Donal Harris

Did you make this lamp?

Anyone else have trouble keeping Frosty and Thomas straight in your brain as to which of them is which and which of them said what? Just me?

I am sure they have a name, but I don’t know what it is. Regardless of their proper name, I expect you may find the fatter, bottom spring in the bundles to be the most useful. It can be made into drifts for hammers, hatchets, and axes very easily. No need to taper it.

Don’t fret about it. Most of the MD’s and DO’s I have known don’t get to hung up on their titles. Outside of work or when not acting in an official capacity they will usually just give their name when saying who they are. The only doctors who seem to care about their titles are PhD’s in my experience. Cardiologist, endocrinologist, Internist, orthopedist, and gastroenterologist are those I see every few months. Pathologist daily because of my work and every other year because of a visit to the gastroenterologist. The good Lord willing, I will never need to add urologist to the list.

Disrupt. Meaning make the working end shorter and more spread out. I will take a photo of it tomorrow. Until it is finished, I am using a piece of leaf-spring as a “flatter”. It works ok, but it is pretty painful if I don’t have it properly aligned when I strike it. Speaking of sending something across the shop, the guy who showed me how to get started didn’t have a wide selection of tongs. He had only one in fact and it was totally unsuited for what we were trying to do. We were trying to forge a short length of chain and a hook. That was the trade item at a meeting which was coming up. My first link slipped out of the tongs and flew off and struck the chair his son had been sitting in not five minutes prior. If you had ever seen me trying to work at the anvil, you would probably agree what I do is disrupting and not upsetting. You would likely be so upset, you would swear off blacksmithing period. Or at least petition that I do. (I sometimes get the terms mixed up. I wish I could lay that off on a TBI, but can’t. Sometimes I am a little like that guy from the beer commercials in the 70’s.)

Tigger isn’t stupid. He knows to clear out when he hears the angle grinder. I wish he would learn to leave the bobcats and coyotes alone. You can’t really see it from this angle, but almost all the hair around his neck and the lower half of his right front leg were shaved off in February. Something really got him pretty good. He was a bit hesitant to do his rounds or a long time after that, but he’s back to his old ways again. Out all night. Sleeps all day. (I really need to sweep up.) Back on topic. I have one almost finished as a flatter. It was one of those without a depression in the end. I still need to disrupt it a little more and try again to get the outer tubing to weld all around the perimeter.

Sounds like my BIL. He has had my MIL’s cell phone for a month. We bought her a new phone and just had it placed on our account yesterday.

Cut at the red or the green line? This one is unusual. Most or all the other spindles I have are flat where the spindle steel ends and the axle tubing begins. They are all from utility trailers. I had thought I would trying disrupting a hitch ball to make it more of a “squashed ball” shape and then using that to shape this.

How difficult might it be to form this into a cupping tool for hammer faces?

Easy for you to say.

I don’t need an eye punch. Not yet anyway. I just saw one about three years ago at the Saltfork booth at the tractor show in Sulphur. Our president at the time, Byron, had a couple and I asked him how to make one. He told me, but all I got out of it was “you make this tool to do that and then you use that tool to make that”. I have never been able to process verbal instructions. It is almost like dyslexia some folk have with reading. He did tell me they turned out to be not quite as useful as he had thought they might. He said it was actually easier to use one punch to form the eye and then a second for the iris.

How do you form this? Do you just drill a hole in the center of a ball punch and then use that to punch the end of another punch?

That removable front on your trailer looks like it would be handy. The tongue seems to be much longer than any I’ve seen in the States. I assume that is to make the removable front more useable. It was once possible for someone with a shop to make a decent living making utility trailers (decent being subjective.) Now there are large factories churning them out. With the margin so low, that isn’t possible now.

Yep. Never buy a new boat. Let someone else take the hit. There are plenty of “like new” boats out there. Still a money pit, but quite a bit less of your money gone at the start.

That is what I am shooting for. I remember them from my time there, although none of the German nationals I was friends with had anything beyond those small Hibachi type things. All of them lived in apartments and none had one of those small garden plots that are so popular over there. I finished remaking the loops on the poles. Should have disrupted the spot where the weld went, and I wouldn’t bet my life the welds actually welded, but they look OK. Not professional, but not super sloppy either.

I will likely never use it. Probably just give it away to someone, like all the many, many leaf and cross keychains. Unless you count a freezing couple of nights sleeping in a tent outside the barracks at Irwin Army Community Hospital at Ft Riley (it was considered going “out in the field” for our medical unit) I haven’t been camping since I was a kid. I went out after work to work on the legs again. I was only able to stay out there about 30 minutes. Even with a leather apron on, my chest was just too hot. Burning hot. Later while eating supper I realized why and felt pretty silly. I was wearing a shirt with snap buttons.

JHCC, how did you cut the rings? They look wicked straight. My Dad made the wheels for my smoker out of pipe. He used some sort of thing that attaches to the pipe and then it makes a perfect, straight cut all around the pipe. Something they use with natural gas lines.

Every couple of years it seems someone with a real, actual blacksmithing business and a few employees will want to retire and will put their business up for sale. There are brokers who help sell businesses, much the same as you would go to if you wanted to sell your home or buy one.

It would allow increased productivity.

I finished the rings at the top of each leg. The stock was 5/8 round bar. 6.5”, 6.5”, 6”. I will cut some off the bottom once I have decided how tall and wide I need it to be. The bars I will flatten while leaving the edges round. Then twist the bars. Using part of the extra from the cut poles, I will forge a ring to join all the eyes together. More of the extra will be made into an S hook to hang from the ring. To raise the grill, I will make a trammel hook. I plan to forge small chains to hold up the ridged grill. What does a jig look like for forming eyes on round bar?

Finally got around to welding up the wrought iron and an old file for an attempt at a knife. I hope to get two out of it: a small skinner and a coffin handled Bowie. I cut a triangle shaped piece from one end and heat treated it (non-magnetic, quenched in water.). The sides can be filed. The top of each edge can be filed. The bottom of each edge cannot. I didn’t temper it. I wanted to see if I could see where the WI was and where the file steel was, so I soaked it in muratic acid overnight. On one side the acid ate away the WI where it met the steel. On the other side it did not. What is the best way to make the iron and steel appear different? Just to be clear, prior to the acid, that delamination was not present.

I am using 3/8 round for the grill slats. Not sure what I will use for the ring. I have scrap 2” by 1/4”, but that seems excessive. I do have some thinner flat bar. But I had other plans for it. The other is just scrap from my father-in-law’s pile.

There seem to be some in the BP’s but I can’t see them. Those in the open are in old posts where the photos have become unlinked. I am building one and am needing ideas. I’ve bought 5/8” round bar for the tripod. What should I use for the round grill? What stock size should I use for the chains, S hooks, and trammel hook? If you have one you are proud of, please post pics of it. Thanks, Donal

Where do you find these books?

Years ago on I believe the BladeForum, the SharpByCoop guy explained how he makes his photos look so good. It is much more than just placing the knife on a rock and taking a snapshot. His photos were every bit as artful as the knives themselves.