BillyBones

Well started out the day burying the wife's cat. Cancer claimed her. After that went out to the shop and got some more work done to my doors. Sanded down and a coat of stain and a coat of BLO. Will need 2 or 3 more coats of BLO but coming along nice. Also finished my flatter. The body is made form a piece of sway bar the flat part is made from a piece of A-2 3" x 3" 3/8" thick. Handle made from a piece of 5/4 hickory. Got some new welding rods, for just general welding i usually use a 6011, when i was in the store i picked up another 5# not long ago and these are 6034 ( i think 34, to lazy to go look right now but i am pretty sure) The flux is a different color, off brown instead of white, and they do not seem to want to blow the slag out of the weld so i had to stop a lot, chip and brush out the trash to get the weld. Think i just need to learn to use them. Anyway feel free to make fun of my ugly blobbed weld job, but it works and is for me so function over form for this one.

JHCC, how do you even turn around in there, much less forge an axe? Pat, i think a block of wood would work, once maybe twice but not a long term solution. If you use a piece of wood lay a hot piece of metal on it before anything else. I discovered i can not stand the smell of white oak when it burns. You could also make a portable hardy but that would be about as much work as making a bolster. Started making me a flatter yesterday, just got the main body forged and an eye hole punched need to weld the plate on, no pics yet. Did some more work on my doors. Got them sanded down to where the wife likes them and got my bolt forged out. Was going to go with a butterfly type bracket but could not get them small enough. So i decided a plate with 2 square eyed blocks for it to slide through. First is the square eyed block, kind of proud of this one of my cleanest forgings yet. Next is the finished (well close needs a little filing and a coat of wax.) product. Slides nice and easy, should work nicely.

With that and crawfish boils i have to assume that you are in Louisiana? I used to live in Livingston parish just outside of BR. Bon Temps, indeed.

Blue, i think you messed up. Flooring is not suppose to go on the ceiling.

Wait, i thought that was the whole purpose of crawfish boil?

63, welcome aboard. Thanks for the input and thanks for the service to the community. There are a few here with backgrounds in law enforcement and firefighting. The best thing to do when starting to read the forum is make a lunch and bring along a tasty beverage or 2. A lot of info here. Threads to tend to drift but some times the drift is the best part. Many, many rabbit holes to go down. However this site has improved my smithing abilities by light years. It will challenge you, encourage you but best of all make you want to step outside of your safe zone and try new things. Check out the whole site also, some really good recipes for possum and raccoon here. One thing i must emphasize in the read me first, the on site search function dont work real well. Use your favorite browser, google, bing, duckduckgo, whatever, with what you are looking for followed by iforgeiron. i.e. "heat treating 1095 iforeiron". That will help narrow down the rabbit holes to the ones you want. Anyway, glad to have ya. Now get out to your shop, make something and show it off for us. We love pics. But be safe and most of all have fun doing it.

Glenn, that was not the one i was referring to but man does that have some info there. The one i was meaning was alist of components and next to each was the alloy: Ball bearings - 52100 bearing races - 52100 Etc., in that format. Also like i said you can not take that as gospel but it will get you an idea of what you are working with. I know for a fact not all bearing races are 52100. I too am kind of spark test illiterate. It seems that logically though if it is 5160 and >.60% carbon is considered high carbon that 5160 is on the lower end of that spectrum so it would not have a burst pattern of say a 1095. Also the other alloys may effect the spark. As a side note, some models of Corvette used an aluminum leaf spring.

No clue how it came to mind, but by gum ya gave me a good belly laugh.

Pretty sure most leaf spring are 5160 or something similar. I used leaf springs for a few bowies this past summer and it work nicely. I figured that a knife that big, 14", i would give up a little hardness on, rather it bend than break. I have also done some wrap eye axes with leaf spring. It is a ... to weld though. Somewhere floating around here is a chart of "junk yard steel" that shows what different things are made of. It is not absolute but can get you pointed in the general location.

The chaser set i have looks like a set of big nuts, then the threads have cutting edges in about 8 locations. Kind of like dies but with out the slots for chip relief. You can drive them with either a socket or a wrench. Yes i do have a set of thread files. English and metric. Amazing how many people ask what they are when they see them. Natkova, you could grind some off the side with the cutting edges. Grind out the threads and re-tap it to what ever thread you want. With the proper steel and a couple simple fullers it provably wouldnt be to awful difficult to make different dies either. Or just drill and grind into shape.

Frosty, thread chasers are quite common in auto repair. Especially transmission shops. When removing the axles from FWD vehicles a lot of times the threaded end will mushroom over. The fix is grind off the mushroomed part and chase the threads so the nut will thread back on. Honda transmission shafts are also bad about the threads galling up.

I have plenty of chargers, the batteries are somewhat different. I have the early 20V that were the short stack. This saw takes the taller battery. Yeah i can use mine but the run time is greatly reduced. Which is something that just now hit me, the batteries for this saw will also work on my other tools, giving them an even longer run time. (that really did just dawn on me) Well, with that thought and like ya'll have said here in the next few days you will be seeing my new DeWalt porta-band. I should have said this in the OP but i have never really used a portable before and was not sure if there was a huge difference in similarly priced saws. Thanks for the input ya'll, we can now carry on with thread drift.

So i have decided i am going to get a portable cordless band saw. Must be deep cut, at least a 4" cut and durable. Right now i am in a toss up between DeWalt or Milwaukee. Both set ups are around $500, Milwaukee a little cheaper till you find it does not come with blades, then it evens out. Not that i wouldnt buy blades any way. All my power tools, drills, sawsall, impact, etc are DeWalt. So i am really leaning more towards the DeWalt. The DeWalt is also powered by the 20v lithium which i have no less than 3 chargers for already, but i have the short stack batteries, so the new batteries are also desirable. Anyway just looking for thoughts and recommendations before i pull the trigger. Or if even there is another brand i may have overlooked. Thanks for any input.

I have found WI in old hitching posts. In my small town it is quite common that there is a concrete post in peoples yards. There are usually 2 eye bolts through the top that are many times WI.

Was it only digging the clay or did you have to leave your hands at home for the whole process? Cant believe Frosty missed that.

Thomas, thanks for the corrections. I hate grinder cuts. Not only a cut but burn like... I ran the back of my hand through a surface grinder once. HOOOH doggy did that hurt. Got 7 stitches once with no anesthetic. As the doctor was putting in the last one he sadi something about being quick so the anesthetic the nurse gave me does not wear off. i said What nurse? He looked at me kind of puzzled and asked if she came in and gave me a shot? i said nope. He offered one but i said ya done put 6 in may as well finish.

Well to be honest that is Greek to me. So thankfully we live in an age where info is at my fingertips. I honestly did not know there were that many Viking sword variations. Years ago i watched a show were a guy made a Viking sword in the traditional method. Or at least that is what they said. Even went as far as gathering peat to put in a bloomery to get the iron from it. Took the iron and refined it into rods, then twisted them together, welded and made a sword from them. Pretty cool to watch.

Alexandr, as always nice. I too was not sure how them would hang. JHCC, handle plans? Finished my flower rake for the wife and started my first claw hammer. Would have finished more of it but i ovr indulged last night and i am feeling like "The all American kid from NY city." I mostly tried the hammer so i could try out my new swage block stand, worked purty good a few tweeks are needed but supported the block quite nicely.

I was not the skateboard, it was because all the skaters liked U2. And yall had weird haircuts. We used to build our own bikes also. I remember going to garage sales and yard sales looking for old bikes. I got my first car when i was 13. A '70 Nova (it was not a classic at the time) Had a built small block, very loud exhaust, and jacked up in the back with fat tires. Between the time of getting the car and my license me and my dad tore her down and built her up. It was a pretty fast car and once i started driving and learned about girls, i to ditched the bike.

I was into BMX much more than skateboards. I find it amazing that skateboarding became so popular with how hard it was to ride those skinny little boards back then. If i can find it i will post the pic i have of my dad from around '74. Paisley wide collared polyester shirt, reddish brown polyester pants, but the best part is his white guy fro. I find that the women of that era pulled it off much better than men. On one side was Farrah Fawcett on the other Meathead. Lamont may have been an exception, he could pimp that polyester.

Frosty, those were the same skateboards we had but we just used a piece of wood "about" the right size we scrounged out of the barn. I actually got a real skateboard for Christmas 1 year, it was bright yellow almost 1" thick and only about 3" wide. Them were the days of short shorts and knee high socks with stripes matching the shorts on top. Brings to mind the wide collared polyester shirts and bell bottoms.

You kids and your skate boards...

Been working on a stand for my swage block this week in the couple hours before i go to work i have. Been in the 60's and sunny until today, hate to waste nice days. But i have kind of an odd shaped swage so this took some thinking to accomplish but i think it will work well. Also made a handle for the garden rake i made this past weekend. Piece of old dowel rod i found in the barn with a copper fitting on the base. Now just to finish the rake. Decided it needed some paint.

Something crossed my mind here now that i am awake and have some coffee in me, what kind of weight do you like in the things you use? Do you like big and beefy or small and dainty? For instance i like a M1911 for a side arm, many people find it too heavy for them and prefer something lighter. When i was working in a garage my go to hammer was a 48oz ball pien, my co-worker found it much to heavy. I like big and beefy becuase i can "feel" the tool in my hand. My hammer i use most is just under 3# when i switch to a small or lighter hammer i find myself gripping tighter becuase i can not feel it in my hand. I then have to start thinking about how i am holding the hammer rather than letting instinct take over and concentrate on my work. I hope that makes sense, that is the best i can explain it. I would also suggest getting a good elbow brace. Not to wear when smithing but i and many others got tennis elbow until we learned the technic. The brace is for when that happens and you take a break from smithing to let it heal, to get through day to day life like work, mowing the grass, planting flowers for the wife, etc.

Welcome aboard. One other thing, fill out your header. Let us know where you are at. Just a general location, you may be surprised how many of us may be quite close to you and are willing to say come on over i'll show ya. If you give us your exact location we will be over Saturday to drink your beer, bar-b-que the cat and leave the toilet seat up. About your question, you need to be able to dead lift and tote a cow that you just shot 100 yards. No just kidding, if you have been a mechanic you will be fine. It is about technic. A 2# hammer is, in my opinion, a good weight for you to start with. I am assuming that working on trucks also means beating... brake drums, u-joints, king pins, etc.