Kevin Olson

What color are they goin. If its black dont worry about primer. Just clean and degrease good and shoot it. If red,yellow,green then prime with a light grey primer. That way it gives the piece a light ground coat color which will help the topcoat go on without so many coats. Plus the lighter primer under lighter colors makes the topcoat more vibrant. Then find some catalized clear coat. A clear that needs a hardener. 2 coats of that and now the color will really pop plus will be resistant to chemicals up to a point. Regular rattle can paint can be washed off with solvent but the 2 part clear wont. Much more durable. Auto parts stores sometimes have this clear. If not call a local bodyshop and see where they get there paint from. My supplier here does sell to people off the street. Hope this helps. Trouble with the clear is your going to have to have some kind of a spray gun. And solvents to clean the gun out after.

Harrys scar looks more like an N then a lightning bolt so keep that in mind. I didn't remember that till i looked up some images. Thats going to pose the biggest design problem.

Heres my most used. 3lb 4lb 2lb. The 3 has a gentle straight pein on the face the others are rounding jammers

Search YouTube for Kim Thomas. He's got a real cool brick forge that kinda looks like your idea

They do alot it work but you have to treat them like holding a loaded gun by the barrel.

Get the progressives. You can change your focal length which helps alot. If I'm welding something on the the bench its good. But welding at eye level or higher (car on a lift and doin exhaust work) i can't get my glasses up high enough or tilt my head back far enough. Its not fun at all welding with bifocals. I wish you luck

Hey c.baum. Whats the dimensions on that and what did i cost you. That thing is Awesome.

Parts delivery bins supplied by the GM dealer near us that would never want to come pick them back up.

Ive always wanted to ask this question. I paint cars in a autobody shop and our make up air system for the paint booth will bring the temp inside up to 80f even on the coldest minnesota day. Needless to say thats quite the burner. And all those fumes and exhaust are pushed into the booth and around me. The way I see it is the paint booth IS the chimney for that burner. Why dont I die from CO poisoning. Is it because of the amount of air being feed through. Im not sure but it has to exchange the all the air in the booth every 5 minutes. Or does my charcoal respirator mask filter co.

Awhile back i set up a temporary (ya right) 3x6 foot folding table in my shop to display some of my stuff for people for a weekend and all of a sudden i have all kinds of tools etc. piled on it. I have no idea how that happend. One theory is blacksmith gremlins putting stuff there when im not around. Im sticking to that idea cuz theres no way I'm that messy :-) Picked up a small roller tool box with drawers yesterday and am adding more shelves in a cabinet next to the forge to store stuff. Should clean up nice.

How much does it weigh. Are going to have to stand on it when twisting something or will you secure to the floor

So you solved the lighting of the fire problem. How did you do it. Like jackdawg said you talk about stuff thats happened to all of us. I was reading and laughing thinking that sounds like some of my days. I had an idea for this piece and said i can do that in one try. Nope :-) took 4 attempts. Left alot of steel in the forge for this one :-) Its one piece. Rail spike. Had to cut the head off cuz it looked funny

Thanks Frosty. Many hours into this project. Everyone should try driilin 1 inch T-1. Im an expert at sharping drill bits now :-) Brought an old girl back to life. It feels good. You have an 8 inch wow I have vise envy :-)

Here she is all mounted up to a table made of 1 inch T-1 steel. The 2 pieces of the table are 15 inches by 4 foot each. Together they weigh 400 pounds. The engine hoist came in handy. I squared the heads of half inch bolts and brass brushed them. They look awesome. I dont know what they used to write "T-1" on it but its like its etched right into it. I kleaned the steel up (couldn't get through rust scale) with a 24 grit disk on my angle grinder and it didn't even touch the writing. So i guess everone will know what steel this is forever. My brother got this stuff when he was a mechanic at Hoover construction in northern minnesota in the early 80s. The boss wanted to use these as wear plates on front end loader buckets. He told the guys to weld one edge onto the bottom of the bucket then just bend it to fit the contour of the bucket and weld it up. They reminded him it was t-1 and anint gonna bend. So my bro got them and added some angle to hold them togethet and we've been using then for weight in the back of pickups for winters ever since. The holes in the middle are torched in and thats where he had the hold down bolts go through.

I stopped by the blacksmith shop at the Anoka county fair a few weeks ago. The smith made a huge one out of 1 inch 4140. I was a foot and a half long on each side. That thing was cool. It sounded like a church bell and loud.

Thank you all. And Frosty, I'll pass on the invite to my bro. He's a volunteer fire fighter and I suppose with all the folks he knows he might have gotten alot of advice already on how to heal. You know how that goes. You get hurt and everyone has suggestions how to get better. Thanks everyone. Kevin

Beer keg slack tub. Cool. All that falling off paint on the vise aint cool but its part of its history and thats cool. Glad you left it on. I got my granddads anvil and it had a little white paint spilled on the side. I left it on cuz thats the way i got it. Its part of its history. Why change it :-)

My sister inlaw Holly just found out she is inflicted with the dreaded breast cancer. Shes 46. Don't know the stage of it yet. She's just starting the journey. This just adds to there stress. My brother Todd fell off of his logging truck and hit his head sustaining and brain injury. Hes pretty much ok but has balance problems and has memory challanges. He seems ok but he's definitely not the same as before. Let us that are healthy thank our good luck cuz life can change in the blink of an eye. Thanks. Kevin. PS. I'm gonna fire up the forge (which I dont do enough of cuz of life things to do) and make something beautiful ! Rock on!

Here she is after an electrolysis bath overnight and polished up. She look awesome! And yes, Judson she pinched me and drew some blood. The blacksmith gods are happy now:-) We see some smiths falling into good deals and wish that would happen to us. I guess I'm one of those now. Wow, it feels good. Also a pic of the part time petite shop cat. Its a nice 77 degrees in Minneapolis. Life is good!

Do. Keep your space orginized. Always put your tool back after using it even if you need it after the next heat. That way you will never lose it because you know thats where you store it versus having to remember where you set it down at. For instance i know i keep all my wrenches and sockets in my tool box and when im mechanicing and use a tool i put it right back in the box instead of laying it somewhere on the car and having to search for it. That keeps the "minute men" away. You know, those little guys that come through and hide your stuff that you knew was just there a minute ago :-)

Nice piece. Thanks for makin my list of things to make longer :-)

300 lbs. Its in cwt weight. 112×2+28×2+20=300

The interweb says sg iron is a ductile iron with high impact and fatigue resistance making it less brittle than regular cast and with a harness of 65 shouldn't that rebound like crazy? Or is 65 to hard? I know other good cast anvils are in the low 50's .

The side viens should be angled towards the tip of the leaf. Study a real leaf and you will see that. Otherwise a good first try. This stuff takes practice. Dont give up :-)

I just high lighted the letters with caulk to show its a real Indian Chief. Gonna shine it up tomorrow and im sure it will draw some blood because this thing is heavy and im sure it'll pinch me. Im ok with that sacrifice to the blacksmith gods to bring a tool back to life.