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I Forge Iron

blazerbud

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  1. For convenience, a link to our registration form for the celebration is below: AACB 50th Anniversary Celebration Invitation Announcemnet.pdf
  2. Guys, Below is the brochure and registration form for the upcomming Appalachian Area Chapter 50th Anniversary Celebration on April 17th and 18th. We will have our Southern Blacksmith Association project on display at this event. The SBA conference in Madison, GA is on May 14th through 17th. The reg. form and brochure for it are also below. Hope to See you there. If you have never been to a conference, and you have been missing out, please come to our 50th Anniversary Celebration. It has free admission to AACB members. Joining our Group allows admission to the event, and then get excited about blacksmithing all over again. This will expose folks to the conference style setting, you will meet folks who you will want to forge with again at the SBA Conference in May. 2015_SBA_Brochure_LetterSize.pdf AACB 50th Anniversary Celebration Invitation Announcemnet.pdf
  3. ​Josh, Did you get the email that I sent out with the Welcome letter and Invitation to the 50th Anniversary Celebration? I am somewhat new at handling this myself, our secretary has to send the person in charge of sending out announcements the list of people to send them to, and our former person who did the announcements has handed that off to me. So, I am just making sure that it is working. Thanks, Bud LaMonica
  4. ​Josh, Did you get the email that I sent out with the Welcome letter and Invitation to the 50th Anniversary Celebration? I am somewhat new at handling this myself, our secretary has to send the person in charge of sending out announcements the list of people to send them to, and our former person who did the announcements has handed that off to me. So, I am just making sure that it is working. Thanks, Bud LaMonica
  5. Hey Everyone, Please see the attached brochure featuring details about the Appalachian Area Chapter of Blacksmiths 50th Anniversary Celebration Hammer In. We hope to see you there. Bud LaMonica President of the Appalachian Area Chapter of Blacksmiths AACB 50th Anniversary Celebration Invitation Announcemnet.pdf
  6. I have really enjoyed this thread. Everyone has been spot on, and I would like to add that I think that the importance of what we do, exceeds the gratification that we individually get from practicing this craft. The skills of the blacksmith that are preserved in our knowledge and practice of the craft and promoted through teaching and collective exhibition at conferences ensures that the craft will live on. I too agree with many of you that I have never met a better group of folks than the ones I have meet through my blacksmithing journey.
  7. Thank you Glenn. We will shortly have our websites modified with links back to iforgeiron.
  8. Hello all, Please make palns to attend the Biannual 2013 Southern Blacksmithing conference in Madison, GA. details can be found at the following link: http://www.sbaconference.com This conference is always a good one.
  9. Looking at the photos and compairing them to the ones in Anvils in America, i would agree that it could be a mousehole standard london Pattern. Could you post an absolute profile picture of it. The radius under horn on the moushole anvils seems to stand apart from some other london patterns from the photos that I have seen.
  10. Looking forward To SBA Madison Conference 2013

  11. Just a safety note. You should always refer to an MSDS. Other than that, I think that anyone handling such materials should equip themselves with pH paper, and as noted before some soda ash or lime, kind of like a spill kit.
  12. The following isn't neccesarily my belief but could be a mathematical possibility: Everyone is neglecting the possibility that anvils were used on other planets that could pre-date ours. Also, in the cycle of Big Bangs, there could have been previous universes without records remaining of them.....some of these may have had anvils or heaven forbid (Anvil shaped objects) or chinese anvils. It sure would stink to find out that other civilizations were ruined when they started importing cheap tools. Older still, what kind of anvil does God use? Also, How about the possibility of a anvil from a blown-up planet surviving the journey across space and crashing down to earth as a meteorite? Again, even more weird, what if the size of the anvil was super small or super big, as if the people on that planet were not our size, or what if they had three arms?
  13. Thank you Bryce. This is a Spec House and it is her first house, so I just wanted to her to have something special that she can stand out from the rest of the cookie cutter homes in her neighborhood. Thank you for noticing that the work matches. I think that the idea of stuff matching is very important for an over-all affect and it is something that is almost impossible for me to do but is often times overlooked. For me, this was an important achievement. I am not a professional smithy or metal worker. I am a scientist/engineer and I have no ambitions for trying to get into this market even part time. My metal work is a hobby, and the creative energy required to achieve art is very useful in my career job also.
  14. I just completed the installaion of my hand forged handrails in my Sister's new house. I also made the wooden rails out of solid poplar, and I gave them hand hewn tecture. The theme is based upon trees, and the tecture of some of the balusters matches the hand hewn poplar. The poplar rail on the wall was kind of tough to make, it is 14' long and made from a solid piece that was rough cut 3" x 8" and really gnarly, then I ripped it and planed it down to 2-1/2" x 2-1/4", and the edges are rounded over. The house is new construction and you can see that the treadplates are not finished and the walls need touched up, I prepaired all of this so that I could install it fairly easily. The builder is a little behind on some things and needed me to install so he can get the house inspected. Hand rails are part of the important items, the rest of the paint and finish work isn't, so I was happy to have my part complete, but I was bummed to install finish work over unfinished surfaces. Even though I think that it will jerk me around some, I have insisted that I be the one who takes it all down and puts it back up when he has to finish the floors and walls. Since this was for my Sister, I was trying to be as accomodating as possible so they can cram it all in before the closing date even though it seems to be going in in backwards order. I think I have a good appreciation now for why most really skilled subcontractors like finish carpenters won't do their install until everything under them is perfect. Stuff like stained crown molding doesn't come back down, and you don't want it ruined. Please tell me what you think about my handy work. It is somewhat unconventional.
  15. No, you don't want your arm to be trying to hold down the hammer at the end of the blow. You never want any body part absorbing the energy, you want to transfer all energy into the work and make your life as easy as possible. You are describing the wrong kind of striking. Stricking in the manner in which you describe is similar to how a nail is hammered into wood. There is no rebound and the wood absorbs the shock. However, in forgework, You have to stay loose. Your hammer weighs enough to cause tendon and ligament problems if you are fighting it. You have to allow the hammer to rebound with a steady rythm. Muscles are used to bring the hammer down and very little effort is required to pick it back up if any. And as you are in a rythm, when you want harder hits, make them harder or bring it up further before your down stroke. The steel that you are forging absorbs most of the rebound. In the case of a mis-hit and a huge rebound. Your arm and hammer should fly back up just as you describe, but the hammer and your arm should not be coming anywhere close to your head or face, unless what you are doing is sighting over your hammer as if it where a gun, which is a no no. Your hammer comes back up to the same point where it started from, so don't start from in front of your face. You should have the ability to fix improper posture quickly, and develop a feel for where the hammer is. It should become an extension of your body and the face of the hammer should become more accurate than Bruce Li's fist. In which case you are not paying attention to body movement, but only to where you want to touch the hammer face on your work.$
  16. That is called an electric hack saw, or reciprocating hack saw.
  17. They look like mini forklift forks. You could make a toy that looks like they picked up too much weight and bent the forks.
  18. Read this and then I have said my piece and will forever be done with the whole mega anvil collection and we can all go back to being friends: Some of you will understand what I am about to describe. I usually speak wisdom through metaphors or analogies. There is an old guy who lives in the small country town where I work. He has on his property the exact model Dodge Charger that was used for the Dukes of Hazard. This car does not run, it was the exact color of the General Lee when it was new. It has probably sat for 25 years in that same spot. I have known about this car and see it every day for the past 12 years. All of the local boys have wanted to buy it and of course make a General Lee out of it. I have inquired about it. Collectors have inquired about it. It is sitting and rusting away, the rubber is collapsed, the windows have all fallen in, all in the short time that I have known this car......Now keep in mind, nobody is trying to take this old guys prized Charger. It isn't about ownership or envy. This car is a prime specimen of what could be a restored General Lee in our community. The issue is about the car, not the people. The owner of such car is obligated to make a General Lee out of it, every car person knows that. I may only have one real anvil and a couple of other chunks of steel, but I bang on them like there is no tomorrow. And when I some day have 5 or 20 more.......NOT 2000 more, I am going to bang on all of them just for the sake of doing it.
  19. The reason that there are cracks now and you may not have experienced this in the past was luck. You must consider that hand forging is inprecise as far as consistency of grain structure, level of decarb, normality, so from time to time, the circumstances are such that you may be able to get away with water quench on 5160, but it is very close to failure. The oil quench will offer greater margin of success, albeit with a lttle less hardness than what might be achieved using water. If you must use water because you really like to use it. normalize it real good then harden by heating to critical and water quench in warm or hot water, not half frozen water if that is the case. temper 1 hour at 350f, air cool, temper 1 hour 375f, air cool, temper 1hour 400f, air cool, final tmeper 425f 1hour
  20. All I know at the moment about the anvil collection is. He IS keeping them safe from becoming lost or scraped, which is good. He has every right to hoard or emass a privately owned collection. We all do. He is probably a really good guy and also helps promote blacksmithing. But, I just can't get over one person having so many when others have none. And I'm not talking about socialism or Left Wing stuff or spreading the wealth. What I mean is there are plenty of smiths who would pay top dollar to own some of those, they aren't looking for a hand-out from the richest person, but the items that they wish to aquire are in really short supply in the open market. I am just not capable of enjoying this collection like most people because I have a different view of what promotes Smithing. I have been blessed that the main guys who started the blacksmithing associations that I am affiliated with have been known for giving of their own self and time and resources to help promote and teach others in this craft, they did not hoard stuff, they aquired it and distributed it, not for free, but for the prosperity of all who could become a part of it. Some of these guys, upon passing away, had all of their stuff donated by their widows to create teaching schools and shops that continue the craft that their late husbands loved so much. As for the Anvils welded to the cross. I think that even xxxxx might be mad that someone can't continue to work the iron with those anvils.
  21. I have own lots of welding equipment, worked as a welder fabricator, and still do lots of welding. For starters, My advise. Find an Old Guy near you who owns some old equipment and is highly skilled. You probably already know one. Hang out with him. He will teach you and let you use his equipment as you learn. Do not purchase anything and expect to just take off and learn or get good on your own. By the time that you are skilled enough to even consider purchasing your own equipment, the following will happen: 1. You will have developed some new skills and a exposed hidden tallent 2. You will know better about what equipment you need 3. Somehow in the couple months that you are welding stuff at your friend's shop you will have found the time to locate the correct used equipment If you purchase a crappy welder spur of the momment, then the following week, you will likely discover a good one for the same price but you will have missed it.
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