Strine

I love sheds. Other peoples' especially. The more personal the better. Prefab tin models don't really turn me on as it's very hard to add that personal touch. Great to hear you're knocking up timber ones. Funnily enough my job also involves building sheds. These however can be up to 200m long and 100m wide and are mostly steel and concrete...boring. Check out Cattleman Huts in the High Country or Hut Reviews - Wallace's Hut I wonder if the fencing-wire toaster I made thirty years ago is still there? These sheds have character, Actually they're cattlemaens huts for living in but They'd make terrific sheds. You already have the plans!! They're in your head. It's a matter of make do with what you have at hand.

When I stand at the door of the shed my lathe turns clockwise. When I stand at the window up the other end it turns anticlockwise. Sheesh! When I stand to work at it it turns toward me.

What's the problem? Until the horn falls off and an ill fitting hardy tool splits off the heal its an anvil as good as any I've seen. When the Peter Wright arrives maybe then it will turn into a cast iron lump. How many of us have scored any sort of anvil by just looking in the dumpster. Scatch all the above... I take it all back, I was just being nice. It is just a cast iron lump...useless really, It's any wonder you found it in the dumpster. I recommend in the strongest terms to return it smartly to said dumpster. By the way, where exactly is this dumpster and when will you be returning the lump?

Interesting discussion. Reminds me of driving through the bush one day where I happened upon a fine log about ten feet long which had obviously "fallen off the back of a truck" It looked like it would split into some nice fence rails. "Bewdy" says I. Just one problem. Only tool to hand in my survey vehicle was an axe. The sledge was at home happily awaiting its repair after my assistant "modified" it somewhat. And wedges were not something I carried in the ute(pron: yewt = pickup? (then!). I did have a bag of redgum (Australian hardwood ... common as muck) survey pegs which looked a lot like wedges to me under the circumstances. Needs must when the devil drives eh? Moral of the story; don't worry about $50 steel wedges - get a bag of survey pegs...they work like a charm. Mmm ... they probly cost about $60 On those steel wedges in the pickky. I have always understood this shape of wedge ie tapered at the top, should be hit with a steel sledge. The wedges that are more a classical (read mathematical) wedge shape ie they start with a cutting edge and just get wider should be hit with a wooden maul. And finally a tip passed on from my farver. Always leave one wedge in the wedge bag to use as an absolute last resort. You'll work out why one day As for pole axes, single bit, double bit etc. For your (non-Aussies) edification the top picture is an ordinary ol' axe ... (note the 'e') and the bottom one is something you see at the flicks (movies). :D

The best ones have been to do with just forging iron (The site is Iforgeiron afterall). All the others, the ones that deal with working metal in a general sense I just skip over. They are of only passing interest to me. Sorry Folks. Hey Glenn, I bet you'ld love to have the edit feature back!

What on earth is happening to the weather. Here we are, middle of December; temperatures in the forties on some days and in the thirties on average; Stage 3 water restrictions about to come into force after seven years of drought... you can only drink beer now, water is banned; a bushfire that's burnt for the last two weeks has blackened 3 million acres and raised a score of houses, and we get SNOW, yes snow on Christmas day. What next.

Fan-bloody-tastic. A great effort for a first time. The lines got me first, you have an eye for what looks good. One thing I would watch is the nick near the hinge. this effectively reduces the dimension and therefor weakens the metal at that point. Ditto exactly what BT said re the hole. As for the rivet have a go at this. Select maybe 6" of rivet material say 3/8" diam. Slightly taper one end to make a drift. After punching your hole -sligtly undersize- use the drift to make the hole just the right size. Now make the "rivet" out of the drift. (It wont look like a rivet until its in place in the tongs). You will need enough of the drift, starting at the tapered end, equal to twice the diam of the drift plus the thickness of both the tong eyes. Don't over estimate and don't make it too short. Cut the drift almost through at this length. Don't forget to allow a bit extra for the taper. Set up the tongs on the anvil, Dad's help will be great here, as if you were inserting a "proper" rivet. Now put something under the tongs to lift the eye off the anvil by the diam of the rivet. Get ready to rock and roll. The next step will make both ends of the rivet in one heat. But be warned you only have one chance at this. If you stuff it up you'll need to cut the rivet out and start again. Make sure everybody knows their job Heat the rivet to a good yellow. Remove it from the fire, stick it in the hole and twist off the bit you don't want. Think fast...5 seconds have already elapsed and your running out of time. Gently tap the rivet till it hits the anvil. Give it a couple of reasonable whacks to peen over the the top end a little. That's another couple of seconds. Turn it over, be quick now We mean business here. Rivet over the other side, back to the first side, turn it over again. That should do it. Ten seconds all up, phew, we made it. The tongs are now jambed tight. Stick the hole lot it the fire. With a good heat...no need for yellow now. you'll be able to unjamb them easily enough, While you still have heat make your adjustments for a perfect fit to the job. But all that aside. Congrats on your first pair of tongs. I wish a lot more so called blacksmiths would have a go at them

Get your fire going, bung in a bit of metal, wait till its hot, take it out of the fire and belt the living daylights out of it. There's your pair of "pliers"... as heavy duty as you like. How...check out a few of the Blueprints here for excellent instruction.

What on earth are you going to do with an apple peeler? That's what it is isn't it? Love to all at Wezzy, have a great Chrissy. At least it doesn't look like being a stinker tomorrow.

Kneelength...wish it was longer, no chest piece, split down the middle for holding tongs, split cowhide, heavy duty. Advantage... don't know, it's the only one I've ever worn. Maybe it's advantage is that it lasts a long time:)

Ya see, getting long in the tooth has its advantages. With age comes nouse (pron: now-s) or wisdom. You learn that if you think you won't come up to scratch (cut the mustard) you pronbably won't. And so it is with the Marlebone Cricket Club. Ian...Shame Shame Shame. I know there's nothing to gain in flogging a dead horse but you should at least have shown some support for the boys in the harlequin caps (why don't they wear them any more?). Word is the bookies (bookmakers) were getting most of their custom from Aussies hoping to make a game of it instead of a whitewash (walkover). Ian, I won't be burying you, just glad we can all enjoy a good stoush no matter who comes out in front. It's just that it's our turn to be on top. Come to think of it we've been on top quite a bit over the last few years or is that decades.

Well done Smudger, a great effort but here's a thought. I have a drawknife where the tangs are bent up before being bent around to point to the operator. As well, it has a fairly decent radius to the blade. It is a brilliant combination, especially if you're working flat stuff held in a vice because your hands are raised a little above the plane of the blade. I have to say it is much more versatile than the other flat knife I have To explain again, at Smithy's third step, bend the tang 90 degrees at the point where it is resting on the horn of the anvil, in a direction away from the hardy or pritchel hole. Just a suggestion, but do try it, you might like.

Many is the time I've stood infront of a particular configuration of porcelain contemplating life in general. Invariably my vague thoughts turn to the suitability of the piece of stainless steel I'm looking at as a forge grate. Nice domed shape, plenty of 1/4" holes, about 3" in diameter at the base, easy pickings for a thief, a bit wet but that's alright. Nup...maybe next time. These things are probably available at good plumbing supplies where they wouldn't be surrounded by a heap of yellow lollies at various stages of decomposition.

Disclaimer I write in a willy-nilly fashion, using all manner of bad language and inappropriate phrasiology. After all my thoughts are on the screen I refine and rehash the text so it's presentable on this site. If in the event I press the wrong button below i.e. submit or preview, in a moment of lowered concentration I apologise but take no resposibility. If there is no edit facility you have to take it as it comes. Obviously I can not see what all the fuss was over Alan since Alans posts are gone. Suffice to say there appears to have been quite a bit of fuss. But I'm seeing things slightly differently, maybe as a result of too many attempts at criptic crosswords. Two things are troubling me Shurely it is Alans rite to deleet his postings and contributions when and when he wishes and for wotever reeson. To that end I am asking how much of our posting are ours or, once they are posted, do they become yours (admin's) and we have no rights to our once, own intellectual property. An explaination would be much appreciated. I'm struggling to dispel notions about what this could possibly mean. Also, I have been here for sometime and lost contact with the rule book. Lately I have just relied on common sense and decency to get by. Is it possible to be directed to the rule book so I can refresh my memory. I apologise if it's staring me in the face and I'm too blind to see it. This is the internet...the world wide web. I think all you have done is banned the name "Alan DuBoff" Pretty harsh though. A life sentence, and in the season we celebrate good will to all. Still, I'm not privvy to the actual offence. Merry Christmas to all and I hope the New Year treats you well. Pressing the submit button............now

I s'pose you're trying to reacreate the forces applied to material being fed through a roller to make a circle. In that setup the metal is fed evenly through the machine and the hammer, i.e. the top roller hits, i.e. makes contact with the metal and thus the anvil, i.e. bottom rollers at infintesimly small increments along the metal. The top roller is offset from the bottom roller as the hammer is to the anvil hence it curls up to make a circle. But our problem is we usually don't want a circle we want a spiral or an ever increasing radius. So we have to feed our metal over the anvil at increasing increments and hit with increasing force to overcome the generally tapered end of the piece. The maths would be bad enough for a circle but horrendous for a spiral (scroll) which brings us back to... doh a dear, no that's wrong it brings us back to practise practise practise. But once you've mastered it's easy...like everything else.

Yeh Dinny, true. But we let them have the urn for a little while and they got all cocky. So it's payback time And the same to you and yours for the season

On the scrolls Oljoe, jigs and tooling are fine. I think they use them a lot in China but the crunch will come when you have to make the scrolling jig. Darn it, it's a scroll :confused: Scrolling a length of bar for me is a matter of feeding the end of the suitably shaped bar...fish tail, taper, point... over the far edge of the anvil and hitting it with hammer in a continual feed continual hit manner. The amount of hit and the amount sticking over the edge very much depends on, well, just about everything. Practice will get you there in the end. Once you can make the jig perfectly (the shape of the scroll will take on the shape of the jig) seems to me you wont need the jig . With the penny, treat the end of the skinny part as the 'end' of the bar not the penny. This means your first tool will be something to replace the far edge of the anvil with something to get into the tight spot....sort of a well curved over hardy that comes to a reasonably fine edge. That's how I'd do it anyway

Australia, You Bloody Bewdy. Don't worry folks I'm just quoting the Arch Deacon of Perth, Western Australia after the Australian Eleven re took the Ashes from England a little while ago. And comisserations to the Poms The what? you ask. Google it:). When it comes to trophies there can be none smaller or insignificant in physical nature...it is maybe 100mm tall if it's up on tippy toes. But boy, it's significance in a contest bewteen the 'Old Dart' and the Antipodes is huge. Well done R. Ponting and the boys. Waaaaaaarnnnneeeeeeee...get of the mobile and send down some curly ones.

I begin here with the greatest trepidation; I want to start a revolution. A recent thread asking for ideas for 2007 discussed a critique section of the forum at my instigation. The idea of a new section was pooh-hoo-ed by Admin in favour of using the current forums to give honest constructive criticism rather than the all to common patronising, pats on the back remarks. I'm taking Admin up on this suggestion with the following. In my opinion oljoe's sign falls well short of displaying competent use of forging skill. I understand it is is a "first blacksmithing project" and so the above remark is probably expected. A number of areas I feel need looking at. 1. I think the layout would look better if the bottom area was slightly taller than the top. Having the areas equal in height makes the Foster appear to sit lower (and therefor lower in significance in the overall design). Golden ratios might be worth considering here. 2. I think it would look better with heavier stuff. The material used seems a little flimsy for the size of the project. 3. Your scrolls must appease your eye in the first instance as must mine. I like a reverse scroll to not have a straight section between the two end elements. I also prefer, or rather insist that all lines within a scroll element flow in a contiuous line. There is considerable disjointedness (if that's not a word it is now) as your eye follows the lines of the scrolls to the penny. Which reminds me, pennies are round. 4. The Foster round bit should also be round. It's the smooth lines thing again. 5. I'm not sure where you live but either the telegraph poles are crooked or the sign is. I'm not sure either whether this criticism is applicable in a blacksmithing sense. I suppose it is if you include installation in the whole process. Of course there is camera distortion I can't account for which might be throwing my view point all out of kilter 6. All things considered, for a first effort it is a reasonable attempt at 'true blacksmithing albeit perhaps a little adventurous. But who am I to judge? Perhaps a bit of practice with penny scrolls would do wonders for the overall look of the sign. Please accept these comments in the spirit they were given ie in helping a fellow smith who is at where we've all been at at some stage. Oh btw Foster has an S on the end but I much prefer Victoria Bitter.;)

No worries Hofi, apology accepted graciously.

I'm sorry Alan, I will do all in my power to keep the thread alive. I was offended and had to speak up. Scott, you put it beautifully. You say you are a teacher of blacksmithing. It seems to me from your last post you are a very good one. Keep up the good work. Alan, on a general note, you knocked up some sort of object recently which by all accounts did not meet the desired specifications. By jingoes (ie aghast and alas) who hasn't had that happen before. But there is no mistaking the fact everytime you hit the metal something happened. I mean everytime. Not occasionally does the metal change shape. It changes shape everytime. As you have found out sometimes the result is wrong. That's unfortunate but what you have just done with any single swing of the hammer is discover exactly the right technique for a project swimming around in your head, waiting to be realeased. Don't quote me but I think it was JPH who said here "Experience is what you get when you didn't want to get it" You can never get too much experience.