Mike Ameling

One note on those drain valves. Like anything that is supposed to be "automatic", check it occasionally. They usually work without problems, but it's just a good practice to check them every once in a while.

Just part of that normal ... preventative maintenance stuff.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

As for 'tank bells'? What about CO2 Fire Exsinguishers? Are they hollow?

If so, I know where there are bins of them for a couple bucks each.... Probably less if a guy was going to buy a few at a time.


Willy

The fire extinguisher tanks that Jay used over at Big River Forge were heavy steel tanks - around 4 to 6 inches in diameter and at least 1/4 inch thick. So they were very much like the large torch gas tanks. He would cut them in about half. The top got used with that threaded valve section for projects. The bottoms he would tack weld on half a chain loop to the bottom to use as a hanger. (Don't forget to leave a few extra links to that chain as the hanger.) The rest was then how much you wanted to finish them. They worked well for patio/garden bells.

It was kind of like using a section of large/thick pipe for a bell. A foot or two of 6 inch diameter well casing or drain pipe rings pretty well. The only hard part with that pipe is figuring out a hanging system to allow it to vibrate.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

p.s. Jay might have a picture on his web site of the three such "gongs" we had hanging in the big doorway at the old limestone-walled shop. Like in the background of the pic of the free-standing patio fireplaces. Big River Companies

Learning to do things with your "off" hand is always fun. It takes time/experience to do - more than just that occasion hammering when a different angle is needed.

Light sheet metal work is a possibility - either iron, copper, or brass. They work easier, and often can be worked without heating.

Another thought would be WIRE work. As in twisting/bending/twining wire to form objects. It's more ... pressure/grip ... type work, but some light hammering is occasionally needed.

An example from the decorator/curio people: A piece of barbwire bent into the silhouette of a cactus, and then stuck down into a clay flowerpot full of sand/rocks. Yeah, it sounds "cheezy", but a bunch of people luv them - especially in the Southwest. Plus you can get as creative as you want with them. From a simple outline all the way up to a full 3D representation of a cactus.

I made up one "art" project years ago for Easter - where I wove a bunch of barbwire into a ... bird's nest. I then forged up some large chunks of wrought iron into the shape of eggs. I chiseled and fullered in some geometric lines, and worked the wrought iron pretty cold - so that the layers started to separate. It was for an Easter Egg display/competition. I called it HARD BOILED EGGS. But the judges and most of the public just viewed it as scrap iron. They all wanted to see delicately/intricately hand painted eggs! Even the guy with the lathe-turned wooden eggs in a "nest" of planer shavings got more recognition. (And I think he bought those wooden eggs at a crafts store!) Some people saw and loved the iron eggs/nest, but it was a little too far "out of the box" for most. NO, I don't have pics - once again - I didn't even have this junker digital camera back them.

NOTE: Take pics of your work! ALL THE TIME! At least you will then have some pics to show.

So look into some of that ... wire work. Kind of like a lot of jewelry work. There's less shock form hammering, but the techniques and delicacy of the work are still a challenge.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

The hidden welds will give you your strength. So any "collar" or wrap is just decorative to cover the welds. So a wrap with copper wire would really set it off. If you anneal the copper wire first, you should be able to wrap it fairly tight while cold. You could do the same thing with brass brazing rod, but you would need to wrap it hot. And it is surprising what a couple turns of thin round iron rod will look like. Taper and curl the ends, then wrap it around your joints hot.

A little simple calculation or experimentation with scrap will show you how long of pieces to use, where to start/end each, and any variations in the end curls/scrolls. Think of it along the likes of a grapevine growing up around a twig - those little tendrils that curl around the twig.

A traditional tapered-ends collar is nice, but you do have those two tapered ends meeting side-by-side somewhere. So that "joint" will be visible from one side. It may or may not detract from the rest of the scrolls.

Just a few humble thoughts to share.

Mikey

p.s. One more thought. Don't know how it might look, but take a long triangular strip of thin sheet, and roll/wrap it around your weld joint - starting with the widest part. Kind of like that croissant bakery roll - but without that C bend in it. An extra little scrolled curl on the end of that strip might add an extra look/touch to the joint.

A flint striker (also called a fire steel) is such a simple but basic piece of technology. It gets you back to that truly basic/survival level of existence - just short of rubbing two sticks together.

The earliest dated flint striker is from around 500 B.C. - a straight steel bar with a cast bronze handle/holder in the shape of a stylized lion - from a tomb in Afganistan/Persia. But THE most common shape/style over all the centuries since then is the common classic C shape - that "bracelet" or "brass knuckles" shape. There are dozens of little variations of it over the centuries, but that simple C shape just crosses all the centuries.

And it isn't that much of a technological leap from the earlier flint and iron pyrite method of starting a fire. The Iceman they found up in the Alps carried a version of the iron pyrite and flint fire starter. But examples go much farther back in archy digs.

But it was a huge leap up from the "friction" method - rubbing two sticks together, or using a bow drill. With those "friction" methods, you really do need to know what you are doing, and get things set up and prepared just right to end up with a fire. Flint/steel was just much faster and easier to learn and use.

Nowdays, we just don't think much about starting a fire - with the availability of matches, bic lighters, and willy pete rounds! It used to be a much greater concern. And the old journal records have lots of entries where they mentioned all the problems they had not getting a fire made, and the suffering as a result - cold, wet, hungry.

So I've become mildly obsessed with flint strikers - from all the time periods they were made/used in. And I now have copies of the 4 known books about fire steels, plus several dozen other books with pictures/paragraphs about them. And I've made replica's for places like the National Museum of the American Indian, the Museum of the West, Grand Portage National Monument, Fort Mandan, the Jamestown/Yorktown Volunteers Association, the Ganondaga Indian Village of New York State, numerous State parks, and even the Museum of Welsh Life in Wales.

It's a ... niche ... market, but it keeps me in beer/pizza - along with making other Fur Trade era iron work.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

With properly prepared materials to catch my spark, I've not had any problems with the sparks not lasting long enough. And that's with good charcloth, tinder fungus, amadou, or charred punky wood. With my spark catching material prepared right and maintained right, I've not had problems with a spark catching.

So I've always heat-treated my strikers for ease of getting sparks, and for quantities of sparks. And since I started doing that Thermal Cycling before the final quench, I've had few concerns about them being too brittle in normal use.

But when teaching bunches of kids how to use a flint striker for fire starting, breaking of a flint striker is always a concern. It's best to do the teaching one-on-one, but sometimes you can't. And then some kids get frustrated quickly when they don't get ... instant gratification. When that happens, proper "technique" to get sparks gets forgotten quickly, and they then tend to only remember that if you hit one against the other you get sparks. I had one kid who ended up slamming flint directly/squarely against steel at full arms length in front of him. He then got completely frustrated and threw everything down on the cement and stomped off.

So I developed what I call a "kid proof" oval striker. I took a finished one that sparked well, laid it on my anvil, and tried to break it using my 3# hammer - a dozen hard/heavy forging blows! I even hit it on the sides and ends. I bent it a bit, but never broke or chipped/cracked it. And it still sparked great. So now I recommend those to Boy Scout and Kids camps for teaching flint/steel fire starting. The San Diego BS Council now has around 3 or 4 dozen of them from me over the last couple years. The only problem they have had is ONE got lost or walked away! I've even made a number for the summer staff hired at Grand Portage National Monument - for them to use in their talks/tours with the public. They kept breaking properly made flint strikers, and then raiding the trade room display to get new ones to use. So I made some up for the "poorly trained monkeys" hired for the summer! They haven't broken one yet - just lost a couple.

Mikey

They are hardened high-carbon steel. Hardening that steel makes it easier to chip/dig out little bits of it from the striking surface using a sharp edge on a piece of flint. The harder the heat-treat, the easier it is to chip/dig out those tiny bits of steel. The energy you put into chipping/digging out those tiny bits of steel heats them up enough that the carbon in them burns. That carbon burning is the twinkling sparks you see. And then you catch those sparks on some prepared material like charred cotton cloth. Once you "catch" a spark, it will start to spread throughout your charred cloth. You then use that to start your fire.

It's kind of like doing a spark-test of various iron/steel using a bench grinder. With mild steel or wrought iron, you will see long reddish streamers from the grinder. With high-carbon tool steel, you will see shorter whitish streamers with many more twinkling sparklers. Those twinkling sparklers are the carbon burning.

Note: the heat-treat on a standard knife blade is a little too soft to work well as a flint striker. The striker needs to be heat-treated about as hard as you can get it to work well.

You can make a quick/simple flint striker from an old file without any forging or heat-treating. Make sure that the file is ALL tool steel throughout - instead of junker iron that has been case-hardened. Clamp that file in you vice with around 3 inches sticking up above the jaws. Drape a shop rag over it. Then smack it on the flat side with your hammer to "snap" off the file sticking up above the vice jaws. The rag helps control any "shrapnel", and also helps you find back that file end after it goes flying across your shop and under the work bench. Now carefully/slowly grind off the teeth along the narrow edge of the file. And keep it cool! If it is getting too warm to hold in your fingers, then cool it in water right away. You don't want to see any blue color showing up in the file. Grind the teeth back until you are down to bare metal. And bevel the teeth/corners back a bit from that narrow edge. Also grind any sharp points from breaking off the file. That chunk of file will now work well as a flint striker. Just make sure your flint has a sharp edge, and the angle is around 45 degrees to chip/dig/slice into your file - to get sparks.

A flint striker is very old technology. From right around the time when man first started working iron - a couple hundred years B.C. So that's a lot of centuries of usage over the ages. A simple tool of everyday life - to start your cooking/heating fires. It ain't as glamorous as swords/axes/knives, but it made all the rest possible.

Hope this helps explain things. I know there are several u-tube videos out there showing starting a fire with a Traditional Flint Striker. But I have a dial-up connection, so I haven't searched for them. And it is easy to get them confused with those modern ferro-cerrium fire starting rods.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

I had to make up a couple more whale shaped flint strikers, so I spent the afternoon ... tinkering.



They are patterned after a pair of originals I saw in a book years ago (that I can't find back right now). The originals were dated to the very late 1700's or early 1800's. And there was one of each style - with the tail in the correct orientation with the body, and one with the tail rotated 90 degrees so that it would lay flat in a tinderbox or in a pocket/pouch for carry.

These are made up from "agricultural" steel - parts of a bolt-on plow share. So they should be 1080 carbon steel. They run around 5/16 inch thick.

The top two strikers are based upon an original Russian Fur Trade striker in the collection of the Museum of the Fur Trade. It resembles the Indian Ulu knife. They also are made from 1080 steel - more agricultural steel parts.

A fun way to spend a drizzly afternoon.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

Aaaah, such a simple little project to play with today. I should have known better.

First, the cylinder top is from a junker CO2 tank, not an LP tank. (that flaky memory stuff) Then my big tap/die set is still down at my folk's place - along with most of my spare 1" pipe fittings. So I couldn't chase the threads on through into the inside of the tank. And I had to scrounge around for a short length of 1" threaded pipe and something to cap it with. Ended up using an old T, but had to locate a reducer to fit the 1" pipe. Then scrounge up an iron bar that would slip up into that pipe.

So here's a pic of the result. Far from a ... finished ... product, but it shows the potential. I used some 5/8 hex rod pushed into the ground, and slid the "bell" down onto it - with the rod sticking up inside that pipe. No special rubber padding or anything else to isolate it from vibrating.



It rings LOUD and TRUE! It will ring even with me hanging onto that pipe on top, or even with my hand on the outside of the "bell". But touching/gripping it inside dulls the tone.

So a capped off short length of pipe on top, and set down on an iron rod wil lwork. I suspect that chasing the threads on through into the tank and threading that 1" pipe up from the inside will work just as well. And then that pipe can be welded to a base plate, or screwed into a pipe flange and then attached to a wood/stone/cement/iron base plate.

But, until I get those threads extended all the way into the inside of the tank, I just can't know quite for sure.

Fun project. I can easily see a grouping of these ... mushroom bells out in a garden. Different sizes made from an LP tank, or some of those large fire extinguisher tanks.

Fun stuff to ... play with ...

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

p.s. Now if only the problem with the neighbor "claiming" our field drive (that we allowed him to use as a driveway) as his own property could so easily be settled. I'm afraid an official survey of that portion of the property line will be needed. And all because he doesn't want us to plant corn in our field right out in front of his picture window. He never complained about the cows grazing that field. But now he is denying us access through our own driveway to our own field. This was the OTHER distraction this afternoon!

Simple enough to do, Frosty. You already have that threaded top where the valves were. Just put your threaded pipe or rod up into it.

Now, you would probably get better volume if it was a little more ... free standing. So a rubber "bushing" slipped onto the support rod, and then the tank slipped down onto that "bushing" to support it.

I'll have to test out that one section I have tomorrow - to see how the pipe threads in from the inside, and then how it sounds. I might have to chase some threads a little farther into the thank. We shall see.

Hmmm ... interesting concept. Garden "mushroom" gongs!

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

Too many people overlook an old vehicle as a potential power unit. It already has all the framework, motor mounts, clutch/tranny, wiring, and fuel tank. You can run directly off of the universal joint where the drive shaft attaches. Or you can work your equipment off of each hub of the drive train. And if the rpm's are too high, just add in an additional gear box after the existing one. That can really reduce the final rpm's.

Plus the engine already has a 12 volt alternator on it. Use it as-is to charge the battery and run some lights/radio, or carefully "tweak" the output up as needed. You can even add an additional alternator if needed. With one of those auto parts store Inverters, you can get normal 110 power right from it.

With one hub running your generator, and the other running your compressor, (with appropriate switches and clutches) you would have your shop "power". And a 110 inverter running off of the battery would give you normal lights/radio/drill/bench grinder power.

Some of the smaller car engines actually run pretty economically. And they could be tweaked to run on home-produced fuel.

Possibilities ...

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

For the big garden gongs, Jay would leave them as long as he could. They had a deep resonating tone.

But Jay also made some smaller ones from large hand-held fire extinguisher bottles. If you cut the bottoms off, you can work a hanger from the threaded top. If you cut the top off, you need to weld on a chain loop on the bottom to hang them. They give a surprisingly good tone when tapped with a wood handle.

I still have one top cut off of a 100# lp cylinder - cut off just where the rounded top meets the straight sides. With a short length of pipe in it, you still get a clear tone - but higher pitched. And it also works pretty good as a floor stand as well - all that weight of just the tank top. With a plate welded onto the bottom and filled with sand, it would be a pretty solid stand - probably at least 50#'s worth.

But that full length LP tank had the "tone" of those old temple bells/gongs from Japanese shrines. Add in a little "artistic" design for a holder, and it made a great centerpiece for a garden.

I don't remember if Jay had any pictures of it on his web site. He might ... Big River Companies

Mikey - that grumpy ol' german blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

Sounds like a good deal - if you can afford it right now and have the storage. Uses for it's ... odd size ... will start cropping up all over.

It would be a good size for handles for pots/pans/frypans/grills/comals. And for splitting the ends for forks. Colonial style meat skewers. Colonial style grills. Scotch broilers. Even simple things like tent stakes. Plus those window frames/grates. Riveted lattice work. How about some ... woven baskets? Lots of possibilities.

Just a few thoughts to ponder.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

3rd party monitoring? It comes into effect when you want to sell excess power you are generating on site back to the formal power company through their power lines. All of your equipment, and the type of electricity you generate must be compatible to their equipment and line current. So private installations need to be checked out initially before they can be connected, and then monitored occasionally to see that everything is up to correct standards.


Those little "box" or cube generators are OK for some uses. But you can quickly exceed their capacity. I would suggest that you go talk to one of the local farm implement dealers near you. Specifically ask him about the back-up generators that you hook up to the PTO of a tractor. Those things kick out more "juice" by far than those little "box" generators. All the big farms around here have them for when the power goes out - do to storms. And the run their whole operation and home from them - large animal feeding systems, well pump, grain handling equipment, and whole household.

When the first responders and fire department around here need electric power at a site, they try to get a neighboring farmer to come over with his tractor and generator. Then there are no problems running electrical pumps, saws, drills, and those porta-power units.

And those farm generators do not need to be run with a tractor. You could pick up a junker mini-car with good engine and adapt the drive shaft from it to run the generator. But talk with the people at the local farm dealership. They will have all the specs and requirements to run them - including power output.

Or search for some large construction company selling out older equipment. Sometimes you can get a good deal on one of their large trailer generator units. It may be enough to run all your power-hungry equipment.

As to simple lights/radio/fridge power, a quick simple all-weather "drop cord" run down from the house can handle that. Put a plug-in on each end of some electrical wire designed to be buried, and string it down. Just watch the temptation to draw too much juice through it.

Just a few possibilities to ponder.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

The tone and loudness of a dinner gong has so much to do with the thickness of the metal used. If you jump up from 1/2 inch stock to 1 inch stock it will be surprising.

A friend got a hold of some 1 1/2 inch round rod that was from some jet fighter landing gear struts - so some high-tech alloy. He made a few classic dinner triangle gongs from it. It had the most perfect beautiful tone you ever heard - except from a formal bell. And LOUD ta boot! Alas, he only got those couple pieces of scrap.

And Jay over at Big River Forge has made several large garden "gongs" from old 100# LP gas tanks. He "carefully" cut the bottoms off, and threaded in some pipe to form a hanger from the top. Then a simple pair of slanted 4x4's to hold it between a 1/2" plate bottom and and smaller version top plate turned it into a great garden/patio gong/bell. A rubber mallet hung from a hook on one of the uprights finished out the project. The tone was a lot like the large bells you hear in the Japanese temples.

Bells/gongs are always popular. Just keep in mind where you hang one for display around your shop. Kids LUV to play them!

Mikey

I like the sound of your kitchen range. I have to make do with a 48" Viking range top, only 4 burners, 12" flat top and a 12" char grill.

Frosty

Our cowboy/old west club got that commercial restaurant range, and we used it in the old west town we were building. The right "cook" could run a lot of food through it in a short amount of time! But it drew more LP gas than one 100# cylinder could feed it when you had that grill, one oven, and several burners running. So we linked two 100# cylinders in series to feed it.

But now it is in storage, along with most of the rest of our club furnishings. After 20 some years, we had to move out of the farm place we were converting into that old west type town. One of the land owners decided that he had to personally make money off of what we had built and all of OUR stuff - by renting it out to other people/groups/clubs! So our club pulled out and took all our "toys" with us. We left a handful of stripped buildings behind. And that land owner's "dreams" of a money machine to crank died when we left. Now he will probably end up losing the whole property. He hasn't asked out club to come back - yet.

And then there is that 16" x 16" tabletop commercial restaurant grill that I picked up at a household auction years ago - with two burners on the side. A 20# bar-b-que pig tank will feed it without problems or freezing. It's great for those pancake/sausage suppers for the church or legion.

Mikey

A few years ago at a blacksmithing convention, we started to freeze up a 20# bar-b-que "pig" tank running a single burner Daryl Nelson style forge. It was only 95 degrees (F) with about 90% humidity! We just slid one of the quench tubs over and set it in. Yes, it kept the beer cool!

And we also just about killed off the main demo guy. He came up from Arizona where he was used to 110 (F) temps. But our normal high humidity really go to him.

I run a simple Daryl Nelson style single burner forge, and feed it from a 100# cylinder. I only have freezing problems when the tank is running low - and then only after several hours of running. If it gets too bad, I can just switch over to the other tank on the normal "household" lp gas regulator. But I have used that extra brass coupling/tubing to hook two tanks in series before (to feed a large commercial gas range with 2 ovens, 6 burners, and a grill).

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

A lot of people use a section of Forklift Tine for an anvil. Especially the big commercial pallet mover ones. You get a lot of ... mass ... with them. Two shorter lengths welded side-by-side (and welded on the bottom/back side) give you a lot of working surface. Plus those rounded edges give you lots of angles to play with - including between the two pieces.

I have several "drop outs" from a scrap yard that I use for small/specialty work. They are 3 and 4 inches thick! One round and one rectangular. They are not heat-treated, so I do have to be careful about what I am pounding on them. Nicks/dents/dings can be kind of easy to get. But if my work iron is red hot, I don't worry about it.

I also have a granite anvil for some Viking/Roman era presentations. A large wedge shape - weighs around 100 pounds. I did a little cleanup on the top flat, but it is still mostly its natural shape. As long as I always have color in the metal, I have not had any problems using it as an anvil. And some of the "rougher" surfaces do give an interesting texture to the iron.

I've made small specialty anvils from farm machinery parts. Some of those square and round tool bars from plows and cultivators have a lot of ... mass ... in them. And most are pretty good tool steel as-is. Already heat-treated for toughness more than hardness. A little searching can lead you to some 3x3 or 3x4 inch diameter bars. Plus don't forget about those draw bars from tractors and bulldozers. More great flat heavy steel.

Sometimes evil-bay can be a good source. But way too many "collectors" to compete against. Check out some of the antique/junque shops near you. And ASK them about anvils. Some times they have them, but stashed in the basement or back room - because they are so big/heavy. Over the years I've gotten 2 good 100+ pound anvils from antique stores. And they were happy to get that "hunk of junk" out of there. Ditto fleamarkets.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

For small pieces I just use that common household vinegar (white). No electric current, just soak the part in it. It will flake the rust off and even flake it out of deep pits!

And it also will dissolve the galvanized (zinc) coating off of wire and rivets. It leaves a slight white-ish layer on the surface that rubs right off.

Mikey

A lot of people use Piano Wire - either sections from broke/replaced wires or new wire from the music store. They are generally very good spring steel tempered fairly hard - but still with some flex left in them. Some wire guitar strings will also work.

Historically, the touch hole on most old muzzleloaders was fairly large. But modern muzzleloaders tend to have a very small touch hole - often with a screw in liner that can be replaced.

Plus, historically, they were not called Vent Picks, but Priming Wires - in the written documents. The powder measure was called a Charger.

Such changes in terminology tends to mess up research.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

p.s. Don't forget about the twist-on Gun Worm for cleaning - a coiled wire that tapered in diameter a bit that you twisted onto the end of your wood "wiping stick" to clean your gun. Some were made with threads to screw into brass end caps on your ramrod or wiping stick. But a lot of Fur Trade era guns just had that twist-on coil of wire for a cleaning jag.

Plus you can heat-treat the copper wire. It works the opposite from iron/steel. You heat it up and then let it air-cool. This "hardens" the copper. If you heat it up and quench it in water, this anneals it - making it soft. Sometimes when working copper you need to anneal it a time of three - as you feel it starting to stiffen up and work-harden. Otherwise it might crack/split on you.

Brass works the same way.

Years ago I got a bunch of thick electrical wire from an old farm place - the overhead power lines for the farm. Thick heavy stuff! The main wire is 3/16 inch in diameter. The lighter version is 1/8 inch in diameter. It originally had a coating/cover on it, but that is/was mostly rotted away. I also use that wire for my "layout tool". If I need to forge up a scrolled sign holder bracket, I will bend that wire to the approximate size and shape needed. That gives me the "look" when compared to the sign, and also gives me something to measure against. When forging, I lay my pieces against that wire to check the curves/angles - instead of getting hot iron next to a finished sign. When done, I just roll up my copper wire and stash it on the shelf for the next "design" project.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

The main reason to use the claw hammer head is that ready-made eye. No punching/drifting. And it is also already sized for many standard wood handles. If you go with a small enough diameter wood handle, you can slip it through the eye for a wedge fit - like on a classic tomahawk or a classic full-sized adze handle. But that would be a pretty thin handle. So I usually just pick up a new wooden claw hammer handle, and then reshape it to fit my hands.

With a ballpeen hammer, you could always drift the eye if you wanted to. But I tend to use my ballpeen hammers for making other tooling punches, chisels, cutters, flatters, etc.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

Coal ash/clinkers being the question.

I tend to save them for winter time. I spread them on the ice/snow on the driveway. The grit makes for great traction.

Some people like them for controlling weeds/grasses around trees and shrubs. Bugs and crawlers also don't much like the sharp edges on the ash/clinkers.

And they make for pretty good drainage "rubble" along foundations and walls.

But many places want you to treat them like toxic waste - hard/heavy metals and concentrated chemicals. Just look at what the coal-fired electric plants go through with their "fly ash". But most of that is because of the quantities they have to deal with.

The sound advice would be to check with your local ordinances and waste removal company. Some have rules/guidelines, some do not. But the moment you ask about it, you will probably then be monitored for it - and for HOW you are generating it. Could complicate things.

But out here in the countryside, we just use coal ash/clinkers on the ice/snow during winter. Ditto the wood stove ashes - which we prefer and actually work better on ice.

Just a few humble thoughts to share. Take them as such.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

Make up a jig for your vice to help you keep a consistent spacing between all the scrolls. A 2 or 3 inch length of metal bent into a slight curve is all you need. And make it thick enough to match the distance you want between the metal parts of the scroll.

Then, after you have started your scroll up to a working size, then heat the next section up, slip the scroll up tight along the inside of that jig, and tap/bend the off part up against the curve of your new jig. Then heat the next section and repeat. A bit of flat bar or plate sticking out on the inside of the curved jig will help support the finished scroll and keep things "square to the world".

And you could always rig up a rotating handle on the off side to pull/bend the unscrolled part against your jig. The longer the curved "jig" part is, the easier it will be to bend the scroll against. But it will also become harder to adjust the curving as the scroll grows larger.

And if you have enough of them, then a full scroll jig starts to become worth making.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

Ah, the modern "hand made" look. For some flat plate door hardware we made for a new restaurant, we had to "texture" the plates to make them look - hand forged -- dent/break all the edges, and put ball peen hammer marks over the rest of the surface. And then make the mounting bolts look like peened over rivets. Yes, it looked great in the dim light of the restaurant (actually in any light), but it also was several hours of tap-tap-dinging to put those little "facet" dents in all of it. And then the menu holders for the waitresses were an Omega shaped adaptation of a scotch broiler with a bit of cage/grill work connecting it to a back plate. They loved it all - and that was the important part.

And it all looked "hand made" or "hand hammered/forged".

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands