Frosty

Thank you Jim! What a head slapper! Frosty The Lucky.

Looks pretty good. You can shorten the horns, those are probably at least half a turn too long. Making only a full curl is easier too, the natural taper makes it easier to roll. And to most people's eye a 3/4 to full curl is more pleasing. Frosty The Lucky.

Are you really going to be making maille? If so you don't need an anvil at all, not even if you're morticing the rings. Yard and garage sales are the shopping malls of blacksmiths, there's just no telling what juicy find is waiting you. Sledge hammers and heads are common, rally common. And don't set your sights on one thing, you never know what's out there till you look. I found a 22lb. masonry sledge head some years ago. I didn't know what it really was but it sure looked like a BIG straight pein sledge, so that's what it is. It sure doesn't need to be a hammer, it needs to be hard and solid so watch for an old axle, the bolt flange is REALLY handy for small work. Too long? Got a hack saw? NO!?! You really REALLY need one. Seriously, it's about an hour's easy work to cut a 2+ truck axle with a hack saw, I've done just that and I MEAN easy. Bolting a stack of plates for an anvil will really annoy anybody downstairs but it won't win you friends anywhere unless it's a really big house. Using a solid anvil will make clinky tinky sounds a stack of plates, no matter how tightly bolted will be making clanky sounds and being larger in area will resonate the air much more effectively. . . Louder. Still, as much as you've told us about what you want to do I'd have to guess a couple pair of round nose, needle nose pliers and good dikes is what you really need. My main tool making maille was an old tool box lid I put a piece of brazing rod across at the top so I could link rings easily. All the rest I did by winding the stock on a 1/4" mandrel, then cutting and weaving them together. Sure it was only lap joints but I never did need armor and it's pretty. Try forgetting the fancy language and just tell us what you do and the limitations Seriously, if you're going to use words like "ergonomic" you should use them correctly. Not annoying the landlord has nothing to do with ergonomics, economics yes, you don't want to pay for your own place yet so THAT is a real factor. Seriously, we're blacksmiths, not English teachers grading your paper, just talk to us, there's enough specialized craft jargon already. Frosty The Lucky.

Yeah, they much prefer to burn inside a forge. I don't recall (much) did you say what the jet diameter is on the 3/4" burners? I find the primary flame cone isn't a "bud" it's a cone about 1.5-2x the diameter of the tube or around 1 18" - 1 1/2" long and they roar like a jet engine. It's the thing I like least about NA burners, they're LOUD. Remember when you're trouble shooting things, don't get in a hurry, change ONE thing at a time and test it or you'll never know what did what or why. Frosty The Lucky.

You only turn the finial scroll on a hook backwards at demos, same for countersinking punched holes. Frosty The Lucky.

Beat me to wagon tires and hub bands darn it. I used to use interference fitting on things that had to take a lot of force like drill extensions. A rotary soils drill uses an extension to run from the turn table to the top of the auger and when making one it's going to be under huge stresses. It wasn't uncommon for us to stall a 453 Detroit Diesel in low gear drilling, if the guy on the controls wasn't fast enough the back lash would make the engine run backwards. It took some time to convince the heavy duty shop to stop making extensions from 2" HC hex bar, those things seldom lasted an entire hole. I used DOM mechanical tubing with an over thick female hex on the box end. On the pin end, I turned down 6" of the HC hex bar to about 0.004" larger than what I cleaned the ID of the Mech tubing. Then I heated the tubing to around 800f +/-, slipped them together and let it cool Once it was locked in I welded the join. One of my extensions broke under pretty severe abuse but did so in the way I'd intended. The weld on the pin end broke. this is at the top of the extension right under the turn table and seeing as there was 6" of coupler IN the extension tube it couldn't go anywhere but around and shriek. If the coupler at the bottom had broken there would've been 5' of steel extension swinging around in a most violent manner. Even though, call him, Lewy was pretty smug about breaking one of my welds nobody got hurt, nothing got damaged and the lead driller took the controls for the rest of the job. I was happy with the failure mode. Okay, enough of the windy ramble, here's a thing to remember about interference fits. You can get the female section TOO HOT. This is a perfect example of how wrong the old adage, "a little is good a lot is better," can be. You only want to expand the outside of the joint a couple few thousandths and a few hundred degrees is usually plenty. If you bring it to say bright red what will happen is, as it shrinks over the inside section it stretches and you lose the true interference fit. sure it'll probably be tight but it won't be a proper join. Frosty The Lucky.

It's good to see you up and forging and I understand the temptation to try something advanced early on, it's even gooder to see you didn't really expect success. Try not to get too involved in the how tos re. heat treat you read in what is essentially an informal discussion, namely this one. As Steve pointed out in his soooo delicate and round about way, the subject has been covered in depth and detail in the heat treatment section. While I'm not a bladesmith guy I do know enough about the subject, especially heat treatment to at least grasp what's being said. Without at least a good handle on the processes it's really hard to filter the facts from the myths from the kids who got all their learnin from playing Worlds of Warcraft. Some seemingly simple things can really screw you up. For instance, calling normalizing or annealing "thermal cycling" is like calling architecture, stacking and connecting stuff. It's just too general a process to mean much of anything specific. Isn't baking a wedding cake just thermal cycling? Stop by sometime and I'll be thrilled to thermal cycle some grub for you. Yeah, that's an extreme example but it's apt. whatever you do, do NOT stop playing with fire and hammers but do start reading the sections specific to your goals. I heartily suggest printing the parts that cover your next experiment the best. It's really good to be able to review the next step before it drops in the pot after you do it. Frosty The Lucky.

Good looking table Rusty. Of course the beauty is in the execution of the maker's craft. The top is a perfect example of a reclamation art I really like, of course humans have been making mosaics from chips and small tiles since I don't know when, Minoan times anyway. There's only one aspect I don't care for and that's the inward pointing hooks of the feet, just too much of a trip hazard for my taste. I know you didn't design that feature and probably couldn't have talked him out of it, it's on the customer. Still. . . <sigh> Frosty The Lucky.

Thanks Sam. Frosty The Lucky.

Pretty darned nice. Cork screws aren't easy to get right and you got it mostly right. It's good to see you left enough meat on the heart to be strong enough to turn and pull it. And heck it's a valentine's day gift so the heart isn't perfectly even, that's no issue. Our wives have to love anything we make them, especially for holidays and special days, it's part of the deal. You get an attaboy The whole left vs right screw issue is something I think a person should be able to figure out in a few seconds, if not then more wine probably isn't the answer. <grin> Frosty The Lucky.

I've only ever seen a couple pics and I think that was when he unloaded the boiler maybe. I do recall he was in the collect stuff phase of the boat. I thought Jake was in England or somewhere in Europe during the last flood. Of course I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't keeping up online. I seem to remember him saying he got someone with a wrecker or boom truck to lift his 25lb Little Giant out and get it to higher ground but thought that was breakup before last. MAN, the head injury makes it hard to keep things, especially dates, straight. <sigh> Frosty The Lucky.

Say hi to Jake from Frosty will you. I sure wish he'd move to higher ground or he isn't going to have a place to dock his steam river boat. Frosty The Lucky.

Me too Ian, we're short of good jokesters, I'm getting tired of carrying so much of the pun load you know. Frosty The Lucky.

That would be good news. I hope they'll sell outside contract. The Chinese are hot for metallurgical coal and may demand a single buyer contract. That's what's happening to scrap yards, single buyer contracts and they can't sell to anyone else. Let's all keep our fingers crossed. Frosty The Lucky.

That is just soooo wicked cool. How many customers do you have back ordered? If you can't sell these you must be throwing rocks at people! Frosty The Lucky.

If you're using two 3/4" burners 9"x9"x9" is right at 730 cu/in and can handle some odd shapes and sizes. This just so happens to be a really easy chamber to make from fire brick. This brings up one of my favorite types of gas forge, especially for folk getting into the craft and so not sure just what size or shape they'll need. Not saying this last applies now but it might for some guys reading. Build a table with a fire brick deck larger than the proposed forge size, say 18" on a side. Put a shelf on the stringers so you can store the fire brick. Now all you have to do is stack fire brick in a size and shape you need slip a burner tip in a gap and you're off to the races. If you rig the burners similar to the way I do you can turn as many on or off as you need and not be burning gas you don't need to. How do I plumb my burners you ask? I put a 1/4 turn ball valve right behind the regulator on the propane bottle, then the hose to 3/8" pipe nipple which has 3/8" "T"s. with a 1/4 turn ball valve in line. From the manifold to the burners is 3/8" pipe to 1/4" compression fitting, 1/4" copper tubing and the burner is connected with a 1/4" compression x 3/8" mpt fitting. It sounds complicated but it's actually pretty simple and if you use a lot more copper tubing on each burner you can shorten it by making large coils. this lets it be flexible and you can adjust the length considerably meaning you can put burners where you want within reason. If you want one somewhere unreasonable, use longer copper tubing. The manifold and copper tubing holds enough gas to help level pressure spikes caused by turning burners on or off. The copper tubing is fire proof so you don't have to take special measures to shield it from the fire. Heck, put it IN the fire, preheating the propane has more effect than heating the intake air. I don't know why but that's shy you see the stainless steel preheating coils on hot air balloon burners. Frosty The Lucky.

Of all the nasty stuff a person can poison themselves with welding, cutting, etc. zinc is probably one of the least dangerous. I'm not saying you can't do yourself serious harm breathing zinc oxide smoke, enough or a sensitivity to it and it can kill. Zinc however is a necessary nutrient, without it we wouldn't last very long, so our bodies metabolize it and use it. Regardless, do NOT breath the smoke. Small exposures are tolerable and no, drinking milk will not cure the blue flu. Drink a little milk BEFORE you expose yourself and it will help by exciting the mucous membranes into high production. We all know how our mouth gets with a sip of milk. Mucous helps trap the smoke before it gets to your lungs but that's all, it just helps. The really BAD stuff though is the chrome, cadmium among others. These two are to the best of my knowledge the worst, both are cancer producing, they don't increase the risk of cancer, they cause it. Cad is really nasty stuff, outright VERY toxic in addition. Keep it ALL off you. A quicky technique I use is to make sure the breeze is from the side. this takes it away by the more direct route. If the breeze comes from behind it will eddy and carry the fumes directly into your face. You're WAY better off with the breeze blowing from your front, it still eddies around but enters your shield from the back. Not good but a little better. A down draft welding table might be a good answer, something that draws the smoke DOWN into the table and away from the shop. I like down draft tables but I don't know if I'd trust one welding or cutting really toxic materials. There are filters designed for specific hazards and they're are reasonably effective. You have to be freshly shaved of course or NO mask is going to be much protection. Unless, it's a full face mask WITH hood. A supplied air breathing system is about the only thing that will protect you completely. It still has to fit, be air tight and used properly but used correctly they work well. I have a 3M Whitecap II supplied air welding helmet. An yes, it actually IS a helmet. It's a major PITA to use though, I got it for really nasty work. The thing's like wearing a space helmet with air conditioning I might add but it's still heavy, awkward and limits visibility, it does however keep everything you don't want out of your lungs. This is a subject that's been discussed before and it should be near the top of the discussion list, it's really important. Frosty The Lucky.

What have YOU had trouble finding? That's what's hard to find so buy all you can afford. Heck buy it all if you can, you can have sales later. If I had to prioritize: anvils, Vises, tongs, forges, hammers, bottom tools, top tools, stock. hand tools, power tool, benches, tables, coal bins (the coal), lights, etc. etc. I know I put the forge pretty high on the list but if you have a good one it can go farther down, unless it's a really nice one or good trading stock. Every time I hear about these things it's in the past tense. <sigh> Frosty The Lucky.

Sam: Tell Danr Frosty says hi. We got a little face time a couple summers ago. It was GOOD times. Frosty The Lucky.

The pipe 90 you're using to hold the jet is seriously restricting the air intake, that's why you have to crank it so high to get what you do. Replace the 90's with a smaller dia nipple that goes all the way across and drill it for the gas jet. That's how Ron makes his and it works. At 720 cu/in you'll be able to get away with two 3/4" burners but it's a little much volume but close enough. Two 1" burners is a LOT of burner and will probably start melting the refractory. Those three "T" burners aught to be a goodly dollop of too much burner. Of course my philosophy is, it's better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. If the forge is too hot, turn it down, that's a problem everybody should have. Frosty The Lucky.

Beautiful finish to an ambitious project. Well done sir! Thanks for sharing, it's a very nice online process piece. I'll bet it'd make a good article for your local smithing club. No? What next? I'll be waiting with bated breath. Frosty The Lucky.

Yes, a vise will work as a press but with some strict limitations. It's SLOW so it'll only do things that don't have to move far or can be done cold. A good friend of mine in Fla. forge welds with a vise and it works a treat. Frosty The Lucky.

Excellent Greg, we're on the way. Once again I find myself with a little regret for living so far from the main stream, I'd just LOVE to make meets at other clubs. If you ever get up this way let us know and we'll fete you. Same goes for anybody. Frosty The Lucky.

I watched season 1 but haven't been keeping track of season 2. The smithing caught my eye but I was a little disappointed that there wasn't a lot more. <sigh> I'm not a vikingOphile so I'm not up on hardware, weapons, etc. Still it looks pretty good as far as authenticity goes. Of course that's just me, YMMV. Oh yeah, I agree, it's a good hour's watching. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard, glad to have you If you put your general location in the header you might be surprised at how many of the IFI gang live within visiting distance. That and some questions have regional specifics we just can't take ito account without knowing where you are. If your necking die isn't working cold try marking it with a black Sharpy (black felt marker) heat it with a soft flame till the marks turn clear and or go away, then quickly swage it in the dies. That's what I'd try. However I doubt I'd take a commission like this, too many shops around that do this every day. The guys who run electrical conduit have swages and presses for doing exactly this. Larger diameter and I'd refer it to a muffler shop. That's just me though. Frosty The Lucky.