John in Oly, WA

You've got that solder cleaned up nicely. Looking good!

Be careful welding the galvanized. A fan pulling the fume plume away helps immensely.

Please don't grind the top. Those dips can work just fine for you.

Nice work!

Other distressing methods would be to bundle a bunch of nails - 16 penny or so - together, points all facing the same direction and stab the wood with the pointy end of the bundle. Whip the wood with a short piece of chain. Put some nuts and bolts in a sock and club it with that.

I think I've seen it in another thread, but I don't want to put out misinformation - could he just soak his burner in vinegar and that will remove the galvanizing?

Northwest Blacksmith Association Conference Friday – Sunday, May 12-14, 2017, Longview, WA. I just signed up for it. Anyone else planning on going?

Just mentioned it because his burners look like galvanized pipe and didn't see anyone telling him.

Haven't seen anyone mention it here in this thread (maybe I missed it), but try to avoid using galvanized pipe for your burners.

And you just can't beat good ol' duct tape for giving that professional looking finish to a tool.

Thank you for the pointers gentlemen. I will definitely keep them in mind.

Thanks for the tips MetalGuy. I wondered about that as I was stacking the quarters (they don't stack so well cuz of all those darned bumps they put on the surfaces) that I might trap air inside and wouldn't know it until I was shaping and grinding. Although, it seems to have fused together fairly well. The cracks happened when I twisted it - it looked like the corners were tearing.

I have flat sheets of various metals, but being new to this I thought I'd use quarters the first time or two to get the hang of it. No frustration yet. It's just exciting to see what happens, and the metal has such a nice look and feel to it.

That's a nice looking billet. How big was it at the start?

I thought I'd try a simple approach first and see what happened, so MEK was it. Also I was using my new heat treat oven and don't have anything yet to protect the soft firebrick floor, so didn't want to try any kind of flux, AND I forgot about my roll of stainless foil. Maybe could have made an envelope to put it in.

I was heating it to roughly 1930 F, which I thought was just below copper melting point (low eutectic point? Trying to learn the terminology, but might have that wrong). I'll just work around the sheared spots - grind them out on this one.

Wow, I'm sorry to hear that Big Gun. What a pain in the XXX. I didn't know that kind of thing was even possible. Glad to hear you have a lot of great neighbors and got some help with it though, in spite of the one bad. If I lived nearby, I'd have been over in a flash too. Good luck with things as they move forward.

The prep was just to give the surfaces a brisk rubbing with methyl ethyl ketone to clean them - I'm out of acetone at the moment. Then when I put it in my "press", I put a couple of layers of brown paper between the press and the coins to keep those surfaces from sticking. The bolts were 1/2".

Last night I heated it, reshaped it and put a twist in it. Got a few cold shuts? in it from the twisting, but this is just a learning experience. Seeing what it takes to make it and shape it. Although, my son wants me to shape it into a shark tooth for a pendant on a chain, so I'll see how that goes.

I'm just a noob here, but I feel I'm on the cusp of something incisive, as long as I don't get completely Caried away, but the gaps have me in suspension.

I'm still interested in seeing that bolt cedarghost is making for his door.

Beautiful bit of "puttering". I'm in awe of your blades. As lanternnate says, your patterns have something about them.

Thanks Dick. I'll take a look at Tractor Supply, and keep the vise grips in mind!

Thanks. Now I need to heat it back up and shape it into something, add some interesting twists or swirls to the layers.

My first attempt at mokume gane. It's just a stack of U.S. quarters, but it's fun just to run my fingers over it and look at it. It started out as $3.00 worth of quarters. Two didn't stick to the stack, but they stuck to each other. So this is $2.50 worth. I made a small press out of 1/2" steel scrap and four bolts. Pressed the stack in that and put the whole thing in the new heat treat oven. I'll be doing a lot more of this stuff.

"You Belong to Me" still stuck in there, but "Something" by the Beatles, "Oh, Boy!" by Buddy Holly and Marty Robbins' "El Paso" floated through yesterday.

Batson's book has a section in it about doing just that.

Now that's a great idea. Can that rubber mat be found at the local feed store or Tractor Supply?

I was busy pondering ways I could bend the warp out of the 1/2" plate, and not coming up with anything using the tools at hand.

Well , I'm better at mig than stick, but I'm much better with $20 for a lb. of 316L stick than I am with $200 for a small bottle of tri-mix that I'll probably use once. So I'll run some practice beads on the scrap with the stick to get everything set right and proceed in that direction.

5 hours ago, cedarghost said:

I'm about to make a bolt for the door.....

Is a bolt a good beginner project. I need to line up a few projects to start out. Although my doors don't really need any at the moment.

Frosty, I almost used a bit for the rivet holes in my tongs, but what self-respecting blacksmith would do that when they could slit and drift it? As for my mouth, I don't even like it when the dentist gets a bit near it, let alone trying my own hand at it.