bluesman7

A dark shop and a bench grinder help. More carbon makes more stars, but alloys such as Chromium and Nickle inhibit the stars. Chromium makes a more red spark, Manganese is more white and adds stars.

My guess is that you nailed it Frosty. I had a situation like this as the shop owner. In my case the other party will never be invited back.

18 or 20 gauge sheet metal is pretty easy to work into a tube and rivet.

My plan is to add 7 link assemblies to the chain. Going higher than this looks like it would start being an exercise in material handling.

Your right. Today I added 6 links.

How is your forge welding on other projects? When I do San Mai I start with thicker and smaller pieces and then draw out the billet. This way the weld is done on a smaller surface area. I'm not sure how clearly I'm explaining this. The welded billet is much shorter and narrower than the finished knife. The mass is in the thickness.

I started my chain yesterday. My idea is to just do a link at each forging session , build 7 link chains, then join them to the main chain. So the chain would not be in strict chronological order, but the seven link sections would be.

I made a fire pot similar to the one shown, except that it has a clinker breaker, out of 1/8" steel figuring that I could repair it easy enough if it burned through. It has held up much better than I thought it would. My repair plan is to patch the outside with more 1/8" steel then fill the hole on the inside with clay, but it has not burned through yet.

A fist size ball of paper and soft wood charcoal has never failed me. The air makes all the difference.

Portland refractory is an oxymoron.

Thanks bengriswold for this description. I used a variation of it to cut up a bunch of coke. I put a plate in the bottom of a shallow 4 sided box that was sitting on my anvil and used a cold chisel. The coke I was cutting is like rock.

Try working at welding heat for the drawing cycle. With 1/8" round this will likely be done in one heat. My experience is that the weld improves itself with time and forging at welding heat.

I've been very happy lately banking the sides of the fire with coal and adding Charcoal and Coke directly to the top of the fire. It seems to work best to add the Charcoal at the beginning of the heat and a bit of Coke just before removing the steel from the fire. By the time I'm coming back to the fire the Coke is ready to go. YMMV

The title say's it all. I recently obtained a lot of coke at an auction. I like burning it because it is very hot, clean, and long lasting, but since I have a hand cranked blower I like having a bit of breeze coke from coal in the fire to keep things going. I've been feeding in the breeze from the sides and adding coke to the fire right on top. I've thought that at times it may be advantageous to add charcoal straight on top too, like when I want to build a fast clean heat for welding. Anyone else using coal , hard coke, and charcoal together?

It bugs me too that Damascus has come to mean PWS, but I've conceded. If I have to explain the difference between true damascus [wootz] and PWS every time that I'm talking about PWS then I'm not communicating. Most people not involved in steel don't know what PWS is, but they know what you're talking about if you say damascus. The world knows PWS as damascus and that's the way it is. The truth is just an interesting side topic when you are not trying to communicate a characteristic of a piece of steel.

10" schedule 40 pipe is 40 lbs per foot. An old propane tank is much more appropriate.

Working one inch bar will be well within the capability of the tools that you are describing.

Thanks. Makes perfect sense now. I just had bottle openers in my mind

Ausfine Why the screw holes in the cat openers? It looks like screwing them to a wall would make them impossible to use without spilling your drink.

Nice job on the video Jennifer. I barely have the patience for still photography let alone editing videos. Where is this other demo video?

My thought would be steel wool and then more linseed. IMO the patina is a plus, just nix the rust.

I could not resist Hotmetal's idea and made my own Moai.

Hmmm. 1/4" x 1" x 17-3/4" is the same price as 12"

"I can still water quench and anneal after upsetting?" Bad idea..... you will be hitting hardened untempered steel. If you could interrupt your quench before the steel got below 400F you would still have mostly austenite, but martensite would be forming as the steel cooled, like at the face of the anvil.

When I weld billets I always weld on a rebar handle. Then I put a small piece of scrap at the forge opening and rest the rebar on that, so the billet does not touch the floor. I also use very little amounts of flux. My flux problems are over. If I'm doing pieces that are impractical to prop up, I fire up the coal forge.