TWISTEDWILLOW

Howdy from eastern Oklahoma and welcome to the forum! Enjoy the madness!

Howdy from eastern Oklahoma and welcome to the forum! Your work looks awesome!

Howdy from eastern Oklahoma and welcome to the forum!

Howdy from eastern Oklahoma and welcome to the forum!

thanks y’all, I’ve already got piles of sucker rod around but it’s hard to turn down more when it shows up, im gonna have to make some sucker rod doggy bags for everyone on the next hammer in!!! Lol

Bahaha! actually funny you say that, the port of catoosa is a couple hours from me and could probably throw some stuff on a janky ol Craigslist pontoon boat and float through all the locks an dams on the Arkansas river till I hit the Mississippi and just fish my way down close to y’all!!! I’d need need lift from the river to the hammer in though!!! Lol

A welder I know, who builds a lot of corals and fence stopped by the shop an visited and gave me a pile of sucker rod ends and cut offs 1-2 foot lengths

Sounds awesome! I wish y’all was closer I’d try to get down there,

I’m no professional smith by no means but I am self employed, I charged $75 an hour In My repair shop as a minimum regardless of what I’m doin or how short of time it took, it’s a $45 minimum fee for handhelds, $75 for everything else as a rule time, tools, parts, materials, consumables, insurance, fuel, employees, rainy days, dealing with the IRS and many more things figure into $75 per hour and I still don’t make enough to set back for retirement…. like was said before I can barely hire help for $10 an hour here so I’d go bankrupt an loose my house shop an everything else if I tried charging that if this isn’t your sole income and your blacksmithing for fun then I’d still charge at least $60 an hour like George said, but if I was gonna do smithin as a living I’d be $75 and or above that might sound crazy but there’s shops charging $125 an hour for the same work I do on machines not 30-45 minutes from my shop! if someone wants to hire you to do custom work I see no reason you can’t charge $60 an hour for it plus materials, fuel ect..

Happy New Year’s Eve MacLeod!!! An to everyone else!

Mail man just ran, he walked up to the gate an handed me a box an said “I dunno whatcha got in there but it’s heavy” lol a surprise from a member here on the forum, I’ll let them speak up if they want too, its big ol heavy duty bowl swage!!! thank you very much!!!! Imma have to try it out a make a yarn bowl for Ash!!!

Sweet chain Will!!! maybe hang some bird feeders or wind chimes? Got the little forge cured this morning, piled up some bricks I had on the one that came with the kit and played around with some different steel to see how long it took to heat up i heated up 1/4” square bar in just a few seconds, then some 5/8” round in a minute or so and then 7/8” sucker rod in a few minutes this was a fun little project I might make myself another gas forge later One thing I did notice is it’s pretty loud it sounds like a rocket ship engine! I think imma order some of the ITC-100 from Mr Volcano to see what kinda difference it makes I dunno much about gas forges but over all I’d definitely recommend this for someone wanting a kit with everything in the box ready to put together, the instructions are very straightforward and easy to understand, if I can put it together then anyone can! Lol

Howdy from eastern Oklahoma and welcome to the forum! Like George said, Jennifer is still an active member here so you’re in luck just shoot her a PM! it might take a day or two but she will get back with you! On the other hand……. You might wanna buzz around the forum a check out all the how toos!! never know you might wanna try firing up a forge yourself and making a few trivets too! disclaimer: once you get started forging you may not be able to stop!!!! Lol

Got the second coat of the satanite in the little volcano forge, And got it drying out infront of the milk house heater, I guess I’ll figure out the curing process tomorrow morning

Thanks Les the hammer eye punch is made by some company called Bonbo, it came from amazon, it’s not quite as nice a quality as the German made Picard tools but I think with a little cleaning up it will make a nice tool! I never heard tell of that one, of course until Thomas started explaining I never understood what 1018 an 4030 an all those others was either lol is O1 some kinda fancy alloy or something?

Les im excited to play with it, I never messed with a gas rig so it’s gonna be all new territory for me! On the blower I don’t really need it an I’ll never use it, I’ve got plenty other champions already settin around here that I don’t use, I just grabbed it incase someone else needed or wanted it, So that being said, if you need a spare or three for yours just hop in the truck and run up here!!! I’ll load you up!!! They will look so much better settin in your yard than mine!!! Lol I think Ash thinks I’m trying to open a blower museum here in peavine!

I like that Axe John! Imma have to try that sometime! No forging for me today, but I did read the fancy laminated instructions on putting together this little volcano forge an started on it, got it drying out in front of a milk house heater Also I had a guy stop by the shop bout 30 minutes ago right before I locked up, he had a champion 400 settin in the back of the truck…. An now it’s setttin in my yard along with the train load of others…

Howdy from eastern Oklahoma and welcome to the forum!

Hey now!! that’s a pretty slick lookin time piece!!! MJ! Santa brought me a couple things a Mr volcano forge a Picard embossing hammer and a hammer eye punch the hammer eye punch has a ruff grinding from the factory so imma need to clean it up a little but I can’t wait to try em out!

Lol mystery solved! he really likes the steam whistle Jerry! that was the fist present I gave to him Christmas morning when he got up! thank you!

Got a wooden train whistle in the mail yesterday addressed to Max, was it someone on here that sent it?

Merry Christmas everyone!

I totally thought that was just my weird observation! at -5 in the shop I grabbed a beer outta the shop fridge and it honestly felt warm! Lol

Les The wind chill is supposed to get that low tonight is what the radio keeps saying The ambient temperature right now at my shop is 7*F and the wind chill right now is -12 the low tonight here is supposed to be -1 down to -4 which ain’t normal for peavine!!! Lol i know I’ve got the wood stove running, a propane bottle top heater running and a milk house heater running in the shop and I can still see my breath in here and water bucket is starting to get some ice in it setting 3’ away from the propane heater! Lol

This massive winter storm is affecting a lot of people right now, I hope all y’all are staying safe a warm!!! I know it’s pretty nasty here in peavine currently, temps dropped over 20 degrees in just a couple hours and still plummeting, Winds are picking up and brutal, they say it’s gonna be -30F by nightfall, Roads were flash freezing on me early this morning I was sliding all over been out here taking feed to all all the critters and checking water troughs, just got back here to the repair shop to get opened up for business,