BillyBones

A bit off but i love B&W photography. Back a few years ago i did a bit of photography that involved me going to a lot of concerts to take pics. I can show you pics of a show in color then in B&W and you would swear they are taken at diffrent venues. I kind of miss doing that. I got to see a lot of really great musicians and with the camera i was allowed to just wonder around. Front row to the "nose bleed" section, over the rail sometimes to get shots of the crowd as well.

Welcome. If you would fill out your header and let us know where in the great big world you are at. Dont have to be specific Just a general area. It does help when you have questions. But as to your question, i would wait until after heat treating. "Forge it thick, grind it thin for a blade to win." is an old saying about making knives. So since you have it thick still, you will have a lot of grinding to do yet. That is when i would start thinking about balance and the like. Anyway, i am no bladesmith, just my thoughts on it, take it for what you will.

I was sitting on my porch this weekend and stood up. About blew my knee out and had to sit back down for about 20 mins or so then limped into the house for a cold drink. No way on God's green earth would i willingly get into a mosh pit again. 56 and those days are long behind me.

Finally got around to finishing this little guy for my grandson. My bladesmithing skills are marginally better than my leather working skills but it should do him well on the farm. Coil spring with cherry for the handle.

Just thought this interesting.

Made this table for the wife to have on the porch. One of the barn cats peeking out from behind.

Those paper clips are pretty cool. I may have to make a couple for work. We have paper clips everywhere for some odd reason. I am thinking a torch with a rosebud tip would have been handy with your bending. Ooooooo... put eyes on one like the paper clip guy microsoft used to use. I have made one boot scraper and that was for a challenge. I gave it to an old guy i work with. I did not have enough 1/2" square bar to make it so it sticks in the ground so i mounted it in a rock. An old foundation rock form a building that was tore down here dating to the mid 1800's. The foundation, not the building. The original building was tore down long, long ago. Anyway i drilled holes into it and used lead to set it in place. I used another rock from the same place as my dog's headstone.

Making a trunk for my daughter. Had yesterday off work so i got some shop time in and got the 6 hinge eyes i need welded (1 hasp, 2 lid hinges). The other 3 are on the other ends of the bars.

The pic angle and lighting makes the angled part on the right look like it is bubbling down. Pretty cool though and definitely not something i would attempt.

How precise does the hole location need to be? Plunge cutting on an angle the mill will deflect away from the angle until it bites. The smaller the mill the more it will deflect, obviously. If you need to be dead on precise, like a +/- .001" no it will not work, if you just need to be within a 1/16" (.0625") yeah it will provably work. But that is basically exactly how i cut holes on an angle at work but use the margin of the mill to cut. How many holes do you need? How long will it take to set up to cut each hole? It may be quicker to just drill the holes straight and then come back in with a file or die grinder to make them oval and angled.

Happy birthday. Nice haul. I went to a gathering of a gaggle of blacksmiths this past weekend and they auctioned off a 4# Andrew Larson cross pien. He makes very nice hammers you should be quite pleased with it. However i do not like the handles he puts on them, i would put my own handle on it.

At work today i had to alter a tool. The tool was a cut off tool insert that put a cone with a flat tip on the end of a small piece of steal. The flat is .118" and the length of the angle is .208", just for size reference. The tools were angled at 25° but the customer wanted 24° +/- .5°. I did the math, broke out the sine plate, put that and the tool in a vise and onto my surface grinder. I dusted off just enough to take off the TiN coating and put it into the machine. Ran a part and hit 24° 0'. I did that on my first try so i just wanted to brag on myself.

It has been a while since i worked on cars but most brake rotors are made of cast iron. Some are carbon steel used for performance cars. The higher end sports cars would have the high carbon steel rotors. Luxury cars i would guess that it boils down to how much you paid for the car. A Cadillac, your getting cast iron. A Rolls Royce you are provably going to get high carbon. If nothing else you can always build a trebuchet and use them as ammo to lay siege to your neighbors kingdom. Anyway like i said it has been a while, about 10 years now, since i got out of the automotive world so things may have changed.

Started the frame for a table for the wife. The legs will pass through the hoop, there will be 4 but i ran out of 3/8" round. Have to ungalvanize another piece. The table is for the back porch and will be 15" tall and ~18" wide or so. Wooded top from reclaimed 5/4" decking boards i had in the barn. Mad a handful of pocket scribes for give aways at "The Gathering" i will be attending this coming sat. Was supposed to be 12 but 1 i burnt the clip slightly so i got 11. Made from 1/4" garage door spring. They were soaking in vinegar just before the pic, hence the reason they are sitting on a rag. I should have gotten the partially hidden "J" hook better. It is the first one a made many years back now and is absolutely horrible. I found it in a box of crap i was going through

Ted, you are dead on with that. Simple beginner projects get real boring real fast. But those projects are designed to improve your basic skills. Then go on to apply those skills on larger more complicated projects. Take that leaf. Make the leaf and then weld it to a bar, weld on multiple simple leaves and you now have a decorative spindle. Make 5 or 6 and you have a set of window bars. However even the simple stuff can be enhanced with different materials. Add a set of wooden scales and brass pins to a serving fork handle or a bottle opener and even that simple project takes on a new life. One last thing, what kind of wood is that?

Very nice indeed. Wood and iron go quite nice together. My local ACE hardware sells brass wood screws that are slotted.

Rojo, that is too cool. Thanks for sharing. I was stationed in Germany for a few years i really wish i would have paid more attention to what was there. I went there when i was 19 so i was thinking more about girls and beer than history.

I took this right after i put it together, i changed the bottom board so it is a bit longer after using it the first time.

Shainaru, the 3 tools on the left are what i use to make leaves with. The "Y" shaped one is what i use to get the vien down the middle, tilting the leaf down gives it the curl. The one on the bottom that is hiding its left side is what i use to put the waves on the sides of the leaf. You can not see it but on the left side it has a large radius that tapers down. And then the hammer with extra long pein for getting down inside the leaf. Smack in the middle, a leaf that i made with those tools. Well, not the hammer obviously but i do use it now for leaves.

Chad, nice roses. I have tried to make them but i am no good. I made a couple nice Russian roses for the wife and my mom out of about a dozen attempts. Even though i aint no good at them may i offer a suggestion? Take a triangle file and make serrations on the leaves. Real roses have serrated leaves. The ones i did make that turned out good i just put 3 or 4 at the bottom of the leaf. I turned the file so that the flat towards the tip was a slighter angle than the other. Not to deep, just enough to see them. In my opinion that little detail made a huge difference.

Got these guys here yesterday. Both for under $75.

I blow mine off with an air gun about once a year. Only thing on my tools that have ever gone bad is the batteries on my cordless tools and a hand belt sander and angle grinder that could not survive being pounded with a sledge hammer on the concrete floor when i lost my temper a couple times.

The bridges anvils i have seen are quite heavy, several hundred pounds. The middle of the face ~3" thick and upward. Also right behind the horn is a section of the face that is over the leg. So my guess would be that heavy work is done at that spot right over the leg while the middle is still thick enough to do light to moderate work. That piece in the pick looks like it is no more than 3/4" thick, it is not circular hollow, but square hollow, and anywhere over the "leg" has a huge radius. I do also believe that if that is what ya got, its what ya got and if it gets started hammering metal by all means use it. But like i said if the OP is near me i have a couple pieces of 4140 that is 2 1/2" x 6" x 3' that if he can lift one into his truck i may part with. Getting tired of moving them around my shop. That would make a much better anvil, i used one for such. Set it on a BMW transmission case and that long straight run was great for certain things.

Gewoon, yes that is dependent on where you live. In Ohio here, which is a couple degrees south of Belgium, they will freeze solid. It may not be a problem for the OP or maybe it is, i do not know. But being a world wide forum maybe a bit of info that could help anyone reading that did not think of it.

Vancer, welcome aboard. Please fill out your header, let us know where you are in the great big world. Then go to the "Read This First" thread and read it if you have not already. In short, no. Rebound is not all you are looking for. You need mass to support your work. It being hollow there is no mass. Same as why we suggest turning a piece of rail track on end. It may work for small stuff but i would not work much more than 1/4" material. It may work as a dishing tool or maybe an anvil bridge though. Looks like it has some possibilities so i would keep it in the shop till i figured a use for it. And back to what i first said about your header, if we know where you are at some one close may know or even themselves have an anvil for sale, a hunk of rail track or a large piece of scrap they would be willing to part with for a 12 pack or a rack of ribs.