rockstar.esq

I second that, thank you for posting.

Perrin, For what it's worth, I'm on my second forge. My first forge was a drum brake. After using it for a while I came up with modifications which to varying degrees improved things. If serving part time as a fire pit is your challenge, I'd say it's unlikely yours will end up looking like mine. I spent considerable time planning my first forge. Going to a hammer in, I found that 90% of the folks attended fell into two camps. The first was the rivet forge available on e-bay from time to time. The second was a firepot hanging from a fabricated steel table. The remaining 10% were propane farrier type forges with one quasi historical "cavalry" type forge. The reason these things are popular is because they work well for most people. Compromise tools are often a case of more becoming less. Masonry does not equal "heat proof", nor does it lend itself to easy modification. A fire pit doesn't evoke images of a particularly handy forge. Aboriginal earthen forges don't strike me as a comfortable way to work either. I have found the blacksmith community to be largely solution-driven folks. Vaughn was clearly presenting solutions that illustrated how often less is more when it comes to forges (and lots else). It's easy to become pedantic about a problem when you're trying to answer multiple demands- especially if resources are scarce. I can relate to that. The deal is that most of us have been young, broke, and inexperienced - some still are. Do your own thing, you'll find plenty of encouragement from people here. Asking folks to tell you how to do your own thing, then disagreeing with the answers you get is how the vortex gets started. It's hard to stop the suck once that happens. For the record, when called out for stepping out of line, it gains more ground to just repeat the apology rather than point to when it was made.

It's a pet peeve, not a social overhaul I can understand. I find that people don't answer their phones more than they used to. Everywhere I go I hear somebody's phone ringing. There's always someone texting. There's more focus on making communication as conspicuous as possible without actually conveying anything meaningful. So cars sound like jungle drums and people's phones blare pop songs yet we still have worse call quality than when phones were bolted to the wall.

I see the point, and I agree that Farriers are a skilled trade so it's not an insult. I also agree that most folks on the street would answer horseshoes when asked what a blacksmith makes. The truth is that each generation of post industrial development is trending further away from knowing what each component does. If asked who installs a window, a cabinet, or a beam, most folks would reply "Carpenter". Few would know Glazier, Millworker, and Ironworker / timbersmith

Matt, I agree- perhaps the intent is to clean the ground blade before filing? It's hard to imagine a file will last forever cutting metal. You can dull a carbide bit after cutting enough soft steel.

It seems to me that the pick-ax style tomahawk handle is a bit of form following function. Making a handle that doesn't require finicky fitting, wedging, etc, is really a boon to a person out in the wild. The minimal handle fitting required for such a hawk could be mostly done with the hawk head in hand. It's lame that people don't always appreciate quality. However this forum exists at least in part because enough folks agree that quality, hand made things are rewarding. More to the point - MAKING quality things is rewarding. As for the disposable nature of things, I have mixed thoughts on the matter. Top of the line cooking cutlery still sells. I have little doubt my modest collection of well made kitchen knives will last generations. For the record, they'll likely outlast the cherished high carbon knives by virtue of being produced under better quality control with higher quality materials. One of my kitchen knives is a youngster compared to those in Thomas's story. It's only fifteen years old, but it's still perfect. Designing an engine to require less fuel, less maintenance, and fewer oil changes isn't an indictment of our culture - it's responsible engineering. Why complain that you car requires less oil, fuel, and parts? What irritates me is that they don't last long enough. Whoever came up with "pre-planned obsolescence" really changed cars for the worse.

I tried using scale while punching yesterday and the effect was very noticeable. One thing I've found with my well polished (mirror) drifts is that the heat colors are easier to spot! I wondered if I was overheating my tools until it occurred to me that I'd never seen mirror polished drifts anywhere. After you use them a few times, they're back to grey!

I noticed that your slot punch is square tipped. Have you tried the Brazeal style point? If so, what advantage do you find with the square tip? I'm also curious about the drift for drawing down the ears. What steel do you use for it? Mine get stuck something fierce.

Yesterday I finally got around to making slot puches similar to Brian Brazeal's pattern. If you're forging hammer heads into hawks, you don't need to punch the hole, you need to drift it. Suitable stock for making a drift isn't hard to find. Jackhammer bits, large crow bars, and digging (spud) bars are all large enough diameter to forge or grind to suit. Thomas is correct that your handle stock is going to have to cooperate with your drift. If you're making your own handles, it's not such a big deal. If you look at the commercially available hawk drifts they're all gently tapered. I tried to make one that was fairly straight with a pronounced flair. In use, it's really difficult to shape the wood to fit that flair. A more gentle taper is easier to lay out. I've also opted to just make the handle rectangular in cross section. Having a tear drop shape obliges you to get the pointy end straight to the bit. Slightly off and it won't behave. Starting rectangular, it'll ride within the existing hole. I've just started making them with pickaxe style handles. The hammer head type handles don't stay in for long if you throw the hawk. One thing that hasn't been mentioned thus far is a bolster. The bottom side of the hammer head will get scarred up badly using the just the hardie hole. I've tried using my post vice - that doesn't work so well either. I'm going to make a bolster plate that I can clamp in my vice so there's ample room beneath it for the drift.

I got a recipe from a you tube Purgatory Ironworks video. I believe it's just equal thirds, beeswax, turpentine, and tung oil. You have to melt the beeswax, then add the oil, then the turpentine. The final mixture is a soft cream that you can apply cold if necessary. I've found if the metal is warm it goes on smooth, fast, and smells great. It's also fairly awesome as a waterproofing leather treatment.

Thingmaker, you beat me to it! Yeah, enamel is no joke when it's done right. Plus the intent of a coating is atmospheric isolation/ protection for substances that oxidize.

I like that my blades come out smelling like french fries!

I once read a great summary of a position I agree with when it comes to forging unknown steels. If it doesn't rust, don't trust. I once worked for a guy who spent his youth as the maintenance electrician for a factory that chrome plated vehicle interior trim. Tanks of various heated poisons were constantly corroding the electrically actuated racks that dipped, and moved the pieces around. He spent much of his time wire brushing the oxidation off without a respirator. He had a quarter of one lung's worth of working tissue when I met him. His voice never rose above a whisper and he was winded by sitting down. The effects of his five year tenure at that factory didn't fully reveal themselves until he was fifteen years removed. There wasn't much to be done for him. Toting your own oxygen tank in such a condition isn't a bright prospect. He died young and left behind a destitute wife. Unfortunately I met a brilliant finish carpenter who's fate was quite the same only he had inhaled sawdust. Just isn't worth it.- I'd rather wear the respirator.

Oakwood, when the belt broke did it go flying around? The belt seems like it'd lose speed fairly fast if it broke. I'm wondering if it whips around. Honestly I'm concerned that it'd take whatever I was grinding with it and smack me with that!

Vaughn, Thanks for the reply. This thread just got me thinking that I don't often see replaceable surfaces on struck tooling. Given the danger of spalling, it seems to me that making the struck face soft and replaceable would make a safer tool that would last longer. Interesting to think about.

Is there any particular reason a person couldn't take a flattened sledge and rivet a large piece of aluminum or brass for the struck side? I'm thinking the rivet would be countersunk and/or the brass would have a raised dome area to be struck.

I have a grizzly belt grinder with the 10" wheel. There's a guard on the idler wheel but nothing else. If the belt broke, would that guard stop the belt from whipping me? I've never had a belt break - it sounds really bad.

I've seen some very precise and detailed work done with large hammers. Brian Brazeal has a video on you tube demonstrating how he uses a rounding hammer. The leaf he forges is quite delicate. It's the smith not the tool. I doubt you'll get a consensus on much other than you should try out different types and see what works best for you. I'm currently trying out the Hofi style hammer which is requiring me to think more about how I approach forging. I second the handle modification comments. Shorter handles make hammers feel lighter. Longer handles can make for a faster swing. I've seen lots of farriers with light hammer heads on long handles. They're moving thin stock quickly. I don't recall where I read it but there was mention that high velocity blows from a lighter hammer tend to upset steel closer to the struck surface whereas heavier, slower blows tend to upset steel more central to it's mass.

I agree with Rich that most handles are too big to start with. That's a good thing with wood handles because you can trim to suit. I've found that flat sides make it easier to strike a true blow. I accidentally rounded the narrow sides of my rounding hammer too much. I find the hammer torques out of line very easily now which I don't like. Big palms and short fingers. Makes me wonder if maybe you should look for a handle that's wider on the narrow side and narrower on the wide side. By that I mean a handle that's thicker on the sides in plane with the hammer's striking sides and narrower on the sides in plane with the non striking sides.

I found that coal cokeing around the fire tended to form at the bottom of the brake drum. The flat bottom of the brake drum tends to create a pyramid shaped fire. If you look at commercially made fire pots, they're all sloped towards the inlet. In use this tends to allow the coked coal at the perimeter to slide in towards the inlet as the center coke is consumed. Some folks put clay in a brake drum forge to create this slope as well as to insulate the drum. I got in the habit of prying the coked coal at the bottom towards the center. Every ten minutes or so it'll need it again. Don't forget to pull out the clinkers or they'll just choke it down. I used to use a blower much like a hair dryer. I found that higher air speed seems to consume more fuel with less heat. I've also read a few comments saying that fast air creates more clinkers. Most of the crank blowers are similar to water pumps they produce high volume at lower pressure. Currently I use a box bellows. I enjoy the quiet but the crank blowers are the pinnacle of design as far as I can tell. I have found that coke is sometimes a struggle to keep lit. I used to use coke exclusively but cutting it with coal has made it easier to keep the fire lit without constant draft. I've learned to open the ash dump when I have the kindling going. I don't use charcoal, I get the kindling going then I pretty much smother the thing with green coal and coke. I punch in a center hole with my poker and the fire acts like a mini volcano. Blowing with the ash dump open keeps me from generating hurricane force winds that just blow the coal out. If you think of it as letting the coal "soak" in the heat like a billet of steel, You'll quickly find that it catches fire once it's hot enough. Rushing things with air blast has prevented me from getting the forge going on many occasions. The draw of my firepot with the ash dump is almost enough to get the kindling to start the coal. I only start blowing when there's green smoke showing that the coal is heated up.

I understood a "devil" to be a three sided prism that's laid on the anvil surface to serve as a hot cut hardie. My understanding was that it was a means to have a hot cut without a hardie hole.

Don't blow the beejeesus out of your kindling when lighting a coal forge. Just opening the ash gate gives plenty of draft more often than not. Welding temperature in a coal forge is often when the metal matches the coal color and "disappears". Sparks don't tell you much and colors are subjective. Relax, don't rush, and stop when your tired.

ciladog holy cow that guy in the video is a character!

If the gate leaves were rigidly to a round pipe, the pipe could rotate around a smaller shaft. Cut a 12" slot at the base of the pipe. On the inner shaft affix a pin that's 12" off the ground. At the top of the inner shaft mount a pulley. Run a line from the bottom of the pipe over the top and tie it to a counterweight. The leaves would be forced to travel straight up BEFORE they would be able to rotate. The counterweight makes the gate leaf easy to manage. Basically I've suggested a bayonet fitting with a counterweight.

Saw making is something that I'd love to learn. Along with many other things. Time, opportunity, persistence, and money are the obstacles we all must overcome. Good luck on your quest.