Dax Hewitt

That's interesting. Its standard practice in the UK to use copper. Every house I have lived in has copper has pipes inside and we are not known as a nation who blows up houses. I wonder if our gas has different additives to yours.

SinDoc, I don't know if it's allowed in your part of the world but why not run your gas in copper pipe? You can put it in yourself and pressure test it and just pay a certified gas Fitter to do the final connection.

That's similar to my swage block. One of our customers was closing a site down, a dolomite quarry and paid us to remove the compressors and overhaul them before they shipped to the new site. I found the block and a couple of tools buried in the mud whilst I was clearing a path to move the machines. This was in the 80s and the site manager said it was at least 50 years since the blacksmith on site closed down.

I use the JSP infinity. Filters, fan and battery built in to the helmet with a grinding rated face shield. Not strictly rated for my level of facial hair but it works. Not cheap though, £800 each but definitely the best I have used. I got myself one to try and was that impressed I got 6 more for my service engineers.

Well that was a painful afternoon in the forge. I skived off work early to do a bit but first the forge wouldn't light. It's a coke forge that I light using wooden kindling. Normally lights first time but every no and again I have a second go. Today you ask? 5 times. 2 with kindling, 1 with a paper nest, 1 with cardboard and finally it took with a third go at kindling but only 1/3rd of the fire pot got hot and even then it wasn't properly hot and took 30 minutes to heat some 1/2 round bar. I cleaned it out, checked the air flow was clear but no it wouldn't play. When it finally did light I made a couple of handles for a security barrier at work and the round bar was a bit of coil spring I straightened and attempted to make my first touch mark. Doesn't look too bad for a first go but I didn't get to try it because I ran out of time.

It's a very hard life being a cat.

Often it's not about monetary value. Anyone (who can afford it) can buy new stuff. There is a great satisfaction for me in finding, scrounging, acquiring old stuff. I'm that guy that has to look in every skip he sees.

Goods, I think those leaves look great

Hold downs are great but when you have something like a wriggly tentacle I suspect it could be almost if not totally impossible to hold it in place to punch each weld bead. The crotch clamp is much more versatile and faster.

Those tap handles look excellent. I particularly like the spiral one.

Paul in my world its function over form every time. As long as the tongs work you can make them look nicer later. Alexander, wow. Just wow.

Keyless is the work of the devil. The sales guy pushed hard for me to go keyless on my last bike. Being capable to put a key in a key hole is not something I find difficult and there is a massive down side. I don't know about the rest of the world but in the UK the bike won't cut out if you ride away from the key for safety reasons. I guarantee I would leave the key in my porch, ride for 2 or 3 hours and stop for a brew and discover it won't restart.

Thanks guys. If it needs a name call it a lazy rectangle twist. Mainly because I was being lazy. It's 1/2 square bar and I was going to cube twist the entire thing but I realised how many cuts that would need and decided to just make a cut every 1 inch. I also did the cuts too shallow at only about 1/32nd deep and went for 1 full twist every 4 inches. The combination of over zealous twisting and shallow well spaced cuts gave me the off set individually twisted sections. Re driving, autos are the work of the devil. 33 years driving a manual means a sore forehead if I jump in an auto.

Chimera, that's a sweet looking knife. Shocking day at work today so I decided to unwind bashing some steel. I had a go at my first cube twist (well rectangle twist). We are going away for a long weekend to visit some friends who have a fire pit but no poker. The twist isn't as consistent as it could be but I'm very happy for a first go.

That's quality Mr Rooster. You have me wondering if I can do a triangle one. They are very common in my game and even expensive commercial keys break for fun. JHCC, love the beer tap heads.

The belt strap on mine stopped stretching years ago. It's had a hard life going from a 28" waist to a 44" waist and I think it realised if it kept stretching I would only ask for more.

Thanks JHCC, I made a rebar buckle 30 years ago that I have worn every day since, its a great track of my waist line. Luckily I made the belt strap far too long so it still fits. A pal of mine always liked it and I found a foot of 3/4 rebar and decided to make another.

Not been around here for a while. Been crazy busy trying to keep my business afloat since February 2020 but things are looking up again and managed to lift the fire in what must be about a year. Bought myself a drill press and little mig welder. This prompted a tidy of the bench to put them on so I made some tool hangers to get my hammers and tongs out of the way (not easy in a 10 by 10 container) Made a couple of belt buckles for a mate, a pair of calipers to measure a large pipe for work on Monday, a belt hanger for my pick up stick when I go clay shooting and a large hook for a fitness project at home. As always the quality of everything is pretty rough but it's okay for the lack of practice I have had and I enjoy it so I don't care.

I know how I would bend it, heat it up bend it over the anvil with a hammer, mess it up and start again, second go similar to the first but this time using a mandrel, mess it up and start again. At some point I will have x amount of bad ones and I will loose my rag and bin the idea. A few days later I will go back, knock up a basic jig and bend it right first time. The moral of this story is if you take a bit more time to set up correctly it saves you loads of time in the long run.

That sir is excellent, the ballbearing is not to my taste but life would be very boring if we all liked the same thing.

Hi Glen. She wanted it making that way rather than the central loop, apparently it will sit better with what she already has in place. On the bird feeder I tried cold bending it round my former but it was impossible to get a tight consistent wrap so I went back to heating it. Where I went wrong was stretching the coil out before I did the tighter spiral on the bottom and I did it too short. Mk3 will be better.

Finally got a break from work and got the forge fired up for the second time this year. The plan was a fat ball holder for the garden. Unfortunately my forge welds didn't take, 2 did but 2 came off. I don't think I got it hot enough, the steel was nice and clean and when it broke apart there were inclusions or anything nasty. Mk2 was coiling 6mm round bar round some 2 inch round bar then stretching it out and put a hook on the end. The coils are not as symmetrical as I wanted but it works. Finally one of the ladies at work wanted a hook with an eye on the other end to extend a door retainer in her house. I had some nice 6mm stainless bar so I used that.

I'm going to add ear plugs to the list of safety stuff.

Thanks guys. Oil quench and blue it is. I will report back with the results.

I don't know what you call them around the world but in the UK we have a tool called a Fox Wedge. Think a thin wedge about 3 inch long, 1/4 or maybe 3/8th at one end, 1/16th at the other end and a taper ground on the last 16th and about 1 inch wide. You use them to hammer in between machine components to split the faces. I'm going to forge some, mild steel is a bit soft so I'm thinking of using some 9/16th section coil spring that I have from a mate fitting new springs to his 4x4. Does the hive mind think they will be tough enough without hardening? I don't know what steel the springs are and I have not done any heat treating since I made a center punch at engineering college 32 years ago.