Frosty

That's pretty neat alright, well worth cleaning up and hanging on a wall. I don't know what else to say. Frosty The Lucky.

Air you can wear? High humidity here is over 15% it's usually around or below10% but winter is the dry season, there's nothing like -20f and 5% humidity to dry things. A wash right out of the machine run out on a line in sub zero temps will freeze in a few seconds to maybe a minute and once frozen it's dry, bring it in, thaw it and fold it up. Our humidity is really hard on woodwork you have to keep it oiled or it checks. Frosty The Lucky.

No need to apologize to me, rereading what I wrote I came on kind of harsh. Certainly no need to apologize for your English, you speak as well or better than a lot of our native English speakers. Translating terminology is always a problem but we're getting better at it ourselves, have you ever tried figuring out assembly instructions translated from Japanese or Chinese? Compared to them you come across like a charm. We'll get you up and running, if you don't understand something just say you don't we'll reword it or something. Frosty The Lucky.

I find charcoal needs a considerably deeper fire to consume all the oxy. I use fire bricks on edge on bricks laying flat around the duck's nest to deepen the fire to a minimum of 6". That may not be the correct depth but works for me as a minimum depth. Small pieces of reasonably uniform size, I don't know how large a chestnut is but walnut is pretty BIG. The sweet spot is higher in the fire, well above that in a coal fire, almost on top of a coal fire high. I've also had good luck using fire brick to build an oven over the duck's nest in my forges. I lay the brick on edge two+ high and cover the top with bricks. Leaving both ends open doesn't seem to hurt at all. The idea of the oven is to contain the heat and fire so it consumes the oxy more efficiently. It's a shaky set up but works okay if I'm careful about bumping it or pile charcoal against the outside to hold it. If I had enough brick laying them all flat would make a nice stable oven, I used what I had at the time. Once you have a deep enough fire it's just like welding with any forge only cleaner. The only tricky thing I can think of is the depth of the sweet spot and charcoal's lack of doming capability. Frosty The Lucky.

Very nice rusty/dirty iron clean up how to Froggy. The only think I can add is how to control dust. If you have air tools you can wet brush and not put dust in the air. It's messy as all get out but nothing about brushing rust and dirt off is clean. Wet brushing doesn't mean water necessarily, sticky oil is good but it can contaminate the area if you don't have it tarped off well enough. Now the thread is diverging into specific anvils I'm just a spectator. Beautiful job on the Blacker anvil as with all the anvils but that one is a show piece. Frosty The Lucky.

That's a good idea using a pallet for a table top, you can store hammers, tongs, etc. AND it'd make a good layout table with room to clamp components through the table top. I think the only change I'd make is putting legs on it so I could get at the things I'd drop through it. (voice of experience there you betcha. <wink>) Frosty The Lucky.

The way the instructor showed us it was really simple. We drew the blade and cleaned it up on the grinder to as near a factory profile as we could. The last step he showed us was to lay the blade on edge sideways and touch the coarse wheel so the striations from the wheel were across the blade. He said it helped it grip the screw head, I don't know if that's true but it's what he showed us. The handle I made was scales rather than a round handle on a shank. I got to spend more time at the anvil that way. <wink> I gave it to Dad and the last time I saw it it was on the wall above his CB base station, I don't know if he ever used it. It was okay useful if you used it on the right size screw. Practice would hone the skill no doubt. Frosty The Lucky.

Aw come on Roger, if a little yakety yakkin could get a guy booted I would've been a footprint in the IFI memory years ago. And pics, we LOVE pics. Frosty The Lucky.

Sounds like a good day Thomas. Did you take pics of the crucible hooks we can look at? We love pics you know. Frosty The Lucky.

Pretty spiffy finish on the frame Keith. Keep us posted on progress please. Frosty The Lucky.

Pressing a male die into a female die is closed die forming and a different thing. The clearance between the male and female should be the thickness of the stock being formed. You want to take it all the way in one hit or work hardening will become a bear quickly. If you're top die is what you want you might try using it to make your bottom die by simply driving it into a piece of HOT steel till it's there. Then you can develop the clearance by first rough forming a piece of steel the thickness you want to form parts from and driving it into the HOT bottom die. Yeah, that's kind of iffy but it will work if you're persistent enough. Okay, luck might. . . MIGHT come into it too. <grin> Frosty The Lucky.

Rail is nominally 1085 low alloy steel. The trick will be getting a full penetration weld without deforming it. If it works right it'll make a sweet anvil face but it will have a tendency to ship if not drawn down probably into the purple, almost blue. Frosty The Lucky.

First fire? That IS a good one! Frosty The Lucky.

I like it and will hold off on the pig puns bacon in my brain. <oops!> Frosty The Lucky.

It's been in the 70's the last two days I had at the forge, brutal, simply brutal! Last weekend one of the guys at the church brought out his grandson and we had a good day, he was making better nails than I do by his 3rd try. I guess I should practice nail making eh? A week before we had a clinic in Talkeetna with Goesta Gablick as clinician. He made a frame and we made doo dads to fill it. Lets see, the week before I had another young man out for his first session though I did it in a twistier way. We have a local annual event in late June called Art on Fire and instead of bringing my shop forge out I thought I'd just put together a brick pile and use basic tool. I was thinking that'd be a lot less intimidating, the farriers usually use their gas forges and if asked the $300. - $400. each pricetag is a bit much, then looking at my home built monster and they logically think it's got to cost a couple grand. Well, if I made them one it might. Anyway, the brick pile forge and giving a first lesson at the demo worked better than I thought it would. The forge got a LOT of interest, most anyone can afford a dozen fire bricks and some plumbing parts. I had an old ruck axle sitting there so show a potential anvil, forgot RR rail but folk asked about rail. It was a very good day even though it started out raining. Let's see, those are my most recent excellent days at the anvil. Now if it weren't so darned HOT! I turn the car air conditioner on if it's over 55 out. Frosty The Lucky.

Not a bad blueprint unspecial guy, brings back memories. The first and only jr. high school project involving forging was a screw driver. We didn't get to do anything so fancy though. How do they work? Frosty The Lucky.

Those chicken tracks could be an excellent example of carbon arc welds and why Mr. Miller invented an arc welder to weld with fluxed wire to replace forge and carbon arc welds. It's only ugly, so what? It doesn't effect the function does it? If anyone asks about it make up a good story, perhaps a melange of the essences of these posts will make a good starting point. It's not an accident Blacksmithing and Bulls#&#ing are abbreviated the same B.S. Frosty The Lucky.

What are you using for the face, not 1018 I hope. It's looking very nice so far. Keep us posted please. Frosty The Lucky.

As has been said I don't know how many times here, 1 ea. well tuned 3/4" naturally aspirated burner will bring approximately 300-350 cu'in. to welding temperature. The mistakes in your boiler conversion forge are sufficient to not want to write a couple pages about. Build a forge from scratch, a scratch purpose built device is almost always less trouble than conversions, forges especially. As Thomas points out a furnace's purpose is exactly the opposite of a forge, a furnace is designed to transfer heat away from the fire efficiently a forge is designed to keep heat as contained as possible. Dave's burner design and instructions make an outstanding burner easy to someone with decent tool skills. His burners are ejector type similar to Mike Porter's and as good or better than Price's not to mention WAY cheaper. They easily live up to the 35- cu/in to welding temperature rule of thumb. All you need to do is build a forge in that range, 1 burner 350 cu/in and it'll easily hit welding temps under the burner, 2 burners and 700 cu/in is near perfect. Frosty The Lucky.

I think that's imperfection most of us can aspire to. Well made videos too, good lighting, framing and I love the fast action. Frosty The Lucky.

Looks like a fine weld, well done. Lots better than my first successful forge weld, I got so excited I beat it to death, what little was left was solidly welded though. <sigh> Frosty The Lucky.

I hear good things about Refflinghaus anvils, good to hear more. I believe filling your stand with concrete is your sound deadener, it'd certainly kill any resonance in the system. We got the pleasure of a demonstration and open forge session June 21. The clinician being Goesta Gablick and the anvil I got to use bears a distinct similarity to yours but it had an upsetting block and a shelf to the right side of the round horn. I'll have to ask the owner the make of his anvil and he's out of the country at the moment. maybe one of the other guys will read this and chime in with Kevin's new anvil make. A boy can hope can't he? It was a sweet anvil, you gotta love mass and good rebound from a smooth anvil face. Frosty The Lucky.

Prayers sent for Clay and family from the Last Frontier. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard, glad to have you. Yeah, craigslist, etc. links aren't permitted but don't sweat it just sit in a corner for 5 minutes or so and it's good, Admin will forgive you. <snicker> How good a deal they are depends on the asking price. I like 1 or 3. folk think tagging antique on something old means it's worth more. You want a working tool, not an antique for antique's sake. A 100lb. anvil is a nice size if you have to move it often. Will your set up be permanent or will you have to move your kit in and out of a shed, garage, etc.? If you can set it up and leave stuff where it is the larger the anvil the better it'll move steel, support tooling like bending forks and such. Frosty The Lucky.

The bottom tools aren't anything special, the anvil's horn is much better than a set of fullers. The bending fork is easy peasy to make, the swage is likewise easy to make, well almost as easy as a bending fork. The bone shaped bottom die thingy might be interesting to mess with and wouldn't be too hard to make but I wouldn't buy it unless it was really cheap. When you ask about the Hardy hole being straight through I'm not clear about your meaning. Doesn't the hardy hole on your anvil go all the way through the heal? Or isn't the hole straight, is it crooked, tapered, out of square, or? Frosty The Lucky.