Dave English

Experimentation is great but keep good records. You should try and find out the carbon content of your steel as all that you do should be baised on that.

RR track is heavy, I wanted a 5 foot section that had been dumped in the creek but couldn't climb out of the steep creekbed with it, something about mass and traction.

I like it. Looks hand made which is what folks should want to buy.

Great little shop, I like all the stuff hanging on the outside too in the photo you are in. For some reason I seem to like hanging things(?), like chains, tools, plants, ironworks.

I made a snail yesterday just goofing around waiting for some kids to show for a talk about blacksmithing. Never got the eyes on but next time I get around a forge, I'll try and tack weld them on. You have to fold the shoe in in the middle to get the tail. Brian and his brother are held in high regard in the California Blacksmith Association, nobody should feel bad when comparing their own art to to them, they rank with the best artist blacksmiths today.

I had posted how the core of transformers can be steel, air or pure iron, dependingon thier use. The Navy uses steel in plates for the most part so scrap Navy transformers should have steel cores. Iron cores can be found on -20 KHz, smaller tranformers, but I don't know if a smaller transformer is 2 pounds or 200 pounds.

I just spent about 20 min writing a detailed reply and was told I had to log in (I was already logged in) and as you may have experianced yourself, the reply was lost in cyber space never to be seen again. This is about the 6th time this has happened, I should have 48-49 posts, not 42. My best posts are ......

Anything less than 100% cotton won't do. I thought my shirt was 100% cotton but it was some mix of cotton and synthetic. I discovered my error during a forge welding exercise, I ended up with a little bit of shirt "forge welded " to my skin. Removing the pinhead sized "weld" was painful and a good lesson to be more careful with what I select to wear.

This is very pure iron, not steel, such as Armco ingot iron of the American Rolling Mills Co in 1956, is 99.94% pure iron. I don't know if transformer cores are the same but I believe it would be of some type of pure iron. The reason I ask is that iron cores in scrap large electric motors and generators may be worth locating if the the iron forge welds like wrought iron.

In my Materials Handbook, 1956, is a description of ingot iron that's used for special purposes, electromagnetic cores, boiler plate, for water tanks. It often has very low carbon, .02%, but can be as high as .15%, it's rust resistent. How does this weld? Is it like wrought iron where the two pieces actually are welded together or is it more like or mild steel where it's more of a surface weld?

It all depends on the carbon content. McRaven in Country Blacksmithing has a chart that shows that 100 point carbon stone hammers should be tempered to a straw color but 150 point stone tools require the next color, bronze which isn't listed in Sim's book, The Backyard Blacksmith, but would be near to brown on her chart.

It took a little looking but I found Lorelei Sims webpage in her book, well worth the time to explore and see the art she has created in the last 15 years.

Very artistic and professional work. Smooth is an impression I get, your style is your own and that's good!

You can tack weld thin metal to a stem by getting the stem to welding heat and put the lower end of the petal into the torch flame for a moment then touch the lower part of the petal to the stem, it should stick. Metal shears are fine to describe your shears, and your English is just fine too, better than some of the folks born to the language on this list. The trick is that the petal is thin and will heat much quicker than the stem, keep it out of the heat until the stem is ready to weld.

Nice artwork. Very unusual and beautiful, worthy of the show at the gallery.

o.k, o.k. OK!!! You guys convinced me, I just ordered her book.

I bought an Iron City pick too, also newer looking. It was advertized as a prospecting pick which drew me in to buy it as I have done a fair amount of prospecting some years ago and my email starts out "prospector". I hand carved a handle for it, enjoying using my draw knife and spoke shave on a 26" long and 3.5" wide limb on a real project. Lots of work. Small pick head.

Speaking of a long horned Hay Budden, when I was bidding on an anvil on Ebay, there came up this Hay Budden with an enormously long horn and a long but very narrow face, about 3 inches. The overall effect of the appearance, to me and those who bid on it, was this was one beautiful anvil, maybe not as functional as a 4.5-5 inch face would be (as this should have had for it's size) but what an anvil! A show piece for a collector or a conversation starter for any blacksmith. It bid out at $3100.

The problem won't be figuring out the difference between iron and steel, pure iron is hard to come by and has become a specialty metal, most of the time your problem will be trying to discovery how much carbon is in your steel. Wrought iron will often fracture if it's worked at too low of a heat and if bent over too much, the surface can crack. Pure iron (today) can be found in generator cores, some types of pipe, water tanks and other special applications. I'll let the others talk about steels.

Tell us more about your updraft forge. Has it been discussed in the past?