Fred Beagle

I don't really give a xxxx what you do I don't like the smug xxxxxxxx folks around here anyways This persona posts are a great example of why we should not post when HIgh, it will come back and bite us sooner or later

Wow I just got penalized for telling the truth and not being political correct and family friendly. Though I didn't start the fight oh well. kind of funny. Mod34 your blade did not make the cut,Please turn in your weapon and leave the forge. Knock it off, you are on very thin ice

Thanks for the replies, One thing I was wondering was if Didymium lenses used by the glass blowing industry was th e same as cutting torch goggles. I mean why pay 50 dollars or more for just common welder goggles. I use a quick change hood and I did do some welding when the flashed occurred but I"m not sure if it was from welding or from starring into the forge. I may need to lose the quick change welding hood and go with an old school hood.

Hey I apologize and I'm through arguing the matter. It's not just rail road spikes it's people's smug attitude and it happens everyday all over the world and my little rant ain't gonna make it stop lol. No that's not my work but I'm leaning in that direction except not with rail road spikes. My point in posting that picture is that there are people who do think that rail road spikes are worth putting that sort of time into it.

There are people that would disagree with your assessment. And ebay is full of custom makers selling rail road spike knives and some quite elaborate and selling between 60 dollars to over a 100 dollars apiece and they put a ton of time into them making them look that great.. A rail road spike can be tempered to hold an edge unlike mild steel. But I agree a much better steel would be a leaf or coil spring. Maybe it's just a spirit of offense that comes over me that I feel the need to start a fight with every xxxxxxxx that wants to point out the obvious. In this case I apologize, It's just I get frustrated and tired of that crap happening. Mod Note: Copyrighted photo deleted.

I don't know why folks on here feel the need to be captain obvious and put down the carbon content in Rail road spikes knives Why do I make them? because I ran into a deal and picked up a bunch of them. What else am I suppose to do with them. Is it the best steel to make knives? Of course not. But as soon as somebody says they are making rail road spike knives or a rail road track anvil somebody always has to put it down and start talking about why it's inferior. Why do you people do this? All your criticism isn't gonna stop other people from doing these sort of things. You do understand this thread was never about rr nails ?

You probably in the future will want to post in the knife making section of this forum. Well once you heat carbon steel it anneals it making the harden atoms in the steel loosen up a bit from what I understand. You can soften a high carbon steel like a file this way. but when you heat and then quench a steel it slams those molecules tightly together. Sometimes they get slammed too hard together as in a water quench,and it creates stress fractures in the steel. Why I always use oil. Lately I've been making rail road spike knives and I heat them to where the blades are non magnetic then quench in oil and then I do a file test to see if they harden or if they needed to heat treated again. This is a crude example. But to better understand molecules. Let's take water for example. When it's at room temperature the molecules are still bonded together but their very relaxed and loosey goosey. Yet when water is frozen into ice those molecules are slammed together and very rigid. and in steam those molecules are no longer bonded together like they were in the two former states but are rather set free and going crazy.. Steel is like this as well. How I see anyways. This post is wrong on so many levels. Steel molecules do not get closer together when quenching, if you read some of the papers or the pinned posts here about it you would know, not only how things harden but WHY rr spikes can not get very hard.

I've been running my little forge a lot lately and over 25 years I've been a welder and I've always have taken good care of my eyes but still occasionally I sometimes do get flash burned. This last time I wasn't doing any welding but I was running the forge quite a bit and I have to look into the forge make sure I'm not cooking the metal. But the reason I'm starting this thread is I was wondering if Plasma torch glasses were sufficient to prevent flash burn from the forge or is there something better. I've been reading a little bit about Didymium lenses and I wonder if anybody has any experience with them Any help would be greatly appreciated.

It's always great to root for the underdog and sometimes they pulled it off I'm thinking of this young man that won and while he worked in a barn but still he had some serious gear off inside that Hay barn Yet he was going against a master bladesmith and still got the victory. There was one guy who's name shall go unmentioned but was kind of arrogant and when they were sent back to their home forge was saying crap like "He's in my world now". And it was hilarious watching him lose. It look like he was about to cry and just couldn't believe that the poor man working out of the garage could build a better weapon that the judges liked better. I always like seeing the braggart get what he deserves. Still more often than not. The guy that has the machine shop in his garage is gonna make a better looking weapon if he has the skills to go along with the gear. I saw that guy with the satellite dish lose a latter competition against other champions. He might think about getting out of the stone age and buy some gear with money he won! I know I would..

10 thousand dollars is quite a bit of change. Yet I've seen very few folks from youtube actually enter it and I consider them both expert blacksmiths and yet one made it to the finals and the other had a blade failed. But I wonder if some people are are avoiding going on the show because it may ruin their reputation if they don't make a good showing.' One reason I wouldn't do it is because of lack of knowledge and my crappy shop. The man that usually wins has a bridgeport mill,lathe ect.. and he's gonna make a nicer weapon that anything I could make. Not always though I've seen excellent work from people with humble tools but more often than not the winner has a shop with a hydrolic press doing Damascus while I'm over here farting with a lawnmower blade.

ah their popular for sure. I guess if you can sell it then that's what really matters. But I'd have a problem with selling them then having customers come back complaining about it not holding an edge. That's kind of why I'm reluctant to starting putting these things up on Ebay. One thing that's kind of difficult for me to do is I'm wanting to make small tommy hawks and on an Bill Epps webpage he talks about upsetting the spikes down to 1" diameter and 3" inches to length before he punches the eyehole for the handle. But one thing when I try this the spike wants to get all squirrelly bend to one side. I'm making a heavy duty jig to help hold them into alignment but yeah you really have to cook these babies to get them to do the wild thing,Because hammering em when their only red hot ain't gonna cut it.

The fisher is my baby ,it's a fine anvil and I do most of my work on it. I was just kicking the ideal around because I sometimes need to do some serious pounding. If you look at my home made swage block page I threw a picture of the tire hammer that I built and it uses a rail road track anvil and it so far has held up to some serious use. By the way the swage block worked out really great. If a 100 pound anvil is all that you need than why do they make bigger anvils.. Because their needed for heavier work. If you break the heel or the horn and it does happen who fault is that? My whole thing is you see how much a 300 hundred pound Hay Budden sells for. This is just a work around.

Not sure what that is so I wouldn't know. But I agree that a coil spring is much better material for a knife. In fact I'm gonna make some chisels out of a coil spring here in a few days. I see the rail road spike as an ornament knife. Cool as a conversation piece but not my first choice as a camping knife.That said I am able to get a razor sharp edge on these knifes. Just how long would it keep an edge is the question. If you wanted to improve It I'd say forge weld a piece of carbon steel in the blade section.

I have a hundred pound fisher but I'm kind of wanting a bigger anvil and I have some rail road track. But I'm thinking about putting three pieces side by side to make one big surface and instead of building up the webbing with only plates. I might do like I did on the swage block and fill up the underneath cavities with molten aluminum. That would be better than concrete. I totally agree with taking something like a piece of rail and turning it up on the end. A piece of fork lift blade works good too. I think I could probably use hard surface welding rods on the anvil face of the three rails and cut one big horn too . I was thinking about making a bickern for the fisher out of rail as well. But yeah I'd rather build my own heavy anvil then pay a 1000 bucks for one! I'm sure you get what you pay for though. I'd just rather keep that money in my pocket...

I've been making a lot of rail road spike knives lately, I'm also playing with the ideal of putting turquoise stones off inside them as well In this picture I just glued em on and it kind of looks like crap But yeah I use wood,charcoal and regular coal and all three work fine in fact you really have to watch it because if left too long in the fire it will quickly burn the steel up real fast and that's a problem with the thinner tip. For tempering I've been heating them up to where they are non magnetic and then quenching in oil and most the time I'll do a file check and while most pass the test some don't harden enough.

Let me further elaborate on this hinge Jig concept.A picture is worth a thousand words,but I'm too lazy to make a diagram so picture this in your minds eye. Let's say we need over a hundred pieces of 1x1 tubing 10" inches long that need a quarter inch hole drilled in them at two spots. Well instead laying every single one of the drill holes in every piece we'd make a jig. For this jig we would probably use a small piece of plate for the jig base and small piece of angle iron down the side to hold the tubing and a couple of butt stops. We then lay out one piece and figure out where the holes need to be drilled and then we would drill some guide holes in hinge. Now the hinge I'm talking about are usually these weldable 2x2 hinges you can find at any hardware store but yeah after we drill these guide holes in the hinge we then tack it at the right spot on the angle iron and have it flop down onto the 1x1 tubing. And there you go.. You need have a nifty speed jig for drilling thousands of these parts.

yeah it's a good trick to know for pipe rail, and if you need it to angle slope pitch a bit just keep taking a little bit more off of one side. Another trick Bill taught me that made life much easier in splicing material together and just general fits ups is like when you are welding two pieces of whatever together is to use a flat piece of plate clamped on the side of it to keep things straight an in-line.. If you are splicing pipe together use angle iron. If the work is too big for the table like a big gate then clamp and tack weld some outrigers underneath the table.. Another cool trick I picked up off Bill was when making a jig he would often have some stops on a hinge so it quickly move out of the way It depends on what you are building of course but this trick rather than having a buttstop stationary and unmovable the hinge stop get's out the way when you don't need it or serves a duel purpose for longer stock that needs to be welded in the same jig.. One of those things kind of hard to visualize but it's a killer concept.

Hey I appreciate it. Hope you find some inspiration like I have from here. I have a homemade lathe project I'm still working on. It's coming along I just got busy doing other stuff. There's a thread on here in the lathe section you can check out.

The reason why I like watching shows like this one, and I enjoy all the chopper~hot rod shows just as much.Is this, for one I'm an ornamental welder fabricator for many years and I always enjoying seeing how different shops will have different jigs and equipment and different ways of doing things. I really liked that Octopus chandelier they made with the flatten pipes and the suckers were a nice touch too. I really dig the big industrial screw press they have and I only wish I had a shop with that much room.... Also he gave me an ideal about drumming up business by selling a bunch of stuff on commission and just hit a bunch of different shops and see who would be willing. That's smart and keeps money flowing in. Another thing I can relate to was when his oldest son was making a mountain out of a mole hill by over-analyzing the pickguard for the Metal guitar build with all his radius math mumbo jumbo when all he really needed to do was make a cardboard template! It reminds me of when I was a young man and I would get too meticulous and make work. And it's something you have to correct young smiths often about.. Yes it's good that you care about the quality of your work but it's foolish to spend hours or half a day trying to do a 30 minute project. Time is money! Don't waste it dang it. I can understand traditional smiths being more interested in well smith work. But there's something to be said for learning to make Lambs tongues and the cool inverted cap end from molding cap rather than those cheap gaudy cast iron lambs tongue is something to be proud about "see pic". And to do the layout work on a grand staircases and the scroll work for the rails is a challenge for any smith. It's not a part of the craft that should be look down on but rather knowing that the art of blacksmithing would certainly be lost to a degree were it not for the simple ornamental wrought iron folks that keep the forges burning. My two cents anyways probably bout what it's worth lol. :-)

I was able to take a few photos then my camera messed up today.. So this may be the last update for a while.. On the main drive shaft that goes into the head stock I used a cape chisel to cut a groove for a half moon key that the step pulley rides on. And it was a real pain but I was able to cut threads on this shaft as well...... Nobody offered up any suggestion on the tread size I should cut, so I went with what I had which was NC 8tpi and I should be able to find a backing plate that will thread onto the shaft and the lathe chuck will bolt to it... Not pictured but I've taken a fan motor and have it mounted and I'll probably use a rheostat to control the speed and I'll start working on the lead screw and split nut here before too long. While I don't expect this thing to hold tight tolerances or anything like that, it's still better than having no lathe at all to turn wood and metal on.......... to be able to take an oversize shaft and turn it down to fit into a bearing like I had to do with the main shaft here would be very useful I feel anyways.

Little update,I took Frosty's advice well almost. I went with the DOM tubing and I would of liked to of got something a little bigger than what I got....I started to get it from some metal website but the shipping was ridiculous! So I wound up getting a foot long piece of 1 1/16th DOM pipe with a 1/2 hole 1/4 wall and I had to take it to a friend who has a mini Lathe and we turned it back down to 1" in diameter.. Some used flange bearings was all I could afford everything from ebay,. But I'm building the head stock.... Now you may wonder why didn't I go with a bigger diameter piece,Well.... The biggest hole in a step pulley that I could find was only 1" inch and that was almost 40 bucks! I also ordered a die to thread the spindle and it's like 1" 8tpi course right hand thread. I saw I can buy blank backing plates that already have this thread and I can screw that on then bolt my chuck to that. But yeah I'll upload current pics later on today..

I like the ideal of 1" ID DOM mechanical tubing,Frosty, But this is still just a little lathe and I think I would have problems boring out a hole that big to fit the bearings , And the budget is really tight right now as well. I thought about saving up and buying a headstock from a micro lathe but again I think I can get away with the multiple bearing ideal. For no bigger than what it is I'm leaning to just buying a spindle that has like a M3 taper on it that way I can buy chucks/face plates for it off the shelf. It's just those shafts are not very long and fitting a pulley rather than the drive gears on it might be a little funky lol

Maybe drill a big hole in a solid steel block,insert shaft & pour babbitt bearings hehe. Just muttering to myself..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0NFaQcTJsg

Sorry didn't mean to ramble but I believe this is going to be much more rigid than the original gingerly lathe. His was a single piece of 3"x 1/4 flat stock bolted to an aluminum casting for starters. But this is a piece of 2"x2"x1/4 thick steel tubing instead of the aluminum casting with a 1/2"thick plate welded plated welded and bolted down for the bed. Naturally when you weld something it's gonna gonna warp and distort. So I spent a very long time handlapping the top surface plate flat. Using the granite block and lapping compound to the point where i can no longer slide a .002 feeler gauge in between the bed and the granite and just in case the granite isn't truly flat I've also been using a long level and several pieces of plate glass as a reference as well...and I'll then lay the those on top of the bed and try to squeeze the feeler gauge in between those and the bed and I finally got it pretty good I feel. Took me about a week! Yes my main question is what should I do about the spindle for this thing.. I thought about using pillow blocks but I don't think they will be very accurate and now I'm thinking about using tappered thrust bearings instead and mounting those into a solid block of steel probably about 4"inches thick with the V cone step pulley on the rear end of the shaft I've not decided on the shaft size yet why I was asking you folks.. Gingerly used 5/8th cold rolled round stock but I'm leaning towards going bigger like 3/4 round stock.. I've been looking at mini lathe spindles that already have like a M2 taper cut into them but their shafts are not very long and they attach to a complicated gear drive as well.. As far as only a wood lathe goes. Nope this is going to be a small home made metal lathe with about a 6 inch swing.I guess you could do wood on it.Again sorry I should of been clear about that I just assumed you would know what I was shooting for by looking at the pictures.Gingerly says his machine can achieve tolerances up to .001 But what mine will do remains to be seen. But it's mostly for rough shaping stuff anyways things like handles I won't be making gears I don't think lol but I can see making a milling attachment and a steady rest easy enough later on. Maybe even making the Gingerly back gears for it was well later down the line. As far as chucks goes I think I want to be able to attach 3 jaw chucks or a face plate or a regular jacobs drill chuck on it. Just trying to research what my options are before I buy anything. Here's a picture of what I have so far