Frosty

Well, that answers that. If they were form stakes they wouldn't let you have them as they cost several $ ea. even bought in quantity. Frosty

This isn't a book nor free but I thought it worth including anyway. Metalworking instruction videos on DVD: Learn Metalworking Frosty

I just took a peek and it looks like you have to form and offset the jaws, punch the rivet holes and set the rivet. Reins look about finished. I'd say it's a good deal for $8 if you don't have the tools and experience to knock out a pair easily. It takes me long enough to make a set I'd be way ahead buying finished tongs if I were counting my time. One of the guys in the club on the other hand can make a set of tongs in about 15 mins under power hammer and less than half an hour by hand. If nothing else buying a kit would give you a good pattern to copy. Frosty Carpe Extremitas Frigus ;)

Well done! A tip of the ole skid lid to ya. Frosty

Now THAT is without a doubt the all time BEST reason I've ever heard for choosing a direction to point the horn! Frosty

My definition of art is: Transcendent craft. My definition of "good" art is: Do you like it? But what do I know? Frosty

I work mine from both sides but the horn is usually to my left. Take tooling out of your hardy when not in use and you won't be hitting it with your hand. On the other hand I rarely do any hammering down the length of the anvil so my hand doesn't get close to the hardy hole in the first place. In the second place if I am working down the length of the anvil I'm either using hardy tools or a hardy tool would be in the way. Either way I wouldn't be hitting it with my hand. Of course that's just me, YMMV. Frosty

Very nice. Well done. Frosty

You probably shouldn't use THOSE bolts simply because of the plating. You can find unplated carriage bolts that'll do two things for you: First you won't have to breath unknown metal vapors from burning plating. Second, carriage bolts will have less exposure to the fire and will absorb less heat so they won't be melting off. I know I just recently made a case that zinc smoke is nowhere near as dangerous as it's reputed to be. This does not mean I believe in exposing myself unnecessarily. Then there's the difference between hot dip galvanizing and electroplated zinc. The electroplated variety usually has other metals in the alloy, most notably cadmium which is very toxic. Lastly not all "silver" colored plating metals on bolts are zinc and breathing any of them is bad for you. A layer of clay over all of it will take care of all of these concerns though. Frosty

This is an anvil one of our Association members fabbed up a couple months ago. Buying and shipping an anvil to Alaska is really expensive and he found a piece of decent plate to work with. The body is welded up from two pieces of 1 1/2" plate and the face is T-1. He spent about 30 hrs start to finish, not counting hunting up the plate and driving to my place and back to weld it up. It weighs 235lbs. Frosty

Gee Thomas you don't NEED electricity to make machinery go after you. I know I was more than able to hurt myself just with a tricycle. I used to wear my hair fairly long Steve. Then buzzed my head when a friend went in for chemo. She's lived a couple years longer than anyone thought but I'm still buzzing my head, it's WAY cooler in the summer and you wouldn't believe what I save in shampoo! Johnny: Good idea about the mesh vest. You can get them with lots of handy pockets too, including a surveyor's vest with a large through pocket in the back for carrying maps and stakes. It'd be near perfect for an insulin pump or similar device. The only downside to a surveyor's vest is the color international orange or high visibility green, with retroreflective strips. Actually I carry two safety vests in the Saturn just in case I have to change a tire, stop for an accident or walk for help. You simply can NOT be too visible on the road. I know, I spent 30 years dodging motorists working for AK DOT. Dan: It's all really a matter of taste and desire isn't it? The real tradition of the blacksmith was to do the job better, faster, easier and more profitably. It's one of the very few professions to sucessfully develop itself out of existence. Oh sure there are still quite a few blacksmiths around but most of us are doing it for the fun, very few are needed industrially. Even farriers are dependant on a luxury market in our portion of the world. Seriously, Miller and Lincoln were multi-generational smiths looking for a better method of welding. Hobart invented the acetylene torch because hauling a forge to a site, uninstalling a bent or broken piece of hardware (usually a bent gate) getting it into a forge to heat was just too much work. How about visegrips? The drill press, lathe, rolling mill, press, etc. etc. I'm not taking issue with your preferences, heck, I blacksmith and try not to be a hypocritic. Today's blacksmith can operate in any period s/he wishes and best of all doesn't have to worry about it being the "RIGHT" period. I prefer "period" to "tradition" but that's just my preference, I can do most of them. Besides after enough years electric lights just mean you can work past high noon. Frosty

Good ideas JR. Particularly the closet extension. The bag carrier doesn't need the upper loop though. Just the deep "C" shape will do as well and not take up as much room nor weigh as much. Flattening the handle portion a bit will make it more comfortable to carry as well. Some years ago I saw a little old lady carrying several plastic bags balanced on a cut off piece of broom handle. She was holding it balanced in the center while she unlocked her car. I thought it was a good idea at the time but didn't consider trying to patent and manufacture cut off broom handles as particularly viable. Frosty

Ouch! This falls into the "loose clothing and hair in the shop" catagory. Getting tangled in machinery is no fun, especially if it's moving machinery. Shirt sleeves/tails, suspenders, long hair, jewelry, anything attached to you and hanging loose can catch on something and injure you. Getting caught up in rotating machinery is frequently fatal. Just catching a glove in a wire wheel can cripple you and is guaranteed to REALLY hurt if you're lucky. Frosty

I guess it depends on how hot you want it. A bernzomatic should get you into the low yellow anyway if you use light brick, maybe a bit more if you use a kiln brick. More heat easier with mapp though of course. Frosty

Yeah, every dark cloud has a coal fire under it. Frosty

Yeah, you pretty much have to keep the blast going and it needs to be larger than you're using. About the smallest I've used was a hill furnace and it wasn't large enough to work very well. It was a trench about 8"w x 10"d x 4'l going up a fairly steep bank, maybe 65-70*. It drew okay but not really good enough. I should've dug it wider and deeper but we were only there a few days. The drill broke and we had to take it back. You load the wood into the top of the trench and it settles as it burns forming a large bed of coals at the bottom. The trench acts like a side draft stack and draws air across the charcoal. If you have something to cover the trench and you make it large enough, say a couple feet wide and deep and six to ten long it'll melt iron for you. These aren't efficient ways to heat iron. They work though and work well. Frosty

What you're doing works quite well but your scale is too small. I don't know what the bottom end threshold is but your set up is below it. I've used the same technique many times with varying degrees of success. I was an exploration driller for the State of AK for 19 years. We drilled test holes for bridges, foundations, boat harbours, etc. etc. and spent a majority of our time in the bush. Not being the kind of guy who enjoys knocking off a half rack of beer nightly I did a lot of reading and when weather permitted sitting around a camp fire poking it with sticks. We all spent a lot of time poking the camp fire with sticks. I started heating and beating found or damaged steel (drilling damages a LOT of steel. ) After a while I started packing a RR track anvil I'd made up a couple pairs of tongs and some other minor tools. Frequently I'd just use the coals in the campfire which is enough general forging. On other occasions we'd be on location long enough or there was something good enough I'd set up something a little more sophisticated. The best field expedient forge I put together was the Resurrection River Forge. The Resurrection River runs from Exit Glacier to Resurrection Bay, just outside of Seward. The Google Earth satellite image isn't too good but it's okay. Anyway, our project was finding and proving up quarry sites for the FHWA while we were drilling bridges on the Exit Glacier Rd. We'd set up camp on the sand bar between the river and the road and were planning on being there a couple months at least. That's most of an Alaskan summer. The 64 quake petty well totalled Seward and there is a LOT of debris still to be found. The Resurrection River above the highway bridge for about 1/4 mile +/- is loaded with steel of all shapes and sizes. While schlepping around after work one day I found a big axle laying in the river. When I say big I'm talking about 3 1/2"+ dia more than 4' long with a flange a good 12" around and 1 1/2" thick with 10 ea. 7/8" holes around the rim. The center of the flange over the axle shaft was only slightly domed with a flat spot in the center about 4" in dia. The first thing that popped into my mind when I saw it laying there near the river bank was. . . ANVIL! I figure it weighed around 170lbs. +/-. I dragged the thing back to camp and started deciding where to put the smithy. It needed to be close enough I could pack the stuff I didn't want stolen to camp but far enough away it wouldn't interfere with peaceful camp life. THE place was out on the bar, just a little ways from the river where the wind always blows. The near constant wind was one of the things that decided me on building a fairly large set up. That and the availability of salvage in the river of course. I spent quite a bit of time dragging pipe and rebar our of the river and hauling it back to the site. The hack saw made useable lengths of it and I drove a bunch into the sand in a circle about 3' in dia and 3' high. These became the "frame" for the forge and I filled it with rocks and sand to make the forge body. As I was filling it I placed a 5' length of damaged casing in the forge. The top end stopped just below the top of the forge and the other ended a foot off the ground facing into the prevailing wind. I filled in around the upper end of the casing with rocks I dug out of the roadside. NEVER put rocks out of a stream, lake, etc. in a fire, steam can make them explode! Above these I used a bunch of short cutoffs of rebar to make a fire grate. Then I plastered over the rocks and ends of the rebar with damp clay from up by the road. I used pieces of sheet metal from the river (everything I didn't bring with me came out of the river ) to make a wind trap to funnel air into the pipe. This was my air blast; it was very consistent and easily controlled by blocking the wind trap as necessary. The last touch was to drive a bunch of steel stakes around the top of the forge. This was my idea for containing the wood I was going to burn down into charcoal for forging. And NO it didn't work so well but I'll get to that in a minute. The next thing I did was dig and drive the axle into the sand so the flange was at comfortable forging height. At that time I was mounting my anvils at knuckle height. I mount them a bit higher now but not quite wrist height. Then I spent some time with the chainsaw and axe cutting and splitting birch and alder into small pieces for the fire. The first couple times I lit it up I was heating and bending rebar and the like for helpers, tong racks and such. It was during this phase I realized the cage of rebar wasn't going to work for containing the fire. It was like standing on the receiving end of a blowtorch! I mean seriously, try standing next to a fire that's about 2 1/2' tall, at waist height and driven by a steady 12-16mph wind. It'll make your hair smoke and NOT in the good way. What I did then was hike back down to the river and fish a 15gl. barrel out of the bushes. I brought it back and chiseled the bottom out of it and a door about 8" sq. in the side near the top. I chiseled a smaller pass through on the far side as well and used the cutout to close it up. I stood the 15 gl. barrel on top of the forge with the doors on the bottom and kept it filled it with split wood to burn down into charcoal. If I'd made the rock and sand forge a little wider I would've dragged a 55gl. drum out to make a heat shield as it was still like standing WAY too close to a barrel stove. It was bearable though so I used it as it was. This set up worked like a charm, though it could've used a little tweeking it still cranked hot Hot HOT. It had no trouble making welding heat and hotter. The axle made one of the best anvils I've ever used, it had tremendous depth of rebound and the bolt holes around the flange were excellent for bending. The horn was a bit awkward being vertical and directly under the flange like it was though. Once I had the basic set up going, several days of packing, digging, bending, etc. I started working on tools and making fun stuff. Probably the worst part (even worse than the amount of wood it burned!) was working on sand. The sand was always shifting under me and I was always having to shovel it back and level it out. Throwing water on it regularly helped but sand is NOT something I recommend for a shop floor. Anyway, burning wood in the "chimney" to make your charcoal works fine. It's really wasteful compared to a proper charcoal retort but it works just fine. Frosty

Well done Don. They're all very uniform without losing their hand madeness. Anyone can make one of something but it's a sign of good skill to make so many so consistently. The customer will be very pleased. Frosty

They're cast iron and good for what they are. Weights. Frosty

Raised, sunk, Repousse and chased, fold formed cast. Being techniques these can all be fit into other catagories as well as scales such as: Jewelry, vessels, sculpture, hardware, architectural, structural, etc., etc. Frosty

Thanks Glenn. I was starting to think I'd crossed the line. I didn't know Jim and only talked to him electronically a couple times. The things I was most impressed with are: How universally he was liked. How quick he was to take credit for his mistakes. Frosty

I am one of those old weldors; I'm all too familiar with the "blue flu". I've breathed enough zinc smoke to be dead if it were a cumulative toxin. It isn't though and even the most conservative safe levels are surprisingly high. Heck, The safe level has been raised at least once since the first time I looked it up in the early 70's. About the only place you're likely to run across beryllium is in large electrical busses. It was added for strength but has been replaced as of late. The alloy does look something like brass though. Beryllium is stable at room temp so I still have to give Cadmium #1. Beryllium isn't all that common and I've never heard of it as plating. I'm not mocking anyone but I am still mad as hell that he did something so knowingly careless. I guess I shouldn't be mad at Paw Paw but what a totally avoidable waste. Maybe it's because I've gotten away with so many things reasonably unscathed that it POs me so much. Even in my most foolish youth I never did something tantamount to suicidal though. I mean seriously, it's like hooking a mask up to the exhaust pipe on your car. I use Jim as an example of just how HARD it is to kill yourself with zinc smoke. Had he gone to the doctor any time in the first week after exposing himself he'd probably still be with us. Heck, if he hadn't had heart and breathing problems he might've made it anyway. And lastly; remember Jim Wilson was rather famous for posting the pictures and stories of his accidents. He frequently made a point of relating his own experiences as cautionary tales of what NOT to do. When confronted with such a cavalier attitude to a known danger, I'd be dishonoring Paw Paw's memory NOT to use his example of what not to do. Do you think he'd do any different had he survived? Frosty

How about chucking it up in a lathe and taking a carbide cutter to it? If you don't have a lathe a diamond or carbide file will remove it in large enough particles you won't be exposing yourself to chrome oxide. For a few bucks you could take it to a chrome shop and have it removed. I guess that would be cheating though. Eh? While zinc isn't nearly as dangerous as it's rep, it's still nothing to play with if you don't know what you're doing. Zinc oxide is not only easily chelated it's a necessary nutrient. OD can be dangerous or fatal but it takes a heavy dose and further neglectful behavior. Oh, say locking yourself in a shop and burning the galvy off a couple hundred copies of 2" x 3" pipe. Then NOT seeking medical attention for a week or so. ESPECIALLY considering he knew what he was doing! :mad: Now THAT was worthy of an honorable mention in the Darwin Awards. Heavy metal poisoning is cumulative and doesn't leave your system. The most dangerous heavy metal you're likely to come in common contact with is cadmium. Bare cad will sublime at well below room temperature and is highly toxic. Nickle isn't as bad but you should avoid breathing the dust or smoke as much as possible. On the conservative side a "no plated metals at all" policy is a good one, pretty close to what I follow. On the cavalier side: "it's only a little once in a while" is okay so long as you aren't endangering anyone but yourself. Do it outdoors and downwind of family, neighbors, and such. Heck you can give retorting gold out of amalgum a try if you want. Just don't take anyone else with you. EH? Frosty

Chrome poisoning is cumulative, as are all heavy metals, a little now and then will do you in just fine. Doing something fatal for less than intelligent reasons qualifies you for a Darwin Award. I agree though, disregarding something this basic barely qualifies you for an honorable mention. Use a non-dangerous method for removing the plating and NO, grinding isn't one of them. Frosty

Nice score Aaron! I never see cool stuff like that around here. Frosty