Andrew Martin

Started on a new square punch today and got the eye of center, which was aggravating, but I think its still salvageable. JHCC, we think in similar circles, I just made a side draft for my JABOD, trying to avoid the smoke was...impossible. I need to get longer legs put on it next, its just a tad to low to be comfortable.

Yeah, I always wondered about that inconsistency( it's even specifically pointed out in Mcraven's The Blacksmith's Craft) until I did a little extra reading. After reading a few different HS metallurgy textbooks and Dr. Verhoeven's Steel Metallurgy for the Non-metallurgist, it seems the scientific consensus is that simple brine is faster than water is faster than oil. Alan, Verhoeven does say agitation reduces the steam blanket significantly, but I can't remember if it has more or less effect than salt concentration in water quenches.

Lol, was that little grill really made by Buffalo? I thought it was some kind of tongue-in-cheek pun...

I'd be willing to bet a blacksmith thought of that! Wonder what they payed him for a centuries old idea?

Gergely, that looks wicked! Does the war hammer have a lot of hand shock? But I guess one would be wearing gloves/gauntlets in battle anyway, right? Made my first attempt at a small froe today, wasn't much harder than I expected though I now see why froe-eye welds are considered tricky after trying to not burn the eye and still get everything to temp. It does split wood though, so I think we can call it a success.

We have a very long thread on this in the PPE topic- General consensus is, IIRC, don't worry about it if you DON'T stare into the fire constantly, but wear Shade 2# or 3# if you DO! Do wear some kind of impact resistant safety gasses at all times though. P.S. I'm no eye doctor, don't take my word for it. If in doubt, consult the experts.

Yesterday I dressed and handled a new hot punch, forged a small socket bick for the post vise, made a little froe-eye drift and attempted a heart finial on a flux spoon. The heart didn't turn out well at all, but otherwise it was the most productive day at the forge I've had in, well, too long! I also forgot to cool a pair of tongs and almost needed that aloe plant....

A $300 vise for a $500 anvil sounds good to me, IF the anvil is really worth $500. So the question is, is the anvil worth the $300 vise to YOU?

IMHO, IFI is a wonderfully organized forum. The sections and sub-sections are just the right size, not too broad nor too narrow. Sometimes forums organized like this have too many sub-sections or not enough, but IFI is about perfect. Also, when someone posts a new reply to a thread, that thread goes to the top of the list of topics in that sub-section. I've seen some forums without this feature, and they are aggravating if you're a regular and want to read mainly new content like Thomas and Latticino. True, the search function isn't the best, and the refresh page bug is slightly annoying, but I usually don't need to use the search function to find what I want anyway. IFI seems a lot easier to find information relevant to what I'm looking for, even compared to other forums who appear to be using the same software system. I'm not computer literate by any stretch of the imagination, but I think the difference is that IFI is run by competent people who really care about the information they present. The content and collaboration that goes on here is utterly epic, so I doubt we have to worry about losing IFI anytime soon, at least not until the internet becomes outdated . I have seen one or two forums die or go dormant, but that is usually only when the people lose interest in the topic of the forum, and/or when the regular posters stop posting. I doubt this will ever happen here because blacksmithing is an addiction, and we have some very committed members!

Heheheheh, yeah our winters are bipolar too, it was about 60F here on Christmas day, then below 20 the week after. Today was 68. I wish I knew where we get our wind from....

And it also means a type of rose...littleblacksmith, your friend isn't a gardener by any chance?

I never really thought bout this before, but I think I say it like Option #2. According to the Oxford American Desk Dictionary, it's supposed to be Option #1 (it only lists one pronunciation). I guess I'm wrong a lot, lol. I always say swage like rage, probably because I first learned that word from a book and therefore wasn't influenced by the local dialect. As for tuyere, that's French I believe, so we'll have to defer to them on that, unless it's an American spelling/corruption like tue or twear (rhymes with shoe and smear).... I never did get the hang of the French u sound, so I just pronounce it too-yair. But yup, a rose by any other name, so long as we all halfway understand each other!

Hello, welcome to IFI! There is indeed a blacksmith club in the Wichita area, Central States Metal Artisans. Meetings are usually the first Saturday of the month, either at the club's shop in Haysville, or at a member's shop. The January meeting/annual banquet will be at the Haysville senior center at 6:30 pm IIRC. There is normally an informal meeting at the club's shop every Monday, but I usually only make it to the monthly meetings so I don't know much about those.

Ausfire, that Tawny Frogmouth looks surprisingly like one of our gray morph Western Screech owls without the ear tufts:

That's ok, it's a very easy mistake to make If it makes you feel any better, our local high school has a HUGE owl mural in the gym (their mascot is an owl), and they made almost the same exact mistake....

That's by far the best owl garden sculpture I've seen in a long time, Daswulf! I love owls, they're such interesting and beautiful creatures. How many toes does your owl have? I can't quite tell in the pictures. Owls have a neat feature that lets them swivel their third toe (the outermost front one) backwards, so they can have two toes forward, two toes back, or three forward and one back. Usually you will see them in 3-1 mode while perching; they switch to 2-2 mode as they dive down on their prey, because it grips the prey better. Aren't owls cool?

That's astoundingly beautiful, Golden_eagle! The detail is amazing- it looks real! I can only imagine how much you might be able to sell these for, especially given the popular copper-themed trend in pots, pans, and drinking vessels.

Thank you for the very good advice Smoggy, sometimes I try to overthink and "improve" things when they don't need to be. It is not infrequently that I need to be reminded to KISS! I think I will rebuild the furnace and have another go next weekend (if it stops raining).

iron dwarf, I did read the post by Dave Budd on here awhile back, ever since then I have wanted to play with one of these little furnaces. Smoggy, I think I watched that same vid on youtube. I'm pretty confident the wet charcoal was where I went wrong. I think someone on this site said a few weeks ago that wetting your coal eats up BTU's...wish I had remembered that tidbit before I fired up the furnace! I found the link to the pdf that has the design I used: http://www.leesauder.com/pdfs/Aristotle's Steel.pdf The only thing I changed on the design was the addition of the bloom-removal trench- I was taught never to reach over the fire....

Frosty, I don't really understand the name either, but that's what the fellow(Skip Williams, IIRC) who invented the design calls it. The trench is for removing the bloom otherwise youd have to pry it out from the top. The hole between the trench and shaft is closed with a block of adobe during use. I loosely based the design off a pdf written by Lee Sauder.

Decided to try something new today, something completely out of my area of expertise. I built an Aristotle furnace to try out my new box bellows with. Well, learned how not to run an Aristotle furnace. Do not try to use dampish or otherwise moist charcoal. I did, but an hour and three pounds of fresh pine charcoal later, my little rod of 1/4 rd mild still wasn't melting at all. At least it was a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon. I did find some clinkers in the ashes that were slightly magnetic, so I guess it wasn't a complete failure. Here they are on the right: And here are pics of the furnace:

TSA= Transportation Security Administration here in the States. They're the guys in uniforms at all our airports who are supposed to make sure you don't bring a bomb or a butter knife on an airliner. IIRC, JHCC likes to go hunting RR scrap when he's on vacation, after which he chucks all his goodies in his checked luggage for the trip home (saves on shipping costs :)). When the luggage goes through security at the airport, all that steel makes quite the impression on the xray machines, so the TSA guys have to go looking through his luggage and leave him a note when they find nothing(except for 20+ pounds of scrap steel). Heck, forget the xray machines, think of what the metal detectors would do if that was in a carry on!

Which part of the U.S? It's a big country, and I don't like to think of how expensive post vises are in Alaska...Beware if you can't get a look at the screw/screwbox before you pay, they are really the only part that can wear out on one of these vises.

I do the same, except ANY spare cash or change goes into the jar, not just 10s and 20s! Make sure to keep it out of reach/sight of your fellow housemates (ask me how I know lol). After I get an anvil, or two, I'll probably use the same technique for all the other expensive tools I want need. Also, keep telling yourself that if you made it this far with your current equipment, you can keep using it for a while longer. I have to remind myself of this every time I get anvil envy, which is increasingly frequent.

Thanks, Frosty!