Frosty

Epoxy and sand makes good anchor and you don't have to melt or deal with the sometimes exciting things that can happen pouring molten lead into cold stone. On further thought, preheating the scraper and letting it warm the holes for a few seconds should help deal with rapid temperature change. People been anchoring in stone with lead for a few thousand years so . . . Frosty The Lucky.

You can drive the pins out and handle it one link at a time. Hmmm, make a 3 lobed master link for interestingness say a tree or saguaro cactus? Bicycle chain bonsai? Frosty The Lucky.

I don't know, I can't see what the break looks like well enough and there is no picture of the other side so I know what it's supposed to look like. If it's supposed to be solid to the bearing surface then welding full depth should do it. If it is as wide as the shiny black between the weld bead and the bearing surface, the weld they made is barely a tack weld for what it should be. I hadn't imagined they'd put 1/4" weld to repair a 2" break. It would've been a better join if they'd totally degreased it and silver brazed it. Done properly it would be at least as strong as the original cast iron unless it was malleable / gray cast iron and nobody spent the time and money heat treating cast for that kind of part. Cast iron ASOs are gray / malleable iron and it requires a long cooling process IIRC. It's been a while since I read how malleable is made. What it is is more expensive and impact resistant, something that part of a power hammer doesn't need at all. I'm just hoping Kevin takes a few better pictures so I can maybe make a useful suggestion. Frosty The Lucky.

I'd like to hear some stories of the little people, Billy. It's kind of amazing how different stories in different nations and different millennia are not so different. Frosty The Lucky.

Giant bicycle sculpture? Frosty The Lucky.

Bolt it to the stand and the anvil maybe? I don't recall if you have a welder or not. If you do making a sledge hammer trip is pretty straight forward. Frosty The Lucky.

They would make serious gate and door hinges wouldn't they? On that note if you built one into both leaves or the leaf and frame of a gate / door so they came together when it closed you could hang the padlock inside where it was protected. Frosty The Lucky.

Very nicely done John, I like it. Frosty The Lucky.

Your post was the first one I opened so I'm blaming you! For a darned good bit of enjoyable reading and searching that is. It keeps me off the streets. How many of his videos have you watched? "Ancientcraft UK" hosts I don't know how many, he's one of their main people. His primary interest is in pre-iron age Briton though he has studied in Europe. He only mentions clovis points briefly and almost mocks the idea they are the result of the culture crossing the Atlantic. I believe the anachronistic costume is part of staging for a program though I don't know what it adds. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a superior's "good" idea. When he's in lecture mode about what he's doing I listen closely but if he drifts into modern cultural I only watch. He has video about collecting, smelting and casting copper, making and casting bronze and some I haven't watched about iron smelting and working. I'm only watching the free videos and probably missing the really good stuff or maybe just this year's videos. Frosty The Lucky.

Spring has been like that here too Alex. Three days ago the driveway was almost all clear and now it's covered in snow again, been snowing almost 2 days straight. Light but steady. Gotta love spring this close to the arctic circle eh? Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Kevin, glad to have you. If you put your general location in the header you'll have a much better chance of meeting up with people living within visiting distance. You know, like someone who can help? I'm not going to offer welding advice, it's too far outside my range of expertise, even when I ran a lot of rod. The one suggestion I do have is, after welding it maybe weld a couple reinforcing straps across the weld. Heat and form it to match the guide where it's welded, 3/8" x 1" and long enough to pass at least 1 1/2" past the weld on each side. Just stitch the weld on alternate sides to minimize pull as it cools. Take it slow and easy, you don't want the reinforcing bar to get hot or it WILL pull as it cools. Frosty The Lucky.

First I want to thank you for opening another rabbit warren George, it's a good way to take up all the free time I have after losing myself watching Dr. James Dilley's flint knapping videos! A teaser in return. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFvMyGiAA7M On a more serious note, it is an excellent article and provides plenty of stuff to look up. I do SO love a good rabbit hole. No fooling, I do. Frosty The Lucky.

Making it up yourself Scott? Are you painting now? Looks like a punch to me, I don't think the bottom die is wide enough to be a shear. Frosty The Lucky.

Did you know that grinding wheels embed bits of broken abrasive in what you're grinding? That little bit of grit will dull files hundreds of times faster than clean steel. Accidently taking too much off on a grinder of any kind is how you learn control and touch when you're grinding. It's how I learned, by stocking my scrap can. Frosty The Lucky.

That's a good one Scott. You should get a larger screen to view things on, the lad on the right is roasting the mouse on a fork. Frosty The Lucky.

Thank you Wicon. A closed die forging sure can form characters proud of the surface, JUST like that. Frosty The Lucky.

That would be B A D! I'd probably be tempted to turn on an ignition source and go have coffee till the sirens started passing the cafe. Happily the only skunks up here are scent glandless pets. I did smell a skunk once as it passed the picnic ground on a car. Frosty The Lucky.

Thanks for the article Scott cool helmet. Bling is obviously ancient Latin for, "OOH Shiny!" Frosty The Lucky.

I have a TV in the bedroom and Deb has a coffee pot and keeps her muffins stocked on her side. Frosty The Lucky.

Dad's older Brother, my Uncle Frank was a welder before WWII broke out and he talked about the crew having the "blue flu" or "the Monday morning blues" every Monday till Wednesday. It was called Blue because zinc oxide smoke is a pale blueish white. For some reason everybody felt better till the next Monday. Uncle Frank said the zinc would get flushed out of your system over the weekend and it'd give you the blue headache again Monday and Tuesday till your zinc levels built back up. Was it true? I don't know but I've experienced the blue flu till I smartened up and made the state buy proper filter mask. It isn't "heavy metal" poisoning by a long shot but it really isn't good for you stay out of it. Frosty The Lucky.

Being as this is a blacksmithing forum I'll toss out the obvious suggestion first and get it out of the way. Why not forge a latch, there are several suitable ones demoed here. If all you want it a pull cord run a piece of light cable through a hole drilled at an upwards angle in the door frame, clamp or whip a loop to the latch and a lightly weighted pull on the inside. Having the pull above the latch and pulling upwards reduces friction and potential for snags jamming the cable. You don't need anything fancy and chain will require a suitable pully or some friction reducing mechanism or it will be a bear to pull and it'll require a spring or heavy weight to pull it back to the latched position. Perhaps if you drilled the hole large enough to insert a piece of copper or plastic tubing a pull chain would work smoothly enough. Every level of complexity you add to a device increases the probability something will go wrong and those odds raise exponentially. Frosty The Lucky.

Cast. The PFP in a rectangular border is proud of the surface, (sticks up instead of stamped into it) is a strong indicator of being cast. I have no idea of who made or sold it. Have you done a rebound test on it to determine the face's hardness? 34kg is pretty light though it would be okay for a travel anvil and light to moderate forging. Frosty The Lucky.

The burn can you found sounds like a good choice, it should last longer than a 55gl. drum. You might have to modify it for charcoal production though. Not to minimize the IDR nor ignore the difference in cost of living but I had to look at the exchange rate and at todays exchange a kilo of charcoal would cost approx $0.31 usd. Which is significantly less than my cost. The cheapest I could find locally is $1.02usd/kilo. The charcoaling method Billy describes above is how it's been made for thousands of years but instead of wet earth I believe sod was the common cover for the mound. Coaling rings are common archeological artefacts and some were dedicated masonry structures like the bee hive coaling kilns I described above. Coaling mounds like Billy described were usually around 10m in dia and up to 10+ tall. If covered in sod they didn't need a smoke hole. Tending the fire in one this size occasionally killed the collier as the mound and pyrolizing wood needs to be "settled" in the mound to work properly. The collier would jump up and down on top of the mound to settle the contents and every now and then one broke through and fell into the mound of burning wood. The now larger opening would fan the flames and many couldn't escape. This type and scale of coaling was a profession in the day and still is in parts of the world today. Frosty The Lucky.

Pretty nice. How stable it is? It looks kind of tall and narrow, what if someone puts a pot halfway on one cross member? Frosty The Lucky.

The one in high school shop class had a Hossfeld cheater that about doubled the standard handle length. Even then it was pretty common to see more than one person pull/pushing it. The one project I remember using it for was two pair of hay hooks. It took Dad maybe half a second to point out none of the 4 hooks matched very well. I should've used it more and maybe gotten good bending. Frosty The Lucky.