Frosty

You can make ingots with angle iron open side up with partitions welded at intervals. The intervals should match your crucibles. Frosty

Glenn's right Phil. A photo journal and sketchbook will make him the Mac Daddy of show and tell. And just think of the stories he can tell his kids. Then again as Grandpaw you can start them out with a journal and monster heats of their own. Frosty

Forge welding SS isn't a beginner's project. The chrome oxidizes almost instantly and makes welding it a serious challenge. It's doable but the flux is toxic and shouldn't be used without experience. On the other hand if I take your question correctly you want something flashy and that's really easy. Nickle forge welds with steel quite easily and when etched contrasts vividly. Best of all you don't need an agressive flux at all, plain borax works very well. It can be improved without higher risk if you add 1pt. of boric acid (Roachpruf or available in the pharmacy for a little more $ by name) to 4pts. borax. If you want to forge weld billets of different steels you want to start with three layers rather than two. The lower C alloy will have a higher melting temp than the HC so it's harder to get welding heat without damaging the HC in a two layer weld. Placing one layer of HC between two layers of LC shields the HC from the fire. Now, if you want a specific pattern like a personal "mark" or "Marque," you want pattern welding rather than folded damascus. Pattern welding is done by stacking different shapes of different alloys in a mild steel shell and forge welding gently. Then slices are taken to expose the pattern. This is a very involved and varied subject and I'm not a practitioner of it outside of a little speramentein for funsies. Frosty

A boot scraper by the front door would be good. Unless you don't have mud in WV. A foot rail in front of the stove would be a good place to prop your feet on a cold day so you guys can swap lies in comfort. You could even make it portable. Fire tools for the stove of course. A wood rack too naturally. A boot drying rack for next to the stove might be good for the wet season. A free standing coat rack could come in handy though a wall mounted one is just as good. Gun racks perhaps? Frosty

You can also get textures by pouring over different materials, say largish wood chips. Just make sure whatever you're pouring onto or into is dry. Molten metal and water equal steam explosion and unforseen brands. Ayup. That'n's off'n the Double Dribble Screamin Smith Ranch. Fer sure. Frosty

I agree, an old acet tank is more hassle than it's worth even if you ignore potential danger. As an example for a student of mine who was looking for the PERFECT piece of pipe for his forge before he started building I used hardware cloth to make the shell and a double wrap of Kaowool with a firebrick laid on the bottom. The forge ws up and running in about five minutes. I don't recommend allowing the Kaowool direct contact with air as there is some hazard from silicosis from airborn particles. What I like for pipe forge shells is SS stove pipe. It's light, plenty strong unless you're going to forge some real heavy weight stuff and it's workable with hand tools, no welding necessary. If you use off the shelf sizes you can use other fittings to make the build even easier. Wall brackets for example make perfect legs. If you want an oddball size you can put different size pipe together to make them. For instance a piece of 6" and a piece of 8" snapped together along their seams makes 14" dia. SS is a poor conductor as well so at least some heat is reflected back into the forge and the more heat you keep inside the less fuel you need to keep it hot. Every little bit counts as long as it isn't a major hassle. Frosty

Excellent job Mikey! Tell Dad you need a monster anvil to go with your monster heats. It's times like this with My Dad I remember best. Good on ya Phil. Frosty

The man with the sledge was the "driver" and the man holding the drill steel was called the "shaker." It wasn't because he was scared of being hit it's because he had to give the steel a good shake to get it to turn. Of course I could well have that one wrong too. I spent 19 years drilling and it's old driller lore, I didn't look it up. Frosty

Don't worry Phil, lots of people dream about Alaska, maybe not the footwear but . . . I posted that shot because I figured you might not believe I went bearfooted. Living in the middle of the Pacific has to effect your perception. I lost the bi-level (mullet) before I knew what a mullet was actually. Then a few years ago my wife's best friend developed cancer and we all buzzed our heads in support. She was given maybe 3 months and passed last sept after fighting the good fight for over 3 years. I got my first haircut in more than 3 years last tue. That's not an Alaskan horse, it's the single largest determining factor in how large a freezer an Alaskan buys. Of course if you like halibut fishing you'll need another, maybe two if you like caribou and another if you like blackbear. . . Uh, Alaskans tend to have quite a few freezers, even some of the city slickers. Beautiful day for the start of the Iditarod, around 15f and sunny. This is the ceremonial start, the real start will be tomorrow in Willow, about 25 miles up the highway from us. The Official Site of the Iditarod

That's very nice, I like it a lot. Frosty

I guess I should've looked it up before sending, I was repeating what Dad told me way back when. He had several Spike mauls. Thanks for the straightenin out. If it is of course, prybar or shovel. One thing I'm absolutely positive of though is moose **** doesn't come in patties. Frosty

My pleasure. I've been following your posts on wood gassification pretty closely. My plan is for a wood gassification furnace/boiler for the shop that'll double as a charcoal retort. (the furnace doubles as the retort, not the shop. I sincerely hope! ) Frosty

Correctomundo. It's called a "gandy.' The gandy dancer is the guy who swings it. Frosty

For cold chisels I draw the temper just past peacock. I've never made a graver but you could probably leave it pretty hard if you're pushing it by hand and draw it like a chisel if you're striking it. What you're graving will make a difference too. You can leave it a lot harder for working silver than steel for instance. Wood, bone, ivory, stone, etc. might or might not require different hardness/tempers. I don't know about stone tools but, "The Complete Modern Blacksmith," by Alexander Weygers has detailed instructions for making stone chisels and other carving tools from salvaged as well as new steel. He also goes into making smithies from salvaged materials in 3rd. world countries. One of my favorite smithing and tool making books. He's a serious improviser. Frosty

Absolutely can. Get a good oven thermometer though, toaster ovens aren't very accurate and being so small the temp tends to go up and down quite a bit. Still tempering in the oven works just fine. The only drawback (pun intended) is it's not a progressive temper, the entire blade is the same hardness. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but especially for an impact tool it's not really good. You want the blade to be able to take some punishment so it needs some flexibility but if you make the whole blade like a spring it won't hold an edge well. A progressive temper lets the bulk of the blade be a tough, resilient spring able to flex under pressure and rebound shock after shock without damage or danger while the cutting edge is hard enough to take and hold a scary sharp edge. Of course a real bladesmith will jump in any second now and correct me on all the miriad mistakes I've made. I hope. To be up front, I am not a bladesmith nor do I play one on TV. I have made a number though and shown a few students the ropes. Frosty

I rent the equipment when working for myself, that's early stage on my shop foundation. The mukluks are the wife's and you betcha they're to die for. Warm feet are worth their weight in gold when it counts. And having the wife's feet warm enough to not complain is worth significantly more. :cool: This pic is from 2,000 or so. Frosty

Yeah, either steel makes fine wood working tools. I like using spring steels for blades, especially as a student project. Both are very forgiving compared to say, O1 or W1 but both will take and hold an excellent edge. After forging bring the blades to critical, non-magnetic heat and bury them in wood ashes, perlite, preheated lime, etc. to anneal. This will releave the stresses forging caused in the blades. Once annealed they'll be easy to straighten and rough grind. I also recommend annealing or normalizing if you do very much grinding as that'll build stress as well and the more stress in a blade when you harden it the more likely it'll fail in the quench. To harden, bring to critical temp. / non-magnetic and quench in oil heated to around 100-110f. Plunge straight in and don't swirl. Immediately after hardening, shine them up and do a progressive temper, a torch works really well. For the chisels do a little preheat at the point where the tang meets the body of the blade. Then keeping the torch flame near this point gradually bring the temp up till the color starts to run. Beware, temper colors run quick and close in spring steels like 5160 leaf and 9260 coil. Idealy you want the tang and a large part of the body a dark blue and the bevel progressing to a dark straw or early peacock at the edge. Temper the draw knife in a similar manner by running the torch along the spine. I like to point the flame away from the edge for better control. You'll have a lot closer run of temper colors because the blade will only be an inch or so wide. This means you'll want to decide whether you want a springier and safer blade that's not going to hold an edge as well. Or a harder better edge holding blade that is more likely to break. As a beginner I recommend you draw the temper farther than a more experienced bladsmith for safety's sake. Any process involving heat as the main step is heat treating, whether you're annealing, normalizing, hardening or tempering, it's all heat treating. heating to forge is not heat treating as forging is the goal, not altering the metal's properties with heat. Frosty

Hey, I wear shorts and a "T" shirt 365 a year too. It's just under all the other stuff I have to wear. Frosty

A piece of cork or small dia plastic tubing, etc. makes a good pocket protector. 1/4" dia is about optimum but I tied it into having the kids scrounge something other than mild for the project so diameters varied. The overall length I had them aim for was about the same as a pen but they had to figure out what to start with. It made for some interesting sizes. The clip needed to be the same width as the stock and thin enough to have a nice spring to it. It needed enough barrel to be easily held and a point long enough to look nice. Everything was estimated as part of the exercise. As I recall starting with around 6" of 1/4" rd. was about right. The larger the stock the less length you needed to make the clip. A forged point won't need as much length. Frosty

His thumb is resting along the side of the handle near the top, not on top. Also, you can not use posed pictures as examples of how something is done, then or now. Frosty

An online aquaintance of mine is a member and loves it. Where else can you have access to a couple million worth of equipment for $100 a month? You should see the laser cut christmas gifts he made. Too bad I live someplace unlikely to ever have a Techshop. On the other hand, moose hang out in my yard, the Goshawks nest out back and I can target shoot off my back porch. Frosty

Circle saw blades are tuned by cupping them slightly. If they're perfectly flat they wobble but a few thousandths of an inch of cup and they're pretty rigid without losing the flex necessary to prevent breakage. The trick is getting the blade cupped evenly all the way around. As you can imagine if it's uneven at all it'll have a shrieking hissy fit when you try to run it. And yeah, thumb on top of the handle transmits the shock straight up your arm and will cause serious joint damage sooner than later. Frosty

A plain dust mask will protect you well enough grinding. If you don't know how to weld do NOT use the mig to weld this up. Migs are known as the lawyer's welder for a reason. Unless you know how to control the thing they have a positive talent for cold lapping one side of the join while making a beautiful LOOKING bead. While I don't agree that a mig should not be used for structural welds I've been welding for more than 40 years and am pretty familiar with heavy welds with mig. Using a mig on heavy section welds as a learning exercise is a bad idea. Frankly welding heavy section is not a beginner project with any type welder. Renting a stick welder for a day is going to give you a much safer hammer. Best bet is taking a welding class at the local college extension service or trade school. I'm not trying to put you down or discourage you from the project Larry. I just don't have so many friends I can stand by and see one put him/erself at risk without at least saying something. Frosty

Really nice job on the hammer. I don't think I'd like the handle though, I tend to let my grip adjust to what I'm doing; out near the end if I need the power or choked up for fine work. That's why the handles I make are straight tapers with a bit of a knob at the end. Of course, that's just me. Frosty

No sweat. I might not understand if I never forgot anything or hit send before I was finished. Backstopping each other is just one benefit of being here. Frosty