Frosty

I sure do, I'm the only person I can hear clearly since the accident damaged the nerves on my left side. I'm also the only one to whom I hardly ever have to explain what I meant. Louder, quieter? I don't care, I usually just need some cussin out for the last dumb stunt, turning whatever the wrong way, whatever. Left? Right? Does it matter? Ask the voice in back, they always have an opinion. If they didn't answer, what'd be the point? Heck, I'm muttering to myself right now. Frosty The Lucky.

Of course if you carry a small tape measure in your pocket like I do, the next time you're in a department store grocery store, etc. you can just measure a banana hanger. They can be as fancy or simple as you like, be free standing or hang from some handy thingy in the kitchen, say an upper shelf. Frosty The Lucky.

Masterful work Beth. Doing a little speculative work on occasion is good for the soul, it really helps your mind's eye to atune to the public's tastes. I'm going to FWD the pic of the dog's new coat to my wife, Deb. She's sewn more clothes for our half chihuahua, half miniature doxy than I have and she'll love it. I love having kids around while I'm working so long as I get the safety rules through to them well enough, they ask the BEST questions and have suggestions untainted by what won't work. I've tried to cultivate the inner child in myself my whole life but still don't know how well that's worked. Various different opinions abound. <grin> Frosty The Lucky.

Beautiful Thomas. I'm sure looking forward to seeing the corn roaster. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard, glad to have you. Rocks can be dangerous as Glenn says and it's really hard to move if you need to rearrange. Rearranging is pretty normal when you're getting started. If you do go with a stone forge be sure to bed the fire table and fire pot with several inches of rammed clay to help reduce shrapnel injuries. An anvil is anything heavy enough to beat hot iron on, it doesn't have to look like a london pattern, have a horn, hardy or steel face. RR rail works well better if mounted on end but almost anything will work. The thing to remember is the anvil's effectiveness comes from depth of rebound rather than hardness. This means the deeper the iron/steel is beneath the hammer's impact zone the better the work moves. This is why standing rail on end works so well. You also don't need much more anvil face than the hammer face, just a bit so you don't have to be exact. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Grahame, glad to have you. There's lots of you blokes here at IFI and plenty of guys who have built their own hammers so plans will be coming as will suggestions of varying degrees of practicality. Frosty The Lucky.

You expect another? Frosty The Lucky

Good score Jeddly! Frosty The Lucky

Thanks again Lyle! Great video, it's so good to see Brian and Dave working together. Frosty The Lucky

Welcome aboard Jason, glad to have you. There are few things as satisfying as making and using your own tools and you're making the tools to make the tools to go fishing. Going fishing is way up on the satisfying pursuits list. I'm thinking you're a heck of a guy. Thanks for showing your work, we love pics here and you're posting eye candy. We love eye candy. Thanks! Frosty The Lucky

Your forge looks good Shawn. Your burners aren't one of Ron's, he builds linear inducers and yours are ejectors commonly called "side arm" burners and are a bit more efficient than linears. For the pig tail, put a door on the back opening and a pig tail handle to open/close it. It'll make everybody happy and be useful, what I call a win win. The only thing I find with protruding door lips is the heat tends to warp them sooner than later. It's not always a problem but sometimes is. Well done Shawn. Frosty The Lucky

There's nothing wrong with setting your sights high Jason but there're only so many shortcuts a person can successfully take. Thomas has laid out what's probably the most likely to succeed course to set yourself. Taking a bladesmithing course or attaching yourself to a bladesmith is maybe better. You can learn on your own but it's a long road, full of failed projects. Failed projects are how I learned, learning from my mistakes means I SHOULD hold several PHDs! Frosty The Lucky

It's gotta be a cow it has two horns! When's the BBQ? Frosty The Lucky

Good job Dave. Ballpein hammers is on my buy list when garage/yard sale season rolls around, I buy any reasonably priced and have altered a number. This is one of my favorite, I turned it into a straight pein. It was going to be an angle pein but I got it backwards and didn't want to turn it 180* for fear of de-peining it. Frosty The Lucky

There's lots of high carbon steel in trucks, the larger they the more there is. Things like wrist pins, tranny shafts, valves, bolts, etc. Good to see folk making it anywhere. Frosty The Lucky

I'm thinking it's useful, whatever it was originally used for. I picked up a pile of tinsmith's stakes a couple decades ago and while it bears a resemblance to a couple it's still much different, they're stake tools, not bolt downs. Frosty The Lucky

Glad you delurked Tim, good to hear from you. Many of us had to maintain our addictions in spite of day jobs. <sigh> Like you I spent many years as a field guy but managed to do a little forging at the camp fire. then I changed jobs, slept in my own bed every night and got to do more smithing. I have inlaws in or near Grants Pass so I may just drop in and pester heck out of you one of these days. Of course if you ever get into the Mat-Su Valley in Alaska give me a shout, we'll hook up and punish some hot steel. Frosty The Lucky

I can't say for sure from the pics but it doesn't look like it had a spring. Looks to me like gravity will draw the mobile jaw down/ open without help from a spring. A good soak in old oil and a little ATF will solve the rust, I don't like wire wheeling the rust off but that's just me. If you break it down Naval Jelly or CLR will derust it just fine. to make Naval jelly work on heavy rust without priming it black I dilute it some with water and soak the parts, rinse, neutralize with baking soda and oil when dry. Frosty The Lucky

Welcome aboard Dave, glad to have you. A number of the guys around here take a vocational metal shop class to have access to the machinery. You also get to learn a skill or two. Frosty The Lucky

Nice blade Sam. Is that a "santoku (or is it santuko?) profile? I got to use a ceramic version at a cooking class I took a while ago and REALLY liked the way it worked. I've been planning on forging one for myself but like so many things. . . <sigh> Frosty The Lucky

Welcome aboard William, glad to have you. My first bit of advice is polish up your salvaging (scrounging) skills, it's a misunderstanding to think you need a "proper" anvil. An anvil is a heavy piece of iron, steel or a boulder you use to back the work against as you beat it into submission. I don't recommend the boulder but having used a couple can say they work okay. Setting your sights high is a good thing so long as you don't take the numbers of failures personally. We all learn from our mistakes and many of us should be multiple PHDs by now. Blades and armor are are different things entirely of course there are cross overs but none are big things. Swords are NOT big knives and it DOES matter how thick the metal is, etc. Jewelry is of course a different kettle of fish altogether but fun. Making your own tools is better training for every aspect except maybe jewelry than you might think. Making hammers, punches, chisels, hardy tools, tongs, etc. will give you experience with heat management and heat treatment. Building oh say a smoke hood or similar will let you work with sheet steel, there are no rules saying a smoke hood has to look a certain way so making it look like a big helmet or ciurasse (SP?) is dandy. There are plenty of classes offered in your general area, hook up with the local smithing association is a really good beginning and making friends amongst smiths is best. Smiths tend to LIKE passing on the craft. Frosty The Lucky

Hey Bentiron, this may be a bit off topic but do you need to borrow a snow shovel or plow truck? Back to the topic, there is a foundation design for virtually any soil conditions, you may be surprised at how many bridges in Alaska are on floating abutments, only stabilized with piles and batters. You are right, rolling fill down with a tractor doesn't count unless you're leveling a pasture. You CAN get away with using a backhoe bucket like a hammer and beating it down but you'll still need to do the final fill (sub base) with a proper compactor. My 50# LG sits on my slab without special foundations, the slab is reinforced in the area with double rebar and a small downward facing curb to prevent it drifting under vibration. The soils are glacial till and drain reasonably well, the fill is 2' of D1, yeah, the guy who owns the pit is a friend and neighbor I used to drive for occasionally before the accident. A 50# LG does not require anything special so long as the subsoils are properly prepared and have no serious issues like high groundwater. Sand is NOT particularly good unless it's crushed, even then. For your or anyone's personal design I recommend talking to the local gvt soils lab or road and foundations design department. This is what they do for a living and like most of us if you show interest in what they do they're usually pretty receptive to helping out. Just don't expect them to put themselves in a position of liability without a proper work order. Frosty The Lucky

My slack tub and quench tub are two different things but I know what you mean so I won't go all semantic on ya. I have a screen on long handles in the bottom of my slack barrel for two reasons: First is to keep from poking holes in the bottom if (when) I drop something sharp in it. Second the screen lets me fish out whatever's been dropped in it, often things I didn't want to. I have a half wine barrel but don't use it except at demos for aesthetics. Frosty The Lucky

Welcome to IFI Tom, good to have you here. I like forging copper, lots of possibilities. I'll have to spend more time on your site when I have a little more time. Frosty The Lucky.

Boy have I been asleep, I just noticed your new shop Mark. It's looking good though it'll turn out to be too small. I put up a 30' x 40' steel building and had it full before I got all the walls on. That's just the of things though, smiths are packrats, it's a natural law. How cold does it get in winter? A wood stove behind you're normal working position at the forge really helps on cold days. It's also a good place to keep a coffee pot and warm lunch, especially if you have a strategically placed comfy chair. Nothing beats putting your feet up to the stove and sipping a cup of joe on a cold day. It'll also give your friends a spot to gather for a cup and story swap. You want to cultivate drop in coffee buddies, you'll always run into things you need a strong back or two for. It is believe me a special treat to have your own shop. Frosty The Lucky.