WoodnMetalGuy

BillyBones - I experimented with crosses like that a while ago, and I liked the look of making dimples all over with a small ball-pein hammer, then shining them up a little with a cup wire wheel. Also did some where I thinned out and widened the arms towards the ends and then dimpled/shined them and that looked good, too. Gave them a little more organic shape and a little more visual interest, I thought. -- Dave

I love the Terry Pratchett books!

That's the same type of anvil stand that came under my Fisher anvil when I bought that. Seems to work fine, and easy to add or remove layers to adjust the height. -- Dave

Funny, I've got a drill press like that, too. When I got mine at auction I hadn't seen one like it before, with the ability to tilt the head left and right, rotate it about the vertical post, and slide it closer or further out from the post. Of course, except for one occasion I've always used it in one fixed position... -- Dave

Check out http://knkusa.com/ My wife got their 'Zing' model several years ago and it has been great. They have newer models now. Mostly used for cutting paper for scrapbooking, but has been used to make vinyl resist for sandblast etching on glass. Am amazed at the detail these machines can cut. -- Dave

Thanks for the further info! -- Dave

Very nice looking result. Can you talk a bit about your process? I'm assuming there is no weld, fold, weld, fold, repeat... iteration for this, as there is for other Damascus? Just start with the lump of chain and weld it all together once? How many heats does that take? Are you using flux? Is it important to degrease the chain before starting or does it all burn off? Never having tried this, I have these absolute beginner questions... Thanks - Dave

I like that you're starting to get some more lighting in there. Those two ceiling spots alone looked pretty grim to work by. Seems like your shadow would often be on the work. I'm slowly converting my fluorescent fixtures to use the new 4 foot LED bulbs that look just like fluorescent tubes, but are brighter, and work great even when it's so cold the fluorescent ones fail to light. -- Dave

Yes, I messaged him, too, and found that that James Cooper lives in the UK. Would have been a neat coincidence, though. -- Dave

I'm guessing that may be the James Cooper who is active on the 'Fly Press Forging' facebook group - with his most recent post about 1 hour ago... -- Dave

That's what I'm doing. 14" diameter with 3" insulation. It's what Ron Reil on one of his pages said he would do for his next one, so I thought I'd give it a try. -- Dave

And I have seen it used in the window on an old wood stove.. -- Dave

I have heard of adding crushed oyster shells to the corn in a corn-burning furnace to affect the hardness/quality of the clinker developed in those stoves. I believe that depending on the design, some corn stoves/furnaces have a clinker breaker and if the clinker gets too hard they have problems with that. So I think it's probably a real thing, but I don't know any more about it than that... -- Dave

I like that! Are the braces and stretchers secured by wrapping only, or is there a weld under there? How did you manage any tweaking needed to keep it from rocking on a slightly longer leg? What kind of power hammer is that? Looks pretty hefty... -- Dave

I was thinking that a 50% duty cycle would mean in use half the time, or 5 minutes on, 5 minutes off. And 5 on, 10 off would be 33%. Am I confused about that? -- Dave

I'm inexperienced also, but all I can think of is that it must not be mild steel like you thought. Something that air hardened, maybe? -- Dave

Here's a photo of a Nazel hammer in Bob's shop in WI taken when I was there just over a week ago. He demonstrated a bit on one and it was very controllable. Big machine, though. -- Dave

It's the brand name of a two-part epoxy. -- Dave

The other methods I've seen for making charcoal cook the wood in an oxygen deprived environment. I bet your yield could be improved by doing that. Here's an example link I found with a quick search: youtube charcoal retort -- Dave

Nice, Alan, and Brompton bikes!

Hey - I can help out with that! It's just to the east from where I live in MN. Not hard to find if you drive in the right direction! -- Dave

Wow - looks like it works great. As far as controls go, I wonder if you might want to rig up a foot pedal to control it so you can use two hands to manipulate your work? -- Dave

But now that I look closer, I see that it's more than just cutting the slots between the cubes - looks like you have a long slit along the edges of the cubes up the length of the bar - is that right? Seems like the grinder is the best way to do that. I wondered how it was that the cube corners stayed vertical vs. spiraling around. Is that lengthwise slit something like 1/8" deep or do you go deeper than that? -- Dave

Very neat handles. Was not at all obvious to me at first glance how you did that. Thanks for the explanation! I like the contrast between the smooth spirals and the staggered stacks of 'cubes'. I wonder if a bandsaw cut would work as well, or if you need the little bit additional cut out that the curve of the grinder removes? -- Dave