Frosty

Wash your fingers with soap and go sit in the corner for an hour! You see these kinds of folk no matter what's being demoed or done. They tend to be a self curing problem though as soon as a good demonstrator sets up they find themselves laughing at the nothing at their setup. Frosty The Lucky.

Wow, I don't turn my computer on for a couple days and a "T" burner tuning issue comes up. What size jet are you using? If you hit the local plumbing supply and ask for thread protectors they're likely to give them to you. They're screwed onto lengths of pipe to protect the threads in shipment but are not suited for coupling pipe in use so they usually get chucked i a box till someone hauls them to the dump or whatever. A lot of things can cause chuffing but it's usually too low a propane velocity meaning you may be using too large a mig tip. I have my best results with a 0.035" mig contact tip on a 3/4" burner. You describe a fluttery flame which says to me a slow flame and also suggests too small a jet. Back pressure can cause problems too and if the flame velocity is too low back pressure will have more effect. Wind is a hassle naturally aspirated burners are subject to though commercial versions are much less sensitive. They're expensive though. In future shoot your pics from the side of the forge so we can see the dragon's breath and another in the door before it gets, glare the picture out, hot so we can see the flame shape and characteristics. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Medic. Thanks for being one of those folk who run towards danger and disaster. You betcha a brake drum forge and coal will forge weld, it'll only take a while for you to learn to. already been said but it's good to see someone starting out and analyzing mistakes and failures. A HUGE part of the learning process is failure analysis and one of the real hurdles folk often face is emotional investment in their work blinding them to it's faults. About testing blades on melons meaning much, you make you a wooden blade that'll cleanly slice a melon. Now, cleanly parting a free hanging manila rope is a different thing, that takes a fine high quality edge. An edge can be scary sharp but as it starts cutting into the rope fibers they will exert a lot of lateral force on the edge so it if isn't strong as well as hard it'll roll and not part the rope. Last bit of old fart advice; not everybody's advice/opinion is necessarily worth a whole lot. For instance I'm not a badesmith guy, I can do the dance but the music doesn't really sing to me. I may know a thing to two but folk like Steve, Rich and a bunch of the other guys here REALLY know blades. Frosty The Lucky.

Hey Madknight, have we met? Next meeting is January 18th. I don't recall if we set the venue but probably at Pat's again, hopefully someone with a better memory will chime in. Gee thanks for reminding me Bryan. Thinking about it you never make meetings I'm going to have to nominate you for some club office. Hope to see you again someday. Frosty The Lucky.

Yes we are. A 20lb. propane tank will freeze feeding one of my 3/4" burners on a hot day in about two hours. Yes HOT, anything above 70f. is inhuman and we have to suffer days in the 80s even! Cold days, say 10f and below a 100lb. tank will run a 3/4 burner most of the day without freezing provided it's at least 1/2 full. Zero and below the magnetic engine heaters keep propane pressure and volume up enough to run two 3/4 burners. I arm my anvil to keep it from sucking heat from the work but I don't hit the anvil, I don't even tap it. Well, once in a while I give it a tap but not for any reason, it just happens, don't know why. Like Metalmangeler, Mark says, welding can be hard on cold days so I use a trick he showed me and heat a piece of plate in the forge to lay on the anvil and weld on it. Works a charm. Frosty The Lucky.

The eye damage caused by forge and glass blower's fires is "IR cataracts", I don't recall the correct term. The best way to avoid the damage is to not stare into the fire. I've tried forging with tinted glasses but prefer to be able to judge the temperature without having to learn a whole new color set at the reflex level. You can get good quality full coverage eye protection, I wear close fitting side shielded reading glasses as a matter of course. If I'm doing something in the shop that will put a lot of debris in the air, say disk grinding or wire brushing I have full a face shield. A word of warning is necessary here. No matter how good your eye protection you aren't wearing a hood so crud will get into your hair eye brows, etc. and when you take your eye protection off or take a shower even it can fall into your eyes. As a matter of course I bend over at the waist with my eyes closed and ruffle my hair thoroughly, brush my eye brows and give my face a general brushing off. THEN I keep my eyes closed till after I've shampooed my hair in the shower. I've had so much crud in my eyes they won't let me near a MRI and I don't want a spinning piece of metal doing the blender dance in my hide anywhere. Frosty The Lucky.

You're punching 5 holes at a time? I've never seen a leather punch with more than one punch, though I've never seen one in a commercial operation. Were I making a punch I'd use the same layout as a hand squeezed punch and maybe anchor a small spring in the punch blade to push the slug back out. Of course that's just me and this evening's WAG. Frosty The Lucky.

It might make a decent sheet metal forming tool, sort of like a Pull Max but littler and wimpier. Still, if it's a freebe I could probably think of something to use it for. Forging hammer? Not likely. Frosty The Lucky.

The wedge shape is the outside of two "matching" sections, the spike or whatever fits in the space between the two slips. With the stock in the dog the halves are held apart a fraction of an inch so when the dog is dropped in the female receiver the wedging action drives the halves together and clamps the stock most thoroughly. It works like a wedge door stop, the harder you try to move the door the more stopped it gets. The right angle we used as a rod dog drilling was a lot more acute than a door stop but a little less acute than a hammer handle wedge. I've never made one so I don't have better numbers than thumbnail guesstimates. I'd be doing trial and error. Frosty The Lucky.

Log dogs are almost too easy to set as a job, more a spare time or time to kill project. when you say "Froe" do you mean like for splitting out shingles? When we debark by hand we use either a draw knife or a barking slick. A slick being a long handled flat chisel, longer handle than a short handled shovel. Frosty The Lucky.

Thanks for the pictures Natkova, that's a beautiful old smithy. You are soooo going to fit right in here. <wink> Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Monel, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be pleasantly surprised at how many of the IFI gang live within visiting distance. Have you forged Monel? Any advice on alloy? Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard LM, glad to have you. I'd be thinking a dog type header for the vise or hardy hole. By doge type I mean slips like a rod dog on a drill rig uses to keep the drill stem from falling down the casing while lowering or pulling it and breaking lengths from the string. They're really simple devices, basically two jaws with an interior the right shape to grip the subject without letting it slip. The exterior is tapered so the dog makes a wedge. How it works is simple, the stock is inserted and the dog is slipped into the casing, vise jaws, hardy hole, whatever, as gravity tries to pull it down the wedge shaped slip dog pinches the stock and it can't go down any farther. As a spike header the harder you hit it the harder it will grip the spike. Removing it is as easy as a light tap from underneath. I'd use an air hammer with a header to head the spikes, just too much hand hammering for this old coot. Yeah, I can see the thing in my mind but I'd be checking into buying spikes were it my job. Frosty The Lucky.

Zinc burns with a green flame and isn't nearly as toxic as most think. Zinc is a necessary nutrient you won't live long without. Calamine lotion and sun screen are both zinc oxide compounds as are most effective skin lotions. Read the ingredients on a multi vitamine bottle. Breathing zinc oxide on the other hand is BAD and can cause serious damage, even death though a killing dose is a pretty heavy dose unless you're sensitive to it. Rub it on your hide, drink it in your water, eat it in your food or take it in a vitamine and it's GOOD for you. Do NOT put galvy or otherwise zinc coated material in the forge, take a torch to it or weld it unless you have the correct breathing gear. On another zinc, brazing rod if overheated burns with a green flame and makes bluish white lacy smoke. Brazing rod contains zinc and it's used every day by probably thousands of folk. It's only dangerous if you overheat it and breath the smoke. Zinc solders like a dream though. Cadmium on the other hand is very toxic don't burn it don't grind it. AVOID bolts, nuts, washers, etc. that look like they're plated a gold looking color except to bolt stuff together. Cad is a cancer causing metal and is an accumulative toxin that has effects that just keep on giving. Frosty The Lucky.

The odorant is "mercaptain" oil and being a tarry oil, sticks to the tank after a few years. Fill it with water and add a gallon or two of Chlorox bleach to deodorize. The propane won't absorb into the steel and will be displaced by the water. While cutting any tank that contained flammable gas can't be made completely safe there are a LOT of things more dangerous than propane. Fuel oil being the most dangerous, not counting certain rocket fuels. I'd send it to the scrapper and shop for easier to use stock. That's just me though. Frosty The Lucky.

Thanks Glenn, Jerome. I'll be hitting Google in a short bit and downloading a copy. Heck, if this keeps up I may start turning out decent tongs. <grin> Frosty The Lucky.

Exactly, spring steel makes pretty good knives and it's pretty forgiving in the heat treat. You can get the temperature a bit wrong, either hardening or tempering without ruining it. Leaf spring is good steel and tempting but coil spring is just as good but can be easier to make some shapes from. In this case I'd try coil sprig, it's round bar when straightened so is less work to draw the tangs (handle sections) and the blade doesn't require a lot of forging. Leaf spring on the other hand lets you rough form the draw knife by hot cutting it with a chisel or cold cutting with a hacksaw. Then you can finish shaping it at the forge. Harden and temper and do the final grinding. Draw knives are good early knife projects. They are best for removing bark and don't need to have top quality edge holding quality. You can make good functional tools while you learn to heat treat properly. Frosty The Lucky.

Excellent side draft hood! Even a piece of stove pipe suspended a few inches off the table a little behind or beside the fire will work surprisingly well. I'm very much a functional is beautiful guy and that's a BEAUT. Well done. Frosty The Lucky.

Thank you all. The armed forces of the USA are something I'm proudest of in today's world. First in, whether it's to hurt people and break things or respond to disaster with rescue, medical, food and succor for those in peril, be they friend or foe. You make the entire world a better place, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Frosty The Lucky.

Thank you Peggy, you catch the heart of the craft in a touching way. You are a wordsmith true. I hereby award you a great big warm Frosty hug, you may collect any time you wish. Hugs, Frosty The Lucky.

I'm thinking what you call "cramps" is what we call "log dogs" intended to hold logs in position for working as in notching, or adzing. I think you'll be much farther ahead to find some spring steel to forge your draw knives. You don't need welding heat, a bright orange will do and that can be reached in a camp fire with a little induced air. Frosty The Lucky.

You're on the list here Hans. Frosty The Lucky.

The only fires the polar native makes in an ice house is an oil lamp. Igloo isn't a native word but I don't recall the origin. almost any earthly temp on one side 1' of snow and the other side will be 27f within less than 2 degrees. Snow caves are a tried and true winter camp/survival shelter. It's hard to beat sleeping in a snow cave, a little visquene to keep your sleeping bag dry and a proper domed roof so you don't get dripped on and it's bug snug in any weather. A CO monitor would be iffy as snow walls aren't air tight so you may have a little fresh air entering at the monitor and not get a warning. I'm only rehashing the dangers and it looks like Crazy Ivan has decided an ice house isn't a good place for a forge. Good to see Crazy doesn't mean dumb. Then again if you're using an induction forge why the heck not? All you'd have to worry about is the humidity in the air and the rust. Frosty The Lucky.

That's a nice looking little stove Frank, I especially like the oven. Nothing bakes like a wood fired oven and a fresh pizza for lunch would be sweet. They haven't been putting dampers in stoves for quite a while, they tend to increase creosote formation. How many sq/ft does it heat i what temp weather? Frosty The Lucky.

Get instruction, as in take a class. The folk at the welding supply will be happy to recommend one to you and may teach safe handling and use of their welding equipment. Buy new equipment, you have to know what you're doing and looking at to safely buy used. A compete torch set isn't enough more than buying bits and pieces, just get the kit. Heck, it's probably more expensive to buy just a couple tips with the rest of the set. Oxy propane may do you well and propane is much less expensive and is available most anywhere. At least here this side of the pond. Frosty The Lucky.