Frosty

Welcome aboard Lyn, glad to have you. Sounds like you have a plan and are on track to make it happen. Smooth sailing through school and here's to finding a good partner. Frosty The Lucky.

Not bad at all. I like RR spike snakes, the spike head makes a fine snake head. The problem I've observed when someone tries to collect or make all the tools they need before they really get to work seems to be, when they finally get to work they discover they need more tools AND most of the tools they made aren't what they need. Been there done that, have the collection of unused stuff. Frosty The Lucky.

Even MORE hassle, I'd John Wayne it first! You kids, send you to school and . . . <sigh> Frosty The Lucky.

Oh NOOOO! :o Just unhook your belt, you shouldn't need to remove it just to open a bottle. :rolleyes: That takes WAAAAY too long. B) Dude, that' more smiley faces than I think I've used in one post in a loooooong tiime. <sigh> Frosty The Lucky.

The change to the modern shaped eye is surly practical, it is a stronger, more secure handle and fits the hand better. Certainly the customer's choice and I think a good one. I love the term "Mustaches" and they look well on the profile. I can see this as a commoners brush axe with, perhaps, a little Dane or Viking influence. I like it a lot. thank you for sharing your work. As a bit of personal side note, I get a little thrill, (kick is the American term) out of having a Carpathian friend. It just puts a smile on my face. Frosty The Lucky.

Compacting and dust control is more about gradation than compaction. Gradation is the mix of material size in the mix. You need enough fines to fill all the voids and bind it together. You also need angular material to key together and form a solid grade. If the soils are river deposits (alluvial) round particles it will shift no matter how much you run a compactor over it. Think a bag of marbles for a picture of what's happening. Angular means it's broken in a crusher or by natural process. Natural angular material is a lot harder to come by. The industry standard sub base is D-1 which is 3/4" minus crushed or 3/4" minus Crusher run. Depending on who you're ordering it from but all the aggregate or gravel plant guys will know what you're asking for. Lay it in 4" lifts if you're using a plate compactor or it won't compact all the way through. If' you're using a jumping jack compactor you can go as much as 12" lifts but not as a final finish coarse. The terminology here is counter intuitive but industry standard. BASE courses are lower in the grade, SUB BASE are right under the FINISH course. The FINISH course is right under the PAVEMENT or it's what you Walk on. this is the grade, from top down you walk or pave on the FINISH course which is on top of the SUB BASE course which is on top of the BASE course which is on top of the FILL courses. A course is a LAYER placed by the contractor to make a competent grade which is what you drive or build on. Not knowing what your base and sub base are I can NOT make specific recommendations so I need some input from you before I can be more helpful. Just so you know, I worked for the State Of Alaska as a lab tech before transferring to the drilling section of the Foundations section of the Geology Department of Head Quarters Materials. All that jive means I have first hand knowledge and experience with the design guys for road grades and bridge foundations design and construction. I am NO highways or foundations engineer but I can help you design a good solid shop floor or foundation from a practical, hands on level. Frosty The Lucky.

Naw, forging with flux on the LG is no sweat, just make a fine mesh screen scatter shield and it's no problem at all. It's on the anvil the hot sticky stuff gets to flying. Frosty The Lucky.

Hola Angel, welcome aboard, happy to have you! Please put your general location in the header so we'll know where you are. If you have trouble just say so, we'll help. Don't worry about your English, it's just fine, better than a lot of native English speakers as a matter of fact. I only speak one language and only know Mui poquito Spanish. Spain has a long tradition of fine iron work, dating back to or before Roman influence. I look forward to whatever you have to say or show us. Frosty The Lucky.

Thanks Mark. That is an elegantly simple and very functional retort. I'm thinking it's something that could be adapted into a shop wood heater and retort for a practical multi-tasker. Lots of us either heat or supplement heat with a wood burner. Your retort design or a version I should say, directs most of the combustion and pyrolization heat agains the wood chamber and the outside skin. the outside skin will heat a large volume of shop space while pyrolizing wood for the forge. However if heating the shop is it's job that day a little mod to allow the carbon to continue to burn and direct it's exhaust into the space against the outside skin and it's a high efficiency heater. Stoking while it's burning is the only real modification challenge and not a big one. Atall Atall. Excellent design Mark, a fine stand alone charcoal retort as it is on one hand and a potentially high efficieny wood gas heater/furnace on the other. I'm a huge fan of multi tasking tools and equipment. Wood gas furnaces are the rage right now efficient and low emission, win win. So a guy has to have a more permanent set of inner and outer shells rolled. A couple hundred bucks and some welder time noooo big deal at all. Frosty The Lucky.

Much better said than I did. I'm not trying to drive the kids off any more than the other guys are. HIS response to attempted help and suggestions to speed up the help he was asking for were hostile and self aggrandizing. Putting on airs isn't going to do him any good here OR in life and as can be seen by the responses he elicited will only start a . . . Whatever match. This is exactly why I tried to keep out of it. HOWEVER when a genuinely good guy starts apologizing for trying to help I couldn't resist. I mean, seriously the name Mindtaker isn't a guy who even considers social behavior anything but beneath him. While I'm sorry if a potential blacksmith was chased away, I'm not going to shed tears or even begin to form regrets. If grown up talk is too insulting for him to tolerate, he certainly isn't going to be able to do much as a blacksmith. Steel and iron LAUGHS at OUR feelings. WE work on the STEEL'S terms not the other way around. Point blank and PERIOD. I don't care if he wants to post even a general location, lots of solid contributors don't and while I'd like an idea of where in the world they live and practice the craft. It's their call, so be it. I'm neither insulted, hurt or bothered. I don't see them asking such basic questions and complaining about not getting good enough answers that REQUIRE knowing their location. Seriously, if you wish to eat at the adult table, behave like an adult. Age has little to do with it. GEEZE have I gotten WAY too involved in this subject, I'm signing off. On the other side, If I can stop wasting MY time on this topic, maybe it's just good therapy to help me get my left hemisphere back in balance. Not saying any more on my part is a win for me. Bye bye. Frosty The Lucky.

Thoughts from a NOT a blade guy. On occasions where scale becomes a factor I keep everything covered with flux as a prophylactic measure. The flux forms an air barrier keeping oxy away from the hot steel. This is one of it's main functions in a weld as well. The problem with keeping everything covered in flux is it's REALLY messy, it gets on the anvil the hammers, other tools, your apron, the floor, every darned where. However it makes a huge difference in scale formation so iF scale is a factor fluxing is a mitigating practice. Frosty The Lucky.

Now that's an all round nice camp axe, it'd be a champion fire wood splitter and stake driver. It'd be a little unhandy for limbing and such chopping but I've found chopping branches isn't something I've done camping. It just doesn't come up so having a camp hatchet for chopping just isn't a necessary feature. Cutting wood is what a bow/swede saw is for. I'd be proud to carry that hatchet on my belt or in my pack. Well done. Frosty The Lucky.

I like it Dancho, it has the look of a tool someone who was more interested in it's function would own. Who and what time period would this be from? Frosty The Lucky.

Dodge: Putting 40 individual burners in a wall would be a ribbon burner in practice if not form. The spring shop I used to visit in Anchorage had a brick pile furnace/forge about the volume we're talking about but longer, 60" or so and only a little narrower and less deep. they ran it with two big natural gas (methane) gun burners mounted to make a vortex. One burner near the top in back aiming right to left, the other bottom front aimed left to right, the exhaust port was in the center and consisted of gaps in the bricks. It worked very well for what they wanted, very even heat and very controllable. It ran all day, from open to go home. The spring shop used it to heat to critical not near as hot as we're looking for, they bent and heat treated, no forging at all. However, it wouldn't be any more than a detail to ramp that furnace up to get to welding heat, two more big gun burners would do it easy. It's need a commercial natural gas hook up and would make the meter spin like a top. However, in a production shop it was DE BOMB, it'd heat a 60" length of 2 1/4" x 1/4" spring to critical in under 1 minute and they always had a minimum of 4 in the fire. Watching the leaf spring guy work was a treat in production steel work. He'd put a leaf blank in the furnace, set the bender (Arc machine) and select the pin for the bracket turning wrench. He'd pull the blank, place it in the arcing bender and bend it, then he turned the bracket receiver ends with the wrench, take the pressure off it and put it back in the furnace. Do the other side spring while the first came back to critical, pull #1 and quench it, then put it back in to temper, at tempering color it went into an oil quench. Done. He was doing leaf springs in about 5 minutes total and doing several at the same time. It was like poetry in motion. Anyway that large a furnace/forge would almost have to be natural gas with all the headaches of getting a hook up. Frosty The Lucky.

Really nice truck Dave, 67-70 is my second favorite Chevy truck body style and far more practical to build than my favorite 35-37. No doubt you get folk stopping and checking her out, she's a sweet ride. I know I'd give it a long wide eyed go round. She's gotta be a fine ride, 590hp would be snappy, I LIKE snappy. <grin> Thanks for the pics. Frosty The Lucky.

Don't sweat it Rich he wasn't going to get far with his attitude regardless. He took adult talk as an insult. I decided I wasn't going to say anymore, I might talk to him like he was an adult and insult him. The craft of a blacksmith let alone bladesmith requires problem solving as well as eye hand coordination, trained muscle memory, knowledge and the realization the steel don't know diddly about mystique or what we think. It is what it is WE have to learn IT'S way, not the other way around. If a fellow can't use the Yellow pages or do a basic search online s/he's a long way from ready to blacksmith let alone bladesmith. Since the accident I've had to try really hard not to get into arguments or plain old rants because I've gotten emotionally invested in something that doesn't concern me. It's the damage to my left hemisphere and I'm learning some coping mechanisms. Letting the annoying ones be is my best so far. Only a kid or an idiot asks for help then cops an attitude when it isn't what they wanted to hear. Fine help yourself. It bums me out too when someone gives up. Maybe after enough failures he'll figure out it takes actual knowledge and work to master a craft, ANY craft. Regardless Rich, it wasn't anything you said, he wasn't going to take well to adult conversation no matter who. Frosty The Lucky.

Next to the jib boom crane in the shop I want to build a small jib boom for the pickup truck. I already have the 12v winch. (Yeah, it's a yard sale find) the only tricky bit is going to make easily dismountable, Deb doesn't want to drive around in HER pickup with a crane on the side. I'd modify an engine hoist if I found another at a yard/garage sale but I haven't found another. <sigh> I have packed my engine hoist in the pickup to go get something heavy but it's a hassle, not a HUGE hassle, it breaks down nicely but still. Frosty The Lucky.

Let's assume you want a forge 2'x2'x2' for conversations sake. That'd take 40, ea. well made and correctly tuned 3/4" ejector type burners, If the forge were closed. A 2'x2' door? Think doubling the # of burners. It'd freeze a 25gal./100lb tank of propane before it got up to heat, you'd need a heated 100 gal./ 400lb. tank a day to run it. Okay, this isn't an unusual desire, we all wanted WAY more than we needed when we started. No biggy, we ALL thought we could swing 10lb. hammers one handed all day, forge 2" steel into swords in a couple hours, etc. etc. Build yourself enough to get your feet wet, learn the craft and you'll find out what you really need. Most of us did. <grin> Frosty The Lucky.

The apprenticeship method of learning a skilled craft pretty much died after WWII. too many women learned skilled crafts as a result of the men going off to war so the guilds who used to laugh at a mere woman wanting to do man's work were just pushed out as women were doing the work. Used to be a craft had to succeed in a cut throat atmosphere of competition so they kept every trick they could a secret so if you wanted in you HAD to do time as an indentured servant. (Apprentice) You did years of scut work, packed carried, cleaned, whatever though you did (usually) get room and one meal a day, maybe two if the master's wife liked you. My Father served an apprenticeship to learn metal spinning but he was very good with his hands and smart so he advanced very quickly, only three years and made journeyman. Fortunately Boeing was a short bus ride from his Mother's house and it was WWII so everybody was fast tracked. ONLY three years. Modern labor laws do NOT allow indentured servitude so apprenticeships aren't really even legal here. However you can, on rare occasion, find what's referred to as an "apprenticeship." They're usually a discount class with a distinct BARTER flavor. Or sometimes a craftsman will take a shine to a person and just take them on. I've done that twice and been richly rewarded for it. Great kids then, greater adults now and two fine blacksmiths. I don't want to discourage you but you need to know something about how things work, it's changed a LOT since the turn of the last century, blacksmithing is NOT industrial standard so it's a specialty market, there aren't factory blackmsmith shops like there used to be, they're all largely BIG machines and CNC gear. No apprenticeships there except what the union calls one and that's a "discount," sell your soul pay it off for 30 years worth of union dues, school. AND apprenticeship programs did NOT train hobbyists, they trained skilled WORKERS for money. Your best bets are hooking up with the local smithing organization, listen carefully, be helpful and hit hot iron every chance you get. You might luck out and find a regular mentor. Don't forget to read everything you're interested in here but bring a lunch. <wink> Frosty The Lucky.

When you do the heat treat and try to break it test be sure to not only wear PPE but lay a rag over the test coupon (the piece you forged to knife thickness and hardened) for a scatter shield. It will help contain fragments if it shatters. A post earlier today from a member tells about a piece of mushroomed punch end that snapped off and traveled some 3" through the flesh of his hand before stopping. This isn't the same circumstance as you'll encounter if the coupon shatters but it's a good warning. The SNAP sound you hear isn't the sound of steel shattering, it's the snapped off piece breaking the sound barrier for a couple feet before it slows down to only dangerous velocity from bullet velocity. Guess what, you're only a couple feet away form the piece that's breaking, well within bullet speed range. Scatter shield and PPE, a leather apron, cap and gloves are good AFTER EYE protection. Safety glasses behind a face shield are a basic good start. Frosty The Lucky.

Looks good Donnie but does it open a bottle? Frosty The Lucky.

I lucked into an engine hoist at a yard sale and it's been a joy to trip over when I'm not using it. I can load my pickup with all my goodies, move heavy stuff where ever I need it and best of all it MAKES me keep the floor reasonably clear and clean. Win win all round. I planned a jib boom crane and have the boom, jib and a nice coffing hoist, (another lucky yard sale find) I just need to get it up. believe it or not a trailer spindle and trimmed wheel hub makes a dandy hinge for a jib boo. Use a bearing buddy and you don't need to grease it but every 10 years or so. I do SO love yard/garage sales! Frosty The Lucky.

Nice score Perky guy. I'm thinking once you get it unpacked and standing right side up the blower mounting method will become more clear. Mine just attaches by slipping into a dovetail but it's different by a bunch. There's nothing to prevent you from making any shape, size or material forge table you wish for that beauty. Pics as you go please. You have a good handle on how to show details and lighting so we'll be able to help with what boggles you. Or we'll just make stuff up, it's not like BlackSmithing is abbreviated BS by mistake you know. <grin> Frosty The Lucky.

Good rule Charles, I think I'll put it on the wall with the shop rate one. The shop rate sign reads, Shop rate, $x/hr. $x+10/hr. if you watch, $x+25/hr. if you help. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Jaime, glad to have you. Please put your general location in the header so folk in your area will know you're there. You'll be surprised at how many IFI folk live within visiting distance. Maybe not a lunch break visit but not too far. One last note, we LOVE pics, shop pics, tool pics, progress pics, dogs, scenery, etc. pics. Frosty The Lucky.