Dax Hewitt

That looks very nice.

Cheers Das, I will be keeping at it and I will get leafs sorted. Time and practice is the name of the game. Glad you like the belt hook, I thought about making it a slip on with a bit of tension to hold it in place but I decided for me it's better threaded through. My shooting belts has a pouch for 50 12 bore shell's and a second pouch with 10 spare shell's. When I take it off I re fasten the belt and chuck it in the top box of my bike then dump it on the garage shelf when I get home. I gaurentee I would lose the hook if there was any way it could come off.

As always some excellent stuff on here. I had a bit of free time tonight and having looked at leafs on here all week I thought I would give it a go, how hard can it be he thinks. This one was Mark 4 and the first one that looked vaugley like a leaf, emphasis on the vaugley. At the same time I made a belt hook to hang my magnetic pick up stick from when I go shooting. I think of it as rough but functional, the main thing is it's fun to play with hot steel. The leaf was 1/2 square bar and the hook is 1/4 round bar.

Somewhere I have a photo of a flame like that. I had a large piston compressor outside my shop with a sized piston (piston was about 18 inch diameter). To free them off I would have an oil and paraffin fire in the cylinder, the heat would expand things and the hot oil would seep down better than and penetrating oil I have ever used. Anyway I was trying a new mix in a steel bucket inside a walled area and the wind must have hit just right. A column of flame shot out of the bucket to about 8 foot high for about 30 seconds. It gave me a whole new perspective on the danger of fire.

. Frosty I'm always open to advice and never take anyone contradicting me as personal unless they intend it to be that way. I am as you know very new to Smithing but I know a lot about air movement. I have been in the compressor, blower and vacuum Market for 31 years now. Mattress inflates are typically very weak radial fans only designed to put about 50 mbar of pressure in to the air bed (as it happens I just designed a pneumatic rig for inflating and testing medical air beds for one of my customers). I am very surprised that at such a low pressure there would be enough flow down not only such a thin pipe but also with the pipe actually being a tunnel through clay there will be even more friction loss to the air flow. Maybe like the leaf blower the air bed inflates in the USA are stronger than the rubbish we get in the UK. Like you said, not an attack at you Frosty, just pointing out my reasoning.

I doubt the mattress inflate will get enough air down such a small inlet pipe so I would try the leaf blower.

Interesting looking forge. I love rebar myself but be prepared for a bunch of posts explaining why you shouldn't use it.

It will be fine with 3 but I would thread it myself, it would always bug me if I didn't.

Das that looks like a fire chicken to me, well a Cockerell crowing at dawn.

My fire isn't dragon worthy, looks more like a fire squirrel with its ears pricked up and a bushy tail.

Well done. Those leaves look great. Like you I have just started as a hobby and I had a go at leaf keyrings last weekend. They were awful. Still they can only get better and you have now given me a datum to aim for.

Love it, I love the creativity of the people on this forum. I may have a go at making a pet shifty lizard to guard my shop when I'm not there.

My guess is they don't pay for them so they don't care. Tools should be cherished as the extentions to your hands that they are.

If that is a stand you built on the fly I would love to see something you planned. That is as good a fabrication as I have ever seen.

My favourite file is an 18 inch bastard file that I found buried in sand in the compressor room of a foundry I was working at. Its done me well for 25 years of lightish use but its had its day now and is too blunt to work with. Top file tip, make a file sleave. Just a simple cardboard wrap with gaffer tape round it. Always store your file in the sleave and it will give you many many years service.

It's easy to get carried away at auction. I used to attend a lot of machinery and bancrupsy auctions and often a few bidders would get carried away. I have seen people pay more at auction than they could have bought new for.

Thank you for the reply. I love the effect so I'm Defiantly going to give that a go.

Love the candlestick Zero. How did you get the cube effect? I'm thinking running a saw or grinder round the bar every 20 mm then applying a twist?

I finished the flowers that I made for the Mrs. Cleaned them up with emery tape, made a base out of a bronze disk that came from a valve I stripped last week and a bit of steel tube. Finally heated them up and applied some wax. The Mrs is very happy.

That's a tidy looking vice. Never seen one look so new

As usuall I don't know what I'm going to do with it but I acquired these 2 blower safety valves on site today. New cost is about £1400 each, these are scrap. I stripped one down. 1 inch round bar spindle, a 4 inch disk 1/2 thick, a 4 inch by 1 inch cast brass disk, the outer case is about 8 inch diameter plate about 3 3/2nds thick and the spring. Can't beat a site scrounge on a Friday.

Watching a guy on YouTube forging he recommended making 100 leaf keyrings to learn hammer control. I decided to do that (might get bored before 100 though). The first one was awful, the second one was awful but not quite as bad as the first. The third one was awful but again slightly better than the other 2. I made a long s hook and fastened it to the wall and I'm going to stack the rings in the order I make them. I would have done more than 3 but I got called out to a job but Saturday is another day.

Buy good safety glasses with anti FOG coatings and train yourself to use them and look after them. One of the main reasons people take their glasses off is to see something better but if you look after them there is no need. I do my nut with my lads at work. They take their glasses off and chuck them on the bench, often lense down. Mine are either on my face or in a case. They last for ages if you take care of them. When they get dirty I have a soft cloth just for cleaning them and nothing else. 6 months wear out of a pair wearing them every day isn't unnseuall.

The octopus looks excellent. Really creative. Looking forward to seeing the finished Oobala too.

Cheers guys, this place is Deffinatly a font of knowlage. I don't smoke but I'm sure I can find a use for the tongs. That's very interesting re the hammer. My plan is to put a longer handle on it and polish up the face's. I thought it must be for something deep dished but I never thought about silver of copper work. I will have to see how it works with steel, looking at a few blow holes in it I'm 99% certain it's been cast rather then forged.