sidesaddle queen

On 8/1/2016 at 10:45 AM, Frosty said:

Hold fasts is a good place to use coil spring though mild works fine. A sharp edge isn't what grabs the shaft, it's friction generated by huge pressure when the steel is bent.

Below is a hold fast I made for holding RR spikes so the heads won't interfere. The large foot doesn't mar hot steel when tightened though I should've curved it up, as the inside edge bites thicker work. It's 1/2"  hot rolled rd.

Frosty The Lucky.

COOL!

the fireplace in the house was huge.. took a 40" log. he grew up with wood fires for cooking and heat..  never had a issue with fire..  the only thing he ever burned up were steaks on his bbq..lol!! i am careful with my fireplace..  lol!!  i plan to burn those fire ants up was soon as this cold front passes.. going from 82 to 38  crazy even for east texas.. pouring rain right now,,,  so i am doing leather work.

2 hours ago, Frosty said:

Lots of SMALL pieces of wood, you aren't bringing it to forging temp, just almost normalizing.

Yeah, what blacksmith doesn't like fire?

Frosty The Lucky.

lots of small pieces.. lol!!  100s of small branches,, it is full now,,  fire ants got me so i had to come in but it is ready for the morning!!!  lol!  yeah ,, fire is fire i guess but i love wood burning.. i remember coming home from college , as i turned down the road i could tell daddy was home.. flames were shooting 6 ft out of the fireplace chimney  lol!  he loved big fires..

i have lots of good books on learning the how to.. i love history, so i already have  lots of old books on blacksmithing, so i am sure i will love this one,,  

No local blacksmiths near me.. the closest is 100 miles,  1 1/2 hr drive   and he has the same dead oaks as i do..  my brother lost 100s of them.   i lost 3 that are over 200 yrs old.. one is covered in burls.. i am hoping to get some of them cut off and debarked.  it is a shame..  more down wood the we can ever use.. i do have a fireplace and use it there but it is 80 degrees here right now. lol!!

i will have fun with the burn barrel and clean up my place at the same time..  i was looking for a reason to put metal in burning wood..  i love wood  fires..  lol!!

thanks thomas!! i just put that book in my amazon cart!!!

frosty.. the gullet piece will fit i check it before i asked..  i was planning to leave the old ashes , i can't get them out.. they are a hard brick..

i have tons of oak and pecan branches  on the ground everywhere..  the record breaking freeze last winter killed most of our southern white oaks and damaged the pecans..  the recent high winds dropped more wood than i will ever need.. most is going into a big burn pile.. i hate to burn like that but there is just so much!!

thanks again!!  i am learning so much on this site!!!

frosty, what about using an old burn barrel instead of a bbq.   i have one that is about 1/3 full of ash..  one  side has a hole in it ,,about 10"x 8" . could i put the charcoal in there ??

they master tree makers  had jigs and patterns ..the wood tree is made first and then the metal was shaped and riveted..   some by hand, some by hydraulics i think, i found a machine press company that made the original press for the 1830s..  !!!! here in the states!! the owner contacted when he found out what i was doing lol!! they still make a spin press that would work for me . for 10k..lol!!!

i have one book on knife making, an old one,,  i try to buy the oldest i can find on things..  i found some good hints..

i keep the original holes in the metal and drill the one hole in the wood first .. the one where the shape has changed the least.. then i clamp everything with torque vise grips and drill the new holes in the wood then without undoing the vise grips i set the rivets..  the metal has to make tight  contact with the wood on both sides,

it is kinda a rush when it works!!!    lol!!  

there is no one in the states anymore that remembers how to do it and only 2 or 3 in the uk ..  it is a lost art..  

it is challenging and i bet you would really find it interesting ..  there are so many nuances that have to be dealt with ..it is like a complex puzzle you can ride at the end.. !! lol!!

i have been heating it up in the spots i wasn't to move but the result shifts of the rest of the metal has created issues..  lol!!! i understand the metal but can't find the correct process to make it happen

i can tweak the ends no problem, i can move them cold or heat with  a hand torch..but the center and first 2 bends are 1/4 thick.. it will not bend cold ,   the twists and turns of the piece do not really show in the photos..  i need to get a torch but though i would see if i could do it with my forge..  by annealing the whole thing i can reshape it to the new wood shape..  

 tweaking 1/4"  thick 1 1/4" wide piece like this  needs heat to do it right.. the rider's safety depends on it 

frosty!!   thank you, good idea!     i will see if i and find and bbq around here..  the holes are the original rivet holes.. i am having to reshape the metal and make the holes line up with hole in wood and the piece of iron on the other side..lol!!

shaping  thin metal with different widths and thicknesses is very hard.. it really will make you think about what great talent they had  doing this say and day..  some of the trees are pure works of art in wood and metal

i can move the metal fine when i make repairs from scratch.. usually thinning the 1"to 1 1/2"wide metal from 11g to 18 g and curving it to fit..  i didn't want to replace this piece..  it is so well made..and i figured i would learn a lot from making work..lol!!  

i have 2 books on body and fender repair..   that was the only place i could find the skill set i needed to do this..    plus my son rebuilds cars so i use some  of his tools too but he is new school and i need old school skills..  

mild steel is a term i use because people know what i am talking about now..

sidesaddle tree ironworks are rarely made from cast iron  i have one western one that has a cast front with pommel  and cantle support and i have the us patent on it.. it was not popular. this is the only existing example any of us in the sidesaddle world have seen..  

i have never see one with wrought iron   but mine only go back to the 1830s..  the ones i seen in photos of saddles older than 1830s  did not have the metal support.. just thicker wood..

lol!   sober might be better,, hehehe,   i proofread it , i promise..   i am always sober now days.. maybe some wine would help.... thanks for the info.. i have read and studied but hearing it in simple terms is nice..

i only have a small gas forge.. i can heat all but 4" of the long point , but i do not need to reshape the part much so i figured it would be okay..

i wish  had a torch, i know how to a torch for all kinds of things..  .. i used mine in  sculpting but i gave it to an old boyfriend and never got it back..  lol!!  the money from this saddle repair will buy me an new one

i bought a larger gas forge but don't have it set up yet.. 

the forging is the original work..  i am trying to rework it..  working small areas is not the way to go.. it is moving where i don't want it to .. not much but enough there is tiny areas of daylight  i can't have that..  so i am thinking annealing all of it  and making the whole thing sober will be easier to reform it.. if i anneal it to make it  easier to work.. what color to heat it to? Burning it in to the wood to fit is what caused part of the damage to begin with, so that is not a choice,..

the rebuilt wood tree front..  with gullet iron in place,     the metal goes from 1/4" in the middle tapering to 18 g at the points with curves everywhere..  lol!!  you can see the forge marks near my fingers..

HI!!   thanks, for the quick response!! I am working with a gullet piece from a late 1890s saddle that is forged ..thick center to thin ends ..it is driving me crazy trying to reshape.. I was thinking about just annealing the whole piece and then reshaping it..    what color should I take it to?? When I repaired the tree I made it wider to fit a modern horse..  lol!  not thinking about the gullet steel..

it is a biomorphic Form and  the changes I need are small, but, that makes it harder.. hehehehe.  it is above  my skill range .. for the moment..  so I can weld a piece of modern mild steel to the old stuff for repair?? that would help  a lot..  save me some time too.    I have been rebuilding the whole piece if part of it was missing.

I am doing great!! lots of saddle work getting done, starting to work some horses , even rode a couple... and finishing halter breaking my foals so I can sell them...  it is warm here so I am playing outside as much as possible,,

how are you..??  getting any forging done??  want to see a photo??

I work a lot with older mild steel on my sidesaddles..  I was wondering about the changes in composition and if there are things should or should not be done to the old metal..   do they anneal the same way??    can I weld them together ??

that answers a question i had too.. thanks!!!  

LOL!  don't remind me!!  i have no idea what i am giving for Christmas this yr.. probably shelled Texas pecans..  easy and makes everyone happy.. 

so much good information!!!    i learn something every time i visit...  thanks y'all!!!!

hogs destroyed my pastures 2 yrs ago.. one sow decided she lived here..lol!!  she took up with one of my horses..  i looked out and they were standing the shade of a crepe myrtle  tree..lol!! 

a lot of the hunters got together and for weeks hunted hogs.. they set some of those big spin traps..   folks eat them around here.  i have not had any damage or seen hog tracks since,, 

not my favorite either.. lol! i love bays with appy and tobiano color  but he was starving a woman's back yard so i rescued him ... planning on gelding and selling him to a good home  lol!!! i fell in love with  his personality .  that was 12 yrs ago..   his foals get his great legs and mind.. easy to train .. i keep the bays.. lol!!

paint and pinto foals are so pretty!!!   i bet you loved looking over the field, thomas...

okay, thanks.. i never thought about the horn being different than the face...  learn something every time  i visit!!

JHCC , i do not own the vulcan. anvil . it is  borrowed from a dear friend,, 

this description was on a new anvil..  i   had never seen that before..  some of the the other anvils on that site   didn't say that..

 does that mean all old anvil horns should not be used for cold forging??

frosty, here are photos of her sire. sunshine..  palomino and buckskin are created by the creme gene in one dose, perlino and cremello and double dose.. 

18 hours ago, Frosty said:

The Sunshine gene, I'll have to see what I can find out about it. What color is her skin or is it too soon to tell for the long term?

Frosty The Lucky.

she is a perlino, bay base with 2 dilutes.. one dominate cream,  one recessive cream,,,aka the sunshine gene.. ..   she will be a bit dark and richer in color with a pale pumpkin skin...    this is her at 7 weeks. you can see the color in the skin ..her sire is the horse in my sidesaddle photo 

2 hours ago, Frosty said:

Thank you Darlin, much appreciated.  

Just to be sure; she's REALLY a horse of a different color? That's just too cool.

One of these days. <sigh>

Frosty The Lucky.

yep,  she is the real thing!!  lol!!  her momma is a bay..  without the sunshine gene you can't get this color  from a bay.. it was fun research breeding to prove the gene,,, 

17 hours ago, Frosty said:

Ooooh, does that foal have blue eyes or is it the camera angle? Filly or Colt? I loved it when we had foals, we got them used to being handled and loved on as soon as the dame would let us near. A couple days at most, all our horses were very handlable. 

The big trick with handling foals was teaching them NOT to play with us. It's the only time I've been kicked or reared on. Teaching them not to rear on you is as easy as pushing them over. . . Once. Usually a swat on the ribs was enough though.

Frosty The Lucky.

   filly!!  her eyes are pale blue, her sire has ice green eyes.. so her should be aren  be when she is grown .. she out of my stallion and caries a newly discovered color gene..  his foals are born broke.. they are like puppies.. so easy to work with.. 

frosty, i  put her photo  up just for you.. lol!!   thought you would like seeing her.. ll!!!