Exo313

The spiky one totally looks like a head of wheat

... I'm just now noticing that Charles shares his initials with those of Cold Rolled Steel, and I'm a bit jealous. Also: MONA burner? The burner that brings a little smile to your face....

Good way to get a day off without pay where I work... Or a 3 day suspension. Or just sent home.

We could get tangled up with knotty questions like this one. Let's loop back to it.

Hey Frosty! Did you ever try drilling out a piece of brick for your burner? Would some of the newer types of refractory brick work for this application?

Interesting. I'm very curious to see how it holds up. I don't hate the price, though with defects I wish it were another 50 bucks cheaper.

Hey, is that hammer head on its handle upside down? Or maybe my head's the one on upside down?

B as in ball? See? It still applies!

What were you set at and what rod were you using? If you're hoping that will serve as a hot cut, I'm thinking those welds are gonna come apart when it gets smacked.

...Wait, who said you can't arc weld wrought? Edit: can doesn't mean should, to be clear

No. But the question isn't can it be done. It's should you be telling a 15 year old it's a good entry level machine to learn this kind of thing on? This is where it becomes irresponsible. What happens if something goes catastrophic? I'm sure you've found a responsible, safe way to operate your machine. I don't even contest that. But that is worlds apart from telling someone else it's just a turnkey forging machine, without qualification.

These presses also have great potential for catastrophe. True, many things in blacksmithing do. But a machine of that kind of power isn't a machine for someone to buy to -learn- on, because it's at entry level pricing, or theoretically requires no modifications to use. Let's say the frame and all hold up in the case of a jam. There are -documented- accounts of tooling and material going flying and killing people. This is, frankly, irresponsible to suggest. IFI is supposed to put safety first.

In fact, enter site:iforgeiron.com followed by your search term in quotes for best results. Where the spaces are in the example below matters, though. Copy this and substitute your own search terms. I use it regularly. Example: site:iforgeiron.com "furnace cement"

Depending on your firebrick, you'll end up replacing far more often than every few years. After a couple sessions, the brick I was using as a door (standard split hard firebrick) split in two. A lot of "make do" solutions seem to be the product of impatience, and a desire to go from zero to forging in one afternoon, compounded with the fact that you can often buy things like sand, plaster of Paris, and furnace cement locally. I ordered my refractory from Wayne. Good value in reasonable quantities. Gas forges really deserve the time to do them right. And please don't use exposed kaowool. It's nasty stuff. All that said, I know you have an aversion to coal, but if you want to go from no forge to burning steel if you aren't careful in a few hours, build thee a JABOD.

Just my first successful knot, though it did crack in one place. I liked it well enough to put it on a little base.

Frosty, Mike, You guys are fantastic. Thank you for not only these answers, and past answers, but also the necessary gatekeeping you do to hopefully keep people from exploding themselves or burning their homes to the ground. As far as how vs. why: Absolutely, there are multiple designs out there ranging from the workable to the very good. Any of them can be copied, and I come away with a new appreciation for the how. Copy all of them exactly and compare the differences, and I might even start scraping away at the "why". The brilliant thing about having experts at hand is that it reduces the entry cost (in both time and money) for -both- the how people who want a proven design to copy, - and- the why people who want to not only copy a design, but understand the purpose of all the parts. This is an incredible thing for the craft, on both accounts. It means an increase in participation, and an increase in innovation. Which is a huge gift of blood, sweat, burns, and tears that you've both given to smithing. Thank you.

I've done some reading through existing threads and stickies, but the problem I'm having is that the information is scattered over sometimes scores of pages. I'm specifically trying to sort out the 'how it works' of naturally aspirated burners. I understand that you need fuel and air, and the two need to mix. The more homogenous the mix, the better, correct? This is where it breaks down for me. Fuel mixing seems to be a complicated relationship between air intake design and ratio, fuel orifice size, and mixing tube length and diameter. The length:diameter of the mixing tube, if I'm recalling right, is 9:1? I think I saw an intake ratio of tube D+40% mentioned somewhere... Uncertain as to how gas orifice sizes work out in relation to all of this. Then we come to nozzles, which, as I understand, help to soften the flame and therefore keep it inside the forge longer. I guess what I'm asking is, what are the fundamentals of burner design? Also, please help correct my misunderstandings as you come across them, both above and in discussion.

Eh. YouTube is a platform. Unlike here, it's a non-reviewed democratic platform. Which means some content is terrible. But shouldn't that encourage those of us with the rare combination of desire, time, and talent to produce not-terrible content counter to the misinformation? If there were an educational, peer reviewed instructional video platform available, that would be amazing.

That makes a lot of sense, thanks.

I don't know a lot about cast iron, but don't they make tables full of square holes? Honestly curious, is there a strength difference in holes-as-cast versus holes added later?

perhaps we've gone too far; time to give all these spring jokes the Hooke?

Is it the first sign of spring when the snow melts off a blacksmith's scrap pile?

No pictures yet, but layer 1 of 2 using Stoody 965 APG is complete I'm seeing a significant increase in rebound after 1 layer, but I'm thinking a second layer thick will get it right where I want it. Two is the max for this wire anyway. Anyone have thoughts on hardfacing the horn and step? I don't necessarily see a downside, apart from the extra work.

It helps me to look at tools that "aren't tongs." Linesman pliers are a really good example. Look at how they've been built so that the jaws and handles align perfectly. They look a lot like small, evolved flat jaw tongs to me.

Hey TP! I have access to both blades and strapping through work, and I might experiment. I've heard not all bandsaw blades are created equal, so I'm assuming a quench/bend test is in order to check. Do you take time to remove the teeth or just let them scale away?