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I Forge Iron

DonS

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    Alberta

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    Edmonton
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    Western Canadian Blacksmiths' Guild contact

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  1. Hi David, I am a member of the Western Canadian Blacksmiths' Guild. We have a shop west of Leduc, at the Alberta Heritage park, and give demos during their scheduled events. We have monthly meetings there on the second Saturday of the month. New members get one day of one on one instruction in the basics and safety. You are probably past that stage, and could take any of the several blacksmith courses offered by the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology in Edmonton. We have a link on our website (www.albertablacksmiths.ca) that takes you to that page of the course catalog.
  2. 25 Lb Canadian Giant (Jardine) with the original drawing dies and brake and a 34 Lb homemade "rusty" style hammer with combination drawing / flat dies.
  3. 56 cases of beer in my '61 Pontiac Stratochief. All but three cases fit into the trunk. I was the designated driver for our class party, but "designated driver" had a different meaning four decades ago. -Don.
  4. Hi Daniel, I have a small coal forge on wheels that I just drag out onto the driveway, about four feet away from the garage. I leave the anvil and tools inside, close to the overhead door. As long as it is not windy, it is quite pleasant to work when it is around 20 or 30 degrees F. If the anvil is too cold, just heat up a large piece of scrap and place it on the anvil for a while to warm the anvil up. Also, a hood on the windward side of the forge would help if it is a bit windy out. I also have a propane forge about the size of a Whisper Baby (about 20-30,000 BTU) which I use in the garage even when it is below zero F. Make sure that you have sufficient ventilation! I open the overhead door about 18 inches so that the bottom is open, and the top section is also rolled back to create an opening at the top to allow air circulation. Make sure that there is nothing above the propane forge that can overheat. My old metal overhead door rolls back above the propane forge when I open it all the way, and had about 4 feet clearance from the top of the forge to the door, and it only got a bit warm. When I replaced it with an insulated overhead door, the new door got quite hot - fortunately it was not damaged, but just keep that in mind. -Don Edmonton, Alberta
  5. I think you can cast the babbitt around your original shaft provided it is not worn out-of-round. That's the way the bearings on my 25 pounder were done. -Don S
  6. Hello R.D. Holding 3x3 inch pieces of UHMW inside the square tube might be a bit difficult. Your original plan to use a long strip might be simpler and has been done before. You could use the long strip and route, file or sand 1/32 or 1/16 inch off the center portion to reduce drag. I lubricate the ram with some silicone spray. It seems to help, and it reduces the chance of rust developing on the ram. I am not sure if the silicone does any harm to the UHMW, but so far so good. Maybe someone else knows about the compatibility of silicone and UHMW. For rollers I used 1/2 inch bolts and some close-fitting pieces of pipe. I always save odd sizes of pipe for simple bushings and bearings. I drilled a hole in the center of the pipe for oil, and apply oil regularly. The spacing of the bolts will depend on the thickness of the pipe and the leaf spring. You might have to file out the holes to add a bit of clearance so that the spring still fits between the rollers at an angle at maximum travel. I gave it a bit too much space and it made an annoying click-clack noise. (about 1/4 inch too much space) I temporarily taped a pair of 1/8 inch oak strips to the leaf spring to quiet it down. That's about 5 years ago, and I only had to replace the tape once. If you plan to use a 3/8 inch bolt with a 60 lb ram, that might be a bit light for that kind of abuse. Regards, -Don
  7. I used 1/4 inch UHMW on my Rusty hammer. I had to adjust it a bit after the first couple of hours of breaking in, but it has no noticeable wear in 6 years of hobby use. Ram is 34 lb. Main part of ram is 2 inch heavy wall square tubing (smooth, not rusty).. I have a band of UHMW 2 inches wide around the top of the guide and 2 inches wide around the bottom, so that there is no contact or excess friction in the middle. Using material that is thicker than necessary could result in more expansion with heat and require it to be a bit loose at low temperatures and too tight at high temperature. A drawing of the guide assembly is here: http://www.wcbg.ca/wcbgsite_015.htm Don
  8. Thanks Phil, I score some marks 1 inch apart on a 3/8 inch square bar, and fuller them on the 2, 4, 6, 8 etc inch marks to form the cross peins back-to-back using a guillotine fuller. Then fuller the edges on all four corners, on each side of the 1, 3, 5, 7 etc inch marks to form the face. I drill the holes for the handle and then cut them apart and finish the faces with a belt grinder. The handles are 3/16 dia by 2-1/4 long mild steel. I grind a slight taper on them, heat the hammer head to a yellow heat and pound the (cold) handle into the head until about 1/8 inch protrudes out the front. I pein the end over cold with a small ball pein hammer. Last, I heat the end of the handle and draw out a 1/4 wide by 1/2 inch long tab and roll it up with small scrolling pliers ( they are actually old snap ring pliers). The hardest part is wire brushing them on the bench grinder without loosing too much skin. I just picked up a few dozen 3/4 inch split rings to thread on the end to finish the key ring part. -Don
  9. Key Ring Hammers This year I made some key ring hammers to hand out at our December guild meeting. They are made of 3/8 mild steel, have a metal handle, and are not heat treated - all characteristics of a very poor hammer. Regards, Don
  10. Hello Aikisho, I am not sure where you are located, but I am in Edmonton. We have been using coal from the Dodds Coal Mine near Tofield, Alberta in our Western Canadian Blacksmiths Guild shop near Leduc. This might be the same sub-bituminous coal that you referred to. (We ran out of metalurgical coal this spring.) This stuff works OK for about the first half hour, and then you have to remove the large clinker that develops. It might not be the percent ash content that is the problem, but the large amount of coal that you have to feed into the firepot in order to get enough heat. As mentioned earlier, this gets a bit tedious, but it works - even well enough for a forge weld if you have a clean fire. This month we are switching over to the real smithing coal that Home Hardware sells. (They buy it from Thak). Around Edmonton, the only Home Hardware store that knows the ordering process is the one in Sherwood Park. I tried contacting Cardinal River Coal, Gregg River Coal and Grande Cache Coal, and all you get is office people who are not interested in selling small quantities. They only deal in unit trains going to the Pacific coast. Based on the Alberta Research Council reports, the only good smithing coal is in Cadomin (Luscar Mine), Grande Cache and around the Crowsnest Pass area (including Sparwood, Elkford B.C.) There is/was anthracite in the Cascade area near Banff but I don't know if there is a mine there anymore. Anything east of these locations is low grade bituminous or sub-bituminous domestic heating coal. We have not given up in our quest for coal. If we find a cooperative source, we will list it on our wcbg.ca website. Don Sinclaire
  11. The Western Canadian Blacksmiths' Guild - Founding Chapter, now has a website: www.albertablacksmiths.ca We are located in the Edmonton, Alberta, Canada area, and are afilliated with ABANA. Directions and dates for our meetings are on our website. You can contact us at wcbgca@gmail.com Glenn, would you be able to update the list to provide a link to our website? Regards, Don Sinclaire, President, WCBG Founding Chapter
  12. I have a Jardine 25 Lb Canadian Giant, almost identical to the original LG. I need to be able to move it around in my garage, so I did the following: I bolted the base to a 30-inch x 3/4 inch steel disk with the back trimmed to fit a pair of 6-inch wheels. There is a 1/8 inch "gasket" between the disk and the casting to match the irrecularities of the base. There are two layers of 3/4 inch exterior grade plywood under the steel disk to raise the hammer up a bit. On the steel disk, a few inches behind the center of gravity, I welded a pair of steel bushings to accept axle stubs. When I want to move the hammer, I pry up the steel disk about 3/8 inch and insert an axle/wheel assembly. One on each side. The front of the disk has a 1/2 inch thick steel loop attached, which I use to lift the front edge, and drag the hammer into place. I still have to make a "Y" shaped bracket with a castor at the front and a hook in the center to grab the loop so that I can roll the hammer around more easily. With the wheels in place, there is just over 1/8 inch clearance to the floor. The wheels are hard polymer material with very little give and rated at 2000 lb. I have run the hammer with the wheels attached, but I normally take them off. I will try to load up some photos. Note: I originally had 1/4 inch rubber from a truck box liner under the plywood, but the hammer rocked from side to side at some speeds. I removed the rubber and just have the plywood sitting on the concrete, and it is OK now. I also have a 34 lb Rusty style hammer, and originally had it on a small trailer so that I could haul it outside for storage. Even with the jack stands in place, it did not hit very hard until I moved the hammer over to a solid base. The original anvil/ram ratio was 8:1. I replaced the trailer with a 300 lb bench firmly standing on the floor, it now is OK. -Don
  13. Hi urnesBeast. The body has a 5/16 hole punched for the arms, a 1/8 x 5/8 slot for the wings and another 5/16 hole for the legs. The arms are made out of one piece of 5/16 round with a flat area in the middle fullered cold. Same for the legs. The cold arm and leg rods are pushed through the hot body and then the body is squeezed down onto the flat parts of the rod to keep the rod from sliding out or turning. The wings have long tennons on them and they pass thru the slot in the (cold)body. The ends are then wrapped around the body, trimmed to length and pushed down tight to hide the ends. One tennon wraps over the body, and the other goes under the body to form what looks like a collar. If you do this part hot, you can texture the "collar" and blend it into the body. If you make the end of the tennon too long, it won't be tight. If you make it too short, you can heat it with a torch and draw it out a bit longer using a slender cross-pein hammer (auto body hammer) until it touches the other wing. The wings are made out of 0.060 inch sheet, so two tennons just fit a 0.125 inch slot. After that, I do the hands and feet. They are hard to fit into my small propane forge at that point, but a coal forge works well for that kind of work. -Don
  14. I recently crated up a dragon to ship to a friend as a Christmas present. The dragon apparently did not enjoy being caged up. Here are some photos. Happy New Year to all those on the forgeiron site! Don
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