Latticino

Could it be upside down in the picture? When I look at those small wheels it reads like some kind of crane element meant to slide into a track of some sort.

Thanks for all the replies. I'll keep at it and work harder on hammer control.

I have a ~125 lb. Peter Wright anvil that I picked up used off Craig's list a couple of years ago. Finally have a gas forge built and have started to use it. When I got the anvil, the face was very marked up, so on the advise of other smiths in my local group I took a 4 1/2 grinder with a flap style sanding wheel to the surface to clean it up a bit. I'm sure I didn't get it very hot, or even warm, and didn't take off more than a couple of mm of surface. I get decent rebound, or it feels that way (I haven't got a correct size bearing to test it), but on any missed strikes (still a relative beginner and my son, who also works on it a bit, is a rank beginner) it takes a noticeable divot. This is even with cheap Chinese Harbor Freight blacksmith hammers. I don't have a Rockwell tester or anything. Is this typical or is there any way to tell if this anvil has been damaged (in perhaps a barn fire or the like)? Thanks

I used to do quite a bit of craft wholesaling as well as retail at some of the better juried shows, not in metal - in hand blown glass, but I believe the principles are fairly similar. I did both the ACC and Rosen wholesale shows, which, at the time, were arguably some of the better avenues to approaching the wholesale craft market. At the time internet sales of fine crafts were still in their infancy, and the relatively recent upsurge in fine craft sales online may have changed things. Typically my annual revenue was split about 50% for each of retail and wholesale. A couple of things I learned: You can not price your retail work below what the gallery sells those items for without risking loosing those clients. The difficulty is that while many galleries adhere to a double markup, some have triple markups, and some give fairly deep discounts to their professional clients (designers) or offer periodic sales. This can make it a bit difficult to price your items for the retail market. One potential solution is to have a completely separate line that you only sell at retail shows (also works for hitting those lower price points that work well for impulse buys) with a couple of larger attention getters at the full double wholesale price. Make sure you include the cost of the wholesale show fees (space fees, booth [design, construction, maintenance, lighting...], travel, literature, lodging, food...) in your wholesale pricing. You will be surprised at how much it costs to put together a professional display. Your display must be very well designed, easy to setup and well lit. Having good quality video showing the processes is a great draw (both for retail and wholesale). Another tip is to have large scale photos on display of your work (especially if it is small and intricate). The wholesale shows are typically very large, and buyers have a lot of ground to cover, anything that will attract them into your booth is a big help. Keep your booth area clean, the more professional the better clients you will get. Don't over pack your display, leave enough space between pieces to let the buyers see them and imagine them in their own galleries (where they will most likely be packed into displays with other work, but let them dream...) If you use the same booth design for your retail and wholesale shows expect to have to upgrade/rebuild much more often. You may want to rent booth equipment for the wholesale show instead. Doing full out production on smaller items for wholesale clients is brutal and somewhat thankless. As previously mentioned attempt to tool up to "automate" as much of the labor for this as possible. My experience is that is was hard to make minimum wage blanking out smaller production items. Be very organized in taking orders from galleries. Getting triplicate forms is cheap at places like Kinkos, and having a signed order form can save a lot of questions later down the line. Fill out a central production schedule as you take orders, nothing is worse for a new client than not being able to meet a deadline you have promised. Have something for the shoppers to take away with them. A wholesale price list and drawings or good photos of your work on card stock at a minimum. Include your booth number and contact info on the price list, the shows are typically multiple days and buyers will have to find you. Also include your payment terms (in 12 years of retail shows I only had one bounced check, galleries were much more often late in payments, or had the checks get "lost" in the mail). Check out the shows before you signup for both retail and wholesale. Other peoples work needs to be a similar level of quality and to some extent price point. It is hard to sell $2,000 sculptures at a show populated with beer can birdhouses and tie-die tee shirts, not to mention imported goods being rebranded as hand crafted. The last report I got from a fellow craftsman who was at a formerly good wholesale show in 2014 (ACC) was that both attendance and sales from buyers have plummeted. This was both from their experience and an informal survey of other folks doing the show. Don't leave your booth unattended. Should be obvious, but I've seen it happen dozens of times. Selling is tough. Try to get someone else to do it with, or for, you if you are not good with people (fortunately my wife was excellent). It can be very difficult to break into wholesaling, as some craft galleries are reluctant to buy from someone that they haven't already had a track record with, or have seen at the shows for years. My first year selling wholesale was quite an education in patience. Be prepared to sit for a couple of days at a show, with a smile on your face and few, if any, sales to attract that last minute shopper. Most buyers will go to their regular suppliers first, both to see what is newly offered and to get into their production schedule. As a new wholesaler you are far down on the totem pole. Good Luck

I mounted my home built gas forge on an inexpensive Harbor Freight grinder stand. The one I chose is metal, stable and height adjustable (it was also on sale for around $30 if I recall properly). I could have fabricated something for less money I'm sure, but was in a rush to get setup for testing the forge design. I would guess the workmate table with the firebricks will work just fine for you. Probably will want to justify the opening at the front edge of the table, but otherwise a well insulated forge shouldn't radiate too much heat from it's circumference.

I've used Type K thermocouples up to 2,300 deg. F with pretty good success, though they were relatively large diameter wire (around 10 GA as I recall) and inserted in high alumina ceramic thermocouple tubes for protection (from molten glass in my case, but would also work for flux). You really should pony up the bigger bucks for either a Type R or Type S thermocouple for these temperatures if you can afford same. Make sure your digital, or mechanical pyrometer readout is designed for the thermocouple that you choose in any case. Also, for really even heating you might consider a ribbon burner. They are nice and quiet, and spread the heat out over a relatively large area. The one drawback you may have is that they are not really well designed for a large range of modulation. The ones I've seen setup for modulating in the past had some kind of slide gate installed to block off some of the outlet ports, which kind of defeats the purpose. I believe it may have something to do with maintaining a safe range of velocity of the air/gas mixture exiting the burner ports.

Just lovely work. I can see why they are in demand. Hope you made a good $/hr on them.

Well had a long post regarding this written, then the system crashed when I tried to upload a couple of images. Won't try to recreate the whole post, but am thrilled to announce that I tried my first forge weld in my low pressure, natural gas fired forge and was successful. The local experts said it couldn't be done... The forge is a modified compressed air tank from Harbor Freight, with a Kane Bros 140 CFM blower and industrial grade burner, mixer and zero pressure regulator. Lining is 2" of high temp blanket with furnace cement and ITC coatings. Bubble alumina trough will hopefully resist inevitable flux deposits. Images uploaded are of the forge in a slightly earlier incarnation, it now has a high alumina brick hearth and I use a similar brick to close down the rather too large opening. Forge gets up to a good yellow heat, just enough to weld the mild steel I tried without burning it at all (will add pyrometer when I get to final piping, current layout is just for testing). I used Black Magic Flux and kept my surfaces clean. Still working on the atmosphere mix as even though I had a pretty long reduction flame exiting the opening I still got more scaling than I liked. Very excited. Next step Cable Damascus...

Very cool. Was this forge welded, or did you go for stick? Were you able to keep the ratcheting action functional?

Albert is a visiting professor/instructor up here in Rochester, NY at the School for American Crafts at RIT. There are a fair number of his larger sculptural pieces around town to check out. I have attended lectures and met with him several times over the years. A wonderful, down to earth individual with a lot to say not only about technique, but also inspiration,the creative process, and the business of being a successful craftsperson. He is very approachable and willing to answer questions. If you have only seen his architectural ironwork I urge you to check out his early jewelry as well. It is interesting to see the design progression in his work. Personally I prefer his earlier ironwork over the more recent "painted ribbons", but that may just be my smithing bias and I'm sure others perspective on the aesthetic differ. His new sculpture is now up to a monumental scale that probably requires structural engineer's input on wind loading and the like. Horrible shame about the accident, but he seems to be bearing up pretty well. Would be great to see him with Mark and Uri. I'm certain they each have very different perspectives on the craft.

I assumed he did a total of 5 folds: a trifold - 3 x 15 layers= 45 layers a double up - 2 x 45 layers = 90 layers