Tom May

9 hours ago, Irondragon ForgeClay Works said:

I replaced the grate with a commercial one and built the ducks nest out of fire clay we had on hand.

That grate looks perfect.  I'm going to try what you did.

Also, you guys are amazing.  The only forum that's as helpful as you are is probably the Coleman collectors forum.  There seem to be like five guys there refreshing their screens constantly to answer obscure questions about antique Coleman lantern parts.

It is cast iron.  Thanks for the warning - maybe I'll just buy a grate.

You guys are right.  Just checked, at least two supply companies sell replacement tuyere grates.  I might do like Frazer says and weld a few pieces of steel rod over the opening, though.

44 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

Definitely not the original grate!  What's the air like?

I was wondering whether it was original.  It seems a little hokey, but then on the other hand it's the exact right diameter to sit there.  The air is decent from the blower.  It runs like you'd expect.

44 minutes ago, Frazer said:

Not refractory, but a nice clay/sand mixture (roughly 1:3 mix IMO) should do the trick.

I'll try to find some clay.  Not really a lot of it in New Hampshire.

I picked up a rivet forge for a few bucks at a local flea market.  I'm a little curious about how this guy is supposed to work.  There's no firepot as such, and the grate sits (perfectly) on that little lip at the top of the tuyere.  I'm sure this thing is pretty old because all the hardware on the hand-cranked blower uses square nuts.

So I'm curious... should there be a layer of refractory cement or something that comes up the top of the grate?  It's close to 3/4" thick.

There are no stampings anywhere that indicate that cement is to be used.

Yeah, I don't know what I'm going to do with it.   I couldn't pass up a chunk of metal that big though.

Maybe tools or jigs to use with the vise, or something like that.

That's a thought.  There is some agriculture nearby.  There are actually four holes, the one at the bottom is where the piece snapped.  The other end of the piece is a smooth right angle cut, but no visible saw marks or anything

I found a 2 1/2' length of steel by the side of the road.  About 2" in diameter.  Heavy enough that I think it's solid.  It has three half inch holes drilled through it, perpendicular to the axis.   One of which appears to have been the failure point as that's where it snapped off of something else.  Also covered with grease, but I didn't discover that until I had it all over my hands.  No major construction or anything nearby.

Is it part of a driveshaft?  Something else?

Well, that seems to be settled then.

Pandrol (had to look it up) clips are exactly what I have.

Thanks, guys.

I have several of these railroad fastener clips.  (the ones that are kind of twisted like a pretzel).  They seem to be the right diameter to loosely fit my pritchel hole, and they already have a sort of "spadey-looking" wide end where the clip meets the rail.  Are these things springy enough to make a good holdfast?

Thank you all.

The depression will be about 1.5" deep, straight-sided.

I can use my steel cylinder as the positive die.  It's the right diameter, and I can hammer it into the sheet with the appropriate support.

The idea of using a tree stump as the negative die is interesting.  Would I need to hollow out a depression beforehand, or could the heat from the piece of work burn out a hole?

I do have some scavenged railroad clip fasteners that are pretty thick.  I could form one of those into a circle without a whole lot of drama.  Maybe I could make a "tail" for it to place in  my vise to hold it.

A pintle hook ring would be ideal, if I can find one.

Thank you both for the insight and inspiration.

I'm hoping someone with more experience can give me some ideas on how to work around my limitation in tooling.

I want to create a cup-shaped depression in a 3x3" square of 3/8" flat bar.  I have a big piece of steel plate as an anvil, a 4" bench vise, some tongs, a few hammers, and an assortment of punches / drifts.  Maybe most useful of all, I have a 1 1/2" diam steel billet, which could be used to hammer down into the sheet to provide exactly the depression I need.

But, I don't have any way to support the sheet in a way that I could use the cylinder to force down the sheet into a cup.

I'm sorry if this is totally obvious - it would be easy if I had a deep ring to put in the vise, but I don't 

At a flea market this AM I bought a 3/8" coil spring for 50 cents that the seller told me came from a (unknown) snowmobile.  Anyone have any idea what steel this might be, or if it would be suitable for making punches?

Someone at a local flea market was telling me about the blacksmithing instruction I could get just an hour or so away from my house.   When I made my first "thing", a simple double-ended hook, I fell in love.  Not sure why.  Maybe it's the feeling of being able to shape and bend hard metal objects, things that I'd always subconsciously thought of as being static and unchanging.

A team of Chinese metalworkers fabricating a large industrial piece.  These guys are neither crazy, nor in the street.

The teamwork is impressive.

Thanks everyone.  My inclination would have been to place it horizontally, so I'm glad I asked.  I will round the edges a bit, and design my stand after the one in the "improvised" picture thread.

> Laid flat that plate will rig like a gong...

It does indeed.  If standing it up will quiet it down, my neighbors will appreciate it.

It's a pretty sound, but too loud.

I bought a 72 lb piece of steel plate from a scrapyard yesterday.  It's about 12 x 10" and roughly an inch and a half thick.  The corners are very sharp.  It has 3 one inch diameter holes bored into its face, spaced along each of the two long sides.

I was hoping to make a makeshift anvil out of this.  

Should I put it on a post?  Stump?  Weld a some steel tubes onto it for bending?

Just interested in some ideas.  My experience is limited.