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I Forge Iron

Dewnmoutain

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Everything posted by Dewnmoutain

  1. I love this beam hammer idea! im going to make it. ive figured out everything else, parts wise. but what do you call this offset shaft thingy thats highlighted yellow in the picture? Is it called an off set shaft? a U shaft thingy? my knowledge of machinery parts is rather limited to "doo-dad", "thingy", and the occasional "whatchamacallit!"
  2. Looks awesome! just wish i could see how the internal mechanism works. This looks like something i am pondering to build, i just cant seem to figure out that internal circular motion action thingy.
  3. How do those handles feel in the hand? Ive been making these russian roses. I have 1 month to make minimum 36, but the plan is to make 50. Im donating the roses to the local High School musical program. The plan is to raffle off a bouquet (12) roses each night, and the remainder to be sold individually. Music director loves the idea.
  4. i made (dramatic pause!) a sprinkler can! Finally got sick of using a plastic bottle and holding my arm over the flames
  5. Visited a friend of mine a couple weeks back. And every time i do, he always gives me some scrap steel to play with. Some of its ok, like the metal brackets used to hold down the massive printers to the transport pallets that were delivered to the shop. Some of it is not, like the thin galvinized steel that came from somewhere.( I dont remember where he got it. ) But sometimes, he gives me some interesting steel. Before, it was a couple hundred feet of wire spools for stapling booklets that got tangled up in the printer. This time, he gave me really unique steel. 23"L x 4"H x 0.5"T 18% tungsten carbide steel. And he asks me "can you make me a knife out of this stuff for me, please?" Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....hmmm....
  6. i made those mistakes with the slits, drifts, punches, and chisels, and all my other forging endeavors. still got angry when i made a sparkler out of a strut coil, but i figured it was cheaper to learn that way than with expensive knife alloys. I didnt make an attempt at knife making until i had spent a year learning how to manage the fire, hammer control, and so on.
  7. Hi there. My family has a vacation scheduled to go to Pigeon Forge at the end of this month. And for the most part, i am looking forward to the trip. But, there is a day where the family is slated to go to Dollywood and spend a day there. That is the part that I am not looking forward to. Due to my PTSD, i just dont do large crowds. i go from withdrawn and angry, to really really angry and blacking out (usually when this happens i tend to make lots of people cry). So I was wondering if there were any blacksmiths in/around the greater pigeon forge area that would be willing to babysit a traveling blacksmith for a day? id be willing to swing a hammer and help you with that project that needs two smiths to work on. we can wax eloquence about the exact number of too many irons in the fire and if it is possible to strike when the iron is too hot. if youre so inclined, feel free to send me a PM. thanks
  8. honestly...i find knife making to be much much easier than the other types of forging. When you really look at it, your just taking a piece of steel, and hammering it to certain thickness with a certain width with a certain length. then you can grind it down to a set shape, throw an edge on it and youre done! Anything beyond that is a layers and layers of window dressing. Due to my PTSD, i have a heck of a time trying to figure out how to make punches, chisels, slits, drifts, and tongs. i somehow always manage to screw it up and in turn have my slit holes and punched holes come out all jacked up. Or make two left handed tongs that dont line up and i have to reheat it again and modify it to fit the other, and do a crap ton of filing to make it all line up properly (It's especially annoying when you come across that person who picks up a hammer and within 2 hours is able to make a working pair of tongs with 3 heats.)
  9. well, i thought id resurrect this old post as it pertains directly to this hammer. because of injury, i now have the (forced) free time to contemplate and work on this hammer. so after a couple months of using this hammer, it was annoying me that no matter how hard id stomp my foot to get the hammer to impact the hot steel, it wasnt leaving much of a mark on the steel. my initial testing and uses were with pieces 1/4 to 3/8ths thick, so the hammer would do the job. But when i moved up above 1/2", especially 1" variety, the hammer wasnt hitting as "hard" as i thought it would. i monkied with the setup some more, and just couldnt, at first, figure out what was causing the softening. So, i just hung the thing up and said "meh, ill get to it later". That was back in January. Had a friend come over, and using my army tenacity and his nuclear engineering thinking, we figured out that the culprit is the springs itself. Turns out, they dont move until they have a 20+ lb load applied to them. So, they are too "weighty" (or resistant?). i scrounged through my scrap steel, and found some old springs, but they too, have a higher load limit in the 20+ lb range. so i thought id ask here, since i now have the free time to work on this, does anyone know where i can pick up some weak springs? ive already hit up the local hardware store, and the ones i picked up were also wound tight and would only extend half way out with a 20lb weight on them. i tried looking at some online websites that sell springs, but this is where my knowledge of choosing a spring is very lacking. anybody have experience with finding or buying the types of springs im talking about?
  10. to frosty: i had the same idea initially and looked at my household knives, but they were plastic handles molded on at the factory. So in my head, i discounted measuring them. to JHCC: curse of large hands huh? to george: I was thinking the same way, making the handle for what feels good in my hands. But lots of people are different, and what feels good for me doesnt for others, hence why i was asking if there was a generic thickness that one starts from and works from there, you know?
  11. I know im overthinking this way way too much, but i have to ask this. 1st question: Ive read other posts on other sites that talk about 3/8", 1/2", 1/4" thicknesses of scales, but no one says if said thickness is for each individual scale, or total overal width including the steel? If i say "yup. I added 3/8ths scales" am i saying that the total width of the scales is 3/8ths, or am i saying that each scale is 3/8ths? 2nd question. Im currently working on a few knives, my first time making generic blades to sell to an unknown person. Ive made a couple blades for people i know, had them come to my shop and custom fit the handles to their liking. So im a bit unaware of what a generic overall scale handle thickness should be. Including thickness of steel, am i shooting for an overall width of 5/8th? 3/4s? Bigger? Smaller? Thanks for the help
  12. I think its gone from "traditional look" to "dragged behind manure spreader".
  13. Tried to work on making spade tip hooks. Just cannot seem to hammer the spade shape just right.
  14. Leather. No idea. I converted it from an old welding jacket
  15. Been looking a bit critically at my apron the last couple months. Its dirty. Grease, grime, metal shavings, my sweat, all intermingled into my leather apron. Was wondering, do you clean it? Do you clean yours? How do you do it? I know, its an oddball question. But one i wanted to ask since im not sure how to clean mine. Obviously, i cannot toss it into the washing machine. Wife would kill me (or at least make buy her a new one) . Hot water, dawn dish soap, and elbow grease?
  16. so i fixed it. sort of. i ended up soaking the whole gear box overnight in kerosene. pulled it out in the morning and the kerosene was a bit darker than before. but, the gears moved real easily. you blow on them and get a full rotation. as i did some trouble shooting, i discovered that the spindle that connects the fan blade to the gearbox was the source of the rattle. when i would spin the crank, that little spindle would wobble just a little bit. and the faster you cranked, the more it would wobble to finally itd start loudly rattling. I messed around with the fan end screw, adjusting it in and out, and turning the crank clockwise and counter clockwise to see what happens. Turns out, it has a directional (helical? im not sure the proper word that goes here) rotation, and when engaged in a clockwise rotation, the spindle would pull itself into the gear box and the rattle would get very very loud. if i cranked it counterclockwise, the rattle would be minimized (unless i was going full tilt with the blower). I think in the end, its the bushing that is a little bit worn out, allowing the spindle to bounce around inside the housing. i ended up putting the whole thing back together because i still had some projects to do. and i got a surprise! when i put the fan shroud back together, it all rotated so smoothly. i added some oil to it, spun it lots, the noise deadened a bit, and if anything, it seemed to run a bit better.
  17. hello! hows it been? Today, my blower, a champion eureka #140 blower, decided to start making alllll sorts of noises. Grinding in both clockwise and counterclockwise rotations of the handle. Now, ive owned this blower for the last 5 years and i can safely say i "usually" know how this thing runs. I can only spin the handle counterclockwise to prevent the real bad grinding/clacking that sounds when i rotate it clockwise. I can leave the handle at the 1200 position, let go, and the handle will naturally rotate one way or the other on its own for about 3/4s of a rotation before stopping. I can even tell when i forget to add oil to it and it starts to grind a bit too loudly when i operate it. I add the oil, and most of the rattle, not all of it, would go away. It was at the acceptable level rattle/grind. I had, when i first purchased this blower, took the gear box off, and flushed the entire thing with brake cleaner. went through a couple bottles of the cleaner and cleaned it all out. Then i reattached that blower to the fan shroud, added oil, adjusted the fan blades so they wouldnt grind against the shroud walls, and put it all together. ran fine. an acceptable amount of noise. (this was when i discovered the clockwise/counterclockwise noise issue and how it cannot be truly removed). For the last few weeks however, it's been, getting worse id say in two ways. 1) a stiffness in the rotation. If i turn it CW or CCW, it's stiff. it wont move with ease. If i take it to the 1200 position and let go, it just rotates to 11 or 1 spots and stops. i crank the handle, and when it rotates, it feels like it doesnt want to spin easily, like something is inhibiting its ability to spin. 2) noise. the grinding noise, has been increasing. I rotate the handle, and it just grinds and groans, louder and louder with each use. i started wearing ear plugs because i couldnt stand the noise anymore. i kept adding oil to it, and when id add a lot of oil. like a lot of oil, the noise would diminish, but the stiffness in rotation would remain. and sure enough, within an hour, it would just get louder and louder, back to its original loudness. so today, i tore the thing apart. took the fan housing off, removed the crankcase, took the handle off. I shot a lot of brake cleaner into the gearbox. let it sit, drained it, shot some more into it. spun the gears to work the brake cleaner around, and then drained again. i inspected the fan blades, the handle itself, the gears, heck, even the stand. Everything looks to be in proper working order. each gear even has all of its teeth. (aside from the striped paint on the legs). but, when i attach the handle and give it a crank, it sounds like a manual tranny losing a gear. it just grinds, and it is resistant to the turning action. My first thought was to fully disassemble it, popping the gears out, but then i thought "gee, i should look at IFI and see if anyone is having the same issues." kind of... (although, i did make the discovery of what kind of blower i have, and that it may be a bit small for the forge i have. which would explain why i keep having all these issues with heat for the last few years.) my thinking is that maybe there is something up with the bushings. perhaps some crud got into the bushings and is inhibiting the ability to spin freely (as mr thomaspowers suggested in another posting) so, what i am going to do now is get some kerosene and submerge the gearbox in the kero overnight. then put it together and apply some gear oil to see how it spins. im wondering, is there something else i should be looking at/looking for that im not aware of?
  18. Lol! Although, a copper wire wrapped handle sounds like a fun experiment to see what itd look like on another blade
  19. Reason i disregarded the pins at forst was that the only rod i own is just under 1/8". And the tang height is 3/4". Looking at it, to me, it wouldve looked weird. If i had 1/4 rod for pinning, then i think thatdve looked better.
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