Dave Budd

i make them (have a 'small' lefty in stock), but I suspect the postage to the US might be a killer!

another mill that is worth looking into, that I also use, is the Logosol mill. It's a chainsaw based mill like the Alaskan, but it is a proper bench that has trestles that raise the log to a bed that has the saw running along it.  I have their 'farmers m8' model which is one of the cheaper models and can be set up near to the tree (comes apart into small enough bits to fit in a car/atv) or left at a permanent site. 

Adding a simple winch to either mill makes the whole process even easier and smoother, giving better finished cuts too. I've never milled anything as soft as spruce or pine, but if I have a 14" birch trunk to mill it's like butter compared to the oak that I'm used to! So the winch is really nice especially with the alaskan.

I have an Alaskan Mill and have used it a fair bit over the last decade or so.

Pros: 

relatively cheap way to get into milling (especially if you only expect to use it once in a blue moon)

portable: take it to the tree, so you don;t have to lift/drag a 2 tonne trunk!

Simple and easy to set up and use

tapered planks, for something like shiplap boarding

Cons:

your face is in the exhaust the whole time

Unless you can raise the trunk, you are on your knees a lot of the time

If you first cut (ie with guide rail) is wonky, then every other cut will be. So make sure your guide rail is straight, square and doesn't sag

chainsaw finished planks need some cleaning up

In addition to the argument about the Alaskan mill, it is a chainsaw mill. I also use a Logosol mill, which is a proper sawmill bench which also takes a chainsaw. Chainsaw mills loose 8-10mm on EVERY cut due to the kerf of the chain, so is a bit wasteful of material. If the Alaskan mill is set up with a support at both ends of the bar, you lose about 5" on your bar length: so a 20" bar will only mill a 15" log. If you set it up with the support only at the engine end, then you get a wonky and tapered board. That said, I've used an 18" bar (on a 45cc engine) to mill 20" wide oak planks before, there was about 1/4" overlap from where I switched from one side to the other. When it comes to the saw you use, the bigger the better. I use a Stihl MS880 (120cc, 18.9bhp), which is as big as they get and I find it too easy to stall on even a 14" hardwood tree;l I know people who use two engines to run a 5' bar. 

I've no idea what the knock off's are like, but a proper alaskan mill is worth a punt if you have access to the occasional log that should be turned into better planks. Certainly much cheaper than getting the trees hauled out to a mill or getting a mobile miller in with a Lucas or Woodmizer that's for sure! Getting somebody to come and mill for you is worth doing if you've got a lot of wood to mill. A single tree, say 2 cubic meters, takes about an hour with this sort of set up, but half that with a bandsaw mill. So if you hire somebody in, they are there for at least a day, so you've got like 4-6 good trees to make it worth the trip

n.b If you can, set up a winch on the mill. It makes the job quicker, easier and smoother  

I use the backs of doors and then some cupboard doors for full length blackboards. They are all dead space otherwise  

When I'm not using gas for production work or pattern welding, I mostly use charcoal. I make all of my own on account of my workshop being set in 10 acres of woodland so the fuel is all around me! 

I looked into retorts and they are definitely worth using, especially if your wood supply is limited or you are near other people. They produce higher percentage yield and better quality charcoal than direct methods can. The Hookway retort is one of the few commercially available ones int he UK (and the plans are cheap if you want to build your own without the learning curve of youtube/books). The issue I had with it was that the quantity was too small from an oil drum sized kiln and the larger ones would involve too much effort/time/money on my part. 

I currently use a 5 foot ring kiln of the type most wood colliers use these days. The drum is 5 feet diameter and 4 feet high and I get about 120 kg of charcoal out of it. It takes a couple of hours to load, couple of hours to unload and the burn is about 10 hours. The quality is a bit more variable, but the browns go into the next burn (or camp firewood) and I've started to use even the fines on the forge so no more than a small amount to get the kiln up to temperature is wasted. ring kilns are commercially available at a fraction of the cost of a retort, in fact the cost of a second hand ring is often less than the materials for a similar sized retort

i must be in the minority. I've had the vice pinch a few times, but not since I was a kid! I just learned not to drop the bar if my hand was still there (just like not putting my finger infront of a moving bandsaw or under a descending hammer). 

i've never made an ice saw, but I've made a number of woodworking saws. The easiest way to make a large saw is to start off with some commercially available, pre-heat treated sheet or strip steel of the right thickness   I got some sheet that is 1mm thick and at something like 52rc (i think), I cut the shape out with an angle grinder, carefully grind off the heated zone and then file the teeth in. 

I use a tyre hammer built by a British smith (Dave Preston) to a similar design as the Clay Spencer.  I use it for much smaller things than I ever imagined I would, not because it is quicker but because I can do more of the donkey work on a larger number of items for a given amount of energy. I occasionally make batches of tools that are basically 6mm round spring steel drawn out into spikes over a 2" distance up the shaft. I can draw one out and round it to a fine point in 2 heats by hand, or two heats if the drawing to square is done under the hammer. The difference is that I can knock out a few dozen at a time without fatiguing or breaking a sweat if I use the  power hammer. 

The key is to practice and accept that you'll waste work once in a while, especially as your skill is developing. As long as the wasted work is scrapped quickly and the overall time saved is sufficient, then it's all good  

to me that fracture pattern looks like you were forging it too hot. Normally cracks made by cold forging or post hardening are less tress like and more like closed hairlines in my experience

my workshop is on a hillside, in the middle of the woods and the ground is clay. I had a digger in to flatten a platform and tracked back and forth a bit to flatten and compact the ground a bit. Apart from the floor being a bit soft when it's been raining for 6 months (such as now  ), it's a really good floor surface. 

Hello and welcome

What sort of tools are you looking to buy? I tend to buy on Ebay if I'm after anything specific,but farm auctions and carboots are often good sources too. A lot of small tools (swages, jigs, top tools, punches, etc) are more easily made yourself rather than trying to find them to buy. The tools that you need are going to be based on what you are making, so to begin with you won't need many tools  

i've made a number of wood cutting saws, but not a bone saw (aside from small saws for making bone combs and things). The wood saws have been made from spring steel and tempered to mid to high 40's RC to allow sharpening with files. Some were cut from a sheet of pre-heat treated steel with the teeth set to create the kerf;  others forged into knife like cross section and the teeth cut into the thick side, thus the blade created the kerf. I also made a frame saw and bought a ready made blade for that as it was more cost effective than making one from scratch

If I were making a bone saw for a hunter, I would make just the frame and then size it to fit commercially available blades. They are bound to break and you may as well save yourself the hassel!

12 hours ago, Frosty said:

I've seen chewed charcoal used as flux in more than one 3rd. world blacksmithing videos. I've added a bit to my regular flux and at least it hasn't hurt performance. 

Speculating I see two benefits. First charcoal is an excellent oxy scavenger, you can reduce ore into iron in a charcoal fired bloomery. Been doing it for a couple thousand years now I believe. 

Then there is the effect of carbon content in steel, the higher the C% the lower the melting temperature. As the steel approaches the melting temp in a join there's a layer of almost pure carbon. I'm wondering if it isn't absorbed into the steel at the joint,  lowering the melting temp for a couple thousandths where we need  it to?

Hmmmm?

Frosty The Lucky.

Both exactly the reasons that I and others squirt oil or other hydrocarbons into a stack when patternwelding  I've started doing it for other firewelds too where I want the borax to stick to the metal before it gets to a temperature that the flux will melt

nice tooling and it clearly works well, but I can't help thinking that you could buy an awful lot of 1/2" rivets for the price of the time you spent making it?

i do that when welding edges in. If I don't then there is A) a very good chance that it will slip out whilst heating and turning in the forge and B ) when the weld is struck the first time everything is slippery and the HC piece flies out!  It all saves a lot of juggling and hoping things don't slip out of alignment before he weld is made

for gas forges in the UK, there is also Castree Kilns. They are a pottery supplier and I get most of my refractory products from them, as well as having a couple of their burners in my forges. They did make a few forges, but I don't know if they still do

Pretty much what I had been thinking. Hypertherm just regurgitated their sales pitch from their american website, almost word for word, which never fills me with confidence. Oxford, however sent me an email this afternoon (the appropriate chap wasn't around when I called them) and said that not only would my generator be more than adequate, but the circuitry is much more robust with dodgy power supplies than an inverter based machine (which backs up my own experiences). They also said that they could supply any replacement parts with minimal costs as they are all made here (a problem with the inverter welder I have is that you have to send it to the manufactuers to replace entire boards of circuitry when it goes pop).

The R-tech machines have been mentioned to me before, but all of the low and mid range units seem to be much of a muchness and at least one friend of mine who has one was very underwhelmed with it's performance. He was using it on mains power too!  

I'll see if I can find somebody who might use it in the field and have a chat. Thanks

the insides of my doors are all painted with blackboard paint, so I have several 8x4foot CAD boards (Chalk Aided Design)  

If I need to make more precise drawings an templates I draw onto a sheet of steel with a silver pen/white pencil or make a paper template on gridded paper. I don't have the need or desire to use computers for my work, so these methods work for me

I'm after some plasma cutter advice  I've been using a 'cheapy' (still not cheap!) Fusion I-cut 40 for the last couple of years, but it is frustrating me on anything thicker than a few mm of steel (specifically high carbon tool steels). So I'm looking to upgrade.

It's a toss up between the Hypertherm Powermax 30 and the Oxford Cutmaker 350.

Both are apparently good machines, but the crux of it is that I have to run it from a 7.5Kv generator (so nothing bigger than those two will work anyway!). With my arc welder and current plasma I have gone with inverter machines on account of them being made for generators, but they are also impossible to fix (expensive replacement electronics, as I have found) and still don't work properly when used off a 40 year old genny (despite what the manufacturers claim!). The foilbles of inverters is the reason I'm wondering if the Oxford may work better?

welcome   

As Dave says, I'll be at the Gathering. I'm normally in the main field next to Endicotts Army Surplus. There are likely others smiths there too. In the past Dean Agate (meadow forge), John Arthur, Andy Kirkham and at least one other who's name eludes me now. It used to be just me, but now every other stall seems to be a smith! 

I just try not to make things that require a vice, that way I don't have to lug a heavy bit of kit around with me!  I have a nail in my anvil log next to my stake anvil (think Viking style forging set up) and I can wedge a pair of tongs between them with my leg to hold small things when filing or sawing

the 4140 sounds the best bet with what you have. Rather than trying to get enough mass around the eye area, why not just wrap a wire handle (or weld it on if you must). That way you can get a 1" thick punch with no weak spot to break

I've never used any special tools to make spears? I guess if you are making one with a very defined ridge down the centre then a pair of swages would be good, but for lenticular and diamond section ones just use the hammer and anvil. 

I get my fuel from Northover Fuels in Bovy Tracey, so a little closer (the used to be Jeffries but were bought out by a Somerset based company). I don't know how their coke supplies are as I only buy my fuel once a year. 

Aside from the apparent scarcity of coke, I'm switching over to using coal with my next order on account of the poor quality of the coke that I have had the last few years. Basically I am sick to death of wasting half of every heat cleaning clinker off things! I've played with a couple of bags of the Welsh coal (from Northover) over the winter to see if I liked it better than coke and there is no contest. The coal needs breaking up, but that's not hard to do and takes some getting used to. The main difference I found in use for me (aside from almost no clinkers and a bit of soot on the metal) was that fire is softer and I kept losing pieces of work into the fire until I got used to it. On the whole it is much more like working with charcoal only cheaper 

Haha my ugly mug gets everywhere! the bellows in the first picture were  my mark ones and have been replaced since then, but the idea kiss the same.

The pot is just that. I've  used hollowed out logs, wooden half barrels and even plastic buckets. In Africa some of the larger ones are built in place from clay and in India from old ceramic pots. The skin is normally goat but calf skin and sealed canvas also work (I used a damaged plastic tent with the buckets). The valve can be a flap in the pot or a hole in the skin, some have the skin folded in such a way as to allow them to close on pushing yet open when lifted.

They are dead simple to make!