Spears

I like it and do not see anything wrong with the inside! I also like punched holes but find that I have to get them done quite quickly as I don't want to use many extra heats because of the scaling away of my nice surfaces. So I have settled on punching with a tapered punch that gives me a near fit for my screws. I do not punch clear through but just to the point where the plug stops against the anvil... then I drill through the thin skin at the hole base and use a good countersink to refine the fit at the hole top. This way I get the best features of both punched and drilled holes and do so in a very efficient way. My method is similar to the forepunched methods of a very fine farrier that I know (though he finishes his holes with a Pritchel punch rather than a drill). This method minimizes distortion on the back side of the punched surface so that just a few light taps usually repairs the damage and I can often get two holes (or even more in heavier material) punched in a single heat.

Very inspiring. Makes me want to leave work early and go home and fire up the power hammer. Thank you for your generousity in placing a piece like that up for raffle. Its nice when folks get to own something like that. Thanks for posting. Spears.

it took him 2 heats on the video.

It does not pit "good metal" in my experience but it will eat out bad metal with inclusions and imperfections. (Vulcan's are known to be lower in the quality scale than most anvils) I often leave pieces forged from new mild steel in from one weekend to the next with no problems.

Underneath a truck reinforcing a running board drilling a hole while wearing safety glasses a small flake got through and I ended up at a clinic. I actually ended up holding a giant magnifying glass over my face while one lady held my eye open while the other lady rubbed my eye with a Q-tip. That's after they put in some nasty dye which made the metallic partical visible.

The fact that they were good looking didn't relieve any of the torture. Wear as much protective equipment as you can stand because taking a shortcut and leaving it off can cost a lot of damage and discomfort which doesn't just happen to other people.

Do not leave longer than 1-2 days max. I have a small 40 lb vulcan anvil that was given to me by a friend. It was in pristine condition except for a light layer of rust all over it, he thought it would be easy to remove the rust by dropping in vinegar overnight.... when he remembered to get it out more than a week later it was ruined. The nice smooth casting was BADLY pitted and all the slag eaten out of the wrought top plate. I keep it because the construction is easy to see and it is interesting.
smith

Hello Dave,

The tongs are nice and have a professional "store bought" look.

I just got my hands on a small bar of S-7 and I'm finally going to undertake my touch mark. When you use your touchmark, do you stamp it with the workpiece red hot? Or can the workpiece be "grey hot" using S-7. Yours looks like its holding up excellent. I'm guessing you MIG welded the handling rod right to the punch. I'll probably tack mine up the same way. Thanks for the pictures. Spears

Great questions and information. Thanks guys. Spears

I use the brand on the right and they work pretty well. Enco has them in their sale catalogue quite often for probably $4 maybe less. I think Dewalt may be a bit better disk but like anything else that's good it will usually cost more.

I finally got around to doing this so here are some pictures.

Much of the stock I use is .25 thick hot rolled plate and strap cut from sheets 5 X 10 feet. It is very smooth with mill scale extremely resistant to removal. I have twisted pieces of this red hot and had it not take rust outdoors for over a year. I have also hammered it thin while red hot still retaining this scale which challenges wire wheels and sanding disks. Dipping it in water red hot won’t even phase it most times.

So this being the toughest scale I have to remove, for this experiment it’s mostly what I used. I haven’t had very much trouble with mechanical scale removal after forging bar stock but the hot rolled plate I’m able to obtain can turn a newer flap disk into a smooth buffing wheel in no time

I threw some parts in a bucket and filled it with plain white vinegar just to the tops of the parts for this experiment. You can see on one part where the scale came off half way up. Patches of scale were left on top of some the pieces where the scale escaped the vinegar.

The finish came out very flat grey beautifully clean texture hiding dull. I wire wheeled some of the ends of some pieces and the finish shined like jewelry and brought out texture. You can see where the scale which escaped the vinegar resisted removal from the wire wheel on the flat piece.

The parts were cleaned up with a plastic scrub brush in a bucket of warm water with a drop of dish detergent.

Since the scale from the stock yard always gives me more trouble than that which is produced from my forging, I plan on setting up to do this to some of my stock as a pre-treatment. A long piece of PVC capped both ends slit in half would be good for soaking a bar. Spears.

Hello Dave,

Some store and gallery owners/managers will have in their own minds what they think something should look like. It will be an individual opinion of what they think the public will think is cool. Some of them are experienced and can “somewhat” predict what might sale better, but either way, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

An experienced professional gallery owner will know that an artist or craftsman is not a puppet with strings and will either accept what is presented or state that the work isn’t a match for the cliental.

I had the same experience where a store manager talked about self standing items. So after making a couple I go back in there only to hear the owner talk about wall art with leaves. Needless to say I never bothered them with my beautiful work ever again. You just have to find the right store.

As far as criticisms go, a fabricated item holds together whether it was forge welded, or Mig welded. You have a Mig welder so use it. A weld can be sanded so smooth that two pieces might look like they were just magically blended together. Same goes with a forge weld when it comes to looks. There is nothing wrong with disguising the fabrication method when it comes to art. If you want to try to comply with the store owner’s suggestions, then use your welding skill and don’t hold back. The store owner is looking to sell the result, not the method. If your selling traditional joinery, than you can expect the number of buyers to be LIMITED to the crowd who knows what that is and the value thereof.

Good luck. Spears.

Nice jig, I love jigs when appropriate. I don't have any suggestions or criticisms but these things take a little thought and maybe a trial or two. Jigs can be a lot more complicated in use than in principle. Have you given any thought to jigging for more conventional shaped tongs? Good job, keep it up please. Frosty the Lucky.

Graduating to an upper level of many trades places an irritating test on patience and discipline required to deal with certain beginners. After years of education and work experience machining and designing, it was hard to bring a high school senior through my machine shop class who didn’t know what the word “diameter” meant. It was harder yet for me to conceive a male human being who doesn’t like shop class. Perhaps in my brain it was depicted as a dislike for me.

When I began it was harder to learn from certain masters than others. You don’t always learn by doing it right.

Three entities: 1. teacher 2. student 3. books and material. Each can have a rating up or down. When one of the three is down the other two have to be better or work harder. When the student won’t work, it’s a nightmare to try and spoon feed or force feed education. When the material is sparse, badly presented/written etc., the teacher and student have to pick up the slack.

An open forum like this is very prone to the excitement of things like blades. I don’t even make blades and the first thing the younger crowd asks me when they find out I forge is can I make them a sword. The negligence of research in what it takes to make a good blade let alone a long one is maddening. That is something Steve will put up with forever and ever amen. Better him than me and I’m not laughing.

This forum is wide open and like life it’s a chore to sort the substance from the useless. I know I post some crazy things on here with my own smart attitude and with someone’s judgment it mysteriously disappears. I guess the shoe was unwanted or didn’t fit. LOL

If its not interesting or entertaining I probably wouldn’t partake. Spears.

A+

Hello Dave,

I love the finish you achieved on this.

I mechanically shine up my work wire wheeling with a 10” braided wheel on a ¾ horsepower Baldor buffer. I have been fortunate to get through the scale using that along with 4.5” angle grinders armed with braided wire wheels. It’s very labor intensive and at times I don’t look forward to it.

I haven’t seen anybodies work look as good or better (except maybe yours) than the elbow grease/wire wheel followed by beeswax or clear coat (wax = #1). I get most compliments and questions about my finishes which I can honestly say is a major reason I do forged metal art. Wire wheeled wax coated hammered steel has a certain look of its own very appealing.

It has been a real blessing having your pictures and reports on this forum to show the true work that goes into some of this stuff rather than only ever typing words and blessing the world with infinite wisdom of how it is all so easy. Your posts with pictures present a substance that speaks for itself. Many people are thankful for your efforts I’m sure.

I am eventually going to try vinegar and water soak for removing scale to try to lessen the labor involved in wheeling and sanding. I will post the report (when I get to it) as to how well it works and what kind of finish is achieved. Maybe one of our kind members on here has done it and I just haven’t looked hard enough to find it yet. R & D pending…. Regards, Spears

Nice, that table looks interesting too, when we going to get a shop tour?

Thank you again Mr. Tim Miller for exhibiting the tool you use for smoothing tapers with a power hammer.

I constructed my tool using a 1” thick bar welded to a 1” diameter pivot. All low carbon steel no heat treatment.

It wanted to flop over rather easily with the way I made it so I screwed a small conduit clamp on it to rub against the pivot. This created enough drag so it stays in place yet rotates to accommodate the taper being smoothed out.

This simply constructed tool has greatly improved the quality of my tapering and on long tapers removes re-heating and hand labor. Works excellent !

Mr. Miller you are a strong asset to this forum and the blacksmithing community and hobbyists like myself benefit from the pictures and examples you provide regardless of who came up with it first. The substance of your post stands for itself. Spears.

Thanks everyone, for your compliments. Parts of it took time and a lot of adjusting to get it as good as I could.

The pieces were wire wheeled before and a little after final welding. The finish is spray on Rustoleum clear gloss. I'm assuming through the many years it may exist it will get handled quite a bit so I wanted a little more protection than a beeswax solution.

I do like the slightly darker and richer mat finish obtained with wax a bit better on certain items but I have had a bit of corrosion show up with handling and humidity. I really need to try some linseed oil in my turpentine/beeswax sollution. Anyway, thanks for viewing and complimenting. Spears.

Hammered and Mig welded steel. Sorry if the pictures arent completely clear. I had to compress them like never before to get them to attach.

Hello Dave,

Beautiful machine. It looks as maintenance free as anything could get. It's good to see your arsenal of equipment increase so well. I don't think anything on that is going to wear out very soon if ever at all. It looks like all of you had a good time at that workshop including everyone taking a hammer home. Thanks for showing the pictures. It is very inspiring. Spears.

I use a small toaster oven for "tempering" some of my dies. i.e. holding something at 400 degrees for hours at a time. I'm unfamiliar with toaster ovens that can bring a piece of steel to 1600-2000 degrees which is the temperature I use for hardening my punches and chisels. I would like to get my hands on an oven that can do that though.

I never thought I would hear someone in Pennsylvania speak of steel supply problems and it doesn't comfort me but rather sounds like the end of the world.

Hot rolled, A36 structural bars, flats, channels, angles, etc. are pretty much junk steel compared to cold rolled 1018 and yes, I too have torn up some saw blades cutting that crap.

I'm starting to believe that with the abundance of manufacturing in China there IS less steel supply here. I just hope things can get better or else my Blacksmithing hobby is gonna go down the toilet with the rest of the country. I feel for all people who like to mess around with this stuff because it doesn't seem to be getting any cheaper. Regards, Spears.

You may want to a good look at the type of work you do. Some of the hammers are better suited for certain things. I was fortunate to have built an air hammer of the kinyon style and it just happen to work out well in it's ability to do a single stroke rather easy. The tire hammer is a little bit more difficult to do that with.

It sounds like you have some real good resources to put a hammer together. It would be a shame to build something less suiting to your needs. Good luck with your project. Spears

If you’re pretty good at drilling and tapping small screw holes, you might consider what I did. I don’t care for locktite because if the connection ever needs to come apart, you can bet the stuff works real well.

I constructed my shaft/ram threaded connection to be held tight by an “off center” locking screw. Drilling and tapping the offset screw hole in the nut was done carefully since the drill and tap will be side loading upon breakthrough.

I ground a small flat on the shaft thread for a pivot surface so as this screw is tightened, the shaft connection is rotated tighter and harder towards bottom out. The flat also prevents goobering up the threads should this connection ever need to come apart.

Installing a locking screw “dead center” on a threaded connection will neither allow the male thread to go tighter or looser. However, offsetting the locking screw on the correct side will actually allow/make the male shaft screw in tighter. So if there is any wear or peening inside this threaded connection, the locking screw can actually make it go tighter and tighter.

This method has worked real well for me and the locking screw is real easy to check for tightness.

Good luck, Spears.

I've been busy with work for a few months. I'm way out of practice.

Can you guess which bottle opener I started with today?