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I Forge Iron

Judson Yaggy

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Everything posted by Judson Yaggy

  1. Hi everyone, If you look back thru that behemoth of the original robbon burner thread, you will see that I was the first one to post about drilling IFB. My first block with 16 +/- holes had flared ends just because that's what I was used to with single port burner forges and I had a cute little countersink I'd never used begging to be useful. Don't take my post as scientific experimentation! Please note. I'm a profesional architectural smith and when my forges are running I want them HOT for production work. I rarely run my forges at low psi. In my main forge, I average 12 psi with a single Amal injector (thanks to Tim for turning me onto these years ago!) in a 400 cu.in. forge. The first burner block with nozzles that tapered larger towards the flame face worked very well. After seeing all the posts of more/smaller ports I drilled another block without flares but with more, smaller ports. It also performs very well, no noticeable difference between the two except the slightly quieter noise of the smaller port burner. There might be slight performance differences in tapered/straight/reverse tapered nozzles. I have not noticed if there is one. Seems to me that we are splitting hairs here, after all sometimes a good old-fashioned coal fire is the most economical fire for certain operations!
  2. In regards to the questions regarding wrought iron... Only one lenght out of 35 so far has been WI. It had a really nice 4" long scarfed forge weld. I placed it at eyeball level on the first stair run of this railing, and pointed it out to the clients. They made appreciative noises (eye roll). Quite a few of the rusted in place nuts on the tensioning ends show obviously wrought grain, even if they are on mild steel hoops. Silo hoops in my experience are interesting. A very few of them are indeed wrought iron, and a fairly good grade. The vast majority are mild steel, and are of the antique "even softer than 1020" type. Those forge like butter without the usual quirks of WI. But the remaining 3% or so seem to be weirdly red short, prone to fracture at normal working temp.
  3. That's good to know, was pretty sure I was on the right track, just fishing for a trick I hadn't heard of! My anvils are dead flat, as they shoud be in a professional architectural shop! (poke poke!) If I want to hammer over a hollow I use the swage block. I do need the entire length very straight. I've cut the rough length to +2" oversize. The rail sections are between 6 and 10 feet long, and this is for a very precise installation, despite the rough looking material. Should have said that the bars run horizontally, thus the longer lengths (not 36" balusters). That's interesting! You win the prize for most helpful. Will try that tomorrow. Thanks all! I should add that my apprentice went and got himself a job with lower pay but more regularity off the farm. Teenagers!
  4. Ok braintrust, here is my dilemma. I made about 30' of interior barrier railing (95% fabricated) out of some very old, rusted, pitted silo hoops I had in my scrap pile for some clients who wanted the most rustic, salvaged look and materials I could find. It was around 200 linear feet of 1/2" and 9/16" material. Silo hoops are both curved to begin with and abused from the deconstruction process, so they needed to be straightened. Doing so was ok if tedious for that amount of material. Trouble is, they liked it so much they changed the design of the other railings in the house and want the same material. I would love to know any tricks that would make straightening another 700 linear feet of material faster than my process. What I've been doing is 1. cut to rough length. 2. roughly tweak to approximate straight with bending forks in a vise 3. put flat dies in the fly press and work the high spots down. See photos below. Working cold to save time and rust, sorry, I meant patina. Anyone have a better way?
  5. By far the most common usage is as a backer for punching and drifting. Pick the hole that most closely matches your workpiece and go to town. Especially useful if you have an oddly shaped hole , for example an axe eye is much closer to rectangular than square. Also, holes that are significantly different than the ones in your anvil(s) will be better supported with the range of sizes in a swage block.
  6. There are a couple of Manzels on ebay right now...
  7. Wow, that's awesome. You're going to need a bigger shop!
  8. Can't quote much or @ but... C-1 hope you see this. Love the tail!
  9. Online registration is now available on the NEB website. See you all in June! http://www.newenglandblacksmiths.org/2019/03/neb-2019-spring-meet/
  10. Jenifer and Anvil- Amen. But don't forget the flux-burn holes in your t-shirts, hands heal, shirts don't! (grin) Here's what I did in the shop today. Mostly texturing, felt like about a thousand pieces but it was only 150. Plus some forge welding of hinges, fabricating barn door roller hardware, forged a half dozen small pulls. Cut and chamfered track standoffs.
  11. Steam hammer missing the anvil and some other parts means it's worth close to scrap price, sadly. The Scranton mechanical in the background is intriguing though!
  12. Join ABANA and join the New York Designer Blacksmiths. Go to every meet, hammer in and conference that you can.
  13. Blue moon used to carry them, they don't any more. Roger quit managing the UMBA library and retired to someplace warm.
  14. My Fontanini (new, H-13ish alloy) came so hard that a quality file wouldn't touch it, had to use carbide burrs to ease the edges of the hardy and pritchel. 5 years of professional use later it's starting to show a little wear but in the right light you can still see the Blanchard grinding marks. Refflinghaus makes a RockwellC hardness claim in their literature, and the feedback I've seen is that they are the real deal. Neither are cheap, but you get what you pay for. How much time are you putting into work hardening your anvil? In a shop from the 19th century the anvil might see work 10 hours a day for 6 days a week including a master smith and strikers... thats more than even the pros today do, thank goodness for modern power hammers!
  15. My Clifton vhs tapes languish on the shelf like the unreadable dinosaurs that they are. When I tried to have them converted by a local place they told me they were too degraded to make a good copy. I too would like to know where to buy a newer format. Please pm me if anyone knows since IFI isn't keen on spreading this particular type of information. There do seem to be a number of ABANA affiliates that you can rent the dvds from, but not mine.
  16. Looks like one of those rope crimping anvils.
  17. It's a hold down. Slotted hole in the tube is to wedge it thru the hardy hole, throw the cam and the threaded portion swings down and clamps to the anvil.
  18. Bio-mechanical advantage (grin). For sure most folks' legs are stonger than their arms.
  19. Try selective cooling (make the skinny part cold) before you drift, or clamp one bitter end of it in the vise and bend/hammer the centerline of the piece to match the centerline of the crooked hole. This might involve 2 hammers, one to hit and one to back up the bit you dont want to move much. Of course it might come down to a combo of both techniques. Or just chuck it and make another, untill you have made dozens they are all going to be funky. Blacksmithing takes repetitious focus.
  20. I did look at the pics. A lot of that damage is from where someone who didn't know how to weld CI tried anyway and it later broke off the weld. Lucky for them the jaws didn't fall off. If you must, look up proper pre and post heat techniques, and there are some pretty good (albeit expensive) cast iron rods out there these days.
  21. Fisher vises are cast iron with steel jaws laminated in the casting process, just like they did with their anvils. Are you a REALLY good weldor of cast iron? If not you will do more harm than good, possibly totally ruining the jaws of that vise. NICE anvil!
  22. You did just fine! It was nice to finally meet you, looking forward to next time. If anyone else finds themselves on the west coast of New England give me a shout.
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