Frosty

AND Shoulder the leaf on a radiused edge or cold shuts will get em. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard B, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many of the Iforge gang live within visiting distance. How much fuel your forge uses is entirely dependent on how much you feed it. provided you're using a well tuned burner of whatever type. BTUs / second and absolute temperature is a factor of how much fuel air mix you burn per second in the chamber. How long the ribbon thingy lasts will have a lot to do with the quality of refractory you make it from. Frosty The Lucky.

Taking care of family is a GOOD thing. I like you better all the time. Frosty The Lucky.

There are a number of guys onboard in Utah and Arizona, I'll bet less than 130 miles. Then again what's 5+ hrs driving to solve a problem and spend time with another blacksmith? I've traveled 10x farther than that. I'd imagine different alloys react differently to most anything but it's going to take some testing to find out what acts how. I judge welding temp by to be at "sweating temp" or watery heat. The surface appears to have a shimmer to it like light flashing across water, it looks wet. If I let steel get to sparking heat I've screwed up but that's just how I do it. I clean, SHINY clean and flux the joint before I heat it. The hotter the steel the faster it oxidizes so I flux and close the join as cool as possible. Light on the flux, it ISN'T GLUE! Good flux is a joy. Set the weld with gentle dead blows, brush, flux, heat and refine it. Repeat a couple times. I test the set by laying one side of the joint on the anvil and see how it cools. If there's a sharp differential in color at the joint it isn't set. Brush, flux, heat and do it again. LIGHT, dead blows. Test and proceed as indicated. Frosty The Lucky.

John: (Boy is that easier to get my head around pronouncing than your web handle!) It'll take you far less time and work getting used to a different surface than trying to replicate one. Don't ask me how I know. Oh alright ask but it's an old story about learning from my mistakes instead of someone elses. If the face has chisel marks in it they're probably hammer out in use. You can gently tap them out with a smooth faced hammer reducing them to the point they don't effect the work. As Thomas says straightening or bending steel it will rebound a bit once you stop moving it. You need to take the piece past where you want it so it springs back to right. If you straighten at a high enough temperature the iron / steel has no rebound you run the risk of changing it's cross section, forging instead of just bending. Straightening hot steel on an anvil is a pretty tricky process that even experienced smiths mess up more often that we like. If the work is narrow enough you can straighten over the hardy hole but if it has sharp inside edges you can mar the work. I prefer to straighten on a wood block with a wooden mallet. You can do it this way at a pretty high temp without damaging the texture or forging the steel provided you aren't too heavy handed about it. A smart rap is usually more than it needs unless it's heavy stock. I make my mallets from yard, garage, etc. sale wooden baseball bats. I pick up the old discard bats in the $0.50 ea. range or sometimes make the seller toss them into the deal while I'm dickering. ALWAYS counter offer at yard, garage, etc. sales, the worst can happen is they say no. If down the road you need a polished surface it's easy to make a bottom tool with whatever surface, edges, shape, etc you need, weld a shank to it and drop it in the hardy hole. One of the true joys of the blacksmith's craft is making your own tools, few things feel as good as using a tool you've made with your own hands be it ever so humble. Say a b'ball bat mallet. Frosty The Lucky.

Naw, culpa non. it happens all the time we just need to get to know each other better, this is a good example of how useful jargon is. One last point, we LOVE pics we'd really like to see your new forge operating. Frosty The Lucky.

It's an art meaning everybody comes to their own terms with the metal. However there are some pretty solid constants. Getting the work sparking hot is okay, sometimes necessary IF you're working with wrought iron. However if you're working with steel sparking hot means it's burning, a shower of sparks to a hissy crackling sound means the steel is on fire, burning like a match. This is a B-A-D thing. Getting steel into the high yellow temps you get to the point where the carbon starts burning on contact with atmospheric oxy. this is commonly called "decarbing"(?) the steel and can occur below sparking heat. When you start seeing sparks it's because the steel has reached it's boiling temp and the little bits of spatter are burning on contact with oxy. It's not such a big deal with wrought iron, there isn't enough carbon in it to alter it significantly if it reaches the ignition temp for carbon. Any iron oxide generated at sparking heat is no big deal, there's enough silica in it to self flux and it just welds into a more refined bit of iron. Let's hope I didn't muddy the slack tub. Frosty The Lucky.

Dang IT my reply was disappeared! (mumble de grumbley IPS trash!) I was joking, I just shifted the emhasis in the sentence to alter the meaning a bit. I know you weren't loading frozen beef -3f isn't cold enough for a good freezer. I love puns and some of us get to playing word games, once you join in you're fair game you know. Welcome to the game. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Xulgiy, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many of the Iforge gang live within visiting distance. Please don't grind on that anvil the probabilities are much greater you'll do irreparable damage without improving it at all. 1/16" sway is insignificant it's not even enough to make straightening work easier. If you don't know how a sway makes straightening work easier you probably don't have enough experience to make a dead flat surface work for you if you needed one at all. That's not a put down, nobody is born knowing this or any craft, we all started and many of us have spent decades learning new things. We're here to share what we've discovered and help each other succeed and we want you to be a success. Getting in a hurry will set you up for failure as sure as believing what you see on Youtube. There is no, ZERO, need to try making your anvil perfect right now, it's not going to change for a decade or so unless you do something brutal to it. You can always thin the face plate if down the road you learn you need a flat face. Chisel marks in the sides are meaningless, even if you're just trying to pretty it up for a fire place decoration some scars lend authenticity to the art and trying to grind it to perfection will seriously lower it's value. That old lady's a tool not a decoration, she's earned every mark and still has several generations of blacksmith in her. Please don't ruin a grand old lady in a vain attempt to make a tool perfect. Perfect doesn't exist outside of an art studio. Frosty The Lucky.

In that view I believe we're looking at the hook not a screw slot. At first I thought it was a progress pic and a slot didn't make sense till it occurred to me what I was looking at. I could still be wrong and just convincing myself I'm seeing what I think I'm seeing. It's a trait a person needs to be aware of and try to be objective about not seeing what we think we're seeing. Then again it can be reassuring to find other people seeing what I saw. Of course we're probably both wrong, Mark's a good smith I seriously doubt he'd make a hanger like that with only one screw hole and vertical is the wrong direction for a slot to be useful. Of course I'm speculating here while I wait for Mark to fill us in on the lowdown skinny. Frosty The Lucky.

I like it, it'll look good. I can't tell from the pics but there ARE two screw holes. Yes? Frosty The Lucky.

Don't be silly, you can't make things idiot proof, idiots are too creative. Frosty The Lucky.

AIA is a good book IF you're interested in learning about anvils. That's not a bad thing but my personal preference is learning how to use the things. There is a sub section on Iforge about books, good bad and popular. I like "The complete Modern Blacksmith" by Alexander Wygers. "The New Edge of the Anvil" Jack Andrews (?) Oh DRATS I'm blanking. Combining CRS and a TBI sure cleared up a lot of space I was wasting on memory. Frosty The Lucky.

Are you talking about the self sticking wrap used for sprains and securing bandages? You can pick it up at any place that carries pet supplies, it's called "Vet Wrap" the more expensive human use version is found where Ace Bandages and such is found. I'm not recommending it for wrapping hammer handles, I've never tried it. I'm just pointing out a source. Hopefully it's the stuff you're talking about. Frosty The Lucky.

What's faster about using pallets is prep time, it's already planked and dry so all you need do is make it small enough to fit the retort. Using green wood, especially fast growing evergreens like Christmas trees you need to cut it, split it and dry it. Even then it's pitchy wood so it's trickier to coal. Soft wood makes fine forge fuel it's just not as dense as hardwoods. That means it's more porous so there is less fuel energy per volume, say BTUs per CU/FT. Being more porous means there is more surface available for chemistry like oxidization. It burns faster releasing heat faster. This means the absolute temp in the fire is higher. Hardwood charcoal is called better because it's denser or heaver per cubic foot and pure carbon is pure carbon. With less surface available for chemistry it burns slower and at a little less absolute temperature. It lasts longer though. Is it better? Depends on how you measure better. Back in the day when iron production depended on charcoal from start to finish and you had to ship charcoal in to buy it you wanted the most for your money. Well, wagons, barges, sacks, etc. of charcoal aren't all that heavy so volume is the limiting factor shipping. A barge only has so many cubic feet available for cargo so the denser charcoal is BETTER. A barge or wagon of hardwood charcoal contains more BTUs of energy and that's better. There are other factors that make denser charcoal better, it's stronger so will support ore weight in a cupola melter or smelter but those are things that don't really apply. My point here is about hobby or other small scale blacksmithing operations, the difference in density between hard or soft wood charcoal isn't that great. Hard doesn't last enough longer to make much difference and soft isn't enough hotter to make much difference welding. It's a wash as far as I can tell. Frosty The Lucky.

It's cool seeing you in your shop Theo and if you talk slowly enough I usually learn something. Marco is pretty darned good with the camera, he has a good eye for framing and lighting so the pics are good. It's a funny thing about confidence, they can hold all the self confidence courses they want but the only real road to confidence is knowing HOW to DO things. If you can DO you can handle most anything. You and Marco have a real win win thing going on. Good on ya both. Frosty The Lucky.

Wow, that certainly looks like an excellent resource especially for the bladesmith. I wonder if the local library will ILL a copy? Frosty The Lucky.

You can make charcoal from most any wood but it's not something to just dive into and pine can be pretty pitchy so it can be like gasoline on a stick. Besides, most farmed Christmas trees sold in the US aren't "pine" Fir is (I THINK) more popular for a number of reasons. Regardless the type of wood you use is less important than most think old pallets make excellent charcoal and any outfit building houses has dumpster loads of scrap. What's more important than available wood is safety and legality. You really need to do some research and determine fire codes, legal liability, insurance, etc. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header one of us might be within visiting distance. I'm assuming you're in Alaska but I'm used to assumptions being wrong. I don't think the fellow who posted the offer is still subscribed to Iforge nor the Alaska Association's Email list. You can probably find Randy's plans on the web. If not the solid fuel forge section of Iforge contains probably hundreds of posts about coal forges: different types, sizes, building them, using them, etc. I'm in the Mat Su valley just a bit north of Wasilla and there are a number of Valley smiths. There are quite a few in Anchorage as well and a few here and there spread all over the state. If you're reasonably close to the Valley our next meeting is the 23rd. of this month in Palmer. Our meetings are open to the public we have demos and open forge stations to try what you've learned or share tips. Lunch is usually potluck with a pot of something yummy usually on hand. PM me if you need or want details. New folk are always welcome. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Jeff, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many of the IFI gang live within visiting distance. I'm unfamiliar with building forges the way you did. Do you have a link to directions or a video so I can get a handle on what you're talking about. Your description lacks the kind of details we'd need to review what you have. Can you post a Youtube video of your forge running and maybe pics showing the details of it's construction especially the burners. Frosty The Lucky.

Tim: I think there's a little miscommunicating going on here. When you say the reg doesn't match the fitting do you mean you can't screw the foreign regulator into an American propane tank? Mike is talking about replacing the foreign fitting on the hose with an American barb fitting so it'll fit an American reg. Trying to modify the tank fitting on a foreign regulator would require some machine shop time. Better to hit the local propane supply company and buy a 0-30 high volume regulator. You will probably need to change fittings on one end of the hose to make up to it but that's pretty straight forward as Mike has said. I hope this clears the problem some. You guys are reeating yourselves and not making headway. Frosty The Lucky.

Gee, can't everybody do that? Frosty The Lucky.

I'm not normally a solid fuel forge guy but I've never noticed a significant difference in the shapes. Some project might need a long narrow or big round fire but that argues for a duck's nest unless you have a lot to make. Frosty The Lucky.

Since when have cow pies been a product of -3f heifers? Arkie the Pooman? No . . . do NOT tell me what you use for the nose! Market THAT idea and you'll be rolling in . . . DOH. I love it when a Sunday evening gets weird. Frosty The Lucky.

Mike: thinking about experiments and minimizing flame impingement your talk about IR baffles got me to wondering about hanging a sacrificial flame baffle in the forge. Something to take the brunt of the flame contact but not disrupt circulation. It was just a flash idea a little while ago and I've been kicking around ways to hang pieces of kiln shelf. Thoughts? Frosty The Lucky.