woodtick

What steps are taken in preparing the chalks and shoes for forge welding the chalks on? When I say "preparing" I particularly mean is there any special scarfing for the welded joints? And I'm also thinking of heavy draft horse shoes with bar iron for toe chalks.

I use a home built rivet type forge with a hair dryer for a blower and a dimmer switch to control air supply. Not much cost involved to set up. I don't forge steady, but I do use it between 1 to 3 afternoons a week and so far it has been going for three years.

I make my charcoal in a 45 gal barrel. I get an average of 2 1/2 - 5 gallon bucketfuls of good charcoal to a burn. I try to stick to hardwood because I find softwood gets flaky and dustier than I like.

On our local radio station they have little segments of trivia, quizzes and such. And one such quiz the other day was "why put charcoal in a toolbox?". And to get to the point people puts charcoal in because it absorbs the condensation and moisture and keeps tools from rusting. That was the first time I heard that but I'm going to try it, but I would put the charcoal in some kind of fine mesh that would allow the moisture in but help keep the dust from going through the tools when the charcoal got crushed up from banging around. Maybe charcoal briquettes would work too?

Leah, yes to both questions.

I made a door knocker as a house warming gift for my brother out of material at hand. I used a section of sleigh runner iron for the main body and used a tire iron/wheel wrench for the knocker part.

My name is Scott Whynot and I live on the South Shore of Nova Scotia in the little community of Middlewood. I'm 41 yrs old with a wife but no little uns. I work as a carpenter or log on my own woodland depending on the best opportunities at the time, and in the winter I go trapping. Up until a few years ago me and my dad worked our woodland with horses and now one of my great regrets is not having payed more attention to my surroundings and how things were being done when we were having horse shoes done or gear repaired at a local smiths. On a side note: We would have shoes done at what is now The Queens County Blacksmith Museum back when it was still just a little blacksmith shop by the river run by Archie Macknight. Who woulda thought! I got my start in blacksmithing about 3 or 4 yrs ago when I was trying to fabricate some new trapping gear and an acquaintance (from the world wide web no less) advised me to build a forge. After that my interest in smithing expanded and I started accumulating more tools And the rest as they say is history. I try to or I should say "want" to specialize in making items and tools for around the home, shop or farm that isn't made anymore but was once an everyday part of life. Or if it is made nowadays it's junk because the people making it don't even know what it's used for. Edit word M01

Dan No I'm not a member of the association yet. Although I have seen a few references to it, I have no idea who/where to contact to find out about joining.

Well fer goodness sakes, I',m only a jump up the 103 highway from you. I'm located just on the other side of Bridgewater.

I was picking some scraps up at a neighbors awhile back and found this. It's a chunk of iron 2 ft long and approx. 4 inches wide, with one end being round for about 7 inches of it's length. It looks like a pin was through the other end. It weighs upwards 50lbs. Where I picked it up lived 4 older gentlemen on a small farm that kept both cattle and horses. All 4 worked in either contruction around heavy machinery or worked for the town works dept. also around heavy equipment. And I should add that we are located close to the ocean where there's a good fishing industry and also a forest industry. notice the pin on the left side

Thanks for the replies! It's wondeful how everything gets nice and simple when it's explained to you, you saved me alot of head scratching. sandpile; Yes I meant the small sizes, 4 1/2 inch hunting style blades. Whenever I tried forging down the bevels, the profile of the blade kept curving up too much at the tip for my liking. Every time I tried to find the right wording for my original post I couldn' keep from confusing myself let alone keep the readers from getting confused. LOL :mrgreen: On a sad note, the first blade I forged turned out with a broad blade with alot of curve to the profile and by fate or by accident had turned into a nice little beaver skinning knife. I was just doing some hot filing and finishing touches to it when I turned my back for just a few seconds with the air going in the forge!! It turned into the prettiest piece of slag that you ever saw! :roll:

I need tips for hammering techniques that keeps a blade from getting such an upsweep when forging/thinning out the cutting edge.

A mechanic friend of mine had a pry bar with the tip broken off and I said I would forge a new one on to it for him. I forged a new tip on to it and now I guess you would call it normalized. Should I harden or temper the tip or leave it the way it is?

When I installed the smoke hood over my forge I didn't have the pipe secured propely above the roof for the first week or so, and any amount of wind it would blow sideways. Hench the name "Crooked Chimney Forge"

.......manure spreader. It seems that he somehow got his pitch fork caught in the chain and broke the sprocket. And he also mentioned needing a shoe tightened on the nigh horse, and that ole bay kicks like a .........

Don't worry newlad, the humour wasn't lost on me. I laughed just reading the title. Unless you're a wanna be railroad Baron with no money why would you wanted to make a spike for anyway. hehehe :mrgreen:

Thanks thats a GOOD SAFETY REMINDER! I'm on the lookout now for plans and parts for a homemade belt grinder, and I never even thought to make inspections of any castors and pulleys that might be unheathly and unsafe. :oops: thanks for the reminder A year or so ago I had a cutting wheel on a mini-grinder blow up on me. It broke the bone and cut the tendon on one of my fingers so that it healed crooked(i did my own doctoring). But ever since then my respect for any type of grinder borders on manical!!! This is a good reminder to keep me from getting careless again. :oops:

I've always tried to follow the events of the Calgary Stampede on TV if I could, and I never realized that there was any such events until I read this post. I guess all the advertising goes to the more glamorous events such as bull and bronc riding. :(

My next door neighbor has a custom cabinet making shop and I can get the smaller left over pieces of any exotic woods he uses in the cabinets. This wood is sawn in board form. My question is, is the wood from straight sawn boards suitable for knife handles? or does the wood have to be sawn or split a certain way to get the grain running in a special direction.

Ed I have never used one of these before or even seen one except in pictures so I don't know what I want. :mrgreen: What I will want it for is mainly making hooks and forming rings. My main concern was that if I got the shank too high or the arms too long the bick might lose it's solidness. I'm using a truck axle for the shank and arms, with one arm forged into a round pointed horn and the other arm forged into a half-xxxed duckbill horn. My stake plate is a 1 inch thick plate on a heavy hardwood stump. The hardie hole isn't cut in the plate yet, but it will probably be 1 inch square. words edited

I'm making a bick anvil to go on a stake plate. I know what shapes I'm going to forge the "anvil head" but I'm not sure what measurements would be the best for the height of the vertical leg of the T or the length of the "arms" on either side of leg. I'm not sure if I got the terminology right! but you can guess :D

Let me see if I understand you right. You plan on taking a container full of wood and putting a gas flame underneath until it(the wood) turns to charcoal. And in the meantime while this is happening you will be using the gas flame to do forge work?

I burn about 3/4 of a 5 gallon bucketfull in a LONG afternoon of forging. I find I am burning less and less charcoal to a forging session just by being well prepared. Here is a few things that help me I have my projects all prepared in advance so I don't have to go rooting in the scrap pile looking for a piece of metal while precious fuel is burning. I try to have as much metal cut to length in advance with a cutting wheel so that it won't have to be done while precious fuel is burning. If I can, I will work on 2 projects at the same time, for example I will put a piece of coil spring in the fire for annealling while I am working on forging something else. Since I just do hobby smithing making items for myself, I can wait until I have 3 or 4 or more projects to do before I start. That way when I want to quit for the day and there's still some precious charcoal left in the forge I can find something to do until it's all burnt up, even if it's only putting a bend in a hook. That being said, I burn/waste most of my charcoal practicing my forge welding. :mrgreen:

Hi Archie Theres nothing wrong with a hair dryer for a starting set-up! I'm a newbie blacksmith myself, It was roughly a year ago that I fired up my up my forge for the first time. I started out with a blow dryer on my forge and am still using it, and for myself I can see no reason to use anything different in the imediate future because it's done everything I expected of it SO FAR! Using a hair drier you will need something to cut your air flow way down at times. I use a "lighting dimmer switch" myself and so far have nothing to complain about. I can go from enough wind to blow the fire right out of the pot down to just the slightest breeze wafting through the coals. :wink:

I did a remodeling job to an old farm house and I picked up a half dozen sash weights that were destined for the garbage. What type of metal was these made from? and what could they be used for(made into)? They are approx an inch and a half in diameter.