Ranchmanben

When were these advertisements published? For a long time a company could claim anything they wanted to. "Use our anvil and you'll have bigger muscles, a thicker mustache, whiter teeth and and you'll be able to read better. Not only will it split a Peter Wright in half but it will also make you 3" taller, make your soldier stand at attention and your toe nails might cut holes in the ends of your boots." Things of that nature. There was no such thing as false advertisement. What made a company stand out was sticking to their warranty, which Fisher did. They were a good company that made great products and they stood by them. Think snake oil.

I was unaware there was such a thing as a quality flap disk. I live in a small town so I use what I can get, Forney. Do Walter disks last that much longer? If so, I'll order some.

Are you using the face of your anvil to draw them out?

Small world!

I'm a big fan of coil springs for punches too! I was talking about uncoiling an entire spring, doesn't look like much fun.

If there's someone around Amarillo that's been on that show, I haven't met them. Craig Trnka shows up every so often and have been on there and Jim Poor just finished filming his episode the other day. When you get the chance, get ahold of me and come on down to Clarendon.

Thank you. The double fuller is a mighty good idea but until I get a power hammer I'm stuck doing it the less efficient way. I agree that farriers will pay more but like you said, they aren't always the best at taking care of their tools. I get to chance to talk to Jim Keith every so often and he pretty much said the same thing as you about farriers quenching their tongs too hot. Luckily, I've got a pretty a decent job that I like so I won't have to rely on tong building for my supper and can keep building them as I'd like.

Wow, you're closer to me than you are to Amarillo! Every first and third Tuesday of the month we get together at the Well Shod farrier supply store. They've got a few different forges and anvils set up and they just bought a Big Blu power hammer for people to use. There's dinner, some cold beer and pretty good company. Also, every so often someone shows up who is mighty handy with knives. A couple of guys who've been on Forged in Fire drop by on occasion.

Looks like proper fly press technique to me. Well done.

What part of the panhandle? There's a group of guys that get together a couple of times a month in Amarillo to pound metal. It's mainly farrier oriented but there's starting to be more, like myself, who show up to do other types of blacksmithing.

Correct! I learned that I don't need to do that, not that I've ever had the desire. Man, that looked like a cluster pull. I especially liked when the two fellas were twisting in opposite directions.

Welcome. Texas panhandle here. I don't build knives but if you're around I'd be happy to talk shop with you.

I'm assuming you are wanting to stick with the flat jaw tong style, there are many great tutorial videos on YouTube. Brian Brazeal has a pretty good video. You should go ahead and finish the set you started. When I started making tongs I would get really frustrated that mine didn't look exactly like the ones in books or in the video and I'd quit on them. Don't do this. Because of this absurd overexpectation of myself I didn't often practice punching holes or work on the fitting the tongs to the size material I wanted them for. Your tongs don't have to be perfect, nice or even useable to practice these thing on but they are all critical to a good pair of tongs. Even if the beginning steps don't work out just right you can still get good practice in and most all of these steps cross over to smithing other things. As I said earlier, every pair will get better any you'll learn something from each pair.

You're right there. At some point I'd like to start selling these and if I had to choose between a plain tool and a slightly embeshished tool that does the same thing just as well or better, I'd go for the fancier as long as it's not cost prohibitive. When building them, it does add a extra couple of step but when they're finish I can say they work as well as any and look better than most.

That's a decent start. I'm not really a fan of a twist tong myself, I think there's a weak spot between the jaw and the boss. Don't worry about not having a fuller, you'll figure that part out soon enough and every pair you make will get better. I use a 2lb hammer more than any other and as you use it more it will become second nature. Keep swinging.

To say WOW is an understatement. To do that rig justice I'd have to make up a word and I'm too tired currently for creative thinking. Great job.

That must have taken awhile! Out of curiosity, what diameter is the stock? Looks like a fairly small, handy size. The smallest coil springs I come across are 5/8", I'd like to run across some 1/2" or 3/8".

That's a slick little setup. Look like that trailer must have started life as either a farriers trailer or food vendor. Does having your anvil on the trailer absorb much of your hammering force?

That's a pretty good question but like most other things, that's out of my realm of knowledge.

That's great on the hammer! I known exactly how it goes on the tongs I cooked the end of one of my reins a little too long on a pair I was working on yesterday. Here's a pair I was working on a while back and it got away from me as I was explaining what I was doing to a guy who wanted to learn how to make tongs. I was pretty embarrassed since I just done the fastest and cleanest forge welds I'd ever done on the reins

Those tongs and hammer look great. It's tough to get an idea from the pictures, what's the hammer weigh in at? It looks pretty substantial.

No purpose that I know of.

That's awesome work. It really gives me perspective about how much work you can get done with a power hammer, I'm specifically talking about drawing out the reins. I could probably get 2 maybe 3 reins drawn out in the time it took you to get 7 pairs of tongs to that point.

Charles said exactly what I was thinking which is leads. It's weird to say but some horse have a harder time going in a circle in one direction than the other and also have an easier time changing from one direction than the other. He also mentioned that it's poor horsemanship to not recognize this, I agree. When training horses, which I don't claim to be a horse trainer, you teach them to do things both directions, it's basically teaching them to ambidextrous. If you teach them to move the front end to the left off a spur from the right they don't connect it that they should do the opposite if you give them a rub on the left side. It's got to be taught. Sometimes you've got to spend more time working on one direction than the other. That said, I've got a horse currently that I have hell getting to turn right like I'd like him to, it's frustrating.

I wouldn't think it would be tough to reforge those punches as long as you work them HOT. The dies on the other hand look pretty useless.