Strine

Dirt here is much preferred but alas my forging area is paved for the sake of the carpet :cry: Dirt mixed with cow manure is an excellent flooring material. As well as making a lovely mixture to grow petunias in it also has the added advantage of keeping the flies at bay.

My brother lives up the bush about 3 hours drive away. A few years ago he rang to say there was an anvil at a garage sale just around the corner. All he knew about anvils was that I was keen on blacksmithing and should he buy it for me for the $100 asking price. I gave him a few points to check out before he parted with any hard earned; i.e. my hard earned! 1. could he lift it with ease, with a struggle or would he need assistance? 2. did it have two holes up one end...one square one round? 3. did it have a conical end opposite the holy end? 4. is the flat top flat or is it sunken in the middle? 5. are the corners and edges of the top sharp, slightly rounded or really rounded. 6. did it show signs of being a big lump of cast iron 7. generally speaking did it look maltreated. Ten minutes later he rang back with all the answers. By the sound of it it was a 'complete' anvil of about 200lb. He could lift it but it took a bit of effort. All the edges were rounded and the top was reasonably flat..."flat enough for what you want" he said. Beats me how he knew what I wanted :!: As for its genaral condition he said it was "weathered" meaning I suppose that it had lived outside for quite a while and was rusty but didn't have any dings or cuts or chips knocked out. Three hours later I had it on the back of the ute for a total cost of $100 plus a visit to the sister-in-law. Once home, the only treatment I gave it was to wash off the $100 written in chalk. I stuck it in the classifieds (this is long before eBay) and sold it four days later, on the evening of the paper being published, to a second hand dealer for $250, which I shared with little brother. So what was it worth?...... it depends :!:

Rantlin you could try pot hanger hooks... just an "S" hook; small leaves don't take long: salt spoons from horseshoe nails (1 heat): hand made nails (1 or 2 heats): nail in hooks: simple sticking tommy? (single candle holder). That's half a dozen things which would fill in the morning assuming you intersperse your forging with some friendly exchange with the crowd and explanations of this or that. What you found worked a treat last time may not this time "the Public" are a fickle unpredictable lot. Have fun

To the person that whinges about the price of a trinket - offer them the DIY kit which from my experience should only cost a few pennies. When their eyes light up at the thought of a bargain hand over a piece of rusty old scrap iron. On the same subject, some will ask how long this or that took to make thinking, I'm sure, they can haggle over the price. Tell them it took two years watching a master then another 4 years of practise to get it right. If your happy with a price you've set, say $30 for argument's sake and they offer you $25 return the haggle with a price of $35. they'll offer $28, you quote $32. etc etc. Who ever said haggling was always to the advantage of the buyer. Make a little three heat trinket and ask who'ld like to make an offer. I'm often surprised at the response. In all these matters I have found it of great advantage to keep a smile on your face and have as much fun with (not at the expense of) your crowd of onlookers. Being a grumpy old smith is fine in the shop but doesn't go down too well in public. Someone might buy something just as a momento of the good time they had watching the blacksmith.

To the question about shoeing horses. No. I only shoo flies. Or: Yes but I would ask that you supply the stick.....shoo horse, get away with you. Then wax lyrical about how complex the foot of a horse is and that no one in their right mind would let me near it. It is far better to take your horse to a professional horse chiropodist. To the comment about an ancestor being a blacksmith, I reply with...mmmm, I come from a long line of chook (chicken) farmers dating from around 1740 (all lies of course). I still can't lay eggs. Relish the bloke that fronts up, says nothing for quite a while then eventually pipes up and says "I was a blacksmith". That's time to down tools, pull up a couple of stumps and wag the chin (chat) for a while over a brew (cup of tea or coffee)...your shout of course.

2.2046 pounds in a kilogram

YYF you will find my humble offering in relation to knock down portable forges in the Gallery.

Velly interesting. I've been told many times to get a good fire going in a drum. Chuck in the rest of your wood till it reaches the top. Get it burning well and turn the drum upside down to seal off the whole thing. It never works :cry: But, this seems to work fine. Am I right in assuming that some sort of gas is coming out of the drum that fuels the fire underneath. What is it, why does charcoal burn if this gas stuff is lost to the fire below the drum. Read between the lines here to find that I'm not asking on behalf of those that might be a little shy and are reluctant to ask for clarification from the teacher. I'm asking because from experience I've found I haven't got a clue about making charcoal.

Let's see Mecho3hp, is it ten, twenty or thirty years that I have been searching for such a machine. I think it's thirty. I have come close a couple of times but their owners wouldn't part with them. One bloke had one on every bench in his metal spinning/sheetmetal shop. I have only two questions for you. 1. Would you allow me to give it a good Aussie home? 2. Would you give me fair warning of it appearing on eBay

I was always told never to waste a good heat. Now I know what they meant :D

Somepeople have just too much time on their hands... GET BACK TO THE FORGE you lot. Any wonder though that homo sapien is at the top of the tree (in most instances). Now you learned gentlemen and ladies which is easier?...learning the correct order of the letters in any given word or learning how many there should be and which comes first and which comes last. Regards Strine...an obnoctious speling pedent and stickler for correctness

I get the gist. Start with a whopping great piece of hot stuff, get it under a whopping great hammer with the aid of whopping great pairs of tongs and let it rip. Eh presto a shaft. I agree with comments re the saftey glasses...and for "Volvo" of all manufacturers :wink: Are the parking lights on the hammer kept on day and night? And I totally concur with comments about the nature of the work. Jolly well done...keep up the good work and the posts. Great stuff...love to see more

G'day Ian, I'll give you twenty minutes :wink: The first question asked of people getting off the plane is "So....how do you like Australia" We can be pretty dumb sometimes. A "country" is mostly the people, with some nice scenery and weather thrown in as icing on the cake. Do you need directions yet? and can you handle a bit of celtic music as well as coal dust in your ears?

Although....if you go by what the trash and treasure man says. if it has a metal thing attached to a long skinny wooden thing it is a hammer. :D

Nup :wink:

Righto then. Now I understand whats going on. It's not IFI you're having trouble with it's www.artist-blacksmith.org. I was nupping etc about IFI meaning I was answering no to am I having trouble with the site I thought you were talking about.

Sorry, 'nup' would be a casual 'no', or nah. I was shaking my head as I typed but obviously you didn't see that otherwise that would have given it away. Come to think of it, nup is really our treatment of your nope when it means no. I never would have thought nope was short for no problems. The shortened version of no problems is no probs here, even more used is 'no worries' but that could mean a multitude of things like...I understand completely what you are talking about..or..I think I understand, you'll just have to wait for my interpretation..or..yes..or..I haven't a clue what your on about and have other things on my mind so I want to end the conversation. Followed by mate it has other meanings eg "you want the shirt off my back...no worries mate"

Point of order your worship. Do I detect a couple of non-hammers in Mark's pile. Notwithstanding it's a decent collection. The last hammer I bought ($10) was a 20lb sledge taking the tally to about six hammers. I haven't put a handle on the sledge as it would only mean I'd have to swing it :cry: My son just laughed when I brought it home. "Don't even think about it" he said

Nup

Those would be the good ol' days eh? I don't suppose that lad was just visiting his dad at the factory the day the man with the new fangled camera thing turned up. And I can imagine the factory manager handing over the keys to one of those terraces. "This is where you'll be living. Doesn't it have a lovely vista and you'll love the clean crisp air."

Ah, you see Quenchy, the spaniard must not fail. He won his spot out of nine thousand applicants through about twenty interviews. Imagine the face egg if he failed. He will learn eventually, but in the mean time a lot of other people are falling on their swords so's he looks good. BTW it looks like a couple of jobs have followed me to my new spot. That doesn't leave too many for my old surveyor collegue to handle. So I dare say there'll be a knock on the door, but that will be tail (tale) of a different dog, which I'll save til it happens as it will contain an interesting twist.

Well, that was a struggle. Last Monday my employer deemed my position to be redundant. No fuss, grab your personal stuff, the taxi's on its way. Why was I made redundant? Good question. I belonged to a multinational ex l s ves company out of Spain. The head honchos (no pun intended) decided to send a young up and comer to the colonies for a bit of experience. Often said here abouts... experience comes from your mistakes. "The Spaniard" must have learnt heaps about how to win business :? On his arrival our sector of the company began what possibly is an unrecoverable downward spiral. Twelve months later there is one employee left out of about fourteen experienced operators. All resigning for one reason or another and replaced in the long term by novices and in the short term by fellows that either have to fly in from distant parts of the country or drive a truck across the country. And where did all the business go? to the opposition of course. I have heard said in discussions since that the Spaniard was the best employee the opposition ever had and they didn't even have to pay him wages. Begging for work with the opposition generally is not so hard, but. My job was basically to find fault with anything the opposition did as well as to be as unhelpful and derogatory as possible; rude even. See, the theory is that if you tell the customer that the other bloke's work is no good he will immediately turn to you to do the job. I argued long and hard against this, knowing that Australians don't work like that. We buy this can of dog food because it is good not because the other can is no good. Think about it :wink: I am pleased to say my performance in this area was attrocious and I deserved the sack. Even so I was not held in very high esteem regardless of any attempt at sabotage. So with cap in hand I headed for the opposition the day after my sacking. After a week of countering all the baggage and convincing the future boss that I was a good bloke I am finally able to put bread back on the table. The offer arrived today. Bet London to a brick that I will bump into the Spaniard in the very near future, because both my old and new companies work very closely on a day to day basis. "Revenge is a dish best eaten cold"...its been in the fridge for a week and is smelling sweeter each time I open the door. Mmmmm revenge Footnote: "The Spaniard" is one individual and any generalisation re ethnic background is neither expressed nor implied.

136000 hectares (~400,000 acres) have so far been burnt out along with 24 homes and countless shedding and livestock. Worst of all, three lives have so far been lost. Tomorrow will see similar conditions to today so there is no end to it yet. One of our members, R.I.B.-VB-Forge is right in the thick of one of the fires north east of Melbourne. Fortunately he has the nous to make the correct decisions. She'll be right mate.

I'll not write my piece. It would simply be a rehash, even a verbatim quote of what AlanB has eluded to. Simply, I reaffirm by what I agreed to when I was asked to become a member. Didn't we all agree to abide by a set of rules? What's really the problem here? I just can't understand it, but then I'm just a mug from a place where to get along, have a bit of fun, cop a bit of a ribbing, get serious as an absolute last resort and getting on with life is just the normal way of things. Can I travel down a different track? I really couldn't give two hoots as to who is aggrieved or why. You can wax lyrical about how hard done by you are 'till you're blue in the face. The more waxing you do the more entertaining it gets. If you don't like what the moderator has done, I would suggest it be taken it up with him in private, leaving the rest of us to get on with the business at hand i.e. having a bit of a giggle, learning about bashing up hot metal and helping others beat the living daylights out of the stuff.

And that's the ultimate aim. So, in my experiment I'm gunna use apple cider (not the vinegar type) first but only after I've drunk it. I'll call it my effort to jump onto the recycling bandwagon.