lary

Donniev are the vertical pieces also box tubing? I'm curious how you got the square holes cut if they are.

Das impressive sculptures as always, hope you sell everything.

I've looked at pictures and videos of porta-bands mounted stationary. Haven't done it myself, but am curious how that set up works for you. FWIW I was told by a PSA that infections in a hand are not very common with an open wound. But, still best to get it glued shut to speed up the healing process. 

On 1/17/2023 at 1:31 PM, TWISTEDWILLOW said:

Misses Pink Nose

Good thing it's a bed an not a litter box. 

It seems I mostly use it as a cup warmer. I welded angle iron onto the plate so it would saddle the anvil and not move around much.

These tongs were given to me. There long an heavy, I reworked the jaws so they'll handle 1 inch stock. Don't know if I'll find a use for them.

15 hours ago, Les L said:

My grandfather was a blacksmith in the early 1900’s

So many stories from that generation and the next. My grandparents were young adults during the great depression, then they had to deal with the dust bowl era  in the Midwest that pushed them to the west. They always refereed to it as the 7 year drought. Then next there was the WW2 generation that had to grow up fast. 

Started a another humming bird, and a Mjolnir pendant. 

I wonder if 1 size 40 bottle would be a place to start. The Napa I exchange my bottles/cylinders lets you upgrade to larger bottles when you do the exchange. On my oxygen acetylene I think I upgraded a couple of times before ending up with a size 250 oxy. bottle.

That's some real clean forging Mothman.  Pretty nice Billy, that type of project really tests your ability to make consistent pieces. 

That's pretty clever. These sculptures made from recycled material force me to stare at them because I want to figure out what each piece was/is. That round part makes me think of a centrifugal clutch from a go kart. 

I admit to filling in a hole or two with a welder in order to save the work piece. Either reforging or grinding it smooth so it could be re-drilled. 

Oh boy Glenn. My back is starting to hurt just looking at that.

That rust-oleum primer for rusty metal is great. I've been using it on clean metal for I think 20 years now. It holds up really well even without a top coat. For large projects I'll get it in quart size, thin it with Naphtha and spray it with a cheap hf paint gun.

Shainarue tongs can be quite the mental exercise, but its sure great when you get it figured out.

A size 80 bottle should last a long time in your welding environment. Don't forget to reverse the polarity when you make the switch. 

I'd go with shielding gas set up. If you have to run a bead back over a weld you can do so without much if any clean up. With a 140amp 120volt welder you might be finding yourself doing that with 3/8" or thicker steel a little to often. This brings up another consideration, that maybe this is time to upgrade to either dual voltage/ 220 volt welder. If your doing any kind of volume/production work the difference in duty cycle, penetration,weld bead quality is pretty remarkable.

Nice tongs Goods. What size stock did you start with?

Thank you everybody for the kind words, couldn't of come up with the idea without arkie's inspiration. Now that I have an idea how much 3/4" is needed, next time I'll try upsetting the center of the work piece to give the bird a rounder more plump look. Well, one of these days...when all the other ideas in my head go away.

Thank you wicon for posting that split cross version. Quite a bit of bench work with this sculpture I came up with. Forging, mig welding, flap disk. Drilled a hole in the center of the flower to  stick the tip of the beak in, then used some copper wire to solder it in place.

   I've found hammers pretty cheap at the local rebuild/recycle place, sometimes the handles have to be fixed. I was also going to suggest a  2 to 2 1/2 lbs from HF for the same reason.

...I climbed into the chest freezer to warm up..

The first picture reminds me of the fire pot of a coal furnace.

  Just like with muscle cars there is no replacement for displacement. I see the 60kg version (with the blue paint) keep coming  up on sale. Maybe just a regional thing.

By the way Frosty, Thank you for that dinner triangle analogy. That makes more sense than anything. I've insulated the mass of the anvil from the mass of the stand. I'll take it apart and clean off the caulk.

On 12/10/2022 at 9:11 AM, Frosty said:

 A steel tripod made your anvil louder?

The plate, if you want to call it that, that the anvil sits on is 2 pieces of 1/4x5x3 inch angle welded together, might be a problem with resonating. I didn't have any 1/2 plate laying around at the time. I shaped some 1/2" round to wrap around the feet and threaded the the ends so it could be tightened down. There is caulk between the anvil and base, maybe that doesn't help with steel stands. The legs are 1 x 2 inch box tubing, I did not fill the legs with sand, maybe that's another problem. But the chain and turnbuckle saved the day Its almost as quite as when it was on a wood stand.

That's good advise about the drill bits. As far as the ring, when I first put one of these anvils on a wood stand I caulked the bottom and anchored it down with angle iron and  1/2 x 4 1/2 inch lag screws. It was pretty quite. But I'm working on uneven concrete, so there was always a little wobble to deal with. I built a steel tripod stand. caulked and bolted it down. Now it was obnoxiously loud. Speaker magnet didn't help. A 3/8 chain, and turn buckle (to tighten it down) did the trick.