Double Y

I have been looking for a belt grinder and am debating building vs. buying. Not having a ton of cash, I have been looking at the no weld plans and they seem to be pretty straight forward. However on the other side is purchasing one. Do any of you have experience with a Coote Belt Grinder? The Coote with a 2x72 belt and a 10" contact wheel is $505. Thoughts? Thanks, John

Smart phones while on the road... Sorry guys

I am pretty sure it is a modern anvil and one that came from old world anvils. I just dont know much or anything about the manufacturer. The iron on the table is a couple art pieces I am working on. One is a whitetail deer door grate for a fire place and the other is a kokopelli golf sign. Pretty random but it works for me! Thanks for the replys John

I am pretty sure it is a modern anvil and one that came from old world anvils. I just dont know much or anything about the manufacturer. The iron on the table is a couple art pieces I am working on. One is a whitetail deer door grate for a fire place and the other is a kokopelli golf sign. Pretty random but it works for me! Thanks for the replys John

I am pretty sure it is a modern anvil and one that came from old world anvils. I just dont know much or anything about the manufacturer. The iron on the table is a couple art pieces I am working on. One is a whitetail deer door grate for a fire place and the other is a kokopelli golf sign. Pretty random but it works for me! Thanks for the replys John

The rebound is great. Sold and alive when I "inspected" with a hammer!

I gathered the following in one stop...and with my wife in the pickup! I had talked to the fellow who sold me this about 4 month ago and he had a Square Wheel grinder that I was interested in from this same pile. Though he wanted new price and my sheckles were few at the time. The story goes the guy I bought this from got it all from a guy who owed him money...must have been a lot of money. The grinder was gone from the mix when I got time and money to stop and shop. However, I did load the following.... The Craftsman buffer is brand new. There is still the protective coating on the threads. The Tom Tongs - one wolf jaw and one scrolling tongs have seen little to no use. The handle material is varried, but that will make some projects fun. The steel is what I stopped for. I didn't realize there were so many blades already cut out. I have only made a handfull of blades and they were just to see if I could...seems like I will have to at least but these together! The brass is a bonus! The anvil is a bonus and FOR SALE! I guess it is an Austrian anvil, but other than that I don't know a thing about it. I got that info from IFI on the Anvils thread. I left behind two forges, one coal rivet and a NC Tool knife forge. I trully couldn't talk myself into either. The guy has them for sale and if you are interested and in the MT area, send me a note and I will send you the fellows phone number.

OKay Anvil knowledgable gentlemen and ladies...what did I get? I bought this last night. It doesn't have a name on it. However there is a raised 80 on one side that tells me it is cast. The 80 is Kilos because it weighs in at 165 lbs. There is also a 26 stamped into the front left foot. There is no prichel hole and I didn't measure the size of the hardy. Any thoughts? Thanks, John

Ours got clipped by the local first time beer drinkers several times and by the snow plow in the winter. We changed the location to put it off the road 10 feet with a pull off for the mail lady. Welded up some Schedule 80 4 inch pipe with 3/16 plate for the boxes to sit on and a splash guard from the snow plow. No issues with the plow. The kids tried it once and played themselves out. However, we found yellow paint on the boxes one day with a damaged mailbox. My neighbors had seen a school bus trying to use the turn out to turn around a 40 foot school bus and failed. The school district bought and installed 3 new mail boxes! I understand the damage to the school bus far outweighed the damage to the boxes.

I hope these links work... This is a recently completed project. I ended up with a foot long wood auger bit with a broken point. In the open flighting I wrapped in a 3/16th piece of a spring steel - a tooth from a three wheel hay rake. I forge welded the pieces together, folded three times and worked out the blade. Overall length is 14 inches Blade length 8.5 inches Copper guard - I tried to texture with a chisle and don't like the results Mule deer shed handle with a copper pin - I stained the shed with leather boot polish and heated to set the color. Thoughts and comments are appreciated. John Picassa web album My link My link My link

Nice build - I have been looking at the no weld plans and they seem pretty straight forward. Where did you pick up you drive and tracking wheels?

Trully Outstanding!

The results are in from product testing... no weld delamination and the blade held its edge even after missing the board and digging in the ground! Fun project. I have a couple other rasps and will have to give it a whirl again sometime. John

This is a hatchet I worked up this weekend while helping my 9 year old son complete an order of hooks he had. Gotte get em started early right? The rasp was on OLD 1/2 in thick wood rasp. I folded for the eye, then bent back 2 and a half inches from the ends to add more thickness to the blade. Super hard to forge and it really took some work because it didn't fit in my trip hammer. The welds worked well, I think. But to be sure I am going to turn the hatchet over to my testing department - the said 9 year old - and a stump to see what it will do. Handle is hikory with a little cherry stain. Thanks for looking. John

Thanks Rich, great suggestion on the cable weld ups. I have a barrel full of cable lenghts and will do just that. The "knife" that I didn't like...I called it a knife for a lack of a better term - I gave away to cut strings on hay bales. It will get some use and if it breaks, I hope I am better by then and will give them another one. I got some "sure-weld" the other day and am trying a chainsaw chain billet with that. These other ones, I used 20 Mule Team and didn't keep the moisture out of the box. I have done a lot of reading and I see that may be a place I am failing. I will keep trying and failing and see where it takes me. It has gotten me this far in life and I still have all my fingers, so I will keep at it! John

Thank guys. I am still learning and will be for quite a while. I don't have a desire to be a major bladesmith, but I have a desire to be good at pattern welding. I have an idea for some patern welded items, but need to build to that skill level. Critisism and suggestions are welcome. Thanks, John

Howdy gentlemen and ladies, I am still working on my pattern welding. Some success and some failure. Attached are a few smaller knives I put together. The knife on the Banana is made from Cable. It has a curley maple handle and copper guard and butt. The knife on the antler...is ugly and poorly done. Abject failure on the welding. I need a suggestion here. I think I didn't clean the flux and slag enough on the fold and ended up with flaws. Does this look like that to you? It cracked when heat treating, but I had the antler drilled and the guard done so I put it together. You are supposed to learn from your mistakes and I hope I learned a lot from this one. The knife on the grapes, I am happier with. It was made from roller chain, with copper accents and purple heart handle. The etch worked better and the welds are passible, but still not perfect. I am however proud of the file work. That turned out pretty good I think. Still learning and failing! Thanks for looking, John

I laid my #50 LG down on a bed of used tires to cushion the ride. Hauled it 200+ miles, but then was able to unload and set in place using a 4430 John Deere tractor with a front end loader. If you don't have a big loader handy, standing one back up will be a chore. I would haul it standing and lash it from every direction..twice.

Hey Ian - I am "cheating" on a project and purchased the scrolls from Kings Arch Iron. Made the project less expensive for the client and made a sale for me...hard to argue with $$ in my pocket. John

T - I think there is a good enough seal between the bottom of the Koawool and the fire brick to keep the bottom steel shelf insulated and protected. However it never hurts to coat with more refractory. Have you ever tired to coat the steel directly? I wonder if I could put a coating on the shelf area? I agree on using the idea of full fire brick doors, however I needed to get this one up and running, so I went with this for now. In the future I plan to put some channel or angle iron on the bottom and top to hold the firebrick doors in place. Thanks, JL

I made a swing through the salvage yard here in Billings last week and stumbled into a haul. I was just looking not really looking for anything in particular. I picked up the three 8x8 inch pieces of copper. 2 are 1/4 inch thick and the last is a 1/2 inch thick. Not cheap at $4 a pound, but I never see anything like that in a scrap yard. The chisels and files and three hammers were in two 5 gal buckets. I noticed two good drifts in the mix and that got me to purchase the entire lot. I won't need to buy any chisels for years to come.

Last weekend I spent rebuilding my forge. I have a railing job that had some strange curves that were too big for my existing forge design. I saw something like this in a photo from another smith. By using the trailer tongue jack I can raise the "lid" of the forge and use firebrick to fill in around the sides. Need to fully fire it up this weekend and finish the railing. I used hard firebricks for the floor and then have a box full of soft bricks for filling in around the edges. I only have one forge. The pipe one in the pictures is what I had originally and I cut it in half to make the current one using the trailer tongue jack. I bought the trailer jack on sale at Harbor Freight. I welded shooter screws to the inside of the pipe and then forced the koawool onto the screws. It seems to hold pretty well. The burners came as a kit from Zoeler Forge several years ago. They run good at about 5 to 7 psi, but to weld I normally crank it to 10. In it's former incarnation, I would just throw a couple pieces of flat plate on the bottom of the forge when I was welding to try to catch some of the excess flux. But I read a tip the other day about welding up a tray that can be removed and replaced for the time when you are welding. It will catch the flux and keep it off your bricks. I welded on up, but haven't used it yet. I got the hard and soft bricks from E.J. Bartell Co. here in Billings. http://www.ejbartells.com They have offices in the Northwest, but I lucked out that they are right here in town. The hard bricks were $4.43 each and the soft $4.05. All the bricks are 9x4.5x2.5. The soft ones are REALLY soft. I cut them with a hack saw and then shaped with a rasp. The hard bricks are ridiculously hard. I cut them with a masonery blade in my chop saw and a dust mask on. They eat blades like no other. The Koawool I also got from Bartell's. It was $82.17 for the 12 foot roll. My forge is now 18 inches long and 9 inches wide. Cranked all the way down I have about 4 inches of clearance. The base around the forge with the hard brick floor is 18 x 20. When I had the forge running and took the pictures, I didn't have time to let it fully get to temp. However, I held my hand under the bottom and couldn't feel ANY heat coming from the forge. The same goes for the back. The 2 inch Koawool is way better then the 1 inch I had in before. Thoughts? Comments? Did I totally screw up? Thanks, John

Here are some photos of a guitar stand I made for a Christmas gift last year.

Thanks for the links guys. I was looking for that information, but also looking for what common material would have some nickel in it like the band saw blades. This is a heck of a group that is willing to share info. Thanks all, John