Alan Evans

Thoughts are with you both. Mum had a couple of TIAs, Transient ischaemic attacks last month. Her speech came back almost immediately. She has had two or three others over the last couple of years. The first one was the scariest of course. If that is what Deb had you can be very optimistic about the outcome. Alan

What do you have on the shelf? Anything is better than nothing. Grease or chainsaw bar oil with a spoonful of graphite would be as good as any. I use graphite rich grease for vice screws. The best thing is good and frequent maintenance but life sometimes gets in the way of that. The advantage of loads of graphite is that it hangs around and keeps doing its job even if the maintenance gets overlooked once in a while. The disadvantage of loads of graphite is that it hangs around...if your vice is multi purpose and you want to use it for a nice white wood carving project... My furniture maker father would always rub a white candle (paraffin wax) over vice screws, saw bench surfaces, plane soles, hand saws and etc....his kit was indoors but we have a lot of condensation here. If you intend to attempt any paint or lacquer finishes at any time do not use any silicone based lubricants even though in many ways they would be ideal...you just can't get rid of them in any way. Well, according to paint shop lore and personal experience of silicone caused finishing disasters. Alan

Hot forging is fine, works like butter compared to steel. I use the same sticky-then-charring stick method IronAlchemy described. You can do a lot of work cold. If you anneal it first. I was able to make hinge eyes around a Ø1" pintle from 1 1/2"x 1/4" . The process was to wipe a bar of soap along the bar in a wiggly line, heat with a propane torch until the soap mark turned dark brown/black then cut to length, bend into a U and then squeeze the straight ends down onto a 1/8" spacer plate. Just the one heat treatment required. Aluminium age hardens as well as work hardens which is worth bearing in mind. Old stock / recycled material might need an anneal before working. As Frosty says you have to deliberately ignore the cues of its resilience to carry on working it once it gets hard. It is that obvious. Alan

The Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths were compiling a list of makers' marks. You could see if they have published it on their website...byhammerandhand I think. BABA publish the maker's mark beside their address book entry. I do not know if those are available on line...The only one I could lay my hands on is from 2009 and has a mark by Sandra Barrett from Canada there was no mark from any of the four members with the initials BS. For some reason (-200) the forum software will not let me upload (the photo I have gone to the trouble of taking, cropping and transferring from phone to computer grrrr) Sandra's mark but it is an S with a lower case b directly underneath. The top of the b connects to the bottom end of the S. Alan Ninth try to upload...but this one after I switched the router back on again...knocked off the switch looking for the address book. Sorry Invision not your fault this time.

Every master I have ever met was an amateur. They all love their craft and it is their enthusiasm for it which provides the energy, desire and open mindedness to learn and improve. I have had three journeymen with their German Guild Passport working with me over the years...They were obliged to travel for 3 years and a day and not come closer than 50 kilometres from the home town/master's forge. They all eventually completed their journey and returned to successfully pass the exam at the Meisterschule. Though Journey is a bit of a play on both the travel and the French "jour" as in paid by the day. The French Compagnon du Devoir run/is a system of training and schools which is vibrant and has many links back to the medieval guild systems and Masonic societies. Their Masters are arguably the best trained practitioners in the world. Serge Pascal for instance won the contract to restore the Statue of Liberty. Here we have the Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths that retain their Associate, Bronze, Silver and Gold award system, mentioned by others earlier in the thread. Bronze being a Master, Silver an Eminent Master and Gold a Supreme Master. But they have only really started becoming anything other than an anachronism in the last 15-20 years. They had become virtually a City of London business gentleman's dining club and in the seventies had virtually lost all links to the craft. Just a few blacksmith stalwarts who judged at the county shows and awarded the medals. At that time their judging system was unable to recognise any quality in forged metalwork if it was not in the eighteenth century style. The current Gold Medal holders have brought them kicking and struggling into at least the twentieth century if not the 21st! BABA was formed in the seventies because the existing organisations in the UK were not relevant to us as Artist Blacksmiths. We wanted to create works which were not historical reproductions let alone historical pastiche. NAFBAE...the National Association of Blacksmiths and Agricultural Engineers was oriented towards Farriers. WCB was rooted in the past and formal dinners. BABA took its lead from the open and egalitarian constitution of ABANA. Although many wanted to introduce a two tier membership / professional accreditation system....I, and thankfully a majority of others, fought for the "all welcome and equal membership", which meant that we were all there as gotes' amateurs, all contributing our skills and experience whatever our formal training. It is that open, sharing attitude which is moving us forward, just as here on IFI. Alan

Well for what it is worth I am an official Master Blacksmith...actually I am even an Eminent Master Blacksmith according to the Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths. And every few weeks I have 50% of the current crop of Supreme Master Blacksmiths round our gaff for Sunday Supper. This may be the first time I have mentioned it in writing. And it may have come up in conversation a few times. But it actually means very little in the real world. My portfolio is the only thing that counts. But it did come in very handy a few hours after I was given the medal. My 90 year old mum came up to the Worshipful Company Awards Banquet where I received the silver medal and the Tonypandy award for the year. She hadn't seen any of my London projects in situ so we went round to see the ones close to the City. We arrived at Saint Paul's Cathedral just as they were closing the crypt to the public. When I explained that I had brought my mum up to see my Treasury Gates, they asked if I had a Security Card, which of course I didn't. They were shrugging their shoulders and about to say go away, when I said "Oh I do have the silver medal I have just been awarded by the Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths" and showed it to them in its little blue case..."That will do nicely" they said and waved us in! Alan

Well I can think of a number of points arising... You don't know what went on in the gallery, maybe it got spattered by something. Detergent, solvent, oil, vinegar, potted plant food, spit, air freshener... If it has a smooth polished surface, it is very easy to wipe virtually all the protective finish off. Stovax may not be an equivalent of Zebrite, maybe the solvent base was the reason they stopped making it. But both Peter and I have used different colours of shoe polish to finish forgework. Sometimes with a coat of Renaissance on top sometimes not. Again if it was in cake form I would often thin it down with white spirit. but it can be applied by dry brush just like on shoes. Depends on the object As for "without incident"...I can't speak for Peter but I certainly reckon it is not a maintenance free finish. Too many variables. I have had rust bloom on some items but have always been able to attribute a likely reason, and either just rewaxed or reburnished as required. Renaissance (or bees wax melted) on are great for things like fire tools which are likely to bash against each other and the grate when in use. The good thing about the wax finish is that it grows old gracefully. You can preserve a glitzy finish with a lacquer...for a while. But when the lacquer gets chipped you have a strong visual contrast between the protected areas and the oxidising unprotected ones. The wax finish, depending on usage and maintenance regime, allows the piece to develop an all-over but variable patina (dirt!) which is to my mind better than the harshly different good-and-bad bits of aged lacquer. The wax, if abraded, has a certain degree of self-repair creep if its lubricant qualities did not prevent the abrading object from scraping it off. Not so lacquer. For stuff going out to galleries and to the craft exhibitions (where I always had a notice on the table saying "Please Touch"...I wanted people to feel the balance of the tools) I used Cannings Ercalene S which is an almost invisible Nitro Cellulose lacquer used in the Birmingham brass trade amongst others, but then add Renaissance wax on top. In the purchasers final use the wax could be just topped up occasionally, but no corrosive finger oils and contaminants of Joe Public tarnished the finish. In the topping up process the white spirit in the Renaissance wax softens and dissolves the previous layer and releases any dirt held in it...which is why I only gave one coat initially. Oh...almost forgot...I always told the customer to apply the wax with fine scotchbrite or wire wool which would take off the lacquer (and any rust bloom/spots) and prevent the unsightly contrasts. Alan

I have used three graphite based finishes. Zebrite which was in a small toothpaste tube and made by Reckit and Coleman. I thinned that down with white spirit so it could be painted on like water colour. I found that any wax on top flattened the burnished highlight effect of the graphite almost completely. Good for things like fire grates which were basically in the dry and not being handled. Different name now. Stovax brand? For fire tools and things like candlesticks I tend to just shotblast and rotary wire brush burnish and use Renaissance wax. For some architectural things, indoors...even some handrails, I would shot blast wire brush burnish and spray with PA21 Graphite Modified Etch Primer by Strathclyde. It was developed for the Nuclear industry and used to prevent corrosion for the period between fabrication and commissioning the reactor. The material just produced carbon when it was heated so there were no fumes or contamination. It was incredibly tough, so much so that you could burnish it with a cup brush in an angle grinder. I would then give it a coat of wax. It would not come off on the hands or light clothes so was a good interior finish. Then for external stuff burnished graphite mixed in the eggshell paint on a zinc sprayed and etch primed substrate. Is the graphite paste you are using the one by Liberon? I have a tin but did not have much joy with it. The original point is that it can only rust if air and moisture can get at it. Have you been using any spray silicone lubricant in the shop? It is impossible to remove and will make any paint/finish orange peel. It should however be able to protect steel from corrosion itself, but it may be a factor. How soon after the waxing did the rust spots occur? Alan

A lot of the terraced houses in the Black Country had three similar sized brick structures behind. The pig sty, the nail maker's forge and the earth closet.

An interesting read Frosty. I will log it away for future ref. I am laying blocks tomorrow and Monday Tuesday so will be on labouring duty mixing the muck for the bricky. Re. the Green's castable...I am a goody goody and always read and follow the instructions. Maybe splattering was not the best description. Particle displacement due to the violence of the hammer blows, might have been better. That is not to say it was not too wet none the less. I am still using the floor of the first furnace I cast about 25 years ago and the first punching furnace which I thought would be replaced on a monthly basis was broken up (still working) after fifteen years or so when we were looking for something to do. So whatever the quality of the mix, it was evidently adequate! I was quite pleased with another discovery while mixing the castable. Because it was such a dry mix the dust was filling the atmosphere as the little mixer went round and I found that a black plastic bin liner bag would just stretch over the mouth of the machine and contained the dust a treat. Alan

I ended up using a little hand held air line hammer as a vibrator when I was casting mine. I floated a short wooden plank on the castable and rattled the hammer on that...I wound the attack up until it moved the mix without splattering everywhere. Splattering was the problem (and noise) when I tried rattling it on the side of the mould. The moulds I made up are from 6mm (1/4") plate. Alan

Ah that would work well...you could set the break-away load with the number or size of cable ties. I was trying to figure a way of doing it with one rope...but the best I got to was a heavier dragging lifting rope and lighter release cord which could operate a release catch/yank a slip-ring off the shank so that the main rope then pulled the tines backwards. Alan

As it is for underwater grappling, but without one DSW's divers around to release it from an unliftable snagged object, a second ring at the tine end for a release and recovery rope might be useful. Alan

I have seen some where people have used a roller bearing for the washer so there is no friction loss. A spherical roller bearing would conform to the changing angles and deliver thrust. The fanciest plain bearing washer system I have seen was a pair of discs, flat on the outer sides where they were in contact with the screw head and moving jaw, but a shallow 'dome and bowl' / large radius 'ball and socket" formed between them. The conical shapes you speak of would tend to lock parallel if male and female cones were the same. If the male cone was steeper, had a narrower included angle, just bear on the bottom edge. If the male cone was broader it would just bear top and bottom on the edge of the female. An angled plane through a cone is an ellipse form. Alan

Space is our most expensive tool I think. It must be one of the Parkinson Laws...tool collections expand to fit the space (almost) available. I have had strategically placed hatches and windows aligned with hearth and anvil so I could shove the end of the bar outside as required. One of the power hammers used to be sited just by the door...anything over a metre long and I was standing out in the rain. I did manage to make a large-ish pair of gates for a major London Cathedral in a 12' x 14' forge and a 16' x 10' clear builders' polythene clad wooden frame tent over a concrete slab to assemble them. Alan ps mount everything on wheels or make it roller-able.

If you are going to cut a keyway into the box you might think about fixing the key to the vice rather than the box. If that is a solid lump of cast iron on the end of the screw box you could cut your slot in that and extend the key out to it. Alternatively you could cut a couple of flats on the boss of the screw box and weld some cheeks either side of the hole on the fixed jaw to prevent rotation. Both the screw box and the screw need to be able to articulate in the vertical plane to allow for the changing jaw angle. Alan

Most of my flatters are flat but have the edges relieved with a progressive curve...think one quarter of an ellipse profile. Maybe feathering 10mm (3/8") over the surface. By your description crowning about the the outer fifth of the surface. I have a few undressed ones, and will use one of those if I want to smooth right up to a shoulder, as a final pass having used the soft edge ones to do most of the work. Because I use them to flatten an uneven surface (!) I found the as-manufactured sharp edges would leave a hard angle mark when it pushed half of a high spot down, the hard angle mark would still show when the rest of the high spot was knocked down with subsequent blows. My set hammers have a much smaller plain radius edge, just a bit more than the wire edge off, and are smaller in surface area. They forge rather than smooth. I have one which is converted from a flatter by just cutting one flange off so it is flush and square with the shaft/body. This was made for forging a long tenon so I could focus the blow into the shoulder but take all the tenon down in one go. I also have a few crowned top tools which I have made up (sometimes from flatters) for various projects that required a regulated concave surface. Alan

Good fun Joel you are up and running with the hammer...well done, good work. I can see the fun you had. I recognise the enthusiasm from my first forays! Re the rust spots. What was the humidity? Two possible points on timing. How long after burnishing before the graphite paste and Renaissance wax? Damp atmosphere it needs to be instant. I have never put two coats of Renaissance wax on. The white spirit in the second will dissolve the first so it won't actually add anything. More importantly if you burnish it up immediately after application you are may be likely to wipe it off perhaps...I put it on thin, leave it to evaporate off the white spirit and then burnish it up. When I say thin, I mean very thin. I make it up with a lot of white spirit so I can put it on with a paint brush. I would cut Picreator's Renaissance wax with maybe twice the volume of white spirit, maybe more...it will almost pour, sometimes does. Struggling a bit with the rust spots I have to say...another couple of thoughts how thoroughly did you burnish it? Had you quenched it after forging? Alan

The second international Crafts Council Hereford conference did a visit there around that time...I remember looking down into the anvil pit under the double arch hammer. We had a BABA AGM there a few years later just after they had commissioned the hammer and the rolling mill...they did a run through for us and I took a load of photos of the process. If I can find them I will try and scan and post them. Come to think of it I wrote an article for the British Blacksmith, will try and dig that out too. Alan

Sounds a delight to me... Turn key...Turkey...Turkish Delight...new shop...keep up...keep up. Alan

Turn-key? Alan

I have come across turn screw to describe a fairly stubby screwdriver, well the ones I have seen are stubby. The main difference is that the tip of the blade that goes into the slot is ground so that it is parallel. It is not a continuation of the taper. The idea being that they will not twist out of the slot and mark the head of the machine screws which are used to hold an assembly which is frequently dismantled for servicing. They also tend to be made to fit narrower slots than standard wood screws. They were/are used in specialist trades like gunsmithing and horology. Alan PS I have just thought of a reason they may be called turn screw rather than screw driver. If you think of driving a nail in or driving a screw in, the turn screw does not have the connotation of pushing forward/driving. It is merely a rotation, and could be used for adjusting the timing on a clock or tension or alignment on a mechanism for instance...sounds logical to me anyway...

Then as now...I wondered if there was any connection? Alan When were you there Thomas? At one of the CC or BABA events, or independent visitor? Alan

The silver bullet on page 42 of the Popolopen book was threatened to be cut out of the unfortunate and doomed, but not as yet undead, Lieutenant Taylor by Governor Clinton, because it carried a message from Sir Henry Clinton. http://www.hudsonrivervalley.org/library/pdfs/articles_books_essays/popolopen.pdf I must say I was confused for some time in these accounts of the events, by the plethora of Clintons involved. Took me some time before I sorted them out. Sir Henry Clinton, Fort Clinton, Governor Clinton and his brother James Clinton. Alan

In the Papillon novels by Henri Charierre about surviving the prison on Devil's Island in French Guiana he referred to those "bullets" as chargers. The tricksy British who circumvented the Hudson chains and attacked the forts by land were on the side on receiving end when the Germans ignored the defences of the Maginot Line by sneaking around the back...We are doomed to having history repeat itself if we don't learn from it! Alan Glad you enjoyed the articles also...I am finding it a fascinating subject. Alan