jcornell

Iron Mountain Flux - it's borax and iron. I've used it, it's good flux. It's not magic (I didn't expect it to be) but I've had a lot of success with my welding since I bought some. Given the fact that my fire welding was terrible before I started using this flux, that's not saying a lot, but it's still pretty good flux. I would not have bought it if Brian Brazeal hadn't given it a positive review.

John - you know, that tall bearded guy who keeps making noise in his back yard - that guy.

I'm a hobby smith - don't ask me to take 2" square stock and make a fence or a gate. I'm learning all of the basic skills, tapering, upsetting, slitting, drifting, punching, scrolling. For most things I find doing it on a small scale is actually harder than doing it at "normal" scale. My first instructor, however, makes teeny items which inspire me to keep at it.

Yes! That's the next project. Many platens have the cut part facing the user, I want a solid platen with the cut part away from the user, so I can put small stock through the blade without having it get caught in the cut. If I do the tolerances right, the blade shouldn't care. For now, this will meet my needs. I will most likely replace the zip ties with steel hose clamps when I have one (or four) fall into my lap, and if ever I could get a welding friend to slap together a frame, that would be good too, but for now, it's solid and it didn't cost a whole lot of money, being made from materials I had on hand.

Here's a bottle opener from a railroad spike (yeah, what a cliche, right?). I've made the rubik twist, which is really simple to do (if you have a grinder and band saw) and looks terrific when it's cleaned up. My hope is that I can sell a few things so as to make my hobby pay for itself (or at least pay for the propane). We'll see if it's still fun when I'm making stuf to sell, rather than making stuff to learn new techniques.

Here's a russian rose made from 1/8" silicon bronze rod. The bud is less than 1/2" across, the stem is about 5" long - it's going to be used as a hair stick by my daughter. I crafted sepals for the rose from bronze - I hammered a strip flat, bent it in half (lengthways), opened it, drilled a 1/8" hole in the middle, snipped a leaf shape on either end of the crimped strip and then slipped the hole between the two leafs onto the stem, pushing the leaf pair to the top of the stem. Repeat process for two more leaves and then crimp stem. I then wrapped the stem with some 1/16" bronze wire to keep the leaves from leaving. We all know what a russian rose is. Real roses have 5 leaves making up the sepal, except for an oddball chinese rose, which has 4 leaves in the sepal. Russian + China = Manchuria (half-way between, kind of), so I call this the Manchurian Rose.

The zip tie is rated at 75 pounds, so I'm not too worried. I originally thought I'd use steel hose clamps, but I had the zip ties... 1/2" stock? Piece of cake. It will also slice a railroad spike in half, including the head (lengthwise) at either slow or fast speed. (The Milwaukee 6236 has two speeds).

Posted on my lunch hour. A tool I've been saving up for over the last year is a Milwaukee portable band saw (I think "portaband" is a trademark of Porter Cable). For my application, I needed a stand. I looked at the aftermarket stands and thought "gee, that's great, but it costs too much." As I have zero capability for TIG/MIG welding, slapping together a stand out of angle iron was out too. So I applied appropriate engineering technology (also known as the hillbilly fix). I took at section of 2"x12" plank, screwed a floor flange into the plank, screwed a 1" length of pipe into the floor flange and then used zip strips to secure the bandsaw to the stand. There are two zip strips holding the saw to the pipe, two wooden blocks on either side of the foot of the saw (to insure it doesn't slip around) a zip strip going through two holes in the base of the plank that grab the handle of the saw, and a final zip strip holding the trigger switch closed. I then attached a HF foot pedal and then clamped the base to my portable work bench. Huzzah - now I can do some serious (and safe) metal cutting. Out of pocket expenses - counting the floor flange and the foot pedal, less than $30.00.

Yes, Roberts is my go-to place, although they seem to categorize me as a low-life, as I'm not using their products for welding. The low-fuming bronze I bought at Roberts was miserable - I'll use if for brazing (which is what it's made for) but it's no good for forging. Silicon bronze, that's another question. J

Thanks, there's a source there that's somewhat reasonable. Evidently Harris makes a 1/4" silicon bronze rod, its part number is 03SIB90, a ten pound box. I can't seem to find anyone who carries it, but I'm not done looking.

I've been playing with silicon bronze lately after picking up some welding/brazing rods. It seems the largest size available locally is 1/8" - does anyone know if it's manufactured in larger diameters? I can always buy rod at the specialty metal shops, but they are very, very pricy, so I figured it would be cheaper if it was in tig/brazing rod form. Any suggestions?

What have I been given? The anvil I use was given to me (free) by a friend at work. The stump the anvil sits on is a lovely hunk of walnut that came down in a storm. One of my daughter's friend knew I wanted a stump and had a piece cut to the height I requested when she was having the tree dismantled. The owner of the fencing academy gives me broken foils, epees and sabres - which I've turned into any number of things. A gentleman at church gave me a trove of steel that I'm still working my way through. Then there's all of you - I've learned so much here, for free. Truly, I am blessed.

My son's uncle, a Franciscan priest, has asked my son to make some Tau crosses. The tau is a big symbol with Franciscans. It looks like a capital T. Any clue on how to make one out of steel? My first inclination is to make a split cross but not allow the splits to cross, and then trim off the top piece. Any suggestions, oh wise smiths?

I suspect it boils down to one thing: coal. Although blacksmiths love the smell of coal fires (or at least have fond associations with the smell) it's not generally regarded as pleasant. Propane (my heat of choice) has the whooshing jet sound, so I couldn't see having five propane burners going either. I don't know what would be worse, keeping them all together, or spreading them out. It's their event, they get to set the rules. Life's not fair.

My next itch for experimentation is coin mokume. Has anyone tried using US Quarters and the slightly larger, brass colored US Dollar coins? (the president and the Sacajawea coins are identical in metal composition) If yes, what was the result?

I've been playing with the heart shape, using much of the technique that Brian Brazeal shared on this website (thanks, Brian, we've never met, but I'm much in your debt). The heart is a lot of fun to make, and people seem to want to buy them, but it's a little clunky for jewelry, so I wondered if it could be made small, and in bronze. I picked up some 1/8" silicon bronze rods at my local welding shop and made a number of mistakes. This is the first heart that I'm not embarassed to show. After smithing I scrubbed it with 00 steel wool and then used my brass wire wheel on my grinder. My 16 year old daughter claimed it immediately, so I guess it was okay.

I had some time to kill last week, so I ducked into my local welding shop and picked up a few rods of 1/8" low fuming bronze rods. Long term, I want to use the rods as stock for knife handle pins, but I had the notion that I could forge some little hearts out of bronze. First I experimented with working it hot. It crumbled. Then I experimented with working it cold - it shattered. I tried annealing it (heat with torch and quench in water) - not much better results. What the heck am I doing wrong?

Make, buy or borrow an electric induction forge?

I agree with Thomas - the gauge is not terribly reliable. I look for how much fire is coming out of the forge and listen to the sound.

The prices on the brick are not crazy, the fiber is about right. You'll want to use Insulating Firebrick for the inside of your forge, and hard firebrick for the floor of your forge. Hard firebrick is just that. Insulating firebrick is soft (think heavy styrofoam). "Superduty" is usually reserved for hard firebrick (rated above 2600 degrees F) I've not heard of the brands involved, and I suspect he got a hold of a batch of stuff from China and now he's trying to unload it (which is what some people do for a living). Is this a local, cash and carry operation? If so, ask to see the stuff, you'll know pretty quickly what you're dealing with when you inspect the goods.

It looks like this is soft firebrick - am I right? If so, then you probably need to coat the inside with ITC100 or PLISTIX, which will make the brick reflect a lot more heat, which increases the efficiency of the forge by a lot. Your forge is very similar to mine.

Here's where I bought mine: http://www.axner.com/superwoolfiber-1thicksoldpersqft.aspx There's two types - soluble and non-soluble - the non-soluble stuff is pretty hard on your lungs if you inhale particles. You'll also need to coat it with something like ITC 100 or Plistix. J

The Russian Rose is truly a clever blacksmith project. One of my first instructors made one, but I never understood his explanation of how it was made (I had to wait for this forum for that). The problem with the Russian Rose is that while it looks just fine looking down from the top, from the side and from the bottom it looks goofy (and very un-rose-like). What it's missing is the bottom part of the rose, the leaves that cover the rosebud before it opens. The technical name for this part is the sepal. I've cobbled together a way to craft a sepal. I use thin gauge sheet aluminum (something I have lots of) which in my case comes from the lids of cat food cans. I mark out a circle on the can and then give the circle five spikes. I've tried four, five and six and five seems to be the happy medium. I then cut out the shape. Taking a needle-nose pliers, I align the pliers on the right side of one of the spikes, making sure that the tips of the pliers are in the center of the circle and make a clockwise twist. Once the twist has curled up enough metal, I crimp it. I then move to the opposite side of the circle and repeat the process on the spike opposite the first crimp. This is repeated for each of the spikes. This crimping turns the flat circle into a cone shape. Using a nail (or other spike) I make a hole in the tip of the cone sufficient to slip over the stem of the Russian Rose and slide it into place. Finally, using the needle nose pliers, I turn back the spikes so they are pointing towards the stem. The sepal can be crimped in place, brazed, soldered, or if you're impatient. glued in place using JB Weld. In the words of one of the threads here, the Russian Rose is blacksmithing, but this sepal is fabrication.

I have some 6 gauge copper wire which is interesting, but I'd really like to have a rod somewhere between 1/4" and 3/8" in diameter. Is it possible to fire-weld copper wire? Or will it just melt and make pretty puddles at the bottom of my gas forge?

It's my second anvil - anvil #1 is a london pattern anvil of unknown make and is securely chained to a stump. This one will be used for demonstrations and for when my son is hogging anvil #1 (we all should have such problems).