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I Forge Iron

"Of Shoes,and Ships,and Sealing Wax ..."


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jawno, I use a chain hold down on my big anvil, it's a length of motorcycle chain which is nailed to the stump on one side (the opposite side to what you'd normally work) then slung over the anvil, you put your work under the chain and then on the end on your side of the anvil has a square "stirrup" on the end so you put your foot in to hold the stock still. Simple yet effective. I've also been known to to the "stomach vise" and even on occasion the "thigh vise" with the smaller anvil... hehe! (beware with the thigh vise!! one wrong move and there can be consequences!!)
Anyway, Randy the shells are really amazing!! Just seems having a press and the tooling to go with it... and the knowledge to make the tooling opens up all kinds of possibilities... I'm still working on the preliminary stuff though!! The longer I do this the more I realize that there's so much I don't know how to do....
Couple of pics of my latest things, been quite busy on the run up til christmas, selling lots of candlestands etc on the market in town, here is a heart fire poker for a lady who keeps coming back and buying heart things.... beth you might like!! bigger heart is how I normally make hearts, do all sorts of things with that theme, thought I'd try something new with the smaller one, split and then turn down the point to create the heart. Didn't really work out and I'll be cutting the top off that -it's a fail !! and welding something else on, think I need to practice my splitting ( I don't really do it very often, as you can tell!!) ...and i left the point bit too long, but I think it will be a nice way of doing it once I've got it right.
oh yes, and John B, if you're paying attention I've finally sent my cheque off to join the blacksmith's guild..!

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jk - i love that picture - i want it as my desk top - that genius!!! that has totally cheered me up after a reet stupid evening :)
colleen nice pokers - glad your getting some time in the shop - are you coming on the joining methods course - tom off here and i are going, and others that i dont know - should learn something :)

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haha brilliant, must have cross post up there, didn't see that pic-- that is absolutely the way to do it. I love how the metal is glowing purple too... (or maybe that's my ancient monitor??) or you must have some magic steel that glows purple instead of orange or yellow!

we'll see, doubt i will be able to make that course-i see there's only one place available, i don't know if i can commit to that as of yet... :s

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Wow, a long read, but well worth it. What has interested me most is the images of the detritus left strewn about on Jake's shop floor. No amount of words can fully explain anything that even smacks of creation - whether it be classified as art or work. What we create has a result punctuated by the pieces and parts we discard. Those things not presented to the public are not waste ... they end up being the parts of the statue that had to be cleared from the stone to get to the statue living within. They just aren't needed now. So, what we find laying on the shop floor speaks to the work one does and no matter how useless it may appear or strange it may seem to the casual onlooker, for those of us who do anything creative it holds enormous meaning.

How many words won't make the poem, what pieces of sawn wood cannot be the drawer front and what chunks of metal never get formed beyond the first or second heat? What I have found here is confirmation that almost all of what we do with our creative efforts is to push ourselves to our own limits - like pushing your brain through a staw ... painful at various levels, but so rewarding when we get what we want. It has been fun to listen at the feet of others while they consider their own reasons for doing. Thanks !!

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Thanks phil, colleen, everyone, for your replies. i'm gonna get started on making something along those lines next weekend.
Jeremy, that picture is priceless. LOL
Tim, now there's some philosophy. Just what this thread needed. I hadn't really noticed Jakes floor. It just blows me away though how he can take some worthless piece of junk he finds abandoned out in the forest and turn it into a real work of art. Like making parts from an old chain. I never would have seen the possibilities. I guess you make do with what you have available.

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I love Jeremy's picture too.

When I am at the local big box stores, I ask for the cut chain links. Sometimes they give me over a pound of them, most of the time they have just a couple. They are typically galvanized, so keep that in mind, without stripping it limits the uses. Many of my tong rings are just the cut link deburred and straightened some. I don't cry about dropping them in the gravel and not finding them for a few months (and they don't make holes in tires either)

Phil

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Now you have me looking at the floor in all the pics in this thread, looking at and for the discarded debris, resources for recycling, misshaped elements, and other bits. Even without reading in detail the posts the pictures alone have stories.

Now I did notice that an oven for baking was desired. Why not take sheet metal and make a box to fit on the top of the stove, a simple bottomless affair. Put the goods to be baked on a trivet so they are heated by air and while you are heating you can be cooking! A thermometer would help, and this is essentially what a Coleman camp oven is. A double walled affair might work better, and there is not a real need for a door as you can simply lift the oven like a lid.
http://www.amazon.com/Coleman-5010D700T-Camp-Oven/dp/B0009PURJA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1326127340&sr=8-1

Phil

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Bryan and Jake and any others up in AK, how are you all doing weather wise? We hear there's a ton of snow hitting Alaska and even a Russian tanker is trapped in the ice and is getting help from a US ice breaker trying to get much needed fuel oil to you. Doesn't look like hammering weather. Hope you're okay.

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Hey Randy, thanks for the good wishes. I was talking to Jake last night at a local knife makers meeting and we were discussing getting together next month. Hopefully the weather will relent some by then. The last couple of days have been mild in compairison to the last few weeks. It got all the way up to 10 today. Almost forgin weather. Tommorrow its supposed to be -35 we'll see how it goes. The town your talking about, Cordova, is way south from here in the panhandle. The National Guard is there and they are shipping in snow shovels to get the snow off the roofs. They ran out. Some of the houses may collapse because of the snow load. Nome is umm... 5-600 miles west of me. Jake and I are way inland. Closer to Canada than the ocean. The Golden Valley is a big bowl. Cold air sinks in and where I live in North Pole its alittle lower than the rest of the valley. Lucky me. It can be 0 in Fairbanks and just 14 miles away where I live it can be -15 to -20. Alaska is a land of extremes. But thats what you get when your state is 1/3 the size of the United States. The natives don't call it The Great Land for no reason.

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  • 5 years later...
On ‎7‎/‎10‎/‎2011 at 0:06 PM, jake pogrebinsky said:

I'd like this topic to be about the PHILOSOPHY of forging.I've been thinking of starting it for a while now(we even (loosely)discussed it with Gerald Boggs once,but never got around to doing it).The reason that it's here,vs the Gen.Discussion is that,as many of you know by now,i'm an annoyingly opinionated beast,and here i mean to base things on my own work,about which i want to say all sorts of mean,nasty,degrading things,without having to pussy-foot around someone else's feelings.
There are a number of things that i see as very important as far as FORGING is concerned.I've not the intellectual capacity to put it all in a streamlined train of thought,but hoping that at least a few will surface in the course of the discussion that i very much hope to see develop here.
Many here can,and do,put things out there that much better illustrate those hazy notions that crowd my pea-brain.One such person is John B.,and i'd like to once again thank him for the views expressed in this thread here,in particular :



To list a few things that i consider a MUST for any work that hopes to be considered as FORGED:

It must be forged...As in,NO factory stock visible,or even apparent.That is the whole point of forging for me.Now,i don't care if it was MiG'd,water-jetted,or cast in polymer,but it MUST appear forged.
There's a number of reasons for this.One is that as a craft,forging is under a lot of pressure to simply survive.So,using many of the "traditional"(loaded term)joinery technique one makes it difficult for the folks that fake forge-work for the mass-consumption market.

I'll think of other weird views by and by,but for now i'll post a couple of photos of recently completed candlestick.
My accompanying comments would be as follows:
Overall,i'd grade this about 5 or 6 out of 10.The main reason would be that it was a silly to create a straight/rectilinear design,and then intersect it with a clashing line out of art-deco,or wherever;inapropriate,and clashing.

One of the design ideas was to emphasise the weld-lines/seams:It succeeded beautifully!I was out of my skill level by a large %,and am lucky that the whole thing held together at all :)

So,true to form,the whole reflects my scatter-brained essence,not exactly something that i'd want to impose on a future owner of a,supposedly,decorative piece.

I do like some of the design elements,and will attempt to use them again,as i get better at it.I like how it worked out functionally,the thing is easy to adjust up and down and to rotate,and it stays there.So,as a practical item it didn't fail.

It's a couple of feet tall,assorted mild steel,my usual ninja-style technique,no swages or devices(too lazy to make any).Wood charcoal,as i'm too poor to afford coal any longer.The finish,as we say here in Alaska,"looks like it was made by a stoned hippie with a chainsaw".Appropriate for forge-work,however.20 hours.

So,getting back to the original idea.This is,even though it worked out poorly this time,the path to quality forge-work(for me,naturally):Where the method of manufacture,the joinery used in forging, determines the aesthetic.

Regards,Jake

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I ran across an old thread from long ago - some of you may have seen and others may have not - this is a very interesting thread to read over and over about the philosophy of forging that Jake Pogrebinski  had started - Where is Jake? I find it was always great to read his reply's and he has inspired me a great amount. I'm glad I ran across this again to refresh my memory of this long ago thread - take some time and enjoy the great analyzing of forging. Due to many upgrades that didn't mesh - lots of the photos are missing but the content is still worth reading, all 41 pages worth. Here's the link to the first page of this thread : 

 

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Hi JK ! Long time no chat :) I got the email reminder that this thread was activated - have not been actually ve to n here for ages.. yes it was a Most fascinating thread - it was probably a bit abstract for some ...! Jake is good, we are in much contact! oddly after a couple of years of all kinds of other things, sculptures mainly, I am back to my forge, so I thought I'd check in here and say hello. Hope everything is good with you? I'm guessing you never did get that Prince (RIP) job....? :( 

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Beth - Glad your back doing some forging - get that little thumper to pay for itself. No on the Prince job, but been busy with work over the last few years - so it's all good. Glad your in contact with Jake and he is doing well, say hello to him for me.

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I"m glad you brought this thread back to light too Jeremy, it's a good read. Even better if it brings folk like Beth back to actively posting.

Welcome back Beth I missed you!

Are you actively talking with Jake? We haven't heard anything from him in a long, toooo long a time. Next time you send him a message, please tell Frosty misses the way he takes things to the logical extreme. It's good to take a look at the edges of the envelope and beyond.

Frosty The Lucky.

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JK I will :) ! The little thumper is about to be moved - I'm relocating - and although it has paid for itself a while ago it has been neglected ... Glad your busy - I'm browsing the forum I might come across some of your pieces! Good to hear you :) 

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Hey frosty :) yes I'm always in contact with Jake - Ive even been a couple of times to galena and last time I went we made a very cool wood carving axe. I'll let him know he is missed! 

JK Yes I read that the photos had gone :( I loved this thread! 

I can't remember how to add a photo or I'd show you this marvellous axe .... 

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Thar ya go! 

 

JK there were some really good detailed photos on the thread - it IS a shame ... 

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Jk Jake did it really not me :) I was just his workshop slave.. the welding was cool as you know I'm always impressed by this, but he does it in such a cool way - makes the charcoal each day and finds any old bit of iron from out of the bushes or something, so there are many inconsistencies in the process. Plus he's done all this with a hand hammer which is a lot of work .. :) I never did get the hang of making tools, I'm an artist who uses a forge that's all ...! 

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Beth - Watching forge welding is just as much fun as doing it. There is just something special about it doing it with a hammer and anvil - merging bits together as one solid unit by fire and sweat. I always enjoy anyone forge welding.

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Yes your right - I always thought it's magic and I still do. I managed a few smaller ones a while back and I'll try again. It's all change this end, but I intend to get busy as soon as I've moved workshop. Here's one of the sculptures I've been working on.. no heat used except a Mig welder! 

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It's even harder making money from sculpture !!

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