Frosty

I hope you didn't think we were ticked at you. All you needed was a little help posting a pic, it took us all a while to figure it out. Heck, we have some long time members who don't know how to post pics. That's just the new to a forum learning curve. Decent View of your anvil as your Avatar. Don't be afraid to use more bandwidth than that, okay? I was just a little crabby and not even mad at the new folk showing off their work posting individual Gallery pics over and over. That's part of the curve too. Funny I should be griping about folk posting pics, we LOVE pics. Frosty The Lucky.

Looking good. Close the ends up some on the forge, it's wasting a HUGE amount of heat just blowing out. Start hitting yard. garage, etc. sales. I found an old steel cart last summer and it'd DE bomb for a gasser stand. It was part of an all or nothing deal for $5.00 and there were several buckets with various hand tools some scrap rod, bar, etc. A steel stool is okay if a little tippy though a little imagination and a sand bag will stabilize it. If nothing else just drill and bolt one together from an old bed rail, angle iron, sigh posts, etc. Make it a tripod, they're more stable on uneven ground. Heck, an old 55g. drum is a good height but be VERY careful what used to be in it or B-A-D things can happen. Frosty The Lucky.

Yeah but that's easy enough to correct, just upset it lengthwise to make up for scale loss. Frosty The Lucky.

The dies can shift in the dovetail. Drive the slip out, align them and drive the slip back in. The process is laid out in detail in "The Little Giant Powerhammer," book. You DO have that book don't you? There are a number of methods for modernizing dies in old mechanical hammers by forging dovetails you then drill and tap to receive bolt on die plates. Of course if you need hands on help please feel free to ship it to me, I'll let you know when I'm finished with it. Frosty The Lucky.

Yeah, there are just too many different kinds of potato. Of course if you were to make a spud bar. . . What's the diameter of the shaft and flange? I like a truck axle stood on end, flange up at the correct height for an anvil. Frosty The Lucky.

Pick up shop, parts manuals for each make. You can back track visible parts numbers to the make model and year. Frosty The Lucky.

If you have a horizontal vertical cut off band saw you can saw your V and hex grooves and do a little cleaning up with a file. Through holes are drill press saw and file work. half rounds require a second block clamped to the block, drill the desired size hole between them. Yes you can drill large holes, use a hole saw, slow rpm, gentle feed rate. Air hose to clear chips and cool the saw. Of course if you make your pattern and do enough bribing at the local iron foundry it might accidentally get poured with when they clean the ladle on a pour Frosty The Lucky.

Exactly. Semi drums are heavy tippy trip hazards, not what I want next to a power tool that can grab and remove body parts from me. I like a round piece of flat plate for pedestal stands. Stable and easy to move without anything you can trip over. Noe even the edge if you grind a little bevel on it or just angle the torch when you cut it. Simple, effective, portable but most important, SAFE. A friend sent me a pic of someone making wood stoves from wheel rims recently. Years ago, when I walked past the scrap bucket (old loader bucket) at the heavy duty shop and saw scrapped semi drums regularly, I considered turning a couple into a Pot Belly stove thing. Roll a piece of say 10ga. or heavier sheet into cylinder of find a piece of pipe that fit. Weld a 18"-24" or so of said pipe to the open end of a semi drum facing up and another drum on top facing down. Make and install a fire door and ash door in the pipe. A bolt on stove pipe jack on top (said pictures of wheel rim stoves showed a nice square plate with stove jack for tops) and an air grate and draft on the bottom one. Rig a stand and VIOLA coal/wood stove and something actually useful to do with scrapped semi drums! I never built one because I lived in a mobile home at the time and didn't want to burn myself out, especially if I were sleeping. Frosty The Lucky.

Nice hot cut. A slitter is a little different beast but you got the moves all you need is the form. One thing that needs improvement is the alignment of the striking end with the working end. Visualize the impact force from the hammer striking the tool. The energy WILL take the most direct route through the tool to the work. The struck end needs to be as centered on a straight line to the center of the working end as possible. In this case the reshaped pein and the center of the cutting edge. As forged this hot cut's struck end is lined up on the top 1/3 of the blade. It's not a huge thing, this one will work a treat but it's something to keep in mind for your next struck (top) tool. Well done. Frosty The Lucky.

How did you attach them to the post? If the file size is too large it can be a problem. I do a "Save As" at a smaller file size and I'm using MS 8.1 and FireFox as a browser. Either formats will save as in a smaller file size. Then I click on the "choose files" button at the bottom of this text window. Browse the files on my computer and double click the one I want. It appears at the bottom of the text window with a + symbol and a trashcan. click on the + button and it will insert in the post at the cursor. It's easier and faster to do than write the directions. Just PLEASE don't post a series of posts with one pic from your gallery. One post and a word of explanation and we can browse your gallery pics. Posting your whole gallery to the forum one pic at a time is a HUGE waste of bandwidth and I'm sorely tempted to add folk who do this to the "IGNORE" filter so I don't have to wait for a whole boatload of large files to download. Seriously, I can just browse a person's Gallery if they ask us to take a look. I know you haven't done this. I'm just trying to put the word out to the new folk who ARE posting bunches of photos of their work by making us upload their ENTIRE gallery with every picture. It's like buying a new book every time you want to turn a page. Frosty The Lucky.

It looks pretty nice Benton: 4140 is a tough steel more than a hard one but it's probably a good choice for something like a camp hatchet or axe. I'm sure one of the bladesmith guys can offer a better tempering temperature for better hardness without embrittling the edge. I find a convex bevel provides a much more durable edge in an impact environment like axe blades live. I simply slack belt the final edge above the platten and it grinds and polishes a perfect convex bevel to the edge. Stropping is a similar process but on a microscopic scale. If I made or sharpened more blades I'd experiment with a leather belt on my belt grinder. Frosty The Lucky.

Matei: You've been teasing us with these stunning upset edges on knife furniture long enough! We'd REALLY like to know how you do it so some of us can add the technique to our mental tool kit. Will you please post a series of progress pictures so we can see how you do this? Thank you. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Storm, 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. If you check Grainger or McMaster Carr they have blowers in many sizes and ranges. I'm not a gun burner guy but with my experience a high static pressure tells me the burner nozzles are too small or restrictive. Maybe put more nozzles in the ribbon? 2x as many = 1/2 the pressure. Just be aware that's an educated guess from a long time tinkerer who's been kicking around a naturally aspirated ribbon burner concepts but has NOT made one. So it's a FWIW idea. Frosty The Lucky.

I tend to think of Ninilchick as a suburb of Homer. They were snowbirds between here and Utah with a last name starting with D. and Gordon made knives. Parallel universe. And I look at other people funny if they ask me if I know so and so because we both live in Alaska. Of course once in a while I do. Have any good clam chowder recipes? I gave up digging razors when I discovered I could pick up cockles on the inside of the spit. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard new guy, 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. Yes, you CAN upset 1/4"x1" into 1/2"x1/2" but it's a PITA. Unless it's necessary for the piece it's just an exercise in how to or how far can you go. I can think of design elements where it might be pretty cool, say a section of a strap or brace, etc. that looks like it was pinched between someone's fingers. If you want to take a lash at it then go for it. You probably just aren't going to do it again for real. On the other hand markets are full of STRANGE people. Frosty The Lucky.

Raw wool is straight off the sheep before washing. Deb's a spinner and we used to keep a couple fiber sheep. She wanted a doffer and we quickly discovered wax finishes weren't the thing to use on tools used on wool. So I gave raw wool a try and it worked nicely without staining the wool when removing it from a drum carder. Lanolin shouldn't be hard to find, it's almost impossible to beat as a hand lotion and is still used as a base in many brands. Frosty The Lucky.

Unless you're planning on doing some really heavy forging a semi brake drum is just an efficient way to waste coal. Bigger is NOT necessarily better. Semi drums don't make good tool stands either. On the other hand making a couple into a potbelly stove thingy might be a treat. Honestly Semi drums are more trouble than they're worth and as forges they're not worth much at best. Frosty The Lucky.

It's not wax but I've found the lanolin in raw wool makes a nice indoor finish. I have not had any in service for more than a couple years though so I can't say how durable it is. Frosty The Lucky.

Something just occurred to me Mathew. Are Gordon and Karen your folks names? Frosty The Lucky.

Maybe mythical isn't the right term but I never had any luck looking you guys up. I don't get to Homer very often but used to ask around, lots of folk said I should see the local bladesmith but couldn't tell me anything about how to make contact. I can't fault folk for not giving out contact info to strangers though and I didn't really make a pest of myself. I was just looking to talk to a smith I wasn't looking to buy a knife. I never bought a knife from Irwin Campbell either but talked to him a couple times. I did buy his 50# Little Giant from his son Virgil a few years ago though. Nice hammer a little worn but smooth and solid. Even knowing how to do build up and hardfacing on high carbon steel I avoid it like the plague, there's always a risk with an unknown high carbon steel base. I suppose a person could have a spectral analysis done on the face plate but most folk aren't interested in that kind of money. It leaves a guy with the rules of thumb and anecdotal experience of others to rebuild anvils. I've only done it twice and was successful both times. However, the preheat, welding, grinding, post heating and slow cool did reveal a delaminated zone on the right corner of the step and I'd gone over it with a hammer several times evaluating it before accepting the project. I KNOW it didn't have that dead spot before I started working on it but it sure had one when I was finished. Brian was up for a clinic summer before last I believe and I kind of shuddered the way he used the sharp edges and didn't miss the little trick of dressing them on a radiused edge. He'd isolate a section on a sharp edge, then shoulder over a radiused edge. It certainly allowed him much better accuracy and it works. I just can't bring myself to do it except in special cases and then I'm likely to use a chisel to mark for isolation. It's what makes the craft an art, we all have techniques and foibles all our own. for all the years I've been doing this stuff I'm a hobbyist with rare lapses into black ink and don't make blades. I know the dance but don't hear the music so to speak. I've made a few, mostly special ones for my use and one for Dad at his insistence. The thing is though, I keep feeling the dark side calling. Pattern billets are whispering in my ear with voices of hard steel on a fine stone. I even have half a dozen primo blocks of: tiger eye, fiddle back, 1/4 sawn, various burls, etc. some spalted, some not, Myrtle I picked up in the early 90's to make handles. But I continue to resist. Frosty The Lucky.

S'not funny? Frosty The Lucky.

They'd make excellent power hammer dies. Being the proud owner of a Lancaster pattern swage block for at least 25 years now and a bucket full of bottom swages I can attest they look neater than they are useful. Frosty The Lucky.

I do have my moments. Frosty The Lucky.

Just so you keep it straight if the time comes. I wonder how it'd work removing a nose ring? Frosty The Lucky.

I LOVE what you do to steel Matei, beautiful form and profile. Frosty The Lucky.