Bantou

Based on what you have said about the soil composition under your house; we probably need to worry more about those dang B52s y’all call mosquitoes carrying you off than earthquakes. 

Who’d a thunk it right?

I think you are referring to off-sets/knife-makers tongs. I’ll have to look up a set of plans, but I think you are right. I have some 1x1/4 flat that might do the trick if I round out the neck... hmm, maybe I don’t need plans. Obviously, I don’t mind a puzzle .

Every improvement feels like a success. I did pick up some railroad spikes yesterday to make steak flippers for Fathers’ Day. I just need to make a set of tongs or two to work them. 

Thank you. I don’t think the bottom set is going to turn out as well. They didn’t get as sharp of a taper as the top set. I’m still getting a feel for what angle to hold the steel at to get the taper I want. As a result, the taper lost a lot of its definition when I split it. It may surprise me when I curl them (I ran out of time today), but I’m not holding out much hope. 
 

As an aside, I need to make a set of goose necks before continuing the project. I had to pour water on the “cold” side pretty regularly to keep it cool enough to hold. I doubt I’ll be able to handle the shorter cross piece without a set of tongs. 

Finally got a chance to fire the forge back up today. Life has been... complicated the last few weeks. Did some more work on the finials and got it just about where I want it. Tapering to length instead of trying to guess where to start made all the difference in the world. 
 

They look a little lopsided because my split wasn’t perfectly down the middle. Other than that, I’m pretty happy with them. Putting a piece of 3/8 round in the vise definitely helped separate the two sides all the way down the split. 
 

Didn’t realize I had this one until I started looking through my pictures.

Alexandr, how do you attach the rod to the sphere? Heat the sphere and drive the tenon in with it hot? 

It might have been the “Heat Treat” app put out by HTS. The app is a little more technical than you probably need but it has all kinds of info about nearly every alloy. 
 

On 5/23/2021 at 11:19 AM, Frosty said:

Everybody rolls super hero characters and you're killing demigods and such right from the start. BLECH!

 

Part of that is 5e and part of it is the DM. I reserve the right to tell my players no if I think it will make them too overpowered for the campaign. My biggest frustration is with the dice. I swear my players make sacrifices to the dice gods before every session. They make fantastic rolls 75-80% of the time and my monster rolls suck an equal percentage. I know it isn’t me though because my DM PC (we have a player that can’t play as often so I play the character when she is absent) rolls on par with the other players. I’ve had them walk out of three “deadly” encounters now without a scratch because of the rolls.

I got into it earlier as well. What Irondragon said is correct. You need to have a group up and running before you can become affiliated. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to try and get a group established from scratch, nor do I have the space to host meetings. I live in a small house in town and recently (just over a week ago) became a single parent to two girls (16&4). 
 

I was hoping that they had resources available to help with starting a group. I don’t mind championing the idea, but I don’t have time for hunting down a place to have meetings, finding funding, planning events, etc. 

I think what I’m going to do for now, is start a Facebook group for central Texas blacksmiths and just see how much traction it gains. If enough people are interested, hopefully one of them will have the time and be better equipped to actually start a group. 

I tried to do that yesterday and again this morning but the website was down. I’ll give it another try now. 

12 hours ago, Frosty said:

HAH! If you don't remember your D&D player characters from the 80s till present you're no proper nerd. 

Frosty The Lucky.

That pre-dates me by a few years lol. I actually just started DMing a campaign a few months ago though. 

I found the number but they are closed until Monday. I’ll give them a call then if I haven’t found the info I need yet. 

How does one go about starting a ABANA affiliated group? I live in an area with lots of hobby smiths but no groups within reasonable driving distance. I tried looking at the ABANA website, but it appears to be down. 

It started as the name of my main character in World of Warcraft (yes I’m a nerd, no I don’t care lol). It’s been my tag online ever since. 

10 hours ago, Frosty said:

Bargaining is a learned skill and often entertaining as all git-out. 

Frosty The Lucky.

When it comes to bargaining, Kenny Rogers gives great advice: “You gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em...”

It’s funny how conditioned you get to bodily excretions as a parent. For the first couple months, brown diapers I changed were done in the bathroom next to the toilet. Now, I can get it on my hand and not even bat an eye. I don’t think I will ever trust a “chocolate” smear again though. I dodged that bullet once and now perform the “sniff test” out of habit. 
 

I wish I had thought of hearing protection, it would have saved many a literal headache. 

3 hours ago, DHarris said:

But before I need worry about storing the coal, I have to first work out how to get the pallet off the trailer. I am thinking run a chain though the pallet and attach it to a spare tire and pull it off. Hopefully the bag doesn’t rip open in the process.

I would suggest unloading at least some the coal before you attempt to drag the pallet off the trailer. 2,000lbs generates a lot of friction, especially with a rough cut board as the “sled.”

3 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

It's not the sand you want it's the Kaolin clay mixed with sand!  Kaolin is one of a group of clays that are used in making fireclays with fusion temps over 2900 degF.

Interesting. Most of the sand around here is red sand. Since koalin is white, I’m assuming it would look closer to beach sand. The sand pit east of Corsicana had white sand if I remember correctly (it’s been a few years since I was out there)

Did the book show any “major” cities? The area it covers is rather large without some form of reference. I’ve only been able to find one copy of the book online. Since it was published by UT, I’m assuming there aren’t very many of them in circulation.

2 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

Well I just ran across: "Wilcox Sand-Kaolins of Northeastern Central TX"  UT publication number 5416, August 15 1954.   

That would definitely be useful. There are several large sand deposits in Central Texas. There are two sand pits that I know of between Cleburne and Waco and one east of Corsicana. 
 

Roadside ditches appear to be public property in Texas; so, I’m guessing it’s legal to harvest a few bucketfuls of sand from them but I don’t know that for sure. 

On 5/19/2021 at 5:05 PM, Frosty said:

You're young Dillion, aggravation is good for you, it helps prepare you for parenthood.

Frosty The Lucky.

On 5/19/2021 at 5:20 PM, ThomasPowers said:

Don't forget sleep deprivation and a tolerance for biological waste!

The beauty of it is, after a few years you forget about how miserable it was and decide doing it again sounds like a great idea. 
 

Please don’t misunderstand me, I would not trade my daughter for the world. The first several months are just grueling. Once they start sleeping through the night, you have turned the corner and it gets better from there... until they turn two at least LOL. 

I didn’t think it would be that easy. I was imagining having to try and drill it out or something similar. 

2 hours ago, Frosty said:

Once you remove the carbide and remaining silver solder you might be able to forge things from them.

Sounds like more trouble than it’s worth. I can’t imagine that the carbide insert is going to be easy to remove

9 hours ago, Frosty said:

Cutting edge is typically 1.5-2% carbon matrix for IIRC 2% tungsten carbide. It's NOT low alloy either, edges don't snap.

Is this true for auger teeth as well? I’ve had my eye on a couple of worn out teeth at work for bottom tools.

I’m probably going to have to chain mine down as well whenever I finally get its permanent stand. At 66lbs, it dances around like crazy. 

Interesting. I wonder if you could use a load binder if you wanted to chain down your anvil and still have some versatility. A couple of lever style load binders don’t look that difficult to make and would allow you to easily unchain the anvil if you needed to manipulate it.