Lou L

Dude, you are on to a small business. My mother-in-law would buy everything you've made so far. Keep pumping them out, assess time spent and get some price tags!

It looks perfect to me. I believe that the snow and cold weather tempers people like heat tempers steel.

Yup, I drove right past you! Although I was one of the detested tourists there weren't many of us. It was the very beginning of the season. We spent the time with family just to get away from the usual rush of the holiday. Beautiful country and we made plans to move to VT as we drove home. I showed my wife the pictures of your place and she fell in love. Fair warning about being 225% full. You will have half of those boxes unopened in five years. Don't allow them in your shop! I just managed a massive clean out of my garage after years of suffering with boxes of the wife's stuff. JHCC saw the "glory" of my cluttered garage and I'm proud to say it is final,y a useable space.

That's his stylus.

This one is a pun waiting to happen.

"Dangling the carrot" no longer has meaning to me. Ohhh the envy.

Beautiful knife. The attention to detail and interest created by the bolster and handle lines is superb. One day I will achieve half this quality....when I start making knives that is.

Thanks for the link. I subscribed so I can always be reminded to go back and get notifications of new videos. No language barrier for sure.

It's real now! Congrats and please be safe getting it out of your truck when you get home. Plan twice, move once!

I swear I read it as "wedding classes" and wanted to suggest you have the newly married couple make horseshoe hearts. Then I read it again and had no idea of an answer. If it is a beginner class I would expect that the best they could do would be to perhaps weld their names, or some design, in nice beads on a billet. If it is a bit more advanced (and you have the allowance for materials) they might make a shop stool or small table out of angle iron.

Oh, Frosty, that is a wonderful story! I want to disbelieve the part about the crows not being able to clear a 6' fence but I just can't. Either way, this is my "I told you so!" moment. I knew a hammer was necessary for someone's holiday cooking.

Dave, unfortunately I don't know the requirements of a fan for a propane forge. I'm not sure if CFM's or static pressure are most important (though I'm guessing pure CFMs are best). I've been hunting for my dream blower for a while now for a side blast forge with the requirements of it being relatively cheap, having high static pressure and having decent CFMs. There are so many options out there that it would be too expensive to just try one out and hope. So far I have learned: Axial fans (traditional fan blades) are right out. Centrifugal fans have higher pressure and consistent flow and are desireable. However, different bearing and motor types can matter. Single speed fans are fine because we control the flow with gates. However, many people online in a number of specialties warn against using shaded pole motors for continuous use and generally expect them to not last long. There are all sorts of options for centrifugal fans from wood stove blowers, furnace draft inducers, bounce house blowers, etc.... Most I find online are much higher CFM than I want and are a bit expensive. There are 12v DC options as well that are apparently good if you have the transformer to power them (I think a model train controller will power them if rated high enough and there are rheostats designed to speed control them as well). Mixed flow fans are another option as quiet, relatively high static pressure options. They can be small (pvc boating types) or larger (used for hydroponics and grow houses). It appears that the larger ones are used by many for illegal reasons based upon the comments in the questions and reviews. A lot of people want them delivered in unlabeled packaging! Look up iPower fans for an example. These fans claim to be centrifugal but I'm almost certain they are really mixed flow fans because the air does not exit radially from the fan. In the end, all the cheap options seem like they won't work well or last long. Right now I'm waiting on some HVAC people I know to find me a used furnace blower. They are not reusable and get trashed with the old furnace. There are also cheap, plastic bounce house blowers rated 1/4 or 1/5 HP but they never supply CFM ratings. If noise isn't a concern for you then you will have more options but I've been refusing anything over 60 decibels. Try a search on Amazon for "centrifugal blower". You will be surprised at the options you will see. It is a good place to go at least to see options. Good luck, Lou

I've always been amazed with Dan Brazzel's "tortionator". I have no idea what makes this monster tick inside but it is a great design. Whether or not you make a powered machine, I think that the way he makes his dies/jigs is pretty slick. Here is a link to his YouTube video: https://youtu.be/MsYUKx2IsUM

Consider yourself fortunate that you didn't have to use a hammer you made on that ham instead of the knife. I've heard of a number of holiday dinner disasters.

Beautiful anvil, awesome stand, nice all around shop area and some nice spring swages on top. I sure would use those til their last before going with tool steel versions. Never know how long they will last. Based on your usage the mild may be enough.

Dale, I just got home from Stowe, VT a few hours ago. I was there with some family enjoying an alternate to packing 28 people into my house for Thanksgiving. Didn't want to come home. I happened by Richard Spreda's shop in Stowe but he was nowhere to be found. How far was I from your place?

What Kevin said. Nice hammer. I would love a debate about heat treating hammers. I have plans to make a rounding hammer next spring and would ferret away every scrap of information.

Nope, rattlesnakes are protected in my state. They have disappeared from the western half of the state. We now have a Rattlesnake Mountain that has no rattlesnakes on it. Either way I wouldn't kill one. Easy enough to walk around. Now, if it was something like a Black Mamba, known to aggressively hunt people, then my environmentally conscious approach would be out the window.

Dude, Scrapyard Sculptures is nice! But seriously, I was just pointing out that you are on a serious sculpture bender in my own special way....don't stop though, in fact, go bigger!

Cool smashing block you got there! I am hoping to build something for a similar purpose this winter. I intended to grab a big chunk of A36 at Logan Steel and weld stock to one side in order to create a hole. I was hoping to incorporate it into a stand with my swage block, but my plans are in the fantasy stage.

Welcome to the forum. I'd suggest that, if you want to give bottle openers as gifts, you should start pounding some out right now. Your first few won't likely be gift worthy!

I'm thinking you should change your tag to CTsculptures.... it doesn't look very good now that I look at, and it doesn't flow very well. Perhaps you should ignore me! Another cool creation though.

It was probably a piece of ground rod. I have no idea what steel they are made of...but it's a cool spoon!

Hi and welcome to IFI. It looks to me like you are well on your way. Nice work there. I'm sure you will find people near you. You can s do an advanced search for members and type in your state...might find a long list.

I need to find a good spot for stuff like that. During the summer I have swap meets/flea markets to haunt, but now I have nothing. The awesome used tool store we had nearby closed down. The one guy I know of who has lots of stuff sees his tools as antiques and collectibles $$$.