spot" discussion with regard to Chef's knives. I'm hardly a chef, but recently took an integral Chef's knife class with Nick Rossi at the New England School of Metalwork (great guy, teacher and facility). One of the things that he mentioned specifically is that he always includes an approximately 2" section of "flat" edge at the heel of his French style chef's knives. He mentioned that the chefs he consulted with liked the flat as a sort of a stop for the rocking motion they use in chopping. Here is a shot of a Kramer Chef's knife that appears to have this flat section (though it is hard to tell from the image):

Very nice Bob. Looks like you have the wrought stuff down pat. Going to etch the next one? Just had a failure trying to make an Austin style offset wrapped eye Viking axe out of wrought and 5160 over the weekend. Went pretty well until I got ready to wrap the eye for welding. My buddy, whose shop I was working in, had just walked away after asking if I wanted the torch setup to bend the ears in. I got impatient waiting for him and started to bend them over the bick. Let things get too cold and tapped one ear. Wrought cracked on me right at the back of the eye... May have made the cheeks too thin, but I think I'm just not that used to working with wrought. Guess I might try welding it back together, but in that kind of high stress location I don't fancy my chances.

Yes, all burners have a minimum fuel/air mixture flowrate that is at or just above the flame speed. However some have burner "end conditions" (flares, multiport burner outlets, flame retention ring nozzles...) that attempt to isolate the burner mixing tube from the flame front by use of a radical velocity change. To the best of my knowledge these extend the stable operating characteristics of a given burner. These are not in great favor typically on NA burners, as they invariably add a bit of flow restriction and consequent friction which reduces the ultimate capacity of the burner, but are not as significant for a typical forced air burner. No idea how they would impact yours.

But keeps running around for the next 15 minutes for some reason...

Personally I would contact the group you purchased it from to help you with tuning before making any major modifications. That being said, I see some potential issues: The location of your burner allows the forge heat and exhaust fumes to rise back up towards the burner (I prefer side entry burners for that reason). One could cause pre-ignition in your burner mixing chamber (does the burner mixer get very hot after it runs at correct working conditions?). The other could cause a flame-out condition by starving the burner of oxygen due to the induction of flue gasses rather than "clean" air. When you adjust your burner operation you will most likely have to adjust both the air and propane (using the inlet shroud for air and the regulator for the propane). It sounds like you are just adjusting the propane. At what you see as correct operation do you have a reducing flame (some "dragon's breath" exiting the front of the forge)? For most operations that is the target. I've built a similar type propane burner. During initial tuning, which took place outside the forge body, the location of the gas orifice and specific location of the SS flare on the end had a lot to do with maintaining a stable flame. It appears that you can adjust the orifice location with the set screws in the side. The flare on mine made small variations in the burner mixer length. I was quite surprised at how sensitive the assembly was to small changes in that length. Might be worth investigating with the vendors. Pressure variations in the gas can totally screw with the operation of a NA burner. So can any debris that occludes the orifice. A gage on the regulator is always a good idea IMHO, and a loupe can help you check the orifice (or maybe just some properly sized music wire).

One last caveat: I've never seen a successful NA burner run on low pressure (7-9" WG, residential) natural gas. I suppose you could make a really small one, but I doubt it would be very effective. So if you plan on running natural gas you will likely either have to have a special supply from the utility or go with a blown burner.

This is correct. Design of a dust extraction system is non-trivial. Velocities must be maintained for proper material transport, code compliance is required for the design (including the outlet location), spark protection and explosion relief vents may be required, and you can get into a lot of trouble combining materials collected (i.e. metal particles and wood dust). In addition to the ducting being the correct diameter, the fittings should be smooth and long radius, you should have cleanouts at all 90 deg. bends and some method of safely separating and collecting your dust. As noted by others, I've never seen one that could be termed quiet. Putting it outside or in a dedicated room is probably a good idea. High static is typically required to keep the velocity high in the ducting due to the extra friction that entails. You have a very nicely setup shop, I'd be careful about compromising with the dust collection. Cheapest option I've seen work fairly effectively is a bucket of water suspended below the grinder platen where the bulk of the sparks go.

Welcome to the site. Wonder why you think you need such a large forge. Unless you have a really huge fast power hammer or hydraulic press (or team of strikers) you are going to have a lot of trouble beating on anything more than about 6-8" of stock length before losing enough heat to be counterproductive in my limited experience. Might be different if you are planning on scrolling or twisting rather long or heavy stock in one go, but I do think you are overbuilding somewhat. Are you planning on industrial scale forgings or very large architectural construction? As a beginner I would certainly recommend starting with a smaller forge (see Wayne Coe's, Tim Zoada's or Dave Hammer's designs for good examples) If you are just planning on eventually making swords then a smaller forge for most of your shaping operations is a better, more efficient, recommendation (say 8-10" in length). Of course you will need something larger for easy heat treatment (though it is certainly possible to heat treat longer swords in a small forge), but that does not need to get up to forge welding temperatures and I've personally seen a 55 gallon drum heat treatment forge (Don Fogg style) get up to 1550 deg. heat treatment with a single NA propane burner (can't remember if it was a 3/4" or 1" burner). In fact you could use the same burner for the smaller forge and the larger heat treatment tank, just by switching them out. However, making a overly large gas forge does seem to be a kind of right of passage, so don't let me hold you back on that. I do think you will do better not trying to have one forge ( or even two similar forges) that you expect to perform all operations. One of the key benefits of making your own gas forge is that you can configure it to the expected operation. A bladesmith needs a different forge than a farrier or a smith who makes architectural screens and gates.

looks to me like you liner wasn't cured long enough before attempting to go up to full fire. Are you seeing any steam or liner co9lor changes? Most refractories benefit from a slow candling to drive out all moisture before setting. I don't think a single 1/2 brick should be a problem for a forge of that size if the burner is performing correctly and you allow the forge enough time to heat up. I've got two half bricks in mine and only 2" of wool and have no trouble getting up to temperature (different burner, needless to say, but still you shouldn't have that much trouble. My recommendation is curing the liner, checking the regulator to ensure you have at least 30 psi as a maximum setting, building some form of door and getting a steel support rather than the wood!

Biggest problem I see is that you appear to have used both hard firebrick and refractory for your forge lining. There are two different products that are both often (improperly I believe) called fire brick. One is relatively heavy, used for lining chimneys and kiln interiors and is usually called hard fire brick. This material is also a type of refractory, just brick shaped. The other is an insulating brick, light, friable and easy to cut with just about anything. If you have used hard brick, you have no insulation and your forge will be inefficient, a big heat sink and probably won't get very hot, unless your burner is greatly oversized. Of course if that is actually soft, insulating brick then you can ignore the previous.

I have been pretty happy with the Time/Life Home Improvement series of books. Presented for the novice with lots of good pictures. As regards use of a dimmer, there you do need to be careful. The best modern variable flow blowers are controlled by either a variable frequency drive (expensive, typically multiphase motors) or ECM (electrically commutated Motor). These vary the flow by adjusting the motor RPM. I'd prefer to have a electrician or electrical engineer clarify, but I think that conventional dimmer switches work by bleeding off some voltage into a resistance coil. Typically synchronous motors don't appreciate this method of speed control. Of course I could be totally off base, but I would also recommend a outlet blast gate or inlet shroud for volume control rather than using the dimmer unless you know your motor is rated for that kind of control.

You might want to consider wiring in a switch for the blower when you hook it up (or using a power strip with a switch). Kind of convenient to be able to just switch off your blower rather than pull the plug when you are done using it. Get some kind of basic electrical wiring book out from the library to make sure you wire the plug correctly. You want to switch in line for the hot lead (black wire in both the outlet you connect to and the lead on the motor). We have prominent, certified electricians on the forum who can give you better advise, but I'd bet that you can get by with #12 or possibly even #14 wire for such a small motor. Small wire nuts or crimp connections to make safe wire joints and keep those joints inside some sort of metal box.

No direct experience with these, but heard they may have plastic gearing. If so, I would be leery

Consider going to a hobby shop and getting a better grade of thin plywood (aircraft grade, multi ply) rather than the cheap 3 ply available at big box stores and the like. If you preseal the plywood with some form of paint or lacquer) and use contact cement to glue on the rubber it should not warp. Needless to say, don't stretch the rubber over the plywood when gluing on, just lay it on the surface. Sealing the plywood will help in any case as you don't want it to warp over time due to humidity fluctuations.