woodtick

Thanks, them prices are alot cheaper than I expected. I was going by the prices I've had to pay for leather to mend horse harness which is alot.

How many of you guys wear aprons? And what are they made from? I have to get an apron before I have all my clothes wore/burnt out, but I imagine a good leather apron would cost a small fortune. What are the alternatives?

I finally managed to get a forge weld. It was just a simple practice weld but it stuck together and thats what mattered to me It wasn't much to look at, in fact it was downright ugly but I was still pretty proud of myself. :)

I want to anneal a piece of coil spring from a 1/2 ton truck to forge into a knife someday. I'm new enough to blacksmithing that I have a hard time judging colors sometimes, even using a temperature color chart. Would I be right in thinking that if I'm not quite sure of the color by using my judgement that I can test the piece of spring with a magnet and if the magnetizing is gone out of the piece I can start the cooling down process?

Glen One thing I have noticed is that when a dog is inspecting the direction of tree fall and hears the tree start to snap and crack he'll stand rooted on the spot mesmerized just long enough to give you a baby heart attack before he takes off like a cheetah.

I see quite a few photos of guys working over a forge with a nice fire going in the forge. I want to take a couple of pics of my forge all fired up and I was wonder how to handle the lighting? Dim lighting in the shop or bright lighting? Flash on the camera or no flash? I have just an everyday run of the mill 35mm camera

Making your own I'm a beginner blacksmith, but I have been making axe and sledge hammer handles for years. I use white ash because it is a good handle wood and it grows around here. If you got a bunch of handle makers together they probably would argue forever which type of wood is the best and never agree. So what you'll have to do is find the wood that is suitable for handles that grows closet to you and use it, and after you made a few handles you can swear to heck it was the best wood ever invented. I don't mean to sound flippant, but I don't even know what an orange osage looks like, but i know ash wood is better. :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

I burn wood in an airtight stove as my only source of heat in the winter. It's mostly a mix of maple and oak off my own woodlot so my wood supply is no problem. Days through the winter when the fire burnt down just right to a nice bed of coals and when I knew it was burnt down just right to get good charcoal I would take out a scoop or two out and give the coals a light misting of water from a spray bottle to help cool them off and I ended up with an excellent quality charcoal. My main source of charcoal I get by burning it using the barrel method and sneaking a few scoopfuls out of the stove now and then was just supposed to help supplement that. But we're drawing down to the end of the wood burning season and so far I saved up 25 - 5 gallon buckets full of A1 quality charcoal just by sneaking it out of the stove. On the downside my firewood consumption was alot more than other years >> Gee, I wonder why subject mispelling corrected - carcoal to charcoal

There is always fine dust/powder left in the bottom of my buckets of charcoal, would this work like coal dust?