Shainarue

Yes, you can certainly use lump charcoal. It's my primary fuel choice. I only use coal when I run out of charcoal. Hot enough to forge and can get hot enough to forge weld. Frosty is correct - don't use the briquettes and use a side blast. Bottom blast will work fine, it's what I used for a bit - but it will burn up more fuel than is necessary.

Not a lot of foot traffic at the event tonight but the shop I demonstrate at had his kids there and one of them was hanging out with me most of the evening. She really loved the skull keychain and said she wished she could buy it. I asked if she had ten bucks. She sadly said no. I asked if she had any cool rocks. Her eyes lit up and she took off in search of some worthy rocks. Came back after I had finished my dinner (about 10 minutes of searching!) and presented me with the best rocks she could find. They even color on the parking lot! She threw in a nickel for good measure, lol. Her mom (whom I've known since the late 90s - oof) was also there and had a vendor space for selling her yummy treats. She refused to let me accept rocks as payment even though I insisted that's what I asked for - and sent me home at the end of the night with 6 various cocoa bombs and 2 mini loaf cakes.

I made a snakeskin keychain from an old rasp for the trade item at tomorrow morning's Free State Blacksmiths Club meeting. I really wanted to add some "stitching" along the sides with a chisel but I'm demonstrating at an event this evening and won't have time. Would be even cooler if I had the time (and skill) to inlay the stitching! Wow, there's an idea. Anyway, here is the pattern and then the finished item:

I do have other files and someday I do intend to make a draw knife! I've got a few smiths here who can help guide me in that process when I'm ready. But I didn't want to do what I assumed pretty much everyone else would do. File = edged item (knife, tomahawk, chopper, etc) or snake or lizard. I like to push myself to come up with something a bit out of the ordinary. Also - holy crap I LOVE that idea for filling the file teeth with braze. Lots of great ideas on this thread for things to do with files. I hope it helps others who might search and stumble across it in the future. Here's how my snakeskin keychain turned out

Billy, why is it that the "cure" almost always is worse than the ailment?! I feel for you. Hope everything heals up soon and you're better than new - heck, might even say bionic - yeah? lol Frosty, I had that phone too! Ah, the good ole days, lol I'm hoping the leak is just a result of some rocks I repositioned in the spillover basin. Maybe the rocks are causing the water to rise up and spill over the edges rather than just out the spout. Since the water level only drops noticeably after a few days, every thing I do for troubleshooting has to wait at least a day to see if it made a difference, lol. Yesterday I topped off the water and added tape to mark the water level. I'll check it again after work today. Then move on to the next step in troubleshooting, make sure the water is level with the tape and check again Saturday evening. I've been at this about a week already. First step was to fill and not have the recirculating pump turned on. No drop in water level so leak wasn't in either of the large basins. To check the pump, I put the pump and outlet hose in the larger pond and let it run. No drop in water so leak wasn't in the hose. Yesterday I put the pump & hose in the smaller pond - not really necessary since I already ruled that out but it's where my brain was. Tonight I'll leave the pump in the smaller pond but move the hose to the spillover. If I'm correct, the water level should drop. I'll then remove all the rocks from the spillover and run that test again. If water level doesn't drop then I know it's the arrangement of rocks and I'll just play around until I get a good balance of an arrangement I like with no leaks. If it does still drop, then there's probably a crack in the spillover basin somewhere. I do love this water feature. When we moved here, I had set up my forge on the backside of it - couldn't see it but could hear it. When I moved the forge setup, I moved to the front side of it so now I can see and hear it. I do love the sound of it. I don't sit next to it often, even though there's a nice bench there.

Well if all I wanted was the snakeskin texture then I'd definitely go with your suggestions and use a rasp as a texturing tool - they are both good ideas for making anything with a snakeskin texture! But for this particular project, the trade item is something made from a large file - so I have to actually use the rasp (unless I wanna get technical and say it was "made" with the large file by way of a texturing tool, lol). I've already folded and welded. Did it on a wood stump with wood mallet to retain the texture. I'm not going to try to forge weld the tabs on though. I'll use the fluxcore welder and just hope for the best. If it sucks, I'll cut the tabs off and drill a hole, then rivet a strap of leather there instead. I had also wanted to intentionally hammer out some of the texture along the edges and use a chisel to create a stitching pattern for seams. I don't think I'll have time to get that done though. I'll share a pic of whatever I end up with, lol

So, I changed direction. Meeting for this trade item is Saturday and I didn't have time to try the raspberry idea. I decided instead to make a snakeskin style keychain fob. First, I took a few hours with the grinder to make it thin. I ground away the side with the diagonal teeth. I wanted the scale texture on both sides so I was going to fold it. And folding as-is would have been super thick, lol Then I cut it to a pattern which I would fold over and forge weld. While folding over, both tabs broke off. Doh! I'm going to weld them back on tomorrow at lunch and see what I get. I'm demonstrating at an event tomorrow night and the meeting is Saturday so really, my lunch hour is my only shot at redemption, lol This might not happen ..

Desiccant works even better than rice. I had an OtterBox Defender case for the phone before last. Kept the USB flap closed but it didn't protect the camera lens when I dropped it on gravel. Saved the phone from a BUNCH of drops though! Last phone I switched to something with a sliding door that protects the camera and also had the military rated impact protection. Then when I got this phone, I couldn't find a case with sliding camera door and ended up just getting the Speck Impact Hero because it was available in a local store rather than having to buy online. I figured I would eventually get something else but still haven't. I have to wait a few days to be sure but I'm pretty sure I've narrowed the leak to the spillover basin. These are the rigid liner ponds. The larger pond has a flexible liner on addition to the rigid.

I was troubleshooting a pond leak over my lunch break (upside to working from home for a bit - I can get more chores done!) and heard a distinct 'plop' in the water. Then a noticeable absence of weight in my shorts pocket. Oh crap. My phone had fallen in. Only about 2ft deep but the water is not clear because I had been cleaning out leaves and moving the fountain and all that stuff stirred up the muck (haven't added the muck-out tabs since it's been leaking). I grabbed a length of pvc laying nearby and started poking around, going by feel and hoping I would be able to tell when I hit the phone rather than the rocks or liner. What seemed like forever later, I finally feel the pvc slip along something smooth. YES! I had zero hope for the phone surviving but figured I could at least try and get it into some desiccant and get it functioning enough to backup the data for the next phone. Imagine my surprise when I pull the phone out and it is completely functioning! I brought it inside, took the case & cracked screen protector off and wiped it all down with a cloth dampened with vinegar water to hopefully kill the muck yuck/smell, lol. Then I got a notification that there was water detected in the USB port. I dropped the phone into a baggie with desiccant and hoped for the best. In less than 30 minutes, I received another notification that water was no longer detected and that the USB port was safe to use. I'm going to leave it in the baggie for the rest of the evening anyway - just to be safe. I know the phone is dustproof/waterproof rated (IP68) but I never really wanted to test it, lol

I like it, Gewoon. I appreciate your artistic take and the execution.

Thank you Neil! David, I like the decorative element you added to the adjustable chain hook. I hope your demo & sales event go wonderful!

Yes, the yellow highlighted element is what I was referring to. It makes it ever so slightly above mid height of the bar it is connected to. The door panels are not evenly spaced so I'm not sure that's a good measurement visual to go by. And thanks for pointing out the disconnect - yes - I was referring to a single panel. Given that they are two separate pieces I guess I assumed that was a given and not that one bar spanned across both.

How is this not a diagonal line that goes from bottom left side to mid right side?

Frosty, you make a good point regarding making changes to an already approved on design. I will sit and marinate on it a bit to decide whether to contact them and discuss a change or take the extra week or so to figure out the passthrough. I never take criticism as picking on me, but I will say this bit comes across as pedantic. Of course I understand the difference between diagonal, vertical, and horizontal. That's basic kindergarten stuff. Did I use the wrong descriptor? Absolutely. Was the idea still conveyed by stating "horizontal from left bottom corner to mid right side" - I think anyone who can visualize a line stretching in a left-to-right direction starting at a lower corner and going to a higher point is going to visualize a diagonal line. Thankfully, I don't attempt to describe any kind of design to people wanting me to making something. I always draw it out or find an existing image with some aspect of what I'm referring to.

I guess I need to either learn how to drift at a diagonal - which I'm pretty sure I need to learn to do anyway - or change the design to weld the bars in place (upsetting the end where it welds so it still has that shoulder common with tenons) and just add decorative rivets above them to make it appear to pass through. I'm leaning toward the latter - since this is truly only a decorative element and the passthrough is not part of any structural integrity. He just liked the look of it on an image he saw. He actually specifically did NOT want quite a few of the traditional elements I showed him. So he's not expecting a gate with traditional joinery - just a few places where it 'looks' like it, lol The more I do on this gate though, the more I yearn for the traditional elements. I'm pretty sure after this is done I'm going to make a small garden gate with all of the traditional elements I was craving for this gate. It would be nice to work on something structural which is smaller than me, lol, and not have a deadline.

Correct. One of the ideas I had to account for the angle at which the vertical bar meets the horizontal is to pass through at 90-deg then a sharp bend to bring it to wherever makes sense. If that makes sense, lol This is exaggerated but I tried to sketch a translation And yes, the hole in the swage has a recessed area to account for the bulge.

I have a tendency to sometimes use too many words and in doing so, confuse people rather than clarify. Attempting to rephrase: Which option is most likely to succeed in creating a hole for a tenon in a 5ft long gently curved piece of 1/2" round bar? (In all scenarios, I will use a 1/2 round swage with hole in center for punching through and keeping bar in place. 1. Use backer rod to follow design and determine where to punch - transfer those marks to the straight bar. Punch small hole prior to curving, then drift (potentially distorted) hole after curving 2. Curve the bar first and then align the actual bar with design to mark where to punch - hoping that it still fits the swage in the place where it needs punched. 3. Some other method.

I agree with that, but the intent was to go from thick-to-thin from bottom-to-top so making those thicker would throw that off. The overall design is already approved - I was just looking for feedback regarding the bar that needs holes punched

I've been making steady progress on the components for the gate commission I'm working on. I'm almost to the point of shaping the horizontal bars which will have punched holes for passing the verticals through and I wanted to throw my idea out there for feedback. Obviously I'm going to do a test piece first. One of the horizontal bars will have a long gentle curve to it - spanning from left bottom corner to mid right side - a titch over 5 ft total - and some of the curved bits in the above image will have tenons drawn out on the end and will pass through that horizontal bar and be headed over. (I'm of course NOW realizing I forgot to form the tenon prior to shaping those pieces. Doh!) Thankfully, it only passes through the top. The bottom of the piece will be welded in place. So there is no bottom hole that has to line up just right with the top tenon hole. I have a bit of wiggle room. My initial thought was to layout the verticals and use backer rod (my 'rope' of choice) to represent the long horizontal piece and mark on that where the tenons meet. Transfer those marks to the bar. Then punch on the straight bar but punch slightly smaller than the hole needed. Then shape to the gentle curve - which might distort the holes so then go back with the correct size punch to fix. But now I'm thinking I'll go ahead and shape the long horizontal piece then punch (using a 1/2 round swage w/ hole through) - this way I can lay it all out, mark exactly where the tenons will hit, and not have any worry about the hole distorting. I'm thinking (hoping) that the curve is gentle enough that any 2" section will fit into my 1/2 round swage without issue. Thoughts?

I'll do my best to remember to play with that when I get it fired up. Need to get propane.

Thanks for the input Frosty & Mikey! I will likely go with the firebrick to start since I don't foresee needing to move the baffle once the forge is hot and going. But if a project comes along where I see the benefit of being able to move the baffle during the session then I love the idea of a tab that can be grabbed and moved with tongs. And if the tab is close to the bottom, it will prevent it from tipping over when I inevitably bonk it with a piece I'm passing through. This ham handed oaf constantly knocks over bricks set up for the back baffle. I used to have a stand with a piece of rectangle tube cut in half which held the bricks in place. I lost that stand when we moved the first time and haven't made a new one. So the single burner that I tote around, I just prop a brick (or shovel, or metal plate - whatever's handy, lol) up against the back. Anyway - so yeah, I knew I would hit the internal baffle when using the pass through. With firebrick, hitting them will just push them back as long as it's not just a single brick standing there - no biggie. With the fab'd baffle, hitting it would also push it back and possibly chip the coating but the tabs at the bottom should prevent it from falling over. I'll try to remember I have this thread and update when I start using that forge!

I feel like I've asked this or discussed it before but I can't find it now. I have a 3 burner NA gas forge that I've never used because it's just so big. I also have a single burner which I'll carry back and forth between my main work area and the garage work area depending on weather. I've been wondering though, if I could temporarily close off a portion of the 3-burner cylinder to run as a single or 2 burner forge - so I wouldn't have to move my single burner back and forth between areas. I feel like the easiest solution is to simply get a chunk of firebrick that fits inside, with a hole cut into it for material to pass through, and maybe set a piece of angle iron behind it to keep it from falling over. I've also considered fabricating a "back wall" frame which fits inside rather than against the outside - out of bedframe scraps with firebrick in the frame. Then attach a long horizontal handle so I could slide it in/out to the desired location. Would the metal frame stand up to the repeated heat of the forge though? Is this any more effective than the unframed firebrick solution? Also wondering if there's a solution that can include insulation & coating but withstand being removed/replaced. Any ideas would be great, thanks everyone!

100% yes. That was my first forge and served me well for about a year.

What does that part mean? I'm assuming it's not the obvious of 2hrs * 2 = 4hrs, lol Is it temper 2 hours then let cool and then temper 2 hours again? Or go through the whole heat/quench/temper part twice?

I got mine from NoiseFighters - called 'Sightlines' - because they were recommended on a hunting forum as wearable for long periods of time while wearing shooting glasses. More $ than I'd usually spend but I used money I received as a gift. According to Amazon, I have also purchased "Prohear Gep02 Gel Ear Pads for Howard Leight" just this past December but I have no idea why. They are much cheaper and do not have a recess for the glasses but reviews say they seal around just fine. I found them inside the packaging of the NoiseFighters with the 3M backing still intact so it appears I never even used them? I'm sure I had my reasons, however frivolous they may have been at the time, lol