Ralph

IForgeIron Blueprints Copyright 2002 - 2007 IFORGEIRON, All rights reserved BP0262 Fire Strikers by Ralph Douglass Tonight I will try to show how I make fire strikers. (The Steel part of Flint and Steel Fire Starters.) I start with about 5 to 6 inches of garage door spring, the round coiled stuff. Of course you need to pull it straight first before cutting to length. Heat steel to working temp insuring you do not get it too hot so you do not ruin it. Now slightly flatten the piece, but DO NOT thin it too much. The leading and trailing edges will be slightly curved. You want this. Re-heat it and then taper both ends slightly. And in same heat make a small scroll on each end. Make sure scrolls are facing the same way. Heat again ( with practice you should be able to drop one heat or so). Now once hot, bend into a slightly elongated C shape. Now straighten the long edge carefully. Now have a can of water ( I use a 3 lb coffee can for this) heated to about 180 F. Also heat the striker to the critical temperature ( non-magnetic) I use refridgerator magnets for this, and have one hanging from baling wire near the forge. Bring the stock to the magnet not the other way. When the magnet is no longer attracted to the hot steel, you have reached the critical temperature. Once it is at critical temp then quench the long edge about half way up the arms. Once the edge is cooled below critical dunk it all til cool. Now you need to clean scale off the striking edge. I use a piece of hard red brick and rub off the scale and get it more or less shiney. Use what you have. It is not needed to be a mirror, just no scale as that will prevent spark formation. It is brittle so do not ‘drop test it’ (grin) View full article

I have a 4 foot round half inch thick plate. my plan assuming my cancer alows, is to drill bolt holes and bolt on pipe couplings 3 inch, then use 3 in pipe and flange to hyold up vise. should work. if not try try again. Nice thing is that most stuff was gifted, the vise was given by aa friend who was dealine with MS, Grizz also gifted me with 6 years of friendship a forge,a motorcycle and more than I could ever say cya one day buddy

only way to get good enooguht is to do it. Ask Dr H HOW long he tryied to get as good as he is. better yet work with daughter. RALPH

Ellen I knew you were headed into mor surgery, BUT not as severer as is so to be. YOU GOT ALL PRARERS. hold tough . need anything ask and i will try to help Ralph @ Dawn

so far was in Doc occife for 5 hours and no real results other than no real results. othan that the hosptpitl makes good oatmeal. SIGH sofar be both have good out looks. now I need to remember where I parked. think it was is in the hostpitl visitor parking. but that is for a new day. Unugh on me. how about y'all? Ralph

i can only say I HAD a blast at the 2000 ABANA CONFERERECE especially it only intended for use to visit my Daughters, graduation of Santa FE,which was good. Wife and familily were gracices enought to see all the collrgee stuff, AS WELL AS ABOUT 65% OF THE DEMOS%. YES I DID HELP WITH LORE LIE AND DOROTHY sEGLIER, AS HER DAUGHTER HAD TO BAIL AT LAST MOMENT. GOOD FOR ME. HAH,HAH! GOOD TO HAVE A CLOSE KNIT GROUP. Ralph BTW DOPRYHY ANY TIME YOU NEED OR WANT A Astrriker or back up man j ust ask, i will be ready. Ralph

irn, you hit it on the head. smithing more or less 12 years. usuall as a volunteer at Ft. Vancover . NHS Have a fantastic time trying to learn.Got some folks there that know vmore than I WILL EVER KNOW but I keep tying. Also folks like irnsrg. but just keep ploding along. i might vjust miss the nasty cowpie and find the jewel ralph the hopefull

uh that is rather large claim making more forges ESPECIALLYATy at age 16. just my opinion at age 47.

I have some four foot round that I plan as a base. Plan on usuing a 3 in pipe thread as the base then use a vice 3 inch flange to hold the vice? Ralph

More talent than I will have. Congrats! Ralph

actually miine is not made by them any longer but pieces parts might be had

I have an old DIvillbiscast iron pump, but none of the internal pluming yet. one day. ralph

well I do have a poorlk made leaf to send off. mrbbee later this week. ralph going to have to deal with poor speeling.

NEVER set in water! The water will swell the wood crushing it against the hammer head and then it will be loose. Glue is for folks too lazt to do it right in my opinion. But linseed oil on the other hand is great. Scrape the handle to the smoothness you like and let the whole thing take a bath in linseed oil for a while(a day or so) and after using for a week or so the handle will feel very very nice. AS well as being tight in the hammer head.

To me nut sized coal is still 'pea' sized. I like my coal to about the size of walnuts. less drops thru the clinkerbreaker/air inlet. I know that at Frank Turleys school part of the morning is spent breaking up the large coal into smaller useable coal. Each person does his/her own. Ralph

First off I want to tell all of yall that Dawn and I greatfull for all the prayers, it works! Now update. yester day Mar 16 ( Weds) Dawn had her modified radical masectomy And lymph gland removal with no problems. And after a typical hospital night ( woken up evert 2 hours) She was doing good enought that Dr let her come home about noon PST. She is now resting comfortably ( I hope) Lasagna is in the oven and dinner in 30 mins... Ralph

WOW 150.00 a pound! you are the re-sale KING. Ralph

Chain is one of the easiest things to make. Especially good for learning forgewelding. Depending on size of link cut off a section (ROund or square) Bend to a U and slightly bend the open ends in as if you wer going to have them touch but not quite that far. place a scarf on one end flip over and scarf the other end ( ends need to be scarfed opposite sides so they will overlap) finish bending scarfed ends so they overlap. After a few of these you should be able to do the cut bend and scarf in one heat, as well as have enough ( red) heat left to brush and flux. Back in fire bring to weld temp and join the ends. Brush reflux and back to weld temp to finish the weld and dress it up. The hardest part of chain making is dealing with the mass of chain as it gets longer. Ralph

not sure hard faceingf is the way to go. But I am not sure. Seems I was reading about how hardfacing rod will work harden and get brittle and then you have new repairs to make. BUt one of the real welding folks can step in and correct me if so. Ralph

Seems to me an induction forge would use a lot of amps etc, thus be rather costly. Also it would only push the pollution out further to a electric pwp plant most likely an coal fired plant. Ralph

Just remember NOT to stray into the beam area from the collectors to the focal point....:)

I will agree with Dennis on this one. Mention to EVERYONE that you are getting into smithing and ask if anyone knows of an anvil and other tools that might be had. I mean everyone. Dr Barber, Doc, grocery cleck family freinds. Stop at estate sales, Go into your towns older industrial area and see if any of the business used to have blacksmith repair shop ( you will be suprised as to what all business has smiths). And be pateint. I waited 3 years and finally ran across one a PW 149 lber for 67 cents ( UDS) a pound Ralph

My own opinion is get rid of the metal shavings. It was a common additive during the wrought iron years. The wrought iron already had a lot of inclusions in it so some extra metal crud was not going to do much to hurt it. BUt today you do not need it. I believe it will make for a dirty weld seem. Just use 20 Mule. My rule for welding is this bring the metal with flux to about the same color a pat of butter is on a piece of toast under a broiler. Just as the butter starts to melt and get the swirly liquid movement on the surfacce. If you metal and flux look about like that remove form fire and place on anvil and immedieatly hit with hammer. Not a hugh whopping hit but a nice FIRM tap. Mebbe a few taps then you will need to brush off crud reflux reheat re-weld to shape the joint. Ralph

Just got back from seeing the Dr about Dawn's cancer. So what is next is a radical mastectomy on her right breast including removing all lymph glands in the right armpit. Then depending on what is found in the 4 areas of concern in the breast possible chemo ( pretty likely) and perhaps radiation. This will be done at 1130 PST Wednesday MArch 15.

Glenn I will look thru my records and see if I still have my nail header demo and then it can be presented as a BP. Bruce, There are many different methods of making nail headers. My way is some what more work to make than some but it is a good way so you can make one header head and many different nail 'dies' that can be inserted. But simply a nail header is a tool that will have a square tapered hole for the nail stock to go into . It will have a domed top with the square hole centered in it. the taper on the hole will be smaller at the top and wider at the bottom to allow for the nail to release. I usually dril a small pilot hole then use a square punch of the correct size to make it square and tapered. The nail process is you take nail stock ( 1/4 square usually) and make a sholder on the stock on two sides this should size is going to dependent on how thick you want the nail to be ( or the smae size as the nail header hole) Then draw down the stock from the shoulder and then form the point. Then reheat ( you can do this first part in one heat , and after a while you can do the whole nail in one heat.) But then take a 2nd heat and abour 1/8 to 1/4 inch above the shoulder cut almost thru the nail and then if the head is still pretty hot a goo red or better then insert into header and break off and then hammer the head on ( over pritchel works best. I do 5 hits on top center to set the nail then 4 hits to make the 'rose' pattern. One far side of smith at an angle and the same on left right and near side