Frosty

I'll bet the kids will LOVE a blacksmith club meeting. Smiths seem to have a soft spot for children in the shop. While a Science Center is a good place, learning about simple physics by word and deed has practical application that many an "official" display doesn't. If they're old enough to get anything from the Center they'll get more from a club meeting. Stop on the way and get them full coverage eye protection! Just a thought. Frosty The Lucky.

Well, there you go seems blacksmiths are coming out of the woodwork. It's good company, a little face to face should put you in touch with more tools and equipment than a boy could want. If you don't have a comfy chair string a hammock just remember to forge good strong hooks to hang it from. Few problems in life can't be solved with a hot enough fire and big enough hammer. Frosty The Lucky.

Once again I get the impression of a mid management guy who has gone over the books and sees how much they spend replacing rollers on the link belt track rigs and believes there's an economical way to cut costs. Without experience in the shop or metallurgy he is simply reading marketing papers and spec sheets and is posting questions based on misunderstanding and a lack of knowledge and experience. It's good to ask questions but asking the dozer manufacturer is the correct venue for information. There isn't a link belt company in the world that isn't trying to maximize the life of high wear parts. Every time one does their sales goes up because it's EXPENSIVE to run heavy equipment. I don't think there's much we can do for the OP, even if we knew exactly how to increase wear resistance he doesn't have the knowledge base to make use of it. It's a good try but isn't going to succeed. I know there's a huge amount of talent and training here but the OP is asking a BLACKSMITHING forum. Frosty The Lucky.

Grinding chrome isn't as bad as burning it off but it's still not something to breathe and just wearing a dust mask isn't keeping it off you. Dust WILL settle in your hair and on your skin so unless you have a shower in your shop or wear haz mat suit you are going to be carrying grinding dust around with you. Washing your clothes will cross contaminate everything else that goes in the washer till it's rinsed out a few times. I'm not trying to scare you . . . MUCH but it's something to think about. There's a procedure to safely remove PPE, especially safety glasses or goggles. Your eyebrows are there to catch debris before it falls in your eyes so they do. They catch airborne debris like grinding disk dust and metal filings. When you take your safety glasses off everything in your lashes are free to get shaken or brushed free and fall into your eyes. Doing dirty work I often take my safety glasses off in the shower, head facing down eyes closed and shower the grit out. Please don't tell me I need to TELL you NOT TO USE AN AIR HOSE!! Anyway, dust can be bad, in some cases say cadmium VERY BAD. Yeah, I'm kind of a safety nut, one of the only ways to get 86'd from my shop is willfully disregard safe practices. Frosty The Lucky.

Do I need to ease up on the "parent's basement resident IT geek" jokes? I tend to suggest the phone book as a matter of course so many kids now day don't know anything but the net. That's a beautiful shop, well equipped and nicely laid out. It'd probably take me all of half an hour to get used to working in it. That's about how long it takes me to arrange my tools. I'll reiterate the suggestion to talk to a commercial HVAC company or supplier. I buy 3,000f castable refractory in 50lb. bags as the small quantity they carry. They do carry premixed buckets of cements for patching and repairs. They don't carry ITC-100 or other ITC products but will order them on request. WAY better to just order your own if you really need it. If you have trouble locating refractory, castable, rammable(plastic) etc. in bulk or bags, E.J. Bartell ships and the North Dakota office is probably the closest. I don't make anything from Bartell they're just the best game in our town and treat the blacksmith club very well. I can't go in to pick up anything without leaving with Kaowool, fire brick rems and occasionally a refractory they'd like me to test in the forge. Frosty The Lucky.

It's our pleasure Bob, helping someone succeed makes us feel good. We're selfish that way. Frosty The Lucky.

You start off learning the processes not making tools. Some tools are entirely basic processes but they turn out much better if you learn the process first. For example a hot chisel is just a spread draw on one end, heat treat, a little grinding and done. Easy peasy, IF you know how to do a spreading draw and heat treat. Heat treatment is NOT an early beginner's process. How's your hammer control? Making nails is good practice for moving fast and good control but you'll need a header so you'll need to punch a hole, so you'll need a punch, forge an even round taper, a little grinding and heat treat. Yeah, heat treating again. On and on, there are a lot of processes and techniques you need to know before tricks will even help. As a start the guys like to start students out with long even tapers and simple bends, S hooks are popular. Two life long necessary techniques in one project. Then once a student is making reasonably consistent S hooks we'll throw in a twist. Technique 3. Now we're getting into drive hooks or maybe coat hooks. A coat hook involves counter sinking and punching screw holes so it's time to make a couple punches but you've had some time at the fire and anvil so judging heat and timing are easier. Don't think I'm trying to discourage you, I'd much rather you succeed in learning this craft, it's just involved and takes practice. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard, glad to have you. If you scroll almost to the bottom of the Iforge home page you'll find the regional organizations section, fine one close to you and go meet the guys. You'll learn more in a couple hours with an experienced smith than days or weeks trying to figure it out yourself. You also have literally thousands of pages of shared information, experiences, tricks, mistakes, problems and solutions, etc. etc. on IFI. I highly recommend a comfy chair, lunch and something to drink, there's a LOT of reading, just skimming. Frosty The Lucky.

How about trying the phone book and telephone rather than surfing the net? Call the local concrete supplier, if they don't carry fire brick they will know who does. Hard fire brick is tough but sucks up about 3x the fuel to get and keep hot. They don't insulate so you lose a lot of heat right through them. Soft insulating fire brick is more efficient and the chamber gets hotter but they are more fragile and don't like thermal cycling so expect to replace them as they break up. Everything, EVERYTHING in the contact zone, (flame contact,) is a wear item not counting what happens when you or a ham handed student starts smacking the walls, roof and floor with sharp steel. It's gonna happen take it into account. There is no need to cement brick in a forge and you WILL need to replace them every once in a while, they are a wear item don't make life harder on yourself than necessary. I'd have to ask one of my caster friends to render an opinion about melters so I'll stay mum. Again, using the phone book call HVAC companies, they use refractories all the time and often have rems from furnace services and installs they'll sell for reasonable. They use as a daily matter of course: castable refractories of all types, patches, washes, hard and soft fire brick, ceramic blanket, stiffeners and washes. Once word got out about the local supplier, most of the ceramic suppliers stopped selling kiln making materials and went to clays and slips. E.J. Bartell in Anchorage and most of the western half of the USA are my go to guys. However we did buy our zirconium silicate flour from Seattle Pottery supply for a small fraction of ITC products prices. I've done a lot of searching for materials and supplies on the web and get tired of the browser, search engine and who knows who, loading my screen with things they THINK I should be interested in buying, INSTEAD of what I'm searching for! I'll take the telephone and a real human any time! Frosty The Lucky.

Oh we're going to get along famously though I stopped caring about the sanity angle. I don't suffer from insanity I enjoy it thoroughly. I love the learning curve even though the TBI makes staying focused harder I savor learning something new every day. Getting involved in something entirely new thrills me, unfortunately it isn't unknown territory long. Happily there's always quantum mechanics if I start feeling like I have a handle on things. I understand what you mean cruising the unknown is a good thing, I like it. Frosty The Lucky.

Restrict your fire physically, a ring of fire brick is my choice but pile clay or whatever. Sure you CAN control the fire by wetting the charcoal you don't want burning but that's like dragging logs behind your car to keep it from going too fast. The solution in either case is the same, back off the throttle. Right now your forge pan is like putting a 650cfm Holly 4 barrel on a 67 VW Bug. It's charcoal, it WILL burn if exposed to air and fire. A small fire pot, bowl, duck's nest, etc. to physically keep the charcoal and fire separate works and once you've tried it . . . easily. Believe me, you could pile charcoal in your forge till it couldn't hold any more and with a bit of air from the blower get it all burning at once. Look at the coals in a camp fire and it doesn't have forced air. Frosty The Lucky.

The mower deck brake drum configurations appear sound but the 55 forge is a proven design. Using the second drum for a hood is a good option especially for coal. When you've had some time with coal you won't make as much smoke but it'll still always be a factor. Frosty The Lucky.

Hexavalent chrome is a powerful carcinogen. You get hexavalent chrome when you heat chrome very much. The temper colors aren't a problem but forging temps are B-A-D. Frosty The Lucky.

Try contacting your local WashDOT highways maintenance office and talk to the guardrail crew. They might let you take some of the broken or replaced guardrail posts. They're usually rated for a minimum 10 years. Be sure you use plenty of clean gravel in the bottom of your hole, go deeper rather than less. Unless I miss recall the Olympic Peninsula it isn't quite rain forest. It's going to need a dry well / French drain. Basically a reverse well that allows water to flow freely down below where it'll impact the structure and offers enough surface to the surrounding soils the water can drain easily. Clean gravel won't plug up or inhibit the flow like a compactable gravel will. If you get a lot of rain you might want to provide a little drainage away from the post hole or being a dry well it will literally draw water from all around. Grade it so it has to flow up hill to get to it. Frosty The Lucky.

Good tips Redd consider them added to my tool kit. A little good PR can go a long way towards making you a friend of the neighborhood rather than a nuisance. None of my neighbors had a dull knife, lawnmower blade, etc. and I frequently did small repairs broken chair leg, etc. all gratis. I got invited to more dinners than I could eat. What neighborhood was that? A mobile home court in Anchorage, my closest neighbor was less than 30' from the anvil. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Josh, glad to have you. don't be a stranger though, I really look forward to answering questions asked by someone who actually knows what research is. I LOVE good questions especially if they make me research for the answer. Good questions are a treasure. Frosty The Lucky.

Looks pretty good Andy, the only thing I can see needs tweaking is it needs a cup holder so your beverage isn't getting warm sitting in the pan. Frosty The Lucky.

While the chisel might just BE that way because, I've seen the same general profile used like a plane. The single bevel lets you lay it flat against the stock and remove whatever's sticking up, say rivet heads, weld beads, etc. without the chisel wanting to dig in. Frosty The Lucky.

Cool, I'll be watching anyway but knowing one of the contestants will be even better. Or is he going to be a judge? Frosty The Lucky.

I've found 1/4" graph paper is easier to use, if I need more accuracy I draw larger and just scale it on the shop floor, table, bench, etc. I have old eyes though. There are a couple tutorial spreads in that first search I linked that will show you the steps in order. Ditto Darryl Nelson DVDs and joining NWBA it's a great bunch of guys. Then again they're blacksmiths eh? Heck, you might catch Darryl demoing at a meeting. The Iron Menagerie has step by steps for critters of all kinds and once you're part way through it you'll be off and running. This is the first hit on a search. http://www.amazon.com/Iron-Menagerie-Guild-Metalsmiths/dp/1931626294 WOW, if our down under brother made a brazier we could roast whole steers! I loved that dragon the first time I saw it scrapartoz and it hasn't diminished in it's attractiveness a bit. Frosty The Lucky.

Before the bowling alley bought them out there was this GREAT little cafe on the docks over the water in Ketchikan called the Roller Bay Cafe. It was perfectly placed so we ate breakfast there every morning and when we were drilling on the slope right above it we ate lunch there too. Well, there was a local who ate lunch there every day too and her method of parallel parking was to go till she bumped the vehicle hard enough to feel, then turn the wheel and go the other way. It usually took 3 thumps to get close enough to the curb for her. No locals batted an eye and said good morning when she walked in, by name without looking up. Funny how the same two battered vehicles parked either side of HER parking space every noon. You gotta love small towns . . . Well it's a good sized city in Alaska. Are you going to plant a birch tree in her parking place? That just might work but I must warn you the thump to my head only made me a little crazier. Deb was surprised her first winter when she discovered the 60" snowfalls were winter averages, not average snowfalls. Last winter we didn't get a whole foot here and only went sub zero for maybe 5 days total. Frosty The Lucky.

I keep coming back and scrolling through the pics. I'd say they're definitely hand made though he used a scrolling jig for sure. The scroll finials are reverse tapered and scrolled in a bit of a helix. The more I think about it the more the rivets would make it easy to knock down to ship. Assembling it wouldn't be difficult nor require a smith to do. My grandmother knew how to buck rivets, it's only a "mystery today because they don't teach hand skills in school. I still don't want it. Frosty The Lucky.

I'll remember the trick, thank you. Yeah, the legend at the top doesn't show anything beyond this page. And I just KNOW the last post was something really juicy. <sigh> Maybe later. Frosty The Lucky.

The crystal pattern in meteoric iron is the result of it taking a few million years to cool. think of it like (sort of) grain growth in high carbon steel taken to an astronomical extreme. Over heating it breaks the crystal boundsries down like annealing so the pattern degrades through out the piece. The pattern isn't a surface effect, it's everywhere till it's gone. Frosty The Lucky.

What I meant was the grill itself wouldn't work as well with the bars being 2" deep. Then again I've never tried one with bars that deep. I surely could be wrong. What I prefer about rectangular grill bars on edge is they get hotter with more surface exposed to the fire, they make nice grill marks on the meat and don't cool off as fast. Grilled meat. mmmmmm Did you do your drawings on graph paper? It REALLY makes scaling drawings to reality easier. Frosty The Lucky.