Donal Harris

Forgot about the shirts. 
 

Roller bearing? Is that what these are? The inner piece is cast. Not sure about the outer. Few sparks, but those that appear do burst like carbon is present. 
 

Assuming I can get the nut off and separate the inner from the outer, could it serve as a cone mandrel?

My Dad taught me many things. One is “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.” Another is, “If you act like you expect the answer to be no, the answer will almost certainly be no.”  The man knew my brothers and I wanted a Dr. Pepper and a Butterfinger every time we stopped for gas. We were afraid he would say no, so we rarely asked. Since we didn’t ask, we didn’t get. 
 

I’ve only been to Ohio once. That was Wellston. A friend when I was in the Army lived there. Nice little town. Best pizza sub sandwich on the planet at Rocket Pizza. I ate at least one  every day for a week. That and bottles of Ski. 
 

Assuming I make it up there, how will I recognize anyone from the site?

This is me. 

It’s in Troy this year? Where is the closest commercial airport the majors fly to? We still have two tickets to use before the end of the year. COVID killed our trip to Miami in 2020. Thankfully my wife always gets refundable tickets. 
 

$20 today on Facebook Marketplace. Didn’t need it, but they aren’t making more, so……

So the skein is the end of the axle that the box slides over? Anyway, I think they are cast, whatever they are. They are cone shaped things inside the hub. Do they have any use outside of their original purpose?

This is the absolute best way to cook sweet corn. Last May. 
 

I asked Brent which I would find more useful, his more traditional rounding hammer or his Modified New Style. He said his new style would be better because of the square face. He asked what weight I wanted, but I haven’t decided yet. I am thinking 3 lbs, but my most commonly used hammer is 2.5. 

Ordered and paid for one of these today. When it comes it, it will be the first rounding hammer I’ve had.  
 

He got back with me and offered to redo the heat treatment, but it was too late. Assuming my wife hasn’t already spent the money, I plan to buy one of his Modified New Style hammers. Head only. I want to carve my own handle. His are fat enough I could shape it to fit me, but I really like bois d’arc. 

On 8/14/2022 at 5:10 PM, Goods said:

Went to our hammer in yesterday. I was just playing around a bit and tried something new to me:

 

Made from about 24” of 3/8” round.

Out of all the cool things people have done recently, yours is probably the coolest. 
 

I finished the sheath for my dad’s hatchet yesterday evening. 

The color turned out just as I was looking for: very dark straw, almost at the point it would begin moving to brown. I think 2 hours was enough, but maybe not. I can’t read the tempering charts. May should have soaked it for 3. 

Still no word from the maker, but as much spam as my gmail account gets, I could have just missed it. The steel for the demo where he made it was provided by the club anyway. That was 4140 I believe.
 

Took me longer than I thought it would to get out there at the forge again, but I took it to what seemed to be reddish orange and allowed it to air cool three times and then quenched in oil after hearing it a fourth time. It is now tempering in my daughter’s oven at what the oven says is 465. I will leave it in for a couple of hours. I should maybe do 500, but I want something just a little harder than blue. 
 

What I should do is just get a handle in it and hang it on the wall. I can get more of his hammers, but getting one I watched him make is likely to never happen again. 

That fire brick and angle iron looks like it would be a good way to find out if I would really have need for gas forge. 
 

The pipe I will save for wheels. I’ve been wanting two wheels for my coal forge for some time now. It would be nice to be able to move it easily without using a dolly. My dad made my smoker below. It has three. For my coal forge I am thinking just two. 
 

(Observant people may notice it is August and there are still Fall leaves all around it. I waited too long for Fall cleanup last year. Then missed it again in the Spring. It was too hot this Summer. I am shooting now for maybe November 15.  )

I am not sure what this pipe was intended for. Something oil and related.  It is 28” long with an internal diameter of about 7,5” and OD of about 8.5”. 
 

Is this too thick? It is awfully heavy. Is the internal diameter too small? Once all the insulation and such is added, how wide will it likely be?

I want to try an ribbon burner, but not naturally aspirated. I was considering NARB, but as someone in a Beginner Blacksmithing group on FB pointed out to me, I am not Frosty and NARB requires a lot of knowledge about how to tweak the settings. I don’t have that. 
 

Any suggestions as to length will be appreciated. I only need it large enough for hammers and maybe large camp knives. 

Nothing yet, but perhaps instead of email, I should try messaging him on Instagram, or just call him. 
 

Tomorrow I will attempt to re-do the HT. Unknown steel. Maybe 4140. Take to just past magnetic and oil quench? Then temper to dark straw and quench in water?

It files easily around the edges. A bit less so across the face. I chopped off the handle yesterday and will repeat the heat treatment just as soon as my wife says I can go play again. 

I cut the head off today. Will try to heat treat it tomorrow. The face files easily. I sent the maker an email today to find out the steel used. 

On 6/9/2022 at 8:08 AM, JHCC said:

 

Any other suggestions?

In our blood bank, we use ice and water. Or we did. Now we contract with a company to come by and revalidate then every two years. 

I purchased this hammer from a well known maker. I really like it. The balance is good and it is easy to use. 
 

But one edge on the side of the face has begun to deform. Should I send it back to the maker and ask him to straighten it up and leave a little more hardness in it?

Or should I just do it myself. Assuming the problem isn’t the material, cleaning it up and doing the HT and tempering over again should be fairly easy to do. 
 

I want an Osage Orange handle in it anyway and not the handle it came with. 

On 6/29/2022 at 3:09 PM, JHCC said:

I like the idea, but I think you'll have trouble fitting the guard over the handle loop. Do you need a guard? You could do an integral bolster, I suppose.

Couldn’t the loop be closed a little and then drifted back open once the guard is attached?

I really need to stop putting off getting a lean-to up over my forging area. Not bad in the mornings. A large oak keeps the area in shade until about 1330. After that, full sun.

The first pic is me at the forge after work a couple of days ago. 100 degrees plus whatever the forge was putting out. By evening I looked like I had been in a shower, but it wasn’t all that bad. I would work for 15 and then sit drinking water under the tree for 5. 
 

The edges of my anvil are not so good. I decided I would need a handled butcher tool to define the lines for the eye. I didn’t have one, so I made one from the fat end of a broken bale spike. 2nd and 3rd photos. 
 

Now back to work on the hatchet. Assuming I can find where I set that piece of iron I was going to use. It seems to have been misplaced. 

I have never seen one.  

Picked up 3 iron wagon tires, two buggie axels, and a Chinese made automotive dolly and hammer set. 
 

This guy rebuilds and restores old wagons, so he knows what is stuff is worth. Gave him $100 for the lot. 

People read their emails? My work email account, yes. Non-work, nope. 

What model is it?

Bouncy house blower, two wagon tires, two broken bale spikes, an old compressor of some sort, and some random piece off an old combine.

The blower I bought for the motor, same with the compressor. One or the other motors I plan to use to power a home-built disc sander. 
 

The fat spike I don’t have plans for yet. The thinner one I will use for a couple of drifts. 
 

The random piece from a combine, some sort of handled top tool. 
 

The wagon tires, who knows. I am thinking some sort of thing for my wife to use with that scented wax she uses. I have a large pile of WI already. Likely more than I will ever use, but they aren’t making more and the price was right. So I bought it  I may just cut it into short pieces and sell it on eBay some day. The prices for it there have been rising quite a bit for the past few years.

Dad has a gantry in his shop. Pretty cool. With it he can lift and move things forward, back, and side to side. Using it for the anvil wouldn’t work because it would still be in the way even at the outer edges of the gantry’s reach. 
 

I think I will do what Glenn suggested and copy Jim’s stand. 
 

Thanks!

My dad has had his grandfather’s anvil for almost my entire life. He never put it on a stand. He would just drag it out away from the side of the barn when he needed it and then would drag it back. He never does blacksmithing on it. He just uses it when he needs something substantial to rest things on while banging on them. 
 

Problem is he is now almost eighty and dragging around 175 lbs isn’t something he should be doing. That and his back and knees are such that kneeling down to use an anvil on the ground isn’t as easy as it once was. Getting down is still not a problem, but standing back up is.

Would a tripod stand with lockable casters  work? I have looked at many here and elsewhere, but haven’t found any with wheels. I had considered wheels on one side so the stand would work much like a dolly, but discarded that idea. Tilting the weight of the stand and the 175 lb anvil seemed like it would just have him in the hospital the first time he tried to move it.