Frosty

What struck me was how heavy the stock they started with. Maybe it was just my eye but it looked they were trimming way more parent stock than was in the lock. Frosty The Lucky.

There's also a problem getting folk willing to be officers, once in you're pres. sec. treas. etc. till you stop coming. It has to be a really large membership to maintain continuity over the years. Heck, look how hard ABANA is always looking for people to serve on the board. ABANA changes cyclically too, sometimes significantly. Frosty The Lucky.

Close but not quite Dave, Fruit trees have roots Around them, the roots themselves aren't so round. I'd say something clever but I'm pretty tapped out on root puns. Frosty The Lucky.

That was indeed the case on one visit. Like I couldn't look at a piece in his show case and make one? Sure it'd probably have taken me a few to get up to speed but you only have to look at a finished product to devise a way to make one like it. I never challenge someone in their own shop I even keep my ideas to myself unless asked. I only want to look around maybe talk, not get in the way. Frosty The Lucky.

Are the two pieces of steel in the fire being heated or are they part of the forge? If they're something like and irons they're just venting and absorbing heat, cooling the fire. If you're heating them to forge they're too high in the fire, well above the sweet spot at the top of the fireball Glenn refers to. Glenn is right, deeper fuel more air. The steel needs to be high enough in the fire that all the oxy has been consumed but not above the sweet spot. If you're getting high yellow they you're getting welding hot. There's more to forge welding than just getting it hot. There are a lot of posts from guys who forge weld regularly archived here. It's a good place to read, you'll probably fin your answers but if you don't you'll have a broader information base and ask better questions. That isn't a bad looking forge, not the best by a long shot but not bad at all. I'd use it, no problem. Frosty The Lucky.

I was going to suggest a hand but that darned Stan beat me to it. Nice back scratcher Stan. Another coolish thought would be a forged stick with a fork at the end. Sticks make great back scratchers you know I've been using them all my life. Wouldn't be hard to fit a leaf into the piece you know. Wax, something simple and common say Johnson's paste wax. It's pretty non irritating seeing it's used on furniture and floors all around the world. I'd use Trewax but it might not be something your Dad would have on hand if his scratcher needed a touch up in a few years. Next time you're talking about forging leaves be sure to tell him you're not making real leaves, you're forging them. It's art if you've ever watched Bob Ross you've heard him say he's "representing" trees, grass, mountains, clouds, etc. etc. All we have to do is get close and the viewer's mind will fill in the missing pieces and ignore the mistakes. It's only when you get folk who practice the given craft they start noticing the details like hammer marks, weird veins, etc. Frosty The Lucky.

Thanks for the video, I love seeing stuff like this. Frosty The Lucky.

There've been time I've wondered that very thing myself. Frosty The Lucky.

Without pretending professional experience I can say a couple hopefully not irrelevant things. To open to the public, what do you have in mind. A storefront/showroom? OR are you thinking of opening the shop? The first probably means an employee or working two schedules: sales and production. The second is a HUGE kettle of worms if you're allowing the public to enter your production area. No number, color or volume of warning signs will: keep people from messing with things, Or mitigate your legal liability when they do. It's been probably 25-30 years since I visited a blacksmith shop, showroom in the Tacoma I think area. Their solution was a sales staff in a separate sales room. The production area was in a section of the old factory building with separate access viewable through thick Lexan windows. And that was more of a demonstration area rather than production section. The couple times I've visited successful blacksmith shops and was allowed into the work area, all work stopped and the owner stuck to me like glue and remained nervous the whole time. Frosty The Lucky.

NO, NOT wood! If you've ever made or looked at a percussion instrument say triangle you'll notice it's mounted on leather or . . . WOOD. Wood won't damp the vibrations (SOUND) and you want to damp the sound. You would do better (Literally) gluing rocks to the web. Unbolt that thing and use the wide flange (you're calling I Beam) for something else. Coupling the anvil to the wide flange better will increase it's ability to resonate making it louder. If you've ever touched a cymbal, triangle, etc. while it's ringing you've experienced a damped reverberation. That's what you need to do, disrupt the resonance. Just taking it off that wood stand and sitting it on bare concrete or dirt will help. Remove it from the wooden stand, find a wooden box it will fit inside with a little room. Block it to your working height and fill the box with sand or dirt. If you lean or JB Weld different lengths of rebar against DIFFERENT heights of the web before you fill it with dirt it will help. Frosty The Lucky.

I'm all about curiosity's sake and files are great tools there are so many different kinds. Frosty The Lucky.

That's a gong. Try strapping a couple sand bags to the web till you can get it cut off that piece of wide flange and remounted to something better. Mounting it on wood will only let it resonate longer so it's going to be louder for longer. Honest, I'd have my cutting torch out or taking gouging rod to the welds before I struck anything on it. I'd rescue it if I could but I'd never use it if I had a choice. Do you have a welder? I suppose if I couldn't find a chunk of steel large enough to replace it's body and feet and I just HAD to use it I'd start welding steel into it. Criss crossing strap and bar between the flanges against the web. Different lengths and weights of NON STRUCTURAL SHAPES will disrupt the resonance and help turn the ear splitting ring into a clang. I see Charles and I have been writing at the same time again. Frosty The Lucky.

Beyond it being a triangular rat tail there's no telling. The lighting in your pics isn't good enough to see the teeth. I believe someone posted a link to a manual, chart, etc. publication identifying files in detail. It probably isn't going to list that specific file so you'll need to go through the categories for a specific ID. For instance I ID files according to what I know and need to do with one. I look at the shape: flat, half round, round, triangular, specialty, etc. Then the general body profile: Straight, tapered, curved, etc. Then the cut or tooth if you will: Rasp, double, single, shell, etc. Then it's grade: Coarse, medium, fine, etc. Believe me, there are more kinds of files than there are people subbed to Iforge. While someone here may know what you have, you're probably going to have to figure out what it is yourself. IF (and this is a BIT IF) it actually matters. Does knowing it's name actually affect what you're going to use it for. I'm not faulting "for curiosities sake" or "just because" much of not most of what I think I know is driven by "I wonder." A person has to have priorities though. Wow have I rambled on, I guess it comes from 1960's shop classes and a Father who was so into tools and technique I got it from both sides. Frosty The Lucky.

Exactly Charles, without Spanky editing, it was just another rambly cluster of crossed up descriptions I couldn't cut enough to make clear. When she says "Clear enough for ME" she's being awfully darned humble. But making it clear enough for her to grasp was something I wasn't able to do editing myself. Sure, give me a chalk board in person and I can talk a person through a build in about 15 minutes. In text is a whole different world and I recognize well written clear documents. (that sure sounds presumptuous to me) Mine wasn't, all the info was there but it wasn't in a form that was of much help to folk who couldn't figure the things out on their own. Without Spanky this wouldn't be available, you guys owe her, she translated mind scrambled fog to something understandable. Frosty The Lucky.

Josh: Don't make the all to common beginner's mistake of waiting till you get all the right tools to get started. Blacksmithing isn't about the tools, it's about the skills and those rest in the mind and hands of the blacksmith. Tools are just refined dirt, incapable of doing anything but laying there obeying gravity and slowly returning to dirt. Build a fire, use the (GASP) bag of charcoal briquettes out by the BBQ, heck use the BBQ. Use the blow drier your wife doesn't use anymore or won't miss. Find a smooth faced hammer, even a carpenter's finish hammer works just fine. If you can't find a chunk of steel to use, find a smooth fine grained boulder (A boulder is any rock greater than 12" in 2 dimensions, Re. ASTM) and make it an anvil. Oh, keep shopping for better tools and equipment to be sure, tools accrete around Blacksmiths naturally, like planets from a dust cloud. Just get to It while the tools come to you. The best tools on earth won't make a person a blacksmith, beating hot steel till you master it will. Frosty The Lucky.

I don't get the sense of the fault. Do you really have someone in the family who can't tell the difference between dishes, cutlery, cook ware and a sharpening stone? Maybe tell them what it is, even show them how to use it? My Father taught me to sharpen knives when I was about 8 and he didn't consider a knife sharp that wouldn't shave. Frosty The Lucky.

That's trading stock, scrap prices are too low to pay gas to haul it to the scrap yard. How about listing some dimensions so the buyers can start figuring their orders? Frosty The Lucky.

I'm still trying to get over the request for the Mods to merge! Too explicit for me NO pics PLEASE!! Frosty The Lucky.

Thank you for posting! It's well worth watching, the music is even pleasant. Well done. Frosty The Lucky.

Wellllllll. When I was taking shop classes a student carrying a lighter or matches would get a swat and get to visit the principal's office. It would've been a fluid lighter like a Zippo, butane lighters weren't available or maybe common enough for me to know about them, Dad used a Zippo. When I went to welding and fabrication trade schools lighters weren't permitted. Period, no explanation, don't ask. Since owning my own tools and working in what was tantamount to my shop at work I'd occasionally light a torch with my lighter rather than hunt up where I left the striker. Even when careful being that close to a wuff of acet lighting tended to keep my hand baby smooth if sooty. If you want to try it with my oxy propane rig, have burn cream close it fires with both Propane AND oxy adjusted so it's an explosive fuel oxy mix you're shooting into your hand. Yes, I've lit it with a lighter but really REALLY rather not. And that's just my take on it. Frosty The Lucky.

Sounds like good news to me. It's good when the hospital wants you G-O-N-E soonest. No problems to watch for and you'll heal FAR faster at home. Win win! Just don't expect the better half to be quite as understanding about running her legs off or severe grumpage. Percs tend to make one grouchy, short tempered and demanding. Well, so Deb says but I wouldn't have had to be crabby if they would have just done what I told them to. I mean REALLY. Heal fast bro. Frosty The Lucky.

That wasn't snark, it was plain talk. Your best bet for annealing either of those is to take it to the heat treater. S7 especially requires specific soak times and ramping reduction with soaks at temp. This is NOT a backyard wood fired kiln project. Frosty The Lucky.

Sorry about misplacing the post, I'm sure Admin will straighten it out for me. The pics of T burners on forges are just that, the 4 burner forge is my present shop forge. Yes, the burner tube is screwed into a 3/4" thread protector which is welded to a home made 14ga. "washer". Hole saws are wonderful things. The thread protector extends a an inch or so into the forge liner and the liner expands slightly to avoid restriction. I dipped the thread protector into Kaolin slip to help extend it's life in a HIGH temperature environment. It seems to have worked pretty well. The pic of the burners screwed into street 45s then into a 3/4" floor flange is exactly that, how those are mounted on my new forge. I may have really shot myself in the foot with that rig. I tried to do too many new things at once so it's being a real BEAR to tune. The reason the burners are angled back at a 45 is to get the air intake ports farther away from the dragon's breath. Then there's the idea I had for shaping the burner flame. Using the same cross sectional area as a 1:12 ratio flare I shaped it into a fan and angled it back away from the front of the forge. The idea behind that was to first shape the flame to effect more of the forge and make for more even heat. Angling them back was to induce a horizontal vortex in the chamber so the flame would recirculate from floor to back wall and up, then across the roof and be caught by the burner flame and go around again. Hopefully (I HOPED ) there would be a curtain of fire to help prevent inducing outside air into the chamber so I could run my burners leaner without causing an oxidizing atmosphere. Is that confusing you? Ayup, and therein lays the reason for changing things ONE at a time, not in job lots like I did. I've tried both new burners in a test rig, basically screwed a thread protector on and fired them in my shop forge. Both burners are tuned as burners. Unfortunately they don't operate properly in the new "Frosty over thought ANOTHER one" forge. And for you guys who think I'm just dumping on you for a new idea, I hold this up as an example of, "been there done that." Generally speaking. Frosty The Lucky.

Here it is finally. Spanky spent a lot of her valuable time reading the galleys and editing for me or this would be a real mess. She won't accept credit on the document as the editor either. Thank you Spanky! T Burner Directions finished.pdf Here's hoping this clears up some of the questions. Frosty The Lucky. T Burner Directions finished.pdf