Mike Ameling

I've always had various wasps hanging around what can only be charitably called "my shop". Usually no problem. They stay out of my way and I leave them alone. And the "mud daubers" are usually just a nuisance. They build their nest in the holes used by the drill chuck key, in holes drilled in bars, A nuisance, but livable. But today I had to pull my drill press apart. They had gotten inside, and filled up the gears and slot to raise/lower the drill chuck! Two or three weeks of not using it was enough time for them to mess up the inside of my drill press! Plus add in a little "moisture" from their work creating some rust .... aaaaaaaarrrrgggghhhhh! So everything is cleaned out, put back together, and ... well oiled! Wasps. If they don't sting you, they find other ways to get you. Now to go try to ... discourage ... the couple ground nesting wasps/bees that have taken up residence in the lawn. They get a bit ... disturbed ... when you run the lawn mower over them! And they only moved in 2 weeks ago. Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

Yes, modifying existing "tongs" once you have them is just a matter of ... thinking past what you see. And sometimes it's just as simple as tack welding on a couple pieces to form what shapes are needed. I have a friend that cast pewter medalions. He forms his two-piece molds from brass - hollowing out both halves to create the total form, and then drills/files in a sprue hole to fill them through. His big problem was making of getting "tongs" to hold the two halves together when he cast his pewter. He solved his problem by picking up a bunch of cheap/junker pliers. He then brazed the brass mold halves to the jaws. And there is enough strength in the joint to get the mold parts to match up well each time. The ... toys ... we play with. Mikey

Getting the legs to look proportional to the door will be the tricky part. Supporting the total weight will be less so. One possibility would be "cage" type legs. Forge up three bars of 1/2 square to match the corners - one straight up, and the other two curved/flared out at the top. Weld or rivet them to a foot plate and a mounting plate on top (possibly an L shape from flat stock.) That will cover supporting the weight. And scrolling the two ends on top that support the sides would add an extra "forged" touch. Then, for extra "mass" in the look, take some 1/4 round and spiral wrap it up around those three bars of the leg. Tack weld it to those three legs in several places to hold it all together. This gives you the support, and some "forged" parts, and makes a good combination of elements between straight, curved, scrolled, and spiraled. And if you deliberately make each slightly different, then you won't have to worry about matching them close enough on all the bends. Plus that "cage" work created with the spiraled round rod will give the impression of more ... mass ... to help the proportions to the overall size of the door/table. Just a thought to share ... Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

The big ... advantage ... to them is that the pivot joint is already formed and trued up. And they usually have enough metal past the rivet to make a number of common tong configurations. A friend likes them because he can get the ends formed tight enough to be able to pick a dime up off of his anvil. My big problem with them is their total weight. For most of my work I need and like thin/light tongs. Tongs just seem to be one of those things that some blacksmiths HATE to make. (I'm one of them!) And some have no problems making them, and have many specialty variations. But modifying something else to work as the tongs I really need just seems less ... foreboding. Actually, the last pair of "tongs" I made were for a Colonial era Rush Lamp - with a candle socket on the end of one of the reins. The one rein stuck straight down into a wood block base, and the other end with the candle socket was bent up 180 degrees. In use, you would clamp a rush soaked in grease in the jaws to burn for light. Or use a candle in that other handle end. But this one we used on the one table in the display room to hold business cards - one clamped in the jaws and several curled into that candle socket. It finally got bought to be used once again as a table light. The couple had a candle in the socket, and also burned those long pencil-thin waxed wicks in the jaws. (those wicks dipped extra times in wax and used for lighting other candles) Mikey

The basic fact is that it now is YOUR tool, so modify it as you need for the task you want to use it for. Most people make a drift from solid bar stock for forming/working the eye hole on hawks. But nothing would stop you from modifying this to work the same. Plus it already has a handle hole to help hang onto it. The big question is if it has enough metal/mass where you need it. Some people have a hard time ... modifying ... an existing tool for a new purpose. They tend to see that tool in its original shape instead of what it could become. It's something of a modern "hardware store" mentality - where you don't change/adapt a tool, but just go to the store to get a new one for that new purpose. When it is YOUR tool, you can do anything you want with it. The hard part is seeing past the initial shape/purpose, and on to what it can become. Just my humble rambling thoughts to share. Take them as such. Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

A little ... sway ... is generally put into an anvil by the original maker. It is there for a purpose. The main group of people who WANT a perfectly flat anvil tend to be knife makers. Much more important is how beat up is the surface? Lots of dings/dents? How chipped up are the edges? Some of the edges/corners you will want to round (radius) over anyway. Sharp corners are nice, but rounded corners work better for most work. So if some edges are chipped a little, consider grinding/sanding them rounded - possible to different radius's. Dings/dents on the surface get reflected in the underside of anything you work on that section. Light dings/dents can be smoothed out with an angle grinder/sander or belt sander. Big/deep dents/dings tend to need to be welded up then ground/sanded flush and smooth. So be more concerned about the overall surface than a little sway. And milling the whole surface always seems like the ... quick fix. But you would be far ahead to have the surfaced properly welded up with the correct hard welding rod, and then ground flat/smooth - with a slight sway in it (unless you are a knife maker and want that perfectly flat face). Mikey

A bunch of years ago a friend got some true wrought iron from a slightly unusual source. He did some salvage at an old pickle factory - specifically the big wooden mixing/aging vats. They had large wrought iron bands holding them together - 1 1/2 inch thick round bars! I got a couple feet from him in a trade. Great stuff, but one drawback. Any time you heat a chunk up in the forge, the whole shop then smells like DILL PICKLES! Last time I heard, he was talking about doing some salvage on a huge wharehouse up on the Great Lakes. All the rods holding the walls and beams together were wrought iron - starting at 2 inch diameter rods! He mentioned there would be several tons! And NO, it was not just going to the scrap yard! One guy I knew used to pick up scrap out west at various old mining sights. They were old enough that a lot of the iron was real wrought iron. But forget about most of those old fences. So many of them were made from cast iron. Mikey

Well, there are a number of places that sell damascus bars and knife blanks. That might be a place to start. Making the original damascus billet tends to be the hard part. The rest is more skill in forming a knife blade and making a handle. Crazy Crow Trading Company offers some damascus knife blanks. And if you go to some of the knife maker supply sites, they offer lots more options to help get you started. So don't discount that damascus knife idea just yet. Mikey

Using charcoal briquettes just gives you problems. They are made from ground up charcoal mixed with clays and glues, and then formed into those briquettes. They are designed to burn at a fairly even rate and temp. Plus they produce TONS of ash as they burn. Lump charcoal is just the charred wood. No clays, glues, binders mixed in. Just the carbon fuel left form the wood. I can buy it at the local Menards store. Even wally world occasionally carries it. And more stores now stock it for the ... gourmet ... bar-b-que people. It gives them better heat with less chemicals than the briquettes. So check with most any store selling bar-b-que stuff. And the one grocery store used to be able to order some from Royal Oak. And lump charcoal just burns up fast. You will consume lots of fuel as you work. Just part of the natural process. Plus you will get much much better heat - so be sure to watch your metal closely. Or you will melt/burn the end off! The newer railroad spikes are the "tough" ones. Those rusted ones on the old track will generally be the old version. But there were at least 2 grades of them - different carbon content. Some would harden and heat-treat, and other wouldn't. Something to watch for. Plus, be careful about picking up anything from along railroad tracks. That is considered private property, and picking things up would then be theft. If they want to, they can charge and prosecute you for picking up those spikes - or even walking on their property. Mikey Mikey

In general practice, there is very little difference. But it all depends upon the mill producing the sheets. And some sheets really are specific tool/spring steel. Most generic welding-shop sheets are something like A36 or 1018/1020. But I order specific sheets of 1095 carbon steel for making flint strikers and knife blades. That has the high carbon content I need for my purposes. The usual welding shop sheets are pretty similar to the generic welding shop bars and flats. Same stuff. And many people who do not know, confuse the two terms all the time. Most "sheet iron" is actually "sheet steel", just with a low carbon content. But when you start talking "sheet steel", you often need to talk about a specific quality of that steel. Mikey

There is a mill out of Sweden that is or was still making and selling real wrought iron in various standard sizes. Don't know if they are still in business. And one company had a special run of chemically pure iron made up into standard sizes by a modern steel mill. They called it PURE IRON. Chemically pure, no carbon and very little other metal alloys in it. Most people find true wrought iron at scrap yards and farm sales - in the form of the iron rims from old wooden wagon wheels, or scrap from old bridges. The scrap from OLD bridges gives you better sizes of bars to work with - those old cage-type bridges with lots of cross braces. Those made up into the early 1900's were mostly wrought iron. And "some" very old re-rod was wrought iron - but pretty hard to find. The knife making suppliers usually have small lots for sale - usually for making that nickel and wrought iron pattern welded damascus. A number of people doing historical restoration work had started using that Pure Iron. It didn't have the "slag" inclusions, but better matched the original wrought iron they were repairing. So check around with the scrap yards for some of those rims from wooden wagon wheels, or if they scrapped a really old bridge recently. Mikey

I would suggest that you find some other material to learn blacksmithing or knife making on than railroad spikes. Yeah, the look and glamor is there, but they are hard to hang onto, and present many more problems forging them - especially the newer ones. The recent ones WORK HARDEN dramatically! Something to do with the metal alloy used. The more you heat it and hammer it, the harder it gets to work! After a little forging, it becomes almost impossible to work with a hand hammer. A friend got a bucket full when they redid the tracks behind his shop. He did some quick repair for the guys, and asked about possibly getting some spikes. They gave him a bucket full in appreciation for his help with that repair. He usually makes small tomahawk heads out of them. But he quickly moves to using the power hammer with them. They just get harder to forge the more you heat/work them. Any covered shop area is GREAT! You don't have to carefully pack everything away and tarp it over all the time. My "shop" here on the farm is a couple sheets of roofing tin nailed to a couple 2x6's held up by old tipi poles. And then some woven plastic tarps hanging down the sides. The important part is that it keeps the rain off of me, and most of the snow out. Dirt floor, of course. But I only have to worry about hot stuff falling down on any dry leaves blown in. I also don't have to worry about stuff ... walking away! The local scum know better than to try to steal from me. My big concern is friends ... borrowing ... tools from my shop! But we all worry about that! Mikey

A lot of people use those 1/2 barrel windmills to help keep part of their farm ponds ice free in winter. They mount it on a floating platform and put a standard boat propeller on the end sticking down into the water. The wind turns the the whole thing, and the propeller pushes water up. That "moving water" helps keep a section of the pond free of ice and helps add air to it. This helps the fish in the pond survive over winter when ice would seal off the whole pond and suffocate the fish. You can get a lot of torque from such a wind mill. Mikey

The bit problem with any "sustainable" power source/supply is ... storage. How do you store up that energy from production, till you have the need. And what to do when the sun don't shine, wind blow, or not enough water flowing - or you run out of fuel for the engine running a generator. That's the big problem. Most use some sort of battery - especially those large deep-cycle batteries used in golf carts and forklifts. Even the big batteries used in large trucks. A few people use the extra energy to charge batteries, compress air, pump water to higher places, or even generate hydrogen and oxygen. It all depends upon your needs and how you use things. The obvious solution for most people is to generate electricity when you can, and then sell the excess back to the power company. That way you can still "buy" power from then when you need it, and get paid (wholesale pricing) for what you sell them. As you have probably already noticed, there are no easy answers. Each situation is different. Hope these few rambling thoughts help. Mikey

For some friends when they got married a few years ago, I made them a Dragon door knocker. The dragon was 3/4 stock, S curved, with the dragon head on top and the other end fishtailed out. I punched in a depression on both sides at the pivot/hanging point with a big center punch. Used a C bracket riveted to the flat back plate to hang the dragon door knocker. And I put a large rivet where it hit the back plate. Many of their relatives really really wanted it for themselves! I've also made flower candle holders - including a "unity" 3-candle holder for the wedding ceremony. The two outside candles are lit, then the couple use them to light that center candle together. Other possibilities? Trivets for hot pans. Book ends. Shelf brackets. And many people could use a coat rack - like a simple classic bar with riveted on hooks. Just a small bouquet of iron roses wrapped around their stems with thick copper wire will earn you lots of ... points ... with the couple and their family. I use the "long flattened/indented strip of iron rolled up" version of roses for these. Just a few possibilities. Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

It reminds me of the forming plate for a Diacro iron bender. An alternative to the Hossfield bender. But it would be missing lots of parts. Just a thought ... Mikey

To me it looks like the anvil/tool used for working the square link drive chains on lots of farm machinery. Possibly even for working with roller chain. The right end is the classic form for working the square drive links. And the other end looks more like it would be used for punching out the pins on roller chain. Just a thought. Mikey

A case-hardened file will not make a good sparking flint striker. Only a few thousandths of an inch of the surface/teeth of the file have enough carbon content in the steel. The insides don't have enough. And you generally remove the teeth from the striking surface anyway. Lots of the recent cheapo files are soft iron that has been case-hardened - like most from China/India/Pakistan. But some still are made from good high carbon tool steel all the way through. Nicholson is one brand still being made of good tool steel. And lots of really old ones were made that way. Most people who want to forge a knife from a file will cut off a short section from the end and then see if it will heat-treat -- before they put all there time into forging/grinding/filing up a knife blade that doesn't have enough carbon content in the steel to properly heat-treat. As a friend said, it's a hard lesson to learn - when you spend 40 hours finishing up a knife blade from an "unknown" file only to find out that it is poor steel when you try to heat-treat it. Throwing that 40 hours of work into the scrap pile teaches you a hard lesson. So check out any file first. A quick test it to clamp it in your vise with a couple inches sticking up above it. Then drape a shop rag over it and smack it on the side right above the vise jaws. A file with good tool steel all the way through it should snap right off. You can then spark-test that broke edge on your grinder. You should see lots of short twinkling white sparks instead of long dull red sparks. Those twinkling sparks are the carbon burning. The long dull red sparks are just the hot iron ground off by the grinder. A quick NO FORGING striker can be made from a good file by snapping off about 3 inches of the end of the file. Then carefully grind the teeth off of the narrow edge of the file - cooling it all the time. If it is getting too hot to hold in your fingers, cool it right away. You don't want to see the metal starting to turn blue from the grinding heat. This will leave the original heat-treat in the file. But those file teeth interfere with striking sparks with flint, and really chew up your flint fast. So grind down to bare metal. And also ground off any sharp edges where you snapped it off - saves cuts on fingers. And there is your flint striker. Just grip in with a "pinch" grip between your thumb and fingers, and strike your sparks from a sharp edge on your flint. Simple basic flint striker - without any forging or heat-treating. Many Boy Scout troops used to do this a project. Make your own flint striker, and then learn to use it to start a fire. Just a few humble thoughts to ponder. Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

I've made a couple T-stakes using the Tool Bar from an older cultivator. It was around 2 inch square. Agricultural steel tends to be 1080, but that tool bar (where all the cultivator spring/shovel feet) are attached might have been better steel. I cut them to length, forged up a tapered spike for the bottom, ground reliefs all around where they met, and had a friend arc-weld them together. DEEP penetration is necessary. And those beveled edges gave access fairly deep into the pieces and room to fill in. I then ground the surfaces smooth. I did not heat-treat them. In use they are holding up pretty well with very few dings/dents from poor hits. One I heated up and hammered on the end to upset it a bit and flair it out some - like you see on old square stump anvils. Heavy work without a power hammer - just a hand-held 6# sledge on short handle. I even fullered a decorative groove around the bottom near the base. And then had a friend weld on a forged/tapered spike for a tang to go into a stump. That gave me a 2 1/2 inch square stump anvil. The key when welding the T to the base is getting good deep penetration in that joint. Large hammer heads do make good T anvils. The spike to go into the stump just goes into the eye hole. A good fitting tenon peened/riveted over will lock it into place well. Then just dress up the top surface. If you search around a bit, you can sometimes find the old version of those railroad spike driving hammers. Both ends are tapered square down the that small striking hammer end. The more modern ones are tapered round, and don't actually taper much. Most taper quickly from the center eye hole mass, and then run pretty straight out to the ends. And there are some smaller combo spike driver pick heads out there. Square hammer head on one side of the eye, and a square tapered pick on the other end. Another good candidate for a riveted tenon tang and conversion into a T stake. Just a few thoughts to ponder. Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

Nice simple design. Projects don't need to be elaborate. The simple designs are often much better because of their simplicity. And the key to them is in how you make them. Make them well, and it shows through - far better than an elaborate design poorly made. Good first project. Have fun with the next ones. Mikey

I've moved lots of heavy objects using cribbing, jacks, and a come-a-long ... all the way up to full 20x20 buildings. First think of safety - if it should fall for any reason, or for "pinch points" on ropes/chains/cable. It is amazing what you can do with stacks of small thickness cribbing. Just lift one end up and put another board under. Then do the same for the other side. But stack them up CAREFULLY. And if lifting one end is too much, just put a jack under it - like a high-lift farm/utility jack. Simple, basic, and fast. You will be amazed at how fast you get that anvil up level with your stand. Then put a couple shorter bars between your stand and cribbing, and slide it over. Screwing eyebolts into beams can work, but one BIG problem. If those eye bolts are just screwed into the beam, then everything is being supported by the threads in the wood. It is far easier to strip out those threads through the wood than many people think. If you are using eye bolts, they need to be bolted through the beam - with larger washers on the other side. One other quick option for using a hoist from the beams: Use a couple U straps to bolt a thick bar to several beams. The U straps will spread the strain up to several points through the beams, and bolting that bar to several beams will spread the total weight over several beams. A 1 inch thick bar anchored to 3 or 4 beams will greatly reduce the strain on any one point. Thick walled pipe would also work. My first choice would be stacks of 2x boards for cribbing, and "walking" the anvil up till high enough. Then either slide the stand underneath and "walk" it down by removing cribbing, or swing it one end at a time over onto the stand. If you want lots of clearance around and below the anvil when raising/lowering it, tie a couple 4x4's to the top of the anvil, and put your cribbing under them out far enough from the anvil. Keep it simple --- and safe. Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

How does that old poem go about the blacksmith? Who makes all the tools for all the other crafts? Yeah, about the only thing a blacksmith can't make is lots of money. Mikey -- Women and cats will do as they please, men and dogs must ... well, duck for cover!

Before you start forging on a chain link, do a spark test on it. Be sure that you see lots of short twinkling sparks when you touch it to a grinder. That should show you if it is really case-hardened. You can spark test it on the narrow end of the link, since that area will not be part of the striking surface of your final striker. But try hard not to scale up that chain link too much when forging it. And scale will decrease that case-hardened outside layer on the chain link. So flatten out the twist in the original chain link, flatten it out and stretch its length to where you want it, and do so with as few heats and little scaling as you can. Because of how well those chain links worked into good flint strikers, I also tried to forge the cut links into other styles/shapes of flint strikers. But that is where I found out about losing that case-hardened outside layer. I scaled them too much in the forge, and I ... shifted ... the metal around too much - redistributing that high carbon layer. Some worked OK. Some worked poorly. And some just wouldn't spark. Lesson learned! Have fun with your project! Mikey - pondering what other "trade secrets" to share

A lot of times that wire will ... work harden. Just bending/forming it will harden it up. I've made a bunch of watch chains from those rolls of "utility" tie wire. And it stiffens up well and will hold my pocket watch to my vest real well. I've also done similar things with barbwire. I untwist it, straighten it, and then work it as needed. I even make fish hooks out of it, and "vent picks" for flintlock guns. The bending/forming hardens them up all by itself. But the vent picks I do heat them to put in a decorative twist, and then quench. So it all depends upon what metal the wire is really made from. Mikey

Just don't accidentally drop any honey on that corn before you burn it! Black bears have been known to travel miles to follow the scent of burnt honey! (scorched honey is often drizzled over bait for black bears in Minnesota and Wisconsin) Mikey