bluerooster

#1, my fire pot still has paint on the outside of it, despite 200 pounds of coal being used in it. It's only about 3/16" thick. #2, I usually end up with coke on the left, and coal on the right, even though I started out with green coal all the way around. I dunno why, but that's the way it is.

Red Clay= dirt in Georgia.

I find that I'm constantly poking the fire. Either to fill a void, or poke out a clinker, or add coke, or something. My fire pot is kinda shallow at only 4", and as a result I build the fire kinda mounded above so I get close to 6" of hot coke. about 2" of coking coal, and about 3" of wet coal. I usually have quite a mound of coal/coke, with a hole in the top to allow it to breathe. I have been known to pack it down too tight for air to flow. (oops) But I'll poke around and loosen it up a bit. I don't really mind the "coke cave" as it seems to help hold in the heat. But it gets busted up eventually. I try to feed the fire from the sides, and not from the top. Pushing the coke into the pot, and sliding coal over it to coke up. But inevitably I get a little green in there too. Not much but enough to smoke some. But it's usually on top of the coke, not down in the pot. After about an hour or so, everything that I've loaded into the forge for that session, has pretty much coked up, and I get very little green going into the fire from then on. But there is some, from time to time. For my forge, it requires constant tending. But it works for me.

I haven't, but I will if I can find a copy for cheap.

Took my piece of "roadkill" steel for a test drive today. Found it to be a decent quality hardenable steel. So now I need to find a project for it. Also made a swage block of sorts, to help me shape a gouge chisel. It worked quite well for a down and dirty home brew tool. :D

Trial and error. Many errors. Once I got the handle forged out, and the thumb part forged and riveted in place, I had left the tang on the thumber too long, which allowed me to bend and fit it to the latch arm, then cut off the excess. The pivot point for the latch arm was determined by "best guess" as to the throw needed to dis-engage the latch from the striker. then the rod was cut to length. (which turned out to be about 4" too short) so I had to add some length to it. I had to counter weight the latch arm, as it wasn't heavy enough to lift the latch into place. (the extra 4-6 inches added to the rod caused this) Anyway, amazingly enough it works. What prompted me to attempt this project was watching your thumb latch video. Which leads me to a question; you did some hot rasp work on the handle. Is that a rasp specially designed for hot work, or will any old rasp/file do?

Here's my one and only attempt. Installed on the basement door. I still need to make the bolts to attach it.

Went to the bank today, and as I was leaving there was a mudflap laying in the intersection. Complete with the bracket, and hardware. Woo Hoo! Free steel! I grabbed it, got it back to the house and took it apart. I now have 30" of 5/8" square stock, and about 40" of 3/16x1.25" flat stock. 5 Stainless 5/16" bolts, lock nuts, and 10 flat washers. along with 4 of the thin hanger straps. I'll give the nice looking Peterbilt mud flap to my neighbor to go on his dump truck.

Oh it's there, trust me on that. I guess being oriented crossways, and the camera angle makes it appear to not be there.

Not smithing, but it's "what I did in the shop today". Gave the airplane a bath, and changed the oil. Then had to dry it off, so I went for a flight to blow the water off so it doesn't spot. Thank you, It's a "homebrew ALO". I like it too, but I wish it had a horn. May add one in the near future.

I'm in dire need of a drawknife, and have a rear spring from a Model A Ford. So, I fire up the forge and cut off a short piece of it. I got it forged out and shaped, filed an edge on it, and now needs heat treat and handles. I gave it a test drive in it's "as forged" condition, it works pretty well. Can only get better once heat treated and honed to a scalpel sharpness.

DSW, I really enjoyed the video. And a great little paring knife. I spent a few hours finishing up the drawknife forging, and sharpening. Now I need to make handles for it. But I need to build a lathe, and some chisels, to turn the handles. It works pretty good though, and I've been needing one for quite a while now.

Well, I had to go to the bank today, and on the way home stopped by the local farrier supply. They were open, so I picked up 100 pounds of coal. "Fresh coal", as the guy who delivered it was still there. :D Anyway, I had some other errands to run, and couldn't fire the forge until about 3:00. Got the forge fired up, and put the back scratcher on "the back burner" because I need a draw knife. Don't need it until next week, but I don't know how long it will take my noobie self to make a satisfactory one, so I'd best start now. Sure, I could go buy one, (probably made in a foreign country, from foreign material) Or I can make one here in the U.S.of A, out of material made here in the U.S.of A. I opted for the latter, and on the upside I get an education. I took the second to main leaf from a Model A Ford leaf spring, and started the process. Fired up the forge, and heated it up, got a good hot spot on the leaf, and cut it off at about 9.5". Never having made a drawknife before, I figured I'd draw out the tangs first, then work on the blade. I manged to get it all roughed in before I ran out of time. I still have work to do with it, but it's starting to take shape. Today was one of those days where the stars aligned themselves, and things went swimmingly. I'd never had what I would consider the perfect fire in the forge, but today, I got as close as I'd ever seen. And no camera. Well, I had the opportunity between heats, banked the fire, and got a beverage, and my cellphone. The fire was never the same after. Oh well.

Stump toes or not. That is one nice blade. One of these days I hope to be able to do something like that.

A box full of dirt for a forge, and a bag of hardwood lump charcoal to fire it. A $20 chunk of steel from the scrap yard for a 100 pound anvil, and you're good to go.

I did up my anvil with 3 different radii on the edges, and one square edge.

How do you develop a useful scrap pile ? In my case it takes time. I just toss everything made of ferrous metal in a pile. Non ferrous metal goes into a separate pile. And small stuff goes into a bucket, which I have to dump out and scrounge through on occasion. I really need to sort it all out one of these days.

As to the barn full of dry hay, it's really not that bad. With solid walls and all, But I figured there might be a slight chance that a spark out the flue might find a crack. For the most part there were very few fireflies anyway. (keeping the airflow down, and not adding a whole lot of fresh fuel at a time. That's when I usually get the fireflies is when I throw a scoop of fresh fuel on. Anyway, here's the start of the back scratcher. I also screwed up, and scarred my anvil with the cutting of the fingers. And I have a plate handy just for that purpose, but didn't use it. I guess you could say that I got caught up in the moment. The hand is a bit wonky, but I still have to bend, and finish the fingers, and draw out the handle some more. You can see the cuts in the anvil face.

Spent the day doing a little bush hogging, then took down a couple of snags. After that got my youngest to run the lawn mower for a while. The plan was to drink beer while watching him work. :D Then I got started thinking about th' Ol' Lady, trying to scratch her back this morning. She needs a back scratcher. So I figured I'd make one the would fit the bill. Only trouble is I'm out of coal. But I have 30 pounds of charcoal, :). So, I decided to try charcoal in my dedicated coal forge. (the charcoal forge has no hood or flue yet). Well, I managed to get the thing started anyway. Got the hand part ready to cut the fingers, and then set about drawing out the handle. Then time didn't allow me to finish, so I just worked untill the fire burned down to the point that I could work no longer without adding more charcoal. My butt was puckered the whole time. Picture barn full of dry hay, charcoal forge inside, along with the resulting fireflies, and a windy day. If that ain't a recipe for disaster, I don't know what is.

I've managed to do nothing for the past two weeks. Cut some brush, fixed the HVAC in the house, and hooked th' Ol' Lady up with a jigsaw table in her craft room. Got no coal, supplier is closed for now. Looks like ya'll have been busy, and making neat stuff.

This one is the 15th edition. And it's chock full of blacksmithing info, and tooling, complete with dimensions, and drawings, for various tongs, and hardy tools. Does your 23rd edition have anything pertaining to blacksmithing?

Very nice work.

Ya'll have been busy. I've done nothing as I'm out of coal, and the source is "closed for the duration." I guess it's back to charcoal despite the fire risk of "fire flies".

A book that I've used many times in years past, but has finally come into my possession. It's been well used, and is still worth it's weight in gold. There were two copies in the drawer, I gave one (the older copy) to the grandson of my friend who owned them.

That's the kind of work I'd like to turn out some day. (mabe 100 years from now )