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I Forge Iron

pnut

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Everything posted by pnut

  1. Fowllife, I don't like doing monetary transactions on my current internet connection. So I have to go to a store. None of the stores around me have a cross pien lighter than 3# . A cross pien would be my first choice but I can only get what I can find. I think that's the ball pien. Unfortunately it has a round face. The engineer hammer at Walmart has a square face but weighs two and a half pounds. The synthetic handle is pretty short too. When I build up some stamina I'll get the three pound cross pien. Until then It's down to the square headed engineer hammer or round headed ball pien.
  2. Latticino, it's an engineers hammer I was talking about but mini-sledge is the name Walmart stuck on it. Coincidentally it does have a fiberglass handle. The ball and cross piens have wood. I'm leaning towards the two# ball pien just because it's the most comfortable to swing. I haven't been able to work with it but at the store it's the most comfortable. Thanks for the advice.
  3. Glenn , for some reason there seems to be a drought with regards to ball piens at my local flea market. I'm going to check again this weekend. I couldn't find any over a pound. Someone must have gotten there before me. I can get a two pounder at TSC today though for about ten or twelve bucks.
  4. Which hammer first? I'm just starting out and have been combing the local flea market, junk shops and antique stores and have had no luck with finding any hammers over a pound or pound and a quarter. I will definitely keep looking but in the meantime the only hammers I can find new are a two pound ball pien, three pound cross pien ,or two and a half pound Walmart mini sledge. I'm not a big guy, 5'8"and 145#. I plan on eventually buying the three pound cross pien but I'm wondering if I should buy the two pound ball pien or two point five pound sledge first. I'm leaning towards the mini sledge at 2.5 pounds because it's the cheapest. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks,. Pnut (Mike)
  5. Jlp those are the filters I was thinking of. You can get a scrim clamp to put on a tripod to hold them. If you can't find anything searching for scrim holder try gobo stand. It's short for go between. Like between camera and subject or light and subject
  6. Also adhesive and camera lenses aren't something I'd recommend.
  7. They make large square optical glass filters that slide in a holder. When I say large I mean medium format , I think 4x4 inches. You put them between the lens and the subject. I haven't priced filters for about seven years but I think they have a pretty broad price range. You could also shoot through any piece of glass witout ttoo much distortion. The closer the lens to the glass the better. If you do just use glass make sure it is in line with the focal plane of the camera. I used to take pictures at the aquarium near where I used to live by putting the lens against the glass and you can't tell the glass is there.
  8. pnut

    thrall?

    Thomas, I'm not sure if it's the same documentary but I bet If you watch you can see the master smith directing the strikers with his hammer. Did you notice how clean the Japanese sword smiths stay. I watched a video and thy were wearing white If I go near anything sooty or grease covered I get it on me.
  9. pnut

    thrall?

    In the video series jhcc posted on traditional African blacksmithing you can see and hear the rhythm of the apprentice on the bellows. It's great as those are two things I'm very interested in. Smithing and percussion. It's the best of both worlds.
  10. pnut

    thrall?

    They still use this method in Africa every documentary or magazine article shows a younger person whom I am assuming is the apprentice operating the bellows for the older master smith.
  11. pnut

    thrall?

    Yes. Thats why I couldn't make sense of it. People were writing about it like a piece of equipment and not a person and as latticino points out they probably were treated like equipment. I just assumed it was a blacksmith specific term I wasn't familiar with and not the common usage of the word. I know now though. ;-)
  12. pnut

    thrall?

    I knew thrall was synonymous with "bondsman" or servant but I didn't make the connection. I thought ,"That couldn't mean slave." But I guess it does. Learn something every time I log in here. My rationale was that the lever was in service to the bellows. That is the direction my thinking lead me. I didn't think it was the literal meaning of a bellows thrall (bellows servant). I thought it had to be something else Lol
  13. pnut

    thrall?

    I have an easily answered question. A bellows thrall is the mechanism that actually pumps the bellows. The lever you pull or push to pump the bellows. Please let me know if I am correct in my assumption as I haven't seen it defined anywhere. I am guessing based on the context that I see it being used.
  14. Hold your arms out and spin through the melee you'd be deadly;-)
  15. Hi ausfire,they look like slitters from a belt fed line. I used to work at a rubber refinery and we used slitters like that on the extrusion line to make strips for the side walls of tires. Some were triangular like those we also had round blades that rolled. The triangular ones were only used for certain compounds for
  16. The next meeting is at the end of the month.i don't want a Cold forge for that long. At the next meeting I plan on getting some coal or at least making some inquiries about coal and coke suppliers . I'm trying to find someone I can meet closer to where I live so I can carpool with them. My car is old enough to buy beer and has a quarter million miles on it. I have to keep it running as long as possible. I have to think if making a two hour round trip is worth the miles on my car. That's why I'm trying to get in touch with a KY member and meeting them to carpool to the meeting. I need a running vehicle more than I need coal. I do agree I'd like to go just to talk with some other smiths and learn some things from them. Hopefully I'll be able to make it to the meeting at the end of the month.If Not charcoal it is.Im gonna give corn a shot who knows I might like using it. There's a guy on here farther back in the thread named David Thomas who likes the performance of corn so I thought I would check it out. Who knows I May be a corn convert
  17. It's about an hour drive to get to the Cincinnati blacksmithguild or I can drive South about eighty miles to Elkhorn coal and coke supplies on the other side of Louisville. Either way gas and time included I might as well use charcoal or spend seven bucks to see how corn works out. I'll probably go to the cbg meeting this month but until then I'm curious as to how corn will work. Cincinnati blacksmith's guild is the closest abana affiliate to me if I forgot to mention it.
  18. I picked some feed corn up on the way home from work . Stopped at TSC to get a couple fire bricks and remembered to check into corn prices, Fifty lbs for seven bucks and change. now I need a day off and the weather to ccooperate. I may be asking for too much. ;-)
  19. I watched the video and you were right that was an impressive flame. I didn't know that corn cokes like that. It must be the sugar content in the corn. That seemed like it takes a healthy air flow to get hot also. I'm going to give it a try and see if I like it. . Thanks again David Pnut (Mike)
  20. thanks Dave. I will definitely give it a go. It's going to come down to cost alone. I'm unable to make charcoal right now so I will have to buy whatever fuel I use. I haven't found a source for coal yet. The box monstrosity by me has hardwood lump charcoal for 30bucks for 45lbs. So it's cheaper than mail order coal with shipping but I'm sure I could easily get 100lbs of feed corn for less. I'm not sure I'm guessing but it should be cheaper. Thanks
  21. I've heard about it but wasn't sure if you need to turn it into charcoal first like wood. I know it's not necessaryy and people do use wood in the forge but I don't want a big flame radiating heat on me. I know you can transfer coals from a fire pit. So is it better to use a retort with feed corn? I guess the question is, do you prefer getting rid of all the byproducts in a retort or do you just use corn as is in the firepot?
  22. Charles, I see. Since I have to burn charcoal I will probably change to a t fitting so I can bleed off some air. I originally planned on using anthracite but the tractor supply here can't be bothered with trying to help the likes of me. That's the impression I got anyway. The girls at the customer service desk who look all of 18 acted like they were doing me a favor by answering my questions at all.so I'll be usingcharcoal .
  23. Fleur de lis, it looks ok to me. Is there any de-lams? Cut off the ends and make sure grind the faces a little and you should be good. I think the wrinkles May need ground off to avoid Cold shuts. Is there anything I'm not seeing? I can't tell if those are wrinkles or cracks I finally seen it on a monitor instead of my phone. You may be able to grind past the cracks and get down to good steel. If not you have the right way of looking at it as a learning experience. Good luck
  24. The cooking spray as release agent sounds like a great idea. Does the refractory create a weak exothermic rreaction or does it dry by a different process. I realize it can't be producing too much heat as the crayons don't melt. The reason I ask is that a slight exothermic reaction would make the crayons warm and easier to release from the refractory. I'm assuming that since you sprayed them there's no exo-reaction but you know what they say about assuming.
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