Double Y

Beammeup - that is close to what it looks like. I took measurements of the fossil and then went to work. The clients are gone for the winter and I will deliver when they get back this spring...if spring will ever come back to Big Sky Country. When they get back I will take a picture of the two together. Thanks for the comments. John

I am an avid skier - it helps to pass winters in Montana. I had several old skis around and turned them into the chair you see here in the background. The base for the chair is built from 2x2 tube and the back and seat are made from 1x1 tube. All welded and black powder coated. I used stainless screws to hold the skis to the metal. The base for the heater is 1x1 angle with an 1/8 top. I riveted the top in place and used 1/2 rod for the legs. The legs are rivets as well. There are bolts holding the heater to the top and a propane feed line going up through the middle. I also had this powder coated black. The heater is more for looks than heat. The base is heavy enough to keep it from moving in our hurricane force winds this winter. There has been NO sitting in the chair the past few days. It was 26 below yesterday and with the windchill it was 46 below. A good day to stand by the forge. All the best, John

This is a stand for a fossil. The fossil looks like a large snail shell, but flatter...I'm not a paleontologist! This is made from 3/4 bar. I slit and drifted the holes by hand and forged the tenons on the power hammer. I need to correct a slight rotation issue on the front cross bar and apply a finish. John

Thanks Steve - I made the guess they are stainless. No real reason, aside from them being shiny after years under my bench. They are magnetic so that should have told me something, but I didn't test that until after I had tried to forge weld them. This is what you get when you use mistery materials. I have several of these and will test heat treat a piece. I didn't use any flux as that is what I had read online for stainless San Mai.

You learn from everything...right? I learn mostly from faliure and have had some very educational sessions. I had one of those sessions yesterday. I was given some planer blades, which I assumed are stainless. However, they could really be anything. Assumptions are always dangerous...I know. I have a pile of files laying around so I tried my hand at some San Mai...which is probably spelled wrong, please accept my appologies. I ground the file to knock back the teeth. I put the file between two pieces of planer blade and mig welded all the way around. I then waited till the next day - after reading the interweb some this may be a problem, but I don't really know. I brought the billet - for lack of a better term - up to temp. I rotated and flipped and flipped to get a nice uniform bright yellow throughout. I pressed firmly, but not too much, then back to temp. I then attempted to forge under the trip hammer and a bit by hand. Even at high temp this forged horribly. I burried it in kitty litter for a few hours. I ground a bit to take off the mig weld and to see if I could find the layers. It was delaminating, so to see if I had welded any piece I put it in the vice and....well tested it to destruction. As you can see the entire works broke. Snapped would be a better term. So... the take away is, this didn't work! So I learned something. Does anyone have any experience with planer blades? Am I wrong in my guess-tamation that it is stainless? Thoughts? Learning everyday.... John

I love it! Great foot rail and garbage bin? The railing is stellar. John

The plate that I had bent to mount on the pillar is made out of 1/2 x 4 plate. The plate joggels out 4 inches from the pillar. The gate hinges pass through plate and have nuts on both sides so any sag can be compensated for. I bolted through the top, bottom and middle. In the middle I welded a pipe 4 inches long so the bolt passes through the pipe and into the pillar. I tightened the bolt to the point the pipe touches the pillar. I hope this explination helps. The attached rough diagram should help too. Thanks, John Hinge design.pdf

https://plus.google.com/photos/113155052048543281989/albums/5885621829317817201?gpsrc=gplp0&partnerid=gplp0#photos

The fossil looks something like that, but it has some of the shiny stuff from the shell on it as well. I am working on the display and will upload some pictures soon.

Excellent table. nice work on the forge build too

Thanks for the kind comments - they have been very good to work with and have been telling everyone they know about my work. They are involved in subdivisions and development here in town and I am trying to develop more work though that connection...I hope!

That is an awesome offer. As a kid in Eastern Montana we had antelope hunters that drove out every year from Traverse City. Super people that became family through there yearly visits. The original couple were like extra Grandparents. They got us all to be Pistons fans...didn't hurt their Grandson-in-law is Bill Laimbeer! It is about a day and a half drive from here....dang it! Isn't a bad drive, except for North Dakota...and Minnesota...and Wisconsin!

Thanks for the kind comments. It was a fun project...on to the next ones!

Very cool shop.

Not a great deal of smithing in this project - I did slip in a little with the latch. This is a fence I built here in Billings. The other fence you see in the photos is some fence that I built for him a few years ago. The existing fence is 36" tall. The lower half had to have no openings more than 2" wide....because the owner's son has a Teacup Yorkshire Terrier dog (using the term dog very loosely here) that could get through opeings wider than that. Now the owner's daughter got a standard poodle, which can easily jump the 3 foot fence. So he had me build this fence. BTW - the kids are all adults and have their own homes, the Dad is just the babysitter service at different times for the dogs. I hand plasma cut out the lower portion to have no openings wider than 2" and then it is placed on top of the sandstone landscaping so the poodle can't jump over it.....hopefully. This is the link to the web albumn - https://picasaweb.google.com/114423203626085318648/DonovanFence# I can only hope someone else in the family gets monkeys or something that they need more fencing for! John

Thanks for the kind comments....now on to the next projects!

Thank you!

I have some very good customers who are MAJOR vinophiles - wine lovers. This wine rack is designed so they can see the labels and know how much of each variety they have on hand. There are 3 towers of 20 shelves. Each tower holds 60 bottles for 180 total. I scrolled each end for a little flare, even though the wine rack is hidden away in a basement closet. Fun....painstaking project. Now they want another one which will hold 240 bottles!

http://www.tsln.com/home/6612159-111/2013-cover-features-pride I recently was lucky enough to be the subject of an article on my iron work. The article is from the AG Pride Magazine from the Tri-State Livestock News. If you are interested the article starts on page 34 at the link above. You have to click to open a digital copy of the magazine from that page. John

In my part of the world, if you could load the trip hammer by hand...I would just let you have it! No since upsetting Paul Bunyon....Now if you brought a hoist and friends we would have to have a disagreement.

If you have a way to flatten the old dies perfectly and then can drill and tap the hardened die...then you could probably use the old dies. These bases are the same size top and bottom. The top die that was in my 50# originally is much smaller than the bottom die. It would be difficult to use the old top die for the base. I saved my pennies for a while and bought these and am very happy with them.

I may take them to the grinder and widen the radius but I will try them for a bit to see how they run. Like I said I picked up several of these and have some to play with. I appreciate the comments and warnings, I can use all the help I can get. Like Frosty said even if they sit on the shelf for a great while, they may be just the ticket for something down the road. They are a bit tall but I have room to adjust the pitman. They are not significantly taller than the flat top dies that came with the bottoms. Mostly I wanted to test building a set of dies for the KDS bottoms. KDS is the name Little Giant has on the dies. Something Die System...maybe? They fit nicely in the key way and it was pretty easy to build the other pieces. Check out their website for the details. I have been stewing on this little project in my mind this winter/spring. I have been laid up with a torn up knee and have had more time to think then to build....always dangerous around my camp! I will give them a shot soon and report back. John

You may be right Danger, but I haven't tried them yet. Had to make a trip to the back cracker to be put back in shape. I will give them a shot and then see what adjustment they need. I may be able to use the flat die on the bottom and then the drawing die on the top for a more gentle draw. I like these KDS pieces because it is easy to build your own dies and tooling. Either way they will get used....in their current form or after some re-working!

I bought a set of flat dies for my 50# LG with the KDS system. I really like how they fit and work, but I also wanted a set of drawing dies. I found these pieces in the scrap yard. They are 4 inches long and have a diamater of 2 inches. They have a hole down through the middle for whatever purpose they served prior and were flat on one quarter. The holes may be handy at some point...just not sure for what purpose yet. The pieces spark test like high carbon, but are totally unknown to me. I welded them to 3/8 flat to attache to the KDS bases. I actually picked up several of these pieces, so if they are just mild and wear quickly, I can rebuild and am not out much. I really like the KDS base system and like how the flats have indentions for set screws when you put tooling on the dies.