Clodbuster

Here's one more way to do it that avoids heavy upsetting or drawing out: Use an engine connecting rod - it already has roughly the shape you want, it just needs flattened. I took a salvaged rod, removed the end cap from the desired end and cut off the bolt holes. I cut off the rod to give a end to hammer on, leaving long so I could cut off mushrooming after completed. Heat the round end in the forge and drive it into the anvil face to flatten and spread, then clean up with the angle grinder and belt sand to true flatness. Then temper. I didn't punch for a handle but wired on into the nice pocket that they come with.

Here's one more for consideration - I took these photos of a cart from a blacksmith shop museum in Butte, Montana. Then made a copy for myself but added drawers below the top surface to capture some more storage space. I love having it on wheels so I can pull it up to the job.

I've used both coal and charcoal, and once my latest $35 bag of coal is used up I'm never buying another. The charcoal is cleaner, hotter, FAR less smoky, more pleasant and less expensive. I can get decent blacksmithing coal at a premium price, but I can cook 2-3 barrels worth of lumber scraps each fall for nearly free and it lasts me all year. I use offcuts in the drums since they stack tight and neat and yield more charcoal. If I don't fill the drums myself with a year's worth of carpentry projects then there's a local contractor who sells an apple bin full of offcuts for $10. Once drums are full they go next to the annual burn pile, which consists of whatever fell out of the trees around the yard since last year. I stack the pile around the drums, light it up, throw the ends in as needed, and when it's cool pull the lids off the years supply of charcoal and roll them under the bench. This works great for me and I live in the DESERT, so I'm sure this model will work in Western Oregon. I'd really feel strange there paying for coal while a million tons of wood rots all around me...

I've made several of these. Usually stumps are irregularly shaped, so flexible rulers don't work well to lay out a line. Use a tape or yardstick and measure straight up from the floor and mark it. The best way to get it flat and true is with a router. Google "router sled" and you will find a wealth of info. Running a router back and forth will level it easier and more accurately than any other method. Here's three pictures of how I did my swage block stand 1) The first shows the stump rough cut with a chainsaw above the line. I then nailed two boards to opposite sides of the stump with their tops parallel and level to the ground. These serve as rails for the router sled. Note the spacers so that the router doesn't chew up its rails. 2) The second photo shows how you make a series of passes back and forth with the router sled and it levels the cut. The plywood to the left is the sled, the bit is sticking out of it. 3) The third photo shows how a belt sander cleans up the router tracks. When you get one end done you can remove the rails and endo it to do the other end. To keep my stumps from rocking I mark 3 "feet" into the base and freehand rout and sand between them about 1/8" deep. A three-legged stool will never rock. Good luck.

Just my two cents, but if you have the pair of them and they fit some type of machine that's around, I'd try to sell them. You could get enough money to buy stock in the sizes you need as those are going to be big stuff to work. Also, it seems a shame to chop them up into pieces when they are quite useful in their current configuration. All that is based on them being undamaged and not obsolete - if that's not the case then cut away!

Agreed on the texturing. There's some scuffs on the raised faces which catch the eye - texturing would hide those. I don't think the leaving the raised face unhammered would be wrong (it gives a modern feel to the piece), but it has to be polished and pristine in that case. Also, maybe try to get the corners looking like each other, that would clean it up some. Looks good all in all though.

If it's not something that you're worried about breaking and it it has a useful shape, I'd use it as an anvil. So long you don't beat on thin edges/protrusions and you're working hot metal over it the thing should last a long time. I have and appreciate my Peter Wright "real" anvil, but have a swage block (cast iron), ASO, and other random chunks of metal I use as needed to complete the task at hand.

If you want to start on the cheap, then you've picked the right hobby. You can lift yourself up by the bootstraps in blacksmithing like you can in no other field. Money helps, and for certain items like a nice anvil you'll have to have some. But without money you can develop some amazing workarounds that allow you to develp your skills and flesh out your tool set at the same time. But if you don't have money you are going to need time and scrounging skills. The first thing you need to do is to scrounge a large, heavy piece of steel/cast iron to serve as an anvil. It doesn't have to be pretty, but it needs one flat working face. There are many options for forges - the absolute cheapest would be a home-built charcoal forge fueled with charcoal you cook yourself in a drum. This requires only your effort to gather the wood and make charcoal of it. But it also takes time and you have to be in a location to do such a thing. Otherwise a good portion of your $50 will be applied to fuel. Start scrounging for steel to work with. There is scrap available from any number of sources and almost all of it is useful to a patient smith, particularly to a beginner. You can always use it to make do (and to develop your skills) until something better comes along. Work with long pieces you can hold one end of until you can make a pair of tongs. There are plans for a first set of tongs that don't require tongs to make them. Get those and a piece of 1/4"x 1" steel and use that to make your first pair - then the whole world's your oyster. Everything in life is a trade of time or money, if you don't have one then you need the other. Don't let the lack of money hold you back, make it your means to self-improvement. I've made most of my blacksmithing tools and there's no reason you can't do the same or more. Welcome, good luck, and have fun... oh, and spend at least $5 of that $50 on a pair of safety glasses!

Good topic - it's interesting to hear the paths that bring people into this. Mine is kind of roundabout. I grew up on a farm and have been familiar with fabrication and welding since I was a kid. Also could do rough carpentry, plumbing, electrical, mechanical repairs and similar things. Farmers tend to be jacks of all trades... but masters of none. So I did lots of basic fabrication and repairs but never forged anything other than one failed cold chisel in high school metal shop. Our teacher didn't know what the heck he was doing - the school had a nice propane forge but we used it only once - on the day we forged chisels. We drew out and ground the chisel and then "tempered" it by holding it rigidly in cold water - the first time I used it at home it broke at what I now know was the quench line. I didn't know that at the time, and it killed forging for me as I chalked it up as too difficult and unreliable. Later, when I was restoring an 1936 International Harvester truck, I talked to several shops about duplicating the oak cab subframe that vehicle has (it is a very complex bit of woodworking with curves and tricky joinery) Either they wouldn't do it or they wanted a fortune so I decided to do it myself. I was in college at the time so money was tight, meaning spendy power tools were out of the question. I bought some basic hand old hand tools, tuned them up and proceeded to figure it out. In the process I learned two things: 1) What makes a good tool 2) I was capable of much finer work than I'd done previously. It was at this point that I realized that if I could improve my woodworking skills that much then I should see what I could do for my metalworking abilities! I was also developing an interest in tools and toolmaking from the woodworking. These two things complimented each other and led me to purchase a coal forge and find this forum. I took a basic blacksmithing class and started tooling up my shop. I like how blacksmithing compliments the other metal and wood working skills I already have. Now I can honestly say that if it's made out of metal or wood - I can make it.

The nuts and bolts of laying out a handle have been covered pretty well by others but I want to emphasize the "why" on grain direction so it makes sense. Wood is a highly anisotropic material - it's properties vary greatly with the direction. This is intuitive as you can easily split it firewood but have to chop it in two. When you make or buy a handle with the grain alligned across the head here is what happens: Each impact of the head (and even more so for mistrikes) causes bending stresses in the wood. These are largest near the head-handle connection. Since a handle can be thought of as essentially a beam, it is informative to think about what wood beams do when they are loaded/overloaded - they split down the middle. This is where the shear stresses are at a maximum in a round beam and by aligning the grain across the head you inadvertently align the highest stress and the weakest plane of the wood. When you align the grain parallel to the head/swing you force that same shear stress to be applied across multiple growth rings instead of a single plane and in a direction in which the wood is naturally stronger. Hence a better handle. Hope that helps someone with the "why" and ties it together with some things that they may already know.

I've got a 17" Grizzly wood/metal vertical bandsaw. Have had it for a couple months but have been impressed by the quality and details of construction. It has a built-in phase converter/VFD for speed control and runs on single phase 220V. I've been very happy with it for my wood and metal projects to date. I am generally a top-of-the-line-brand-name type of guy, and imports aren't my thing, but I did my homework and read lots of good things about this saw. My $0.02 anyway.

Thanks for the tips so far. I do have a thermocouple that I used for previous pours with pot metal, so I can check to see if it can handle the higher temps for bronze. Good tip on watching for incandescence as well, I'll do that. I already made the pattern (oversized for shrinkage/machining) and plaster mold. I'll probably stick with that as it's made and I've had good luck with plaster to date. I have lots of experience with plaster making rubber part molds, but little with sand molding, so for now it's kind of a devil-you-know type of thing. Point taken on it being easier to purchase round stock and the use of a casting for striking, but it should be fine for this application. Although this is a mallet, I'm using it for stone lettering chisels, which are tapped so lightly as to render the head's brittleness almost irrelevant. If I had a head of solid glass the right size it still wouldn't break as lightly as these chisels are tapped. Also, like a lot of guys on here, I'm not doing this because it's the most efficient or cost effective way, I'm doing it for the learning experience and the enjoyment of making it with my own hands. If I wanted to do it the cheapest/ easiest I'd just buy one. What's the protocol on using the same crucible for melting different materials? Is that ok or a no-no?

So I want to create a bronze carving mallet for detail carving of wood/stone lettering. I've used several nice little numbers other folks owned consisting of pretty wood handles attached to round brass heads like this: These work very nice and would be a good project for me to develop my casting and turning skills on. This one is about 6" long and 1.25 lbs total. What I need is a critique/verification of my approach for casting it. Here's what I have available: Bronze plumbing check valve body, stripped and cleaned for raw material. There is sufficient extra to allow for dross and machining losses. A #3 glazed graphite-clay crucible rated for 2500 F. It has never been used. A charcoal/coal hand blown forge. An oxy-acetylene torch with a huge rosebud. A large propane weed-burner style torch. Lots of firebrick. A simple open mold of the (oversized) pattern made from a 40:60 mix of talc:plaster of paris. The mold is small as it was made in a cottage cheese container. Basic experience with plaster casting zinc alloy and sand casting aluminum. Full leathers, welding helmet with clear glass lens, foundry gloves and boot covers. Here's the approach I am thinking of taking: Fully dry the mold and crucible in the oven, starting at 150F and finishing at 500F for at least 1 hour. Stack firebrick around the forge firepot to extend its height so that the crucible will be surrounded on all but the top side with burning charcoal. Light the fire and place the valve body in the crucible ensuring that it won't expand and put pressure against it. Place the crucible in the forge and pack charcoal around it's sides. Feed the fire with air and charcoal until I can look down and see an even melt on the bronze. Remove crucible with preheated tongs and pour into still-hot plaster/talc mold. When cool, remove part and machine. If you have any critiques I'd appreciate hearing them before I start. Also, I'm curious about the following: Do I need a flux or cover for melting bronze? Is it ok to use the same crucible for different metals (copper, bronze, aluminum, zinc alloy, babbitt)? Is the forge the best way to heat this or would the propane torch be better? Any suggestions on measuring/telling temperature? Thanks for the help.

Checked it out. Thanks for the tips guys.

OK, what you you guys have stated on corners not mattering much during forming from a slot and the stretching of metal makes good sense. I still will probably add a slight fillet to the corners so as to reduce the stress concentrator at the corner in service for parts subject to fatigue. The engineer in me shies away from sharps for that reason... Makes me think of why there's no square windows in an airplane. Brian, to make sure I've understood how you slot and drift: If you don't want to stretch the metal, then you would want to slot cut/punch an opening with the same perimeter as the final desired hole size. So for the 1" square drift I would need an opening with about a 4" perimeter. From what I've seen in your posts it sounds like you use a slitter for this? Thanks for the advice so far.

Good stuff. I lived in Russia for a stretch and was impressed by the hardiness of the ice fisherman there. You would see them out on the ice, with a gale whipping snow across at 30 below, sitting on a bucket huddled under a full-body plastic bag for wind protection. And they'd stay out half the night - you'd see the lights out on the river. Of course the bottle of vodka beside each man's bucket contributed to the weatherproofing... They also are very proud of what they term "walrusing" or cutting holes in the ice for winter swimming. Quite the place, I've no doubt their blacksmiths are a hardy bunch.

I'm rounding out my tool collection and forging a set of 1/4" to 1" square drifts for finishing holes. I'm planning on using them for joinery and such, or anyplace I need a square hole for farm work. The thinking is to hot punch a hole first and be able to drift it progressively larger into the square size needed. These are a mix of junk pile steel and purchased W-1 steel. The corners of the junk square stock vary in sharpness, but the new W-1 is very sharp. My questions are: 1) When you make a square drift, how sharp do you want the corners on the body of the drift? Should they be left as purchased or rounded slightly? I could see there being issues with sharp cornered holes tearing out when drifting or in service. 2) Similarly, how much should the corners on the working taper on the drift be rounded? Particularly if starting with a round hole and drifting it square. Look forward to hearing how some of you guys do it.

It won't be an easy task to make an exact copy of this without using separate pieces for the top plate and uprights - IF you want an exact copy. The difficulty is in the differing bar widths for the top and uprights. That would require a huge amount of drawing out. Instead I would suggest using one size of bar as follows: Lay out the desired size and angles either on a large sheet of paper or with chalk on your bench or floor. Make the top plate with the uprights by adding bends where the design you linked to uses welds. From that develop the lengths of materials you need. You can do this by bending paper or string around your layout. Find an appropriate diameter piece of pipe or rod to bend the radii around. Measure and cut your main bar, then mark the center and the start of each bend from the center so it will come out evenly. Heat it and bend it around the appropriately sized pipe/rod. If it gets out of plane true it back up by hammering on the floor while still hot. Make the main piece first, then trim the legs and tweak the angles even if they don't come out quite right. Then cut the middle plate to fit and weld it in. Hope that helps. Measuring from the center and comparing it often to your outline on the floor during fabrication will make this easier. Good luck on your project.

The safety points and simplicity of piggybacking off someone else's proven design have been made on this, so I'll stick to answering your design questions for if you choose to continue: The purpose of the shear pin is to be the weakest link in the system. In industry you commonly see keys, roll pins and grade 2 bolts used for this purpose. Since your shear pin is located in an area of low rpm, you can ignore the inertia of the rotating mass and size it based on the applied torque at that location - that will be the motor's maximum rated torque multiplied by the ratio of gear reduction. However, the way you laid this out doesn't leave much room for a shear pin - there's only 1/4" to work with. This puts a shear bolt around #6-32 in order to leave half the shaft diameter and that's going to be weak, plus quality varies widely on small stuff. I would recommend revising the design to have a collar on the drive sprocket slide over the 3/4" shaft. The geometry for this is much more favorable and it will be easier to dissasemble if a pin breaks and smears. If you get motor peak torque and gear reduction values I can calculate a shear pin size. You're on track for the drive train - use sprockets to gear down. This reduces the speed and ups the torque which are both what you want. Keep in mind that what you drew shows the roller drive sprocket sitting out quite a ways from the frame - the closer you can bring it in the better for bearings and shafts. On the blocks - Aluminum is fine for compression, but I would maybe redesign how you attach them as the bolts that hold them to the frame are horizontal and side loaded in shear. In practice your fabrication tolerances could give you fits here - the holes will have to be oversized for bolt clearance through the frame and this could let the block slip, causing your rollers to be misalligned. Also, with aluminum it will be difficult to apply enough torque to the bolts to secure it without stripping. I would recommend welding in a thrust block (piece of angle, etc.) on the outboard edges of the roller blocks to absorb that force so the bolts don't have to. Or, buy some pillow block type roller bearing/block sets and mount them to your thrust blocks. I'm not quite sure what you're trying to do with the screw jack, I'll let others with more roller mill experience cover that. The design looks pretty good overall, but I have some recommendations on servicability: Mount the aluminum blocks on the outboard sides of the frame so you can remove them without dissasembling the whole schebang. Also, make the hole through the frame large enough to withdraw the rollers through it when a block is off. Think about servicing the wheel bearings on your car and how the shaft end and paraphenelia are sized. Make sure you have shielding for the chain and sprockets, shielding to keep hands clear of the rollers, and I would highly recommend a deadman's switch/ foot pedal to operate this thing. Good luck and welcome to the world of machine design!

Interesting topic. I have this same issue - people invariably ask me what I make as a blacksmith, and my honest response is that mostly, I make blacksmithing tools. Moreover, I make blacksmithing tools so I can use them to make other blacksmithing tools. And then some of those tools get used to make non-blacksmithing tools. Example: I wanted to make a traditional pole tripod for the farm for hoisting. A tool. I cut three long pine poles to make it. However, I need a bark spud to peel my poles, so I need to make that first. But I want to make my bark spud with a socket handle, so I made a bick-like tool to allow forming the socket over. Result: a tool to make a tool to make a tool. And this isn't the only time. Surely part of this stems from the fact that I'm relatively new to this craft, and I'm still completing my kit. But really, the toolmaking is what drew me to it in the first place. It is why I forge. I can appreciate the skill and the effort that goes into creating the perfect scroll, or an aspen leaf, or any of the other artistic elements of this craft, but they just don't speak to me. I want to make tools; for me the tools are the art of blacksmithing. I strive to make useful and attractive tools. What I love about this craft is that I don't have to settle for someone else's answers to a given problem. Instead I have the flexibility to alter their tools or come up with a completely new one to solve a problem in the way that makes the most sense to me. And I can usually do it out of my scrap pile or at very low cost. No other craft allows you to bootstrap yourself up from nothing the way blacksmithing does. Machining and woodworking come closest, but still can't match the flexibility that blacksmiths' have.

If you make or sharpen tools, I'd recommend an arbor and a sharpening/grinding wheel. It'll run nice and cool at that speed so it won't scorch thin cutting edges during sharpening. Your standard 3600 rpm motors will wreck the temper on thin steel quite happily.

I've found that cooking it in 55 gallon steel barrels works great, but you'll need to do it someplace you can have a large outdoor fire without any trouble. I cooked three drums worth last fall and it turned out amazingly well. My first time too. Here's how I did it: Use drums with detachable lids, or cut the top off a regular liquid-holding drum 4" down from one end. If you do that then cut a series of notches around the circumference of your new "cap" so that it will slip over the drum and seal it. If you make a similar set of notches in the drum you can align the lid so that no gaps are presented to allow the fire into the retort. Cut a hole in the lid/cap about 4-6" in diameter. Punch holes around the base of the barrel, around 3/8" diameter and spaced every 4" or so, 3" from the bottom. Set the drum on bricks to allow coals to get under it, approximately 4" off the ground. Load it with wood clear to the top - you'll get the best results if it is consistently sized. I used scrap 2x4s and 2x6s leftover from construction sites (no treated lumber). Stack them vertically with the larger wood arranged to the outside as it will get hotter there faster. Put on the lid, and rig up a chimney of some type over the hole you cut in the lid. I used ~2' long pieces of scrap HVAC duct. Seal around the base of chimney with dirt if there's any gap there. The volatiles which cook out of the wood will ignite during firing, and the purpose of the chimney is to prevent the flames from burning back down into your retort and consuming your charcoal, so make sure it's long enough to do that. Stack your non-charcoal-making-worthy wood around the drum to at least halfway up the drum or more. Flames will need to reach all the way up the drum. Light your fire and keep it going until the flames at the chimney go out or for 3-4 hours. Push hot coals underneath the drum periodically. If you inadvertently catch the contents of a drum on fire, let it burn for a little bit and then seal it off with dirt. If you smother the fire you'll still get some good charcoal out of it. When it's done cooking, shovel dirt around the base to plug the air holes and remove the chimney and seal that opening as well. Let everything cool off fully and you're ready to go! You should get at least 1/2-2/3 of a drum of charcoal yield if it was packed full of wood. This worked great for me and I like forging with charcoal much better than the coal I can get here, it has much faster heats. Good luck and let us know how it goes!

I think you're on the right track with a lean-to - you'll get the most bang for your construction buck that way as you've got one wall already completed. The other guys covered most of the advantages, but I might add a couple things: 1) If you want to try to trick some of the heat from the forge into the shed I would recommend cutting 3-4 vent holes through the side of the shed immediately below the lean-to roof. That way the warm air will follow the roof up and into the shed. 2) Consider the typical wind direction and the highest storm winds you might see. Not only for your smoke-free comfort, but a lean-to in high winds can get nasty uplift and torque on it in the wrong configuration. Consider things pushing UP on it as well as gravity as you build it. As always, 45 braces from your posts to rafters will help immensely. Triangles are your friend But then again I live in the windy part of the NW rather than the rainy, so I'm a little paranoid about these things... Good luck and keep us posted!

I've got a couple tricks from the automotive world for things stuck to shafts: 1 -WD-40 is your friend. I apply it liberally every 48-72 hours for around two weeks before I try to remove something I know is going to be trouble. It lets you avoid problems rather than having to solve them. 2 - If you do use a puller and find it's still not working, when you give up for the day leave the puller in place and tightened and soak it again with penetrating oil. The force applied over time can work miracles, if it hasn't busted loose by morning a lot of times you'll find that the puller can magically be tightened a little more. And that means you're winning! If you don't want to pay for the puller, you may be able to rig up the same effect in your vise. Good luck.

Call or drop by a tree service place, they'll either have something to give you (many of them turn their service jobs into firewood sales) or sell you for a few dollars. Or if they don't you can put in a request - in that case I'd shoot for sycamore or black locust, both are tough and heavy and might just outlast the anvil. I've had decent luck with getting guys to help me out with things like that if I tell them what it's for - either they're curious about my hobby or they want to get rid of me, either way works I guess! :)