bigfootnampa

This is really a great opportunity to teach your daughter how to handle failure... which is of course; to persevere until you reach success! I hope that you won't mind if I suggest that my own experience shows smaller hammers to be amazingly effective. I have been moving lighter and lighter for my own work. A favorite of mine is a rescued hammer head that is similar to a 12 oz. tinner's riveting hammer but slightly longer. So it's a 1" square bar about 5" long tapered to a cross peen at one end. I'd guess it's about a 16 oz. hammer. I like the reach for doing delicate work and use the long column of weight to move metal with surprising ease. It seems to me that such a hammer would be quite nice for a young smith to use. The size is quite manageable for forging out too. I use one of the afore mentioned tinner's hammers quite a bit also. A smaller hammer like this might be a good starting point and be easier to create. I use mine a lot when forging nails and find it quicker than my bigger hammers overall (but I like a bigger one for the long tapers on longer nails).

I think these are copper... right Brian? In the final pics they seem silvery? You could easily use sterling silver to forge them or even surgical stainless steel for very sensitive wearers. In my time as a jewelry forger/fabricator I found that most people could wear sterling and fine silver wires but a small number require gold or the surgical stainless. GOLD! WOW! These would look GREAT in gold Brian! Hmmm by my rough (VERY rough) calculations I would guesstimate a foot of 1/4" square rod in 14k gold to cost around $6,000.00!!! You really only use about 1/2" of material though... so that would make a dozen pairs... around $500.00 per pair. A BARGAIN!! But maybe some of us'll have to settle for sterling. My same rough calculations say around $60 to $65 for the same 1 foot rod of sterling... or around $5.00 per pair = AMAZING bargain!!.!.

Tim; One problem with using screws is that when screws are parallel with the grain of wood each thread cuts the grain... so the effect is similar to drilling rather than wedging. I often just cold forge 1/4" rod (also use wood wedges first) for wedges and that works pretty well. If your system is working it is the wedging action NOT the threads which make it happen... in end grain nails are FAR harder to remove than screws. This is NOT just theory I know it from experience too. Of course handmade nails (and wedges) hold way better than factory wire nails or even screws in ANY orientation.

BTW Joe DeLaRonde does some really nice traditional work, wellll quite a bit better than any antique ones I ever saw! His website used to have a lot more pics up but you can still get the idea:DeLaRonde Forge

Not my shop Andrew. Sorry I didn't mean to mislead anyone... the "My Link" was default and I didn't realize and change it. RMJ does make one called the "Shrike" which might be what you're thinking of. I have no connection with this shop... but I like what they do... all integral forged work. Clay

My name is Clay and my problem is that I pretty much bought all the tools that are locally available (except for some that are ridiculously expensive). Now I am forced to make my own... even inventing them to get ever better, bigger, sharper, harder, stronger ones!! You guys just buying them are only in the early stages of this all-consuming disease!! I also have to have many duplicates now as these stupid things are always hiding when I want to make them work!!!?!!?

That iron looks pretty normal from my stock. You did a real nice job with it though and with the welded bit it should work well.

That is correct Phil. They are a traditional version of todays welded portable fence panels. They were used something like the round pen panels currently fashionable to handle livestock. Hurdles were most commonly used by sheepmen though sometimes for pigs or even cattle. They are made of willow or hazel woven around vertical stakes called sails.

As I think Bob meant to say: use the antique wrenches that were often handmade and do NOT have the chrome coatings of the modern versions. There are lots of them available at flea markets and in antique malls. They are MUCH more interesting anyway.

Hard to tell without looking closely, testing the rebound etc. Just from the pictures though, I'd guess it might be a pretty nice buy for $200 or so... especially if they include the hardy tool shown. FYI Dudley was apparently the city where these anvils were made. Peter Wrights were also made there, so the area may have had many craftsmen and shops that were familiar with the anvil making trade. It is likely that that anvil is somewhere around 150 to 180 years old and it looks like it has survived in pretty decent condition. It might possibly last a few more years in your shop.

Tim; I have run into this phenomena before. I believe that the copper gets a deep level of oxidation/corrosion that will not allow the solder to flow. Higher heat plus more aggressive cleaning help but I will also replace the old copper wherever it is not too difficult to do. Sometimes it is cheaper to do that than to fight with it. The real old tubing is the toughest. Tubing only a few years old is only slightly more difficult to solder than new. Tubing in basements and crawl spaces is often harder to solder than the stuff under the sinks. The hardest joints are where you have to lie on your back and reach around stuff and then make the solder flow uphill while fighting off hordes of brown recluse spiders! If you use straight propane switch to Mapp gas for a hotter flame. The higher heat will help you get good joints fast (and speed is important because copper oxidizes quickly).

There are tactical tomahawks being made and they are fairly popular items. Some smiths are making them in pretty fair quantities. The particular design you have in mind probably depends on whether you have the skill level to pull it off. The "Eagle Talon" here:My link is pretty popular, but google tactical tomahawk and you'll get about 383,000 hits. Personally I would be wary of using forge welds for an item that someones life may depend upon. I would tend to favor an integral design or one with at least a monosteel head.

And I have made knives of 4140. Not the steel I'd choose for a carving knife or to filet fish but a pretty good choice for a fighting type knife like the Karambits that I made with it. I also intend to test it for scythe/billhook edges where strength and easy sharpenability are more important than long-lasting razor edges.

Hand hacksaw blades are too thin to be very useful even for small blades. The power hacksaw blades can be good steel especially the real old ones (before bimetal became the most common material). I have some that work fairly well but it's hard to get enough upset to make the tang the way I want... I have kinda quit using them as I have some spring steel and some old rotary mower blades that are easier to use and make better blades anyway.

Not a knapped blade... a blade for chopping stone. They work specially well for dressing the surfaces/edges. The jackhammer blade that I made Kurt's chisel from WAS HARD... even red hot. Grant says they are mostly made of 9260 which is similar to S5 steel (but cheaper I assume). I did a lot of pounding to shape that chisel and compromised a dab on my preferred shape due to exhaustion. NOW I have an Anyang though and NO FEAR!(:-) I can take on even the dreaded grader blades! (well... MAYBE). This blade that I have has square (about 3/4")bolt holes about every foot in the center. It narrows at the ends (due to wear I think) but is about 7" wide for most of it's length. It looks like a giant boomerang without the bend. HMMMmmm... IF I could get a bend in it and then create some sort of giant thrower like a TITANIC trap machine... I could bring down jet fighters with this thing!!!! I'll try to get some pics later today. One problem with such a thrower might be that it would be hard to find a safe testing area in North America... and IF it returned welllll... maybe my brother-in-law would fire the first test for me!?!!

Frosty; That just intrigues me! I have been wanting to make some stone axes and this metal sounds like the real deal! I have a six-foot chunk of scraper blade from a land plane that the driver left in my yard when they leveled the subdivision next door. I'd guess it to be similar steel? It is around 5/8" thick at the center tapering to knife edged at the sides. I think it does NOT have the carbide knives... good, right? Could I possibly use it as bit material? Have you tried forge welding it? My chisel for Kurt pictured in an earlier thread was a big hit and the local masons he works with are so covetous of it that he is almost scared to take it out of the tool satchel. If I had a great stone axe for him they'd really turn green! Clay

Just for future reference I'll mention that several laminates (Formica-type) are available that have a copper look or REAL copper and simplify this process if you can find the "look" that you desire among them. Some can even be patinated if you want/need that. I have worked with some of them on past projects.

Most of the mower blades I get are pretty high carbon. I find that they will pretty much all harden nicely by oil quenching. I have made some nice knives and chisels from them (as well as other things). The ones that I recycle all seem to be one homogeneous steel. I find that the larger riding mowers have nice thick blades and cheap riders or walk-behinds have thinner blades... I have found uses for both types. As they are used (in the mowers) they seem to be left pretty soft or tempered back quite a ways but harden nicely when I re-heat-treat them.

The technique seems fairly standard to me. What do you find unique about it? Looks like he is using a weedburner for a heat source.

I agree with Sam that for most knives I'd choose another steel. I do like that steel for some of my tools though. I use it often (at least that's what I think I am using) for scythe blades. I don't harden it just use it "as forged" and find it excellent for weed cutting. I like those blades to be soft enough to re-edge with a file and resist chipping. Old lawn mower blades are more likely to be 1095 or so and make very good blade stock. I have done some rough-use chisels from the 1035 stock though and I hardened that in oil and got pretty good performance. Made to chisel gypsum I tested on oak and they worked well. Depending on the intended use, geometry and skillful sharpening can overcome quite a few deficits in ideal material selection. Tempering is less critical with the lower carbon steels and differential hardening (IE hardening only the cutting ends or edges) is more practical. There are lots of good uses for such steels but I wouldn't invest a lot of effort and time in making a high-end knife from such material... it is too easy to get better steel for that.

Phil; Speaking of your greasy stick method, I have been using it to check temp for hot-setting tangs into handles and find it quite helpful. Thanks for sharing it with me! I use an oxy-propane torch and heat the tangs fairly quickly just until the stick begins to slide... so staying to the lower end of the greasy stick temps and then holding the tool with heavy tongs at the base of the tang, I tap the (previously step drilled) handle against the anvil and the weight of the tool and the tongs drives the tang into the handle. The heat allows the wood around the tang to compress and cooks the resins making them a sort of natural ferrule cement. Thus the tool is captured in a VERY durable way. The compression strengthens the tong socket. I have had such success with this method that I use it for tools that have heavy withdrawal forces (like scorps or drawknives) with absolute confidence. You may note that this system of handle setting has the side benefit of automatically drawing temper in the tang to eliminate any brittleness there (though I mostly heat treat in such a way as to leave this area only slightly hardened anyway). I used to have a little trouble judging the temps and would occasionally misjudge and get the tang halfway in and have to scramble to remove it so that I could reheat it... this greasy stick method eliminates those problems. I've also been using the oil-flash tempering on some of my tools and knives and it is very fast and seems to be doing a good job where I have used it. So THANKS Phil for sharing your knowledge!

You might be able to make a mandrel to form the teeth around. Maybe a chunk of Monel or something really hard like that. Well done tongs will be every bit the equal (and MORE) to any ordinary pliers. You could also form your teeth with a toothed drift.

Some types of glue (titebond, elmer's or gorilla glue for instance) like to be clamped tight... epoxy suffers from that same treatment. Because the epoxy has less penetration and is very strong as a gap filler... it is actually better if you leave a bit of gap when using it.

I have done some fusion welding with copper, silver, brass, etc. For copper especially, because of it's tendency to scale heavily and rapidly, it is important to flux and to heat quickly to fusion temps (preferably in a reducing atmosphere). I have had pretty good results doing small jewelry sized items with a small propane/air torch and an even smaller propane/oxygen torch. I have not tried it in my forge but I would expect that it should work well as my heat there is wonderfully quick when the fire is right. It is easier to watch what is happening when using the torch though and you can play the torch around and/or on/off to get a pretty fine degree of control. Overheating might be a problem in my forge. I have mostly used Batterns self pickling flux. I have made welded chains in silver, brass and copper but the silver is much easier and I found it advisable to solder (hard solder) for the copper and brass chains... it was pretty slow work anyway and the tiny amount of solder needed for the joins was almost invisible.

Your architect is not likely to have the needed technical expertise for this but he may well know who does and be able to refer you in the right direction. Architects usually have engineering contacts because they need them too. While I do think that the recommendations of a good engineer may be useful... keep in mind that your project is a bit outside the bounds of traditional design and engineers are very cautious people, generally... therefore you might get a recommendation from him that makes the whole project too expensive to be practical. In the end YOU are an artist who is rapidly developing a specialty in these very large gates and YOUR experience and judgement based on the smaller (but still LARGE)projects you have already done will be the most reliable resource available. As a fellow craftsman/artist I have had to develop a very fine tuned intuition for the needed strengths/design-considerations for many of my own projects. Trust your instincts because YOU are the best source of expertise for this job! Do listen to your engineer though his input could be quite useful. I once had a good friend who tried VERY HARD to stop the construction of the Teton Dam. He was a professional hydrologist and testified for days saying that the dam would NOT HOLD WATER because of the geology of the site. Because he also had a reputation as an extremely concerned environmentalist, people tended to think he was biased (he was) and they did NOT LISTEN to his warnings. As we all know now the result was the worst xxxx DAM DISASTER in North American history!!!