Kevin Olson

Feel for your loss Poncho. The connecting rod in the engine can be forged into a bottle opner. Ive done a few and gear heads love them. I take my ball pien and texture the whole rod so it looks like it came out of a totally exploded engine

That looks good. Like you said mount it sturdy and practice closing the lid in case of a flare up.

Usually for a right handed smith you crank the blower with your left hand to give your hammer arm a rest. But its really personal preference. The pot is typical size and should work well. If your running coal you'll want to control the size of your fire by wetting the edges to keep the fire smaller. You'll only be doing that if your forging smaller pieces like stuff up to 1/2 inch. Anything bigger you just let the fire grow to the size you need it to be. As for the ash dump you'll want to extend the pipe about 6 inches below where the side pipe comes in then install an exhaust flap like on trucks and tractors with a weighted handel on it. Thats the easiest way ro build that. You need that lenght cuz the ash will build up in there and block your air entry. You should make the air holes in the grate a little bigger too.

Prayers sent J

I wonder if it's cast. I would think anything forged would just dent or mushroom. I dont know, just thinkin out load. Maybe do a spark test or clean up an area and do a spot weld to see how it reacts. I have a vise thats had an extensive repair done to it and welds look good. The area marked with chaulk is the weld on the reinforcement straps.

No one has commented on your avatar or your screen name. Both are very cool. You will fit in here just fine:-)

Thanks for the compliments. Used it today and beat it up good. No more damage so far. Back to makin instead of fixin. :-) :-)

Fixed for now. Welded the pieces back together then took 3/8 square and forge a ring slightly smaller then the washer and heated it red then pressed in on the washer and welded the ring to the washer. I like the idea of a thrust bearing on the handle side and have been slowly looking for options there.

Made my first feather tonight. I cranked it down in my 5 1/4 inch indian chief to chisel the edge textures in and the vise went tight then let go like I stripped the threads. Oh no! Its ruined I thought. Turns out I broke that rounded thrust washer on the back side of the screw. When I got the vise that was already broken so I mig welded it back together. Thought it was good to go. It smelled wierd when welding and I assumed it was wrought iron. Never smelled anything like that before. Been using it for 6 months than tonight i cranked on it and turned that washer into rubble. Always something to overcome in the shop huh.

The guys at Men at Arms on youtube made a ulfberht too. Very cool. They have 3.5 million subscribers. Wow

I saw that too and was going to post it but you beat me. Sure smells fishy to me. It must be criticizing the over the top prices people want for anthing blacksmith related.

Definatly cast. If it had a face plate its gone now because theres no step were the cutting step should be. And the condition of the face with it being all indented brings more questions. Is all that missing metal from corrosion or did soneone keep using it and bang those dents into it? If she could only talk! Try the rebound test and see how hard the face is. Its gonna be hard to do with no flat area but us worth a try. Try to file it and see how hard it is.

Prayers sent. Good luck to all down there

This danger was out side the shop last thursday. My son was smoking in front of the shop. He knocked the cherry off in the driveway then disposed of the butt. Wind blew the cherry into the neighbors fence and started a grass fire that spred to the fence than his boat. It took and hour for the fire to get goin than a passerbuy alerted us. Ugly situation. The pic is whats left of the fence and the boat burning.

Cool looking. Did you put the pritchel and hardy holes in it. If so, how did you do it. I would like to see a picture of the horn. That must have taken some work. It looks really good

I hope you dont mind me asking but what was the price on that beauty. I'm sure people are curious because people have asked before what they should pay for a LG. By the way. Where are you at, as I see some mountains in the background.

After practicing the basics and making some tools I watched a vid about making flowers and this is my first attempt. Heated the petals in the forge to form them. Thats why there black. Now I form the petals cold and run tempering colors on them with a hand torch. Much nicer looking.

Flower candle holder. Tea light in for size reference. Gonna adjust it to hold a bigger candle then run some tempering colors on it.

Anvil Shaped Object

Hey john. Careful forging with that metal from that do dad in the first pic. It could have a coating that really stinks when heated. I once tried to forge with a plant hanger i found and the coating was so nasty to burn off i threw it out.

Awesome.

Hey IP. Do you have a pic of this. Interweb search for me shows nothing.

Clothes dryer turned into a forge. I use the fan in it as the blower for a disk brake fire pot. Sliding air gate for air control. Works great.

Wow thats some grate/ tuyere. Mabey you should modify like mine. Makes it deeper. This works good for me.

Oh great. Another cool tool to add to my list. I need to get to the forge more lol. Thanks for the inspiration:-)