SpankySmith

Well, that was just FUN to watch - excellent video! Thank you!

Agree, it needs a head, otherwise I think that first one is awesome, may steal borrow that idea. One other comment, you should scale down the rivet size for the hands and feet "nails" - I used a concrete duplex nail as a rivet on one I did (sorry, no photo), and it worked well, the scale was about right.

I used to teach first aid, and COOL water is what is taught, never hot - why would you add insult to injury on a burn? I'm with the others here, I've lived over 50 years of burning myself and cool water is always the ticket. I actually did it just this weekend, pulled a pan from the oven and stupidly reached for it with my other, unprotected hand to stabilize it (!!) - immediately ran it under cool water for a good 5 minutes, next day I had a smoothed off part on my skin but otherwise no trauma. Totally on an aside, I've heard an old wives tale that slack tubs have healing powers - something about all the iron in there being good for wounds. Purely wives tale stuff.

For some reason I can't see the original photo (grrrr.) but if the above is an example I know there's a Pinterest tutorial about how to make it. I think it's called a iron snowflake or some such thing? I have it bookmarked but don't have access to Pinterest right now to link it.

I'm with Mike, I love the idea of using available (free) materials, but I'd be concerned about fire codes, housing codes, xxxxxxx the neighbors off, etc. You could still use the same materials, but break down the pallets, use the pieces to build a proper structure. You've got plenty of lumber there to do framing, sheath it, all in a way that would make it last and not xxxx off any of a number of local people/government entities that would have a problem with it. If you were out in a rural area, might be a different tale (though I'd still worry about structural integrity), but it appears from the photo that you have neighbors nearby.

I have a picture from one of the roughly ten zillion Christmas catalogs that have been jamming my box of late, it's of a similar Trinity Cross, only it also has another piece circling the entire trinity piece - I tore it out of the catalog to see if I could give it a try on a small scale sometime. Thanks for the further inspiration!

On the dryer sheet issue, I actually keep some around as Fire Starters for a fire pit, they are VERY flammable themselves and stuffed into an empty toilet tissue tube make and excellent fire starter. I also wear jeans and boots for forging, learned the hard way what scale, welding and dropping hot metal on sneakers does to the toesies! In winter I wear long sleeves but tend to roll them up within the first few minutes, I'll tolerate scale burns over getting overheated. Glove on the left hand, holding tongs, but not on the right unless it's just REALLY cold. Hearing protection always, always, always, I never swing the hammer at ALL without ear plugs in, want to still be able to hear when I get older. Eye protection ALWAYS, I wear IR protective/green safety glasses and make anyoone working with me wear them, too. I tried a leather apron and later a "work apron" when I first started, didn't find either particularly useful in any way so I abandoned them. Still don the work apron sometimes while doing a lot of grinding, just to keep the sparks at bay.

I second the Fredrichs Cross idea. I'm a few days away from a craft show, made a couple dozen very simple napkin rings that got some pre-show "oohs" from some friends...that seems like a good waitress related item? I'll try to scare up a photo to attach, pretty basic hammered with a brass rivet.

Really like those chairs, simple but elegant

A down and dirty way to get matching bolts is to just stick the store bought ones like you have in the fire for a moment - I usually soak mine in vinegar first though to eat away the coating. A second in the forge and you coat just like you do the handle (wax, paint, whatever). I also grind off the little numbers on the head of the bolts from the store, but that's just me.

I like it, agree with Frosty, nicely proportioned. Only comment is to paint those bolts to match!

Amen to that last line! I can always put on more clothes, you can only take so much off during the summer before the police become involved!

I learned lesson number one the hard way, we had a very hard freeze in Alabama that took out my slack tub, swelled the bottom out and open. From that point forward I started following Frosty's good advice of hauling in water each time when I forge in the winter. A couple bucket fulls of hot water and I'm good for the day, just remember to dump it at the end of the day.

My next (and last) show is coming up in a couple weeks, I'll try to snap some photos for this thread (I'll be - HOPEFULLY - in grad school this time next year, won't have time to pull together a show again for at least 2-3 years!). I'm prepping a simple display rack idea I found online, definitely not MY idea, but it's working out nicely. Took a two panel hinged louver door I got for $4 at the local Habitat Restore, knocked out a few of the louvers at intervals and put shelving board through them. Simple, easily transportable.

Better looking than my first attempt! There are lots of different ways to make these, I last tried a method someone here mentioned where you double the stock over and then bend it back into place in a vise, with the small part in the middle that is clamped in the vise forming the stem up through the feather. I liked the look but want to try other methods, too. Here's a photo I shot of one Gordon Williams did at a demo in Alabama last month....

Hey, like I told Frosty, all I did was pretty it up, he did all the actual work. My only suggestions were for clarity, figured if he could make it simple enough for ME to build one then pretty much anyone could. He has a right to be proud of the final document.

Oh, another idea I'm going to have to steal borrow. Neat!

I'm with Thomas, separating it from the ibeam is going to be your best bet in terms of noise reduction. Can you find a way to cut the bolts off and then maybe mount it on wood or something less "resonant"? My Peter Wright sang like a girl until I re-mounted it with rubber mats between the anvil and wood base, and then strapped it down with metal strapping, cinched up tight against the rubber. I also use magnets under heel and horn.

Right up my alley, I love that kind of stuff! ('Course that might have something to do with my slight infatuation with my welder!)

I had a "moment" sort of like this when I was showing a co-worker's nephew some basic blacksmithing techniques over his summer vacation... at one point he was struggling with something so I stepped in to demonstrate it and he said, "Oh..sure..make it look easy!" Which I had to smile about, because I recall thinking the EXACT same thing when someone first showed me how to do it. Does that make me a big grown up blacksmith now? HARDLY! It just means maybe I'm on step #4 and he's on step #1 - as opposed to Smith's I know who are on step # 6718. I tell people all the time that best I can tell so far the learning curve on Blacksmithing is at least 50 years long...then I think you really start to get the hang of it.

Geeze, all I can find at lunch is heartburn!

Mano, I cringe at using the term "blacksmith" of myself, too, for MANY of the same reasons you cited, including an abiding respect for people who are TRUE, vocational blacksmiths. But I still use the term sometimes, and absolutely when selling something I've made, only because it is at least somewhat recognized by folks. They GENERALLY know what you mean (though if one more person asks me about putting shoes on a horse... ). I stick "hobby" in front of the term, so it's Hobby Blacksmith, to differentiate between me and the guys who REALLY know what they're doing. But as others noted, there's so much ocean in that term! Look at Scarpartz' work on this site - is he a blacksmith, a sculpture, a metalworker, an artist? He's all that and more. The blacksmith umbrella, from best I can tell in my very limited experience thus far, is wide enough to encompass all those variations and more. Even the mechanics!

I believe it, Thomas! I sometimes place my hand on my anvil absentmindedly while waiting for a piece to heat, always surprised at just how hot the anvil gets. Shouldn't be, it makes perfect sense.

Well ahead of me, great work! Congrats. I'm thinking it should hold a bowl full of heart-shaped chocolates. (then again, I think pretty much everything should hold chocolate).

Jim, me neither! This past weekend though I think I accidentally forge welded - had two flat pieces in the gas forge for a bit and when I went to remove one of them it was STUCK to the other. Oh crap, the first time I successfully forge weld and it was totally by accident! Figures!