Iron Poet

I've made bolts and nuts before. It's not hard, but there is absolutely zero profit in it unless you are doing something quite weird.

On 2/6/2017 at 11:33 PM, Marc1 said:

No, sorry, can only guess that it is some sort of display or museum. I get a lot of eastern european blacksmithing stuff in my facebook account, mainly one off pictures most are amazing works of art that require hundred of hours work. No idea who the authors are.  

I think that it's a jeweler's vise.

I'll add this, I personally believe it would be easier to forge weld the material for the cone to the spear point than forging the cone out of a single piece. trying to forge a cone out of 1" material is not fun.

25 minutes ago, BIGGUNDOCTOR said:

A question about railings and such. I know that there are requirements for side loading, mounting, etc, but are there codes or other regulations that have to be followed in regards to clear spaces-allowed size of openings? Personally I feel that one should be able to build what they want in their own home, but I know the gubmints have different ideas at times. 

Nice job, and the bugs are a nice touch.

I know that in Canada the restrictions are very severe and I'm pretty sure his nice railing wouldn't pass muster. For instance fences need to be completely straight and without footholds for the first 4 or 5 feet. I think interior railings also have similar stipulations as children could climb up the railing and crack their skulls open.

But, if someone can afford 44 feet of custom ironwork, they can probably slip the building inspector a bribe as well.

This may have been said in the 10 years this thread has been up. But what I do is I put borox in between the joints before I fit them together. This way it doesn't foam up and off and instead forms a nice even layer. I see very little sense in trying to force the flux into a tiny crack when it should be there in the first place.

I made mine out of 1/4" mild steel. In the 2 years since I've been using it I haven't noticed any degradation at all.

7 hours ago, Zeroclick said:

That is a good idea I may try that with a couple. With these two my wife's grandmother has asked me to make them for her brother. I have not seen where they will be stored but thought I would make to small J hooks to mount them anywhere.

I went for the method of 0.5 inch eye. So with 0.375 inch, so I did 0.875*3.14 for pi to give me a material length of 2.75. But it just didn't seem to pull round, it was most likely my technique which can only improve.

Measure out the material to the needed length then bend it to a 90 degree angle. Weld a 1/2" rod to a flat piece of plate, put both the fork end and the jig into a vise. That way you can hammer the eye halfway around a circular template which makes finishing the ring around a 1/2" drift much neater.

I do something very similar for hinges.

10 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

The book is in reprint these days but with slightly different content due to the changing times.

Ya don't say

I don't want to seem like a Jerk, but I wouldn't waste a nice piece of 1/2" 1080 on that, especially if it's a foot or so long and an inch or two wide.

20 hours ago, Frosty said:

 If you made a horn long and narrow enough to dress up chisel sockets you'd poke holes in your leg walking into it. Mine isn't pointy enough and it'll leave a NASTY UGLY bruise on you with just a bump.

Frosty The Lucky.

No one wants an anvil horn in their crotch. I speak from experience.

3 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

You can forge SOME alloys of bronze; others are completely unforgable!  As it tends to be expensive TEST an alloy before paying a lot of money for it.

As I recall leaded bronzes will crumble as well as many others!

A *dark* shop is handy for forging bronze at just when you see it barely glowing.  A few seconds more and you may have a puddle.  Lots of discussions on forging bronze out on the net.

I find that phosphorus bronze, the kind commonly used for casting works great. Another problem is that you need excellent hammer control due to bronze being incredibly soft at forging temperatures, almost like hitting wet clay.

You can forge bronze into whatever shape you want. I'll warn you that bronze is a bit touchy as being forged and if you're inattentive for a second it will either crumble into cottage cheese or just melt.

NIMBAs are really good. I actually learned how to blacksmith on one, I can't think of anything wrong with them other than how LOUD they are and that they might be a teeny bit soft. Actually getting one might be a bit hard though, when I was anvil shopping they wouldn't return any of my Emails. I'd suggest you also look at these http://www.hoffmansforge.com/my-work/anvils/   They're very similar in shape to NIMBAs but are squatter and a little less expensive.

38 minutes ago, littleblacksmith said:

I completely know what you mean! I think its kinda fun

I think having a couple unpaid interns to do all the grunt work would be funner, but that's just me. I am trying to trick one of the local colleges into doing just that, so far none have taken the bait.

1 minute ago, Ridgewayforge said:

Somehow, that adds to the beauty of the creation. Well done, and I look forward to seeing more flowers. Candle Holders I could never quite get the hang of, but I only barely delved into them before I had to pack up the shop. 

I'll probably show more if I don't forget about it. The trick to fitting everything together before you forge weld, bending the leaves so they snuggly grip the stem, or making sure the cups have enough material to grab the stem properly. I unfortunately work by myself so I've had to slowly develop techniques to do stuff like this with only two hands.

If you do open the shop back up don't be afraid of trying to forge weld some plants together, sheet metal is a little finicky but it is totally possible and it looks much better than electrically welding them on.

7 minutes ago, Ridgewayforge said:

Wow! You're not called Iron Poet for nothing. Those are some excellent flower candle holders/snuffers. I really like how you improvised on a theme. 

The key to creativity is laziness. I realized that the small flowers I made didn't fit the candles I bought so I turned them into snuffers since it was less work than enlarging the cups. But it's all just practice, I plan on making more elaborate flowers after I get comfortable with forge-welding sheet metal.

I worked my design a little bit and made my previous candlestick into a snuffer while I made a larger one to go with it. I also made a forge-welded cross, twisting it was a huge pain though probably because I cheaped out and only used two rods for the bar

1 hour ago, ausfire said:

Perhaps you're right. Overthinking the process. I have had some success with larger stock, but far from confident. I NEVER do forge welding during demos ... too many sparks anyway! I like your Fosters analogy.

For thin stock there will be almost no sparks since you're dealing with far less material. You just need a few sprinkles of borax and a very keen eye on your air flow, you should be able to maintain forge-welding temperature without accidentally straying to hot. Pre-forming the pieces so that they come together easier is also a must, what I did with the leaf is that I curved a 1/2" into a C-shape so that it would easily stay on.

1 hour ago, ausfire said:

Clever. I am in awe of anyone who can forge weld delicate stuff without fizzling it!

It's not hard at all trust me on this. You just flux it, put it in the fire, watch it turn bright yellow, and then tap it with a hammer. I didn't even make a cave to forge weld these I just stuck them in the coal. I think the majority of people just psych themselves out and over think the process, a little confidence helps ya know? Besides even if you mess up it's not like it's going to cost you more than a quarter or for you aussies 1/512th of a keg of Fosters

1 hour ago, Paint504 said:

500 - 600$ is my budget but I'm just looking to make some knives mostly. I wanted that fisher bad but the owner never called me/emailed me back so I moved on.

 You could look over at Old World Anvils. you can buy a small stake anvil and a fuller for $50  If you're only going to make knives you won't need much more than that. If it's good enough for the vikings it's probably good enough for you! Of course you could always save your pennies are buy something more substantial.

I made a brass hammer out of an old punch I had laying around.

These are made of 1/2" pipe for the cups, 1/4" for the stems, and 1/16" for the leaves. Everything was put together in a pretty sloppy manner, but the welds are nice and solid. I did these because someone wanted candle holders and because I want to make some cattails and figured this was a good proof of concept.

Feel free to critique

Get them hot, dip them in oil.

On 1/23/2017 at 7:49 PM, ThomasPowers said:

hole is for the can of water to quench the tips of chisels, punches and drifts.  That "hammered look" on the side is just awesome...

It's obviously made for dishing bowls.

9 hours ago, bigb said:

I have a terrible time with my tongs. From the fire to the anvil I usually lose a lot of time fumbling around trying to turn the work piece how I need it, sometimes dropping it, losing heat as I fumble around. All my tongs are used flea market bargains except two pair of Wolf jaws. I am thinking of ordering some quick tongs and make them to fit my work better, but mostly right now I think it's just that I haven't practiced enough and my coordination is not that great anyways. I have considered just welding rebar onto my pieces but resisted thus far because if I do that I will never get the hang of the tongs, plus that's a PITA anyways.

If only you knew a blacksmith that would be able to make you a pair of tongs to fit your exact needs