Frosty

Give it a day anyway. If the humidity is high it'll take longer of course. You can hang a light bulb in the forge to aid drying. Frosty The Lucky.

That's Fold Forming Todd. the fellow who invented the technique is Charles Lewton Brain. Frosty The Lucky.

Did you pass the piece through the candle flame? Modern candles don't smoke like old school tallow candles so you need to interrupt the flame a bit so it can't burn clean. Acetylene works great and is so much faster. However, if you want a more traditional way to soot something, make or buy an oil lamp and pass the piece through that flame, above it may work. Frosty The Lucky.

Interesting wear on the hook jaw, the man obviously had a bread and butter job. that jaw has better than half it's thickness worn off and the divot is obviously (to me) tool wear rather than a break of some sort. Maybe file work or similar. If you're in contact with the gentleman who gave it to you, please ask him what his father did. I've seen "occupational" wear patterns and heck put a couple on tools myself. The vise I used to hold drill bits when I built and rebuilt them had two distinctive weld spatter patterns where the bit's body shaded one side and the tooth block shaded the other. I didn't actually grind low spots in the other vise but there were a couple spots that'd get bit when the disk grinder grabbed or kicked back, or when it slipped off the spot I was dressing to weld a new block on. Frosty The Lucky.

Glenn's right, car hoods make fine fire wood sleds, Spray it with pledge spray wax and it's really easy to pull. Auto body steel is deep draw and very low carbon so it's easy on the press dies. It makes it easy to form in the shop, need a side draft hood? Something to use for a can weld? Being so low carbon it ought to etch nice and dark. Frosty The Lucky.

Cool, hope to see you next weekend. I'll be set up with the bed of a silver Chevy Silverado as my bench/shelf/ lunch box. Just ask one of the guys beating hot iron. I'll be there or right back. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Matt, if I haven't said so already, Heck even if I have. First I have to tell you your Avatar puts a smile on me every time I see it. <grin> Okay the topic. I see you've read Mike Porter's burner book, good. He's the only guy I know who calls the mig tip jets accelerators. What they do is smooth the flow considerable which does accelerate it a bit but that's not their primary function. the "sleeve" is a coupler, not a mixing chamber, lose it if you can. the threads on the tips should be 1/4"x28 the coupler was to make the transition from the sleeve in the wire/gas line to the mig tip non grabby. It's definitely an old machine, I don't think they use the couplers anymore. Don't worry, it'll work just fine so long as the propane flows it's good Mikey thinks the mig tips are accelerators but they're main function is to generate a laminar (smooth) gas flow so the expanding cone of propane is as smooth and effective as possible. the expanding cone of gas entrains combustion air by generating a low pressure zone in the tube. the smoother and more uniform the cone of propane the more effective the entrainment. Okay, ain't that more than you wanted to know. I can't help myself, I get wordy. In short, even if those old contact tips won't work right, they're cheap at the local welding supply, in the neighborhood of $1.00 here in Wasilla Alaska where everything gets barged, or flown in and trucked out from Anchorage. Your burners look fine but will need some tuning. Give me a shout, we'll get em burning a treat for you. Frosty The Lucky.

Rabbit dude: I do NOT know what you have to be Mad about. You have one of the best girlfriends I've heard of in a long time. You my friend are almost as lucky picking a lady as I am. Oh the coal, good score there too. Treat that Girl like a queen or I'll give you grief if I have to fly down and slap you for hiding out! Frosty The Lucky.

Do a patent search, especially helpful if you have a model or serial # Frosty The Lucky.

Plastic ice cube tray. <wink> Frosty The Lucky.

Nice score! that's a tap wrench but will make a decent' twisting wrench. Look for a patent number on the punch and search with name and patent # for the model number. that's a wagon/buggy wheel, etc. tire. You can turn the ball peins into all kinds of good forging hammers and bottom tools. all in all a good $31 score not counting the ever handy plate. Frosty The Lucky.

And I used to weld guy's names on stuff to make it distinctive, how ordinary of me. <sigh> Well done Larry Frosty The Lucky.

Making your own briquettes takes a lot less precise control than injecting and burning it like gas in a gun burner system. Frosty The Lucky.

When I was playing around with the idea I figured a shutter system between the lenses and the sun was the best bet. that way there is NO intense light unless it's heating. I like Thomas's idea of a solar path slit in the chamber. I'd planned on a phototropic mirror, columnating lense system, kind of why I gave it up for a game for slack time. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Adam, glad to have you. How mobile are you? I'm in the Valley, just the other side of Wasilla and am always looking for playmates. Right now I'm prepping for Art on Fire, next Saturday the 29th. At the Museum of Alaska Transportation and Industry just past Wasilla on the Parks Highway a bit before you get to the airport on Airport road, there are signs. The Association of Alaskan Blacksmiths will be there, next to the locomotives if I get there early enough to choose the spot. It's a good event an the big show is the iron pour but there's smithing, raku pottery glazing, glass lamp work and some others I'm not sure of. PM me if you want contact info or just give me a shout, we can get together most days and beat innocent steel into submission. Frosty The Lucky.

I've got to try a pair of those Frank, thank you. Frosty The Lucky.

Congratulations Joshua! No serious accidents in 37 years teaching high school shop classes is an outstanding record! Definately something to be proud of add to that the thousands of kids who now have basic safe shop practices ingrained at a reflex level. Put me on the list for one of your books and let me know if you get this far Northwest, I'll do what I can to help you see/do what you want here. Frosty The Lucky.

Santa digs ditches in the summer? Hmmm. Life IS good. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Core, glad to have you. Please put your general location in the header you'll be surprised at how many IFI folk live within visiting distance. You can contact Johnson Gas Appliance for help. I sure don't know. Frosty The Lucky.

Looks good Mark, well done. Yeah, it could use some polishing on the photography, framing and lighting to highlight the features you'd like forefront. It just takes practice and electronic camera make learning good photographic technique affordable. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard, glad to have you. Please put your general location in the header you may be surprised at how many of the IFI gang live within visiting distance. If you scroll to the bottom of the IFI home page you'll find the sections for regional blacksmithing groups to help you make contact. An afternoon with an experienced smith will save you weeks, even months of learning it on your own. Frosty The Lucky.

This is mostly a practice, practice, practice issue. I use drive hooks as a beginner's first day project or if they have a knack a leaf finial wall hook. the sequence I use is do the body first, twist, then the drive hook, fold the drive hook, then the finial scroll and finish forming the coat hook and tweeking it to niceness. Hot brush and Wax, oil, etc. finish. To demo hooks I'll use different types of tongs to show the tong's uses, advantages, disadvantages, etc. My preference is either flat bits with V groves longitudinal and lateral, or V bit bolt tongs with longitudinal and lateral V groves. On a camping trip I forged drive hooks with a camp fire, bolder, rock on a willow haft and split willow tongs. Did that on a bet with the other guys on the drill crew. Heck, you don't even need tongs if your stock is long enough. Forge and form everything down to one point, I'd pick the drive point and forge that in two directions ad when all the twisting, bending, scrolling, etc. is finished cut the drive point with a chisel or just forge it really thin and bend it till it breaks and file to a finish. In this way you already have the drive point forged for the next hook, just do that one reversed on the bar. Not using tongs when you can is always a better course, you have much better grip and feel for the work. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard, glad to have you. Please put your location in the header so folk living within visiting distance will know so they can invite you over, etc. Solar forges have been proposed and maybe used for a lonnnnng time. I think it was maybe Archimedes who was supposed to have had the local army use their polished shields to concentrate the sunlight to destroy an attacking fleet. I don't remember the details like who and where but the story is legend. A modern solar forge is not only possible but being done, it's a cumbersome mechanism to control it and it's very dangerous. VERY Frosty The Lucky.

There's no reason to replace everything, just the burner is enough. No reason spending more than necessary. Heck, we don't know the burner has anything but a little adjustment problem. You're getting close enough you do NOT want to start changing more than one thing at a time. If you change several you'll never know what did what. The slowest way to find something is to search every direction at once. ITC-100 is a good move, the more heat you keep in the chamber the less fuel you need to raise it and hold it. Besides you'll only be replacing a burner if that, not the whole forge. If you use the right flux and good technique you can weld at high orange. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Cody, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you'll be surprised at how many folk here live within visiting distance. No swords for at least 5 years eh? I LIKE you, you're gonna fit right in here. <grin> Hook up with the local smithing organization, they'll put you in touch with tools, materials fuel and best of all experienced smiths to learn from. If you go to Iforgeiron's front page and scroll to the bottom you'll find the section of regional clubs. Find the one closest to you and look them up. There are plenty of blacksmiths in NC, get hooked up with them and you're golden. I have good friends living very near Brasstown. Frosty The Lucky.