Donniev

Thanks for the info JME just got everything wire wheeled and noticed the 400 today. I'll get some oil in it and paint it this weekend probably, going to take a week or two to figure out how exactly I want to mount it next to my forge, I've got a few small upgrades to give my forge anyway

Any information anyone has about this would be appreciated. Guy I know had it sitting on his farm that's been in the family since the late 1800s, 2.5" opening- it blows air right now just fine, figured I'd probably take it apart to grease everything and figure out how to properly mount it, I'll be golden

"Champion blower and force co. Lancaster, PA

Patented April 15 1902, June 11 and July 30 1901" 

Practiced slitting and drifting 1/2" round. I feel like this is harder than slitting and drifting square, thought the opposite would be true.

Is this the basic process of how their making them at the moment?

Stockmaker it's 1/2" stock with 1/4" tenon's. Basically I'm following everything Rory May does in his tutorial video on YouTube "intro to tenon's". I'm also using a guillotine for most of the shoulder work, and made a monkey tool from 1" square mild steel.

My major problems are either stress cracks, or I messed up how straight it was in the back plate. I'd get it set into the plate, take it outta the vise and look at it only to see it sitting at an ugly angle. I'd have to fix it or just shear it off and start over again.

Lately haven't had an issue with stress cracks, I just make sure I'm never working the steel unless I can SEE color in it, once it's down to red it goes back in the fire

Well it's not much but it's what I have. 7-10' barn style shed

So right now I know I'm struggling with tenon's, so I've been intentionally doing projects that require them. As shown in the first picture, I blew out a tenon attempting to tweak it cold- oops! Welder will fix it...

Had time to kill at the end of the day and gave my first door knocker a try. 

Next pic is a key holder, with the candle holder in progress, was going to use 1/2" for my scrolls and when I got to that point I realized they looked huge, went with 1/2-1/4" instead.

The wall candle holder took me over 4 hours, but I wanted it to look good, so I took my time, especially doing the tenon's since I know I need work there. Joining 8 pieces together took longer than I thought it would, but being that I'm still new I think it came out looking good, except that the scrolls don't match perfectly.

Lastly I got these door pulls done a while ago too. This was my first project that needed tenon's, I needed 4, aaaaaand I made 10. Sigh. Handles are 7/8", back plate is 3-14", not sure how thick. 

Yikes, ugly. My leaves are still not something I would brag about, but I'm getting there

Not sure how I.missed that, thanks!

Does anyone know what stamp man's company is called, or of a way to contact them? Looks like he hasn't logged on here for 6 months or so

I've wondered a few times about putting a marble in the basket twist, but was concerned about it breaking?? I'd imagine you get the hook or whatever is on the basket twist 100% done, take one last heat to open it and insert the marble, then close it and it's done? 

I've got a block of 4340 I'm planning on making into a hammer in a few weeks. I've thought about trying out a hammer like this, I have an axle I would use, just curious what the front heavy forging hammer feels like in use

Aren't angle grinders run at around 13,000 rpm? This thing scares me just looking at it. 

Finished up this shepards hook plant hanger. Finally got the rivets by drilling through angle iron, worked perfectly but I still destroyed any brass I tried. Went with steel rivets instead and at this point I'm chalking up the brass failure as inexperience- even when I tried smashing it hard using as few blows as possible as you suggested frosty, the head always sheared off.

Alan I hadn't seen that yet, even though I did search here for threads pertaining to riveting I'll look at it and figure it out today thanks

Brass is annealed. Not working it hot. The steel doesn't care if I work it cold or hot, no luck either way. I drilled through a piece of mild steel with an 1/8 hole, but once I get a head on either the steel or brass I can't get it out, it's stuck and I have to drill it out. Tried drilling through 2 pieces of plate next to each other in the vise too- I just can't get anything made

Finished painting and clear coating a Shepard's hook plant holder. Made it from 1/2" sq, all I have to do is rivet it together- was planning on using 1/8" rivets. So far I've spent almost 2 hours fighting brass and steel, and have yet to come out with a single rivet. Not sure yet what I'm doing wrong, Im doing the same thing I have to make 1/4 and 3/8 rivets, this thin stuff is killing me slowly 

Make one of these?

Send me the link to watch? Guess there's *gasp* a naughty word in the video...?

Ace hardware is where I found em. Think they were something like $1.15 a piece. Haven't gotten around to messing with the 2nd one yet, not sure exactly on what I want the final look to be

Wow, I just got mine in the mail today, this is incredible. Flip to a page and I start thinking of how I would make that design, turn the page "ooh, I could make this by starting here and...." It's never-ending lol

Tons of pictures this is a visual beauty

I've been trading a bottle opener for peoples shot coil springs. If they weren't interested in trading I suppose I might give em $5 for a pair, but I wouldn't pay any more than that. I've had some bad timing with mechanics having their scrap picked up the day before I call, so I resorted to Craigslist and still have found a couple pairs of coil springs

Wow, did you do that under a torch? That looks awesome, and very time consuming too, great job

Yeah I hope it gets easier as we make more. I did notice getting the pigtail right took maybe 10 minutes, half the time it took me on my first try. Of course getting the balance just right will take more time since when the design changes so does the balance. The face of my anvil is too small to set it on to check it, so I'd have to go from floor to anvil continually to check it out, took WAY longer than my first one, I'm guessing because this has more twists and I added 6" of stock to make a bigger heart

2 hours ago, Daswulf said:

Ok, ok. No jealousy. There is nothing so far that I haven't been able to do on my 127lb. Trenton that I have needed to. It's just want, need, Better.  eventually I'll get what I want lol. Right now I have what I need. That's a beaute tho. 

Yeah "someday" we'll both "have the money" to just drop 2k on a brand new one right? ;-)

Back on topic I tried a bigger heart tonight despite it being 10° out, man I fought this things balance for a good half hour before it was right, but I finally got it