Frosty

​How durable is the finish? Do the little finial scrolls ever get grabbed by the wheel? Wire wheels make me jumpy, B-A-D things happen when wire and buffing wheels grab. Frosty The Lucky.

​S'okay, it's a common new to the site thing and we all slip, been XXXXed a time or 50 myself and they still let me hang here. Frosty The Lucky.

Say Tony: I don't think any of this came up because folk were unfriendly to newcomers, I believe it's more like the new comers were demanding questions be answered in ways they deemed correct. Sorry, that attitude pretty well puts a person towards the bottom of the "be friendly towards" list. I don't know how long you've been lurking but seeing you've posted 14 times . . . well, the # of your posts doesn't mean anything longevity wise. Anyway, if you've read much here you will have noticed how much time the old timers spend mentoring new folk and it doesn't take any kind of brown nosing to get help. Just asking usually does it. Bummer if the help is a reference to a couple hundred times the same or similar question has been asked and answered. Such is life, if a person is affronted by such I'm afraid I can't help, possibly nobody can. Frosty The Lucky.

Remember to wedge both ends or you might or get your head handed to you. Frosty The Lucky.

That is a point B. F. you're going to have to call it a naughty tukus from now on. Tsk tsk. Ah, you'll probably slide on this one but it is a family site. Just take it like your 9 year old daughter was reading the posts. Frosty The Lucky.

Not if you're dyslexic. Frosty The Lucky.

You could bend the tube up and get it farther away too but longer would be better. We like safe. <grin> You ARE going to show us pics of it up to heat. Yes? Frosty The Lucky.

Just be careful NOT to bang around the inside of your forge, it'll be fine. The thing I've found that beats up my forge is letting other guys use it. Fortunately its pretty easy to reline. Still. <sigh> Of course once they have a forge of their own they're not so rough. Frosty The Lucky.

I've never heard of one but it's on the list for the next wedding gift, you betcha. Frosty The Lucky.

Most outfits don't pay a lot of attention to E-mail, there's just too much spam coming in to commercial outfits. If you're already corresponding is one thing, but a cold enquirey is another, too many phishers do that pretending to be a customer. Phone works best. Frosty The Lucky.

I was mostly just joking about peining it like a tenon though it'd work fie. Were I doing it I'd trim it so there's maybe 1/2-3/4" protruding, chamfer and weld it. 9" isn't so long for a horn, I was thinking the knuckle was narrower for some reason and the pics you posted show the relation clearly. Frosty The Lucky.

I agree, the propane hose is too close for my comfort. The only criticism till I see how it looks up to heat. Nice looking build. Frosty The Lucky.

Charles: I think once the tenon is swaged to fit the hole he should just pein it over. Just think how tight it'd be once it cooled. Frosty The Lucky.

​Oh my, you Hafta say things like that to me? It's a Helva temptation you know. Frosty The Lucky.

​ Frosty The Lucky.

You're a blacksmith when some of your tools ARE scrap. Frosty The Lucky.

I haven't had much luck finding coarser blades than 14tpi either. <sigh> Not knowing what kind of "chop saw" you have, I think wood workers call their version a "Miter saw". MY concern is what metal dust and chips might do to the motor and how hard it's going to have to work. Springs will harden cut with a composition blade. This isn't so important seeing as the composition blade is an abrasive and grinds through. The problem this CAN cause being the harder the steel the slower it cuts and the slower it cuts the more soak time the heat has to harden the steel ahead of the blade. Still it'll cut steel but I don't know what it's going to do to your saw. Hopefully the cuttings will be directed away from the motor, only idiot designers don't design the saws to. Then is how hard is the motor going to have to work. Listen to it, it should slow down and sound like it's working but you don't want to lug it too much or it's going to overheat. If it trips a circuit breaker you're pushing it WAY too hard. You want to feed it as quickly as the motor will comfortably take to limit how much hardened steel it has to cut. I really wish I could just show you but this is what we have. . . words on a screen. Frosty The Lucky.

Agreed Thomas, patination or corrosion will show the difference between mild and HC or alloy steels forge welded together as seen in pattern welded blades. Bandit: Sorry I just might have been in a short mood when I replied. Nothing you said was untrue, I didn't call you on B.S.. I apologize if I came across harsh, I'm trying to work on that. Impact physics is a WIDE topic I only have a narrow lay handle on at best. However it's based on practical experience from getting the most I can from my hammers: on the anvil, splitting wood or assessing material failures. That and talking to folk who do know. Where to start, hmmmm, tossing a coin. (it just works better than solo rock paper scissor and I don't know the I ching.) Metal fatigue is as good a departure point as any and on topic I guess. Metal fatigues when it's pushed past it's elastic limit or yield strength. You can flex steel within it's elastic limit till the sun goes out without fatiguing it. Springs are a case in point, they take millions of cycles under your car, especially on Alaskan or gravel roads and do so without fatiguing. Unless they get pushed to the stops or overloaded, say putting a ton in your half ton pickup and driving down the gravel road. Basically, just because a hammer is homogenous steel doesn't mean will fatigue. Bouncing it on another piece of high carbon or high alloy hard steel on the other hand certainly can. HOT iron/steel on the anvil is more than enough and cold mild steel is adequate cushion to prevent fatigue occurring in even the hardest hammer or anvil face. A welded high carbon steel face on a wrought body hammer is a wear surface. The steel face resists: pits, dings, cuts, etc. and distributes the impact energy over a wider area making the hammer body more resistant to deformation. However even hardened high carbon steel can deform/flex, and being welded to a malleable substrate it tends to want to remain deformed. Repeated impacts relieves stress if not greater than it's elastic limit. This is how pinging and relieving a weld works, lots of little impacts allows stresses to relax. You see this this kind of deformation in older steel faced wrought body anvils as sway or swales. It's technically wear but it's not steel worn OFF the plate, it's been literally driven into the body. That statement isn't universally true, some faces have steel worn off but from what I've looked at most appear to have been deformed under impact rather than abraded. Nothing you've said is untrue, I don't know how applicable it is. Nor do I know how what I think I know applies either. I'm hoping someone here in IFI-land does know impact physics and metal will chime in with some hard data and has mercy on me with the math. Understanding this stuff is a high paying profession and I'd sure like to hear from a pro on the subject. Frosty The Lucky.

Thomas beat me to it. . . AGAIN. As a "possible" refinement suggestion. 18" is WAY longer than good for a horn, especially starting at 2" dia. 8-10" is longer than necessary but not crazy long. Just because you have 18" doesn't mean you have to use it. The drop is useful for other things in your shop or may be appreciated at the Votech class. Ask the Votech to turn the cone on one end W/ shoulder, turn the other to fit the coupler snugly and thread it for a lock nut. Frosty The Lucky.

I've been working with the ratio of post = 2x arm and head length and it's reasonably pleasing. Oh yes the horse gals would love the shoe nail jewelry for sure. How are you polishing them? What I'm seeing as most successful posting and viewing pics is loading and viewing them in the JPEG format as files. Embeds seem problematic but the Admin guys are working on it. I talked to Glenn yesterday and you guys might take heart in discovering the software is doing things he didn't expect too. I ended up with a youtube video embedded in a post and couldn't get rid of it. I didn't paste it, it was just on MY clipboard as a link, the software uploaded it as an embed on it's own. I spent I think a couple hours trying to get rid of it before I lucked on to the method. Regarding that particular post Glenn tried to merge a second post and couldn't, then discovered the software had done it already or who knows what. I just ran into a situation trying to reduce the file size on a pic and it turned out I just needed to give my oh so FAST computer about 15 minutes to sort through whatever it needed to do instead of just doing a Save As. I'm thinking we're going to be wandering in the Pet Roms till the comp geeks Mothers kick them out of the basement so they have to get real jobs and learn some common sense. Sorry about the frustration fueled rant. Frosty The Lucky.

Sounds like you have a customer in me, I tend to need PC help that isn't the all too commonly infuriating "Buy a Mac". I'll PM next time I run into a problem. Thank you. Frosty The Lucky.

You have my deepest condolences Knots. She, you and yours are in our prayers. Be well brother. Frosty The Lucky.

I was asking if you had specific cues to judge if a welded face hammer was made well or not. I don't know what you mean by misled either. A well made anything is going to be better than a poorly made one. Is there a question about that, a need to say so? While I've never taken a close look at a wrought hammer with a hc steel face I have seen the two forge welded and if the join is obvious it wasn't a very good weld. That's not if it's heavily weathered of course, WI and steel rust differently. I don't want to discourage anyone from being helpful, I'm just wondering about your expertise level. Some of the things you're saying are pretty vague, like you're grasping. None of us were born knowing this stuff, we all had to learn it. After messing with hot steel and hammers off and on for better than 50 years I'm more ignorant now than when I started. Keep at it brother, we're all on the slope and it's a GRAND ride. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Big Finn, 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. That's a beautiful crucifix, outstanding reversed twists. When you say you "punch them out." do you mean you make them fast? Or perhaps punch and drift for the cross? Frosty The Lucky.

If you still have the edit button available, click it and look for a little red line surrounding the pic. If it's still there there's a little arrow thingy in a red square try dragging it towards the opposite corner and see if that makes the pic go away. Nice trowel by the way. Might could use some shining up but it has a good solid utilitarian look with the it has now patina now. Frosty The Lucky.