Mick

Thank you gentlemen, just the information I needed. Some of the sledges coming my way are from the incredibly wasteful coal mining industry. It makes my heart weep to see some of the stuff that they discard and the general wastefulness of their workforce. My ute (read sedan based pickup) will be dragging its bum when I go back to Victoria in a couple of weeks with all the "foundlings" I have acquired over the last 3 months. Sadly I will be leaving this treasure trove with but a trifling amount of good stuff.

Another burnt foot story. In the days before O.H.& S. the fitter in the cannery I worked at was cutting a can race overhead with the O/A. He was on a ladder but because he was reaching up so far, his overalls rode well up exposing the top of his boots. Murphy's law dictated that the great lump of slag went straight down the top of his boot, instantly melted his synthetic sock and effectively glued the whole lot to his kin. Smell was worse than oxidised tomato puree. Very nasty burn but............ the worse part was that he grabbed onto the can race as he fell from the ladder. Caught his wedding ring on a protrusion and hung there until the skin and half the meat peeled off his ring finger and he fell to the floor. Meantime the slag and melted sock was burrowing deeper into his foot. Ambulance and hospital job that one. His missus walked out o n him the day he got home from hospital. That was 34 years ago but I can still feel Ralphs pain now.

100% with Sam on this one. Good sharp chisel and the right technique will take the top out of a drum clean as a whistle.

Thanks for your concern Fe. Fortunately at my age I am under no illusion as to the toughness of the job. I already have a few 'lump ammers' or 'mash hammer' as I call them, that have managed to follow me home. They will be the starting point for hammering. Unfortunately in Australia, old blacksmithing tools are rarer than rocking horse do-do and fetch outrageous prices when they do come up. My questions are more related to determining the suitability of sledge heads as a suitable material, or wether there is an alternative, with the view to start having such stuff follow me home. I do tend to hoard stuff with a long term view and a great deal of the materials and resources I will be using to create my smithy have been accumulated over the last twenty years. Surprisingly with no prior plan for the final usage other than "that's too good to be thrown out / or not accepted gracefully" when offered.

Having just read Hammerkids thread on making his first hammer got me to thinking about hammers for myself for when I get my forge built. Question 1. Is it feasible/practical to use sledge hammer heads to re-work into smithing hammers? Question 2. If so, what preparation would be needed before forging and after? Question 3. If the answer to Q1 is no, what kind of other recyclable material would need to follow me home that would be the appropriate kind of steel for hammers? I generally get access to all kinds of mild steel but more exotic stuff would be a greater challenge. Thanks, Mick PS If you haven't already please take a look at the Victorian Bush fire tree project thread.

HK those pics are perfectly focussed, just not necessarily on your hammer. Nice work bloke.

Only joined IFI 2 days ago and allready this blacksmithing is wrecking my body. Sore neck shoulders and back, headache - and that's only from trolling through 300 BP's and 145 pages of posts in this forum alone. Been worth it to find out that all that 'stuff' that has been following me home for the last twenty years is actually more than enough to set up a well appointed "smithy". Can't wait to get back home (1500 miles) from this contract and get started. Now all I need to figure out is how to get some of the 1.2 million tonnes of fine coking coal they pull out of the ground here every week to follow me home.

I only found IFI today on the web. I started reading this thread and by page two I was starting to choke up, by the end of page eight I was crying, had tears running, complete with snot. I haven't done that in fifty years! It's not just the concept which is fabulous, but the response that has really touched my heart. I was personally fortunate the Churchill fire front was stopped a few hundred metres from my place at Gormandale at around 3.00am on the Sunday morning. Friends at Marysville have lost everything, worst of all many members of their local community and neighbors. Your response has really touched my heart. Thank you. Mick. The photos are of the fire front approaching Gormandale on the Saturday between 4 and 5 pm

Mick, from Latrobe Valley but currently separated from my shed by 2,500km and working short term in North Queensland. Been rained off for the last three weeks, (unpaid too the bastards), whilst the neighbors managed to stop the Churchill fire about 200 metres from my boundary. Bloody good blokes! The Missus managed to kill all the spot fires on her own, so thanks to them I have a shed, oh, and a house to go back to. Julie, what a woman. So having a lot of spare time, bugger all money and nowhere to spend it I managed to stumble on IFI. Will be a jumping off point for a long held desire to dabble in Smithing. Got a few pieces of older farm machinery that deserves to be repaired, restored and Julie deserves a bunch of decorative stuff and horse gear after her fire fighting efforts. Can't wait to get back south. Cheers to all you ouaaie blokes and women here. Mick