Gergely Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 Dogsoldat wrote: "And My first thought was, 'Now that's going to be a doozy of a forge..." Uhh, think about the Dragon's Breath... :o Well yesterday (tuesday) was a good day. (It's too early too say anything about today.) After a boring day at work I surprisingly made it to the shop. Tried a wirebrush on the grinder for first time in my life, and it had very satisfying results. Only I need a new brush as my grinder was overburdened by this one. Applicated a shaft for a knapping hammer, looking good but I need some practice to use it effectively. Then fired up the forge, and hit some funny shaped rod stuff to square. Didn't got the feeling for turning it into anything else, so cooled and left it for later. There was a thing in my mind about making a cross. I think it was inspired by HWHII's website. I was wondering can I forge a cross by splitting a square bar in the middle and then bending the splitted lines outwards to a cross shape. So I tried it. And it was possible. Even with the very harsh final result I am so happy to have it done... This method opens a lots of new paths. Just for fun I made it into a religious symbol. So I was having a nice time, although there was chilling freeze and had to cool hot stuff in the snow as my water tank got frozen to its very bottom. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willis Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 Cleaned up a musket to sell to my friend Steve O from Dothan Al. He not only showed up with the money but also with 200 lbs of coal. He says he paid $12.00 a hundred lbs from Enfinger Steel on Ross Creek in Dothan. Now thats a friend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dogsoldat Posted February 11, 2014 Share Posted February 11, 2014 Played with some horse shoes welded up 2 wreaths and made a pair of hinges. Attempted to make a nice symmetrical heart for my wife. They are far more difficult to make than one would think. been a good long weekend lots of shop time :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coldironkilz Posted February 11, 2014 Share Posted February 11, 2014 It is finally warming up here. I went out in +20F trimmed seven then came home filled the feed truck with a 700lb bale of grass hay and 200lb's of alfalfa then went inside for the evening. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nicole Posted February 11, 2014 Share Posted February 11, 2014 I started cutting my parts for my homemade smithin magician...Sunny and warm :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted February 11, 2014 Share Posted February 11, 2014 Let's see Saturday was a pretty good day. Sean came over to work on a candle holder and I drilled out the broken bolts in the top die dovetail for my Little Giant. I'd missed the sound of the bolts loosening and they broke. So I broke an easy out in one just to give myself the challenge of getting it out. I finally put it in the forge, brought it to critical and left it over night, hoping to anneal the broken easy out. Well, Saturday I found out it worked. Now the top die dovetail has 7/16"-20 bolt holes and I'll be able to use it again going with grade 8s this time too. The next Saturday project was to see how some flux I picked up at the local Aire Liquide worked in the forge. I asked a few months ago if anyone here had used Patterson #1 flux, the responses said nobody had so I bought a can. 16oz for $24.34 in Wasilla Ak. good price and the online MSDS said it's anhydrous borax and boric acid. Sean gave me a nice stack of 1.25" wide metal cutting band saw blades and a similar pile of 1.25" banding. Sounded like a good flux test to me so I broke some saw blade in 5" lengths and because I like wider layers stacked them doubled. Then just wound the banding around two times, placed another double layer of saw blade and wrapped banding again. Tacked it with the mig and put it in the forge. Oh yeah, prep, I didn't, I stacked it dirt, rust and all. It was a test so why baby the flux eh? I brought it to a low orange, fluxed it, lightly hammered the layers tight, refluxed it and returned it to the forge. Yeah, me too I asked myself why I fluxed it twice for the one heat just as soon as I put it back in the forge,. Oh well. When it came up to low yellow and soaked about as well as the not so tight layers were going to soak. I pulled it and started setting the weld with the pein on the turning hammer one pass down the center, then used the face to set the rest. Refluxed, returned to the fire and when I pulled it at mid yellow heat it was nearly evenly hot all the way through. Neat the welds started taking on the first go. I reset the welds, refluxed and returned to the fire and brought it to yellow again. This time it was even yellow throughout the billet so I laid in on the anvil for a few seconds and sure enough it maintained an even color gradation, no dark lines. I refluxed it reheated it and beat the stuffings out of it,on the face and on edge. Till I get the die back on the LG I won't know if it's really welded but it didn't delaminate when I folded it and welded it again so I think it's well and properly stuck. So, I'm happy to report the Patterson #1 flux appears to be a reliable forge welding flux and is a lot more reasonably priced than most commercial fluxes. This Saturday was a good day in the shop for Frosty and Sean. His project came out quite nice I'll bug him to post some pics. And that's the what I did report from Meadow Lakes AK. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CleetisMorgan Posted February 16, 2014 Share Posted February 16, 2014 I saw this a couple weeks ago in the "show ideas from your notebook" thread. I had everything in my scrap pile to build this little hammer today. My kids have smashed all our pop cans already. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaughnT Posted February 16, 2014 Share Posted February 16, 2014 Cleetis, that's beautiful! Did you use a bushing in the wood to help against wallowing of the hole? How's it work on hot iron? I bet it would be nice when you need to drive a punch! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CleetisMorgan Posted February 16, 2014 Share Posted February 16, 2014 Yes sir, I tapped a bushing in the handle. And you are exactly on the money -- effective punching involves one more hand than I have. I ran out of time today to try it on hot stock, but I see some bottle openers in its near future. I'll let you know how it works Vaughn (: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaughnT Posted February 16, 2014 Share Posted February 16, 2014 Here's a little inspiration for ya, Cleetis! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CleetisMorgan Posted February 16, 2014 Share Posted February 16, 2014 That is sweet! I was surprised (once I got everything tuned up) how much force this little unit threw down once you get her popping. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaughnT Posted February 16, 2014 Share Posted February 16, 2014 Really? How adjustable is it for height? What weight hammer did you go with? How many feet of chain can you expect to make in an hour? ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CleetisMorgan Posted February 16, 2014 Share Posted February 16, 2014 I have about 14" of height adjustment available. I don't know why, really, but wanted to be prepared for when I change something around later. I have a repaired 149 lb Mousehole that I want to set this hammer on more permanently when I pull out my summer setup. How many feet of chain per hour? One, if the links are loooong (: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dogsoldat Posted February 16, 2014 Share Posted February 16, 2014 beautiful job Cleetis almost wonder if I didn't take the harder route. I may have to make one of those yet just because. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CleetisMorgan Posted February 16, 2014 Share Posted February 16, 2014 Dog-human nature is a funny thing. I look at the pic of yours and I wanna build IT, also. Never satisfied (: thanks for the kind words Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrmayhem Posted February 17, 2014 Share Posted February 17, 2014 today I forged my very first knife! started with this roughed out to this: after some elbow grease and file work: another: last one: I'm pretty xxxx proud of it. It came out almost exactly as I was picturing it in my head and the last few months have been very frustrating for me working with metal... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gergely Posted February 17, 2014 Share Posted February 17, 2014 Good for you. I like curved blades very much, so I like this one. What steel you used for it? Bests: Gergely Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iceman_713 Posted February 17, 2014 Share Posted February 17, 2014 Well in between rain squalls here i cut up then split some firewood for the kitchen then since i am still building my forge i cut stained and polyeurethaned the legs, then something told me to go into the old garage and poke around some, wouldnt you know it i found two old industrial cookie sheets non galvanized obviously so i hit those with the wire wheel and painted them with a healthy coat of rust stop. These two sheets will be riveted together and become the tabletop for my forge, i think ill have everything all put together by tomorrow afternoon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted February 17, 2014 Share Posted February 17, 2014 Went to the scrapyard Saturday l only had an hour to wander, didn't find a whole lot till I was looking in the back of a truck they were loading for crushing and took out about 10 pounds of smallish thrust bearing races, some with the bearings intact. I guess I will be playing with my postvises and making some small 52100 blades. I also picked up an OLD rock drill bit with no central hole! From the mines out here, I like to use the old metal for knives for that period and this one has about 4' of shafting on it. I was thinking of using the old star drill head for a screw press tool to make cross shaped indents. Finally I put it all in a steel wire milk crate as I pick them up whenever i can for heavy duty storage in the shop[. Total weight 29 pounds and I bumped the price up to an even US$6 so we didn't have to deal with change. (Well worth an extra 20 cents to me to keep my "pile rummaging" rights in sound working order!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrmayhem Posted February 18, 2014 Share Posted February 18, 2014 Good for you. I like curved blades very much, so I like this one. What steel you used for it? Bests: Gergely thanks Gergely! I used some steel I picked up a local hardware store. I'm not even sure if it will hold an edge...But it was the piece that was closest to me when the mood hit to make a knife :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacob Nothstine Posted February 18, 2014 Share Posted February 18, 2014 Finished my nail header and made a few nails. My 7 year old son Adam made his first J hook. He was so proud of what he made, he offered to make one for his mom and sister. Might have to build another forge for him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Metalsmith21 Posted February 18, 2014 Share Posted February 18, 2014 The high in phoenix, az yesterday on the 17th was 96 degrees! What happened to spring? Too early to be this hot! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Posted February 18, 2014 Share Posted February 18, 2014 Got about 90 minutes of forging time during Ice Dancing broadcast yesterday. Made a stag horn hook for one of the cutting boards in the kitchen. I'd vinegar'd the zinc coating off the bolts, then shaped up the heads some. Need to work on punching smaller hang holes. Also worked the 1/2 bar stock of a pinapple twist down to 3/16 and formed a loop. This is the handle for a firepit poker for my BIL, but I don't think the 4 inches of P twist is sufficient for a handle. I'll keep working on it regardless till I make a decision or finish it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted February 18, 2014 Share Posted February 18, 2014 A nice twist! a "trick" that can help you extend such a region would be to leave a flat section and stamp his initials in it and then do another pineapple twist right below it---so it looks like you *meant* it that way instead of needing a flat to do the next twisting with... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinobi Posted February 18, 2014 Share Posted February 18, 2014 I had to teach myself how to do my first pineapple twist (written instructions from the good folks herein of course) on a 14" long segment for the handle of my engraving vise, had to work it in thirds for each step of the way and it was a bear to get it where I wanted it! '?do=embed' frameborder='0' data-embedContent>> I suppose so long as I am in this thread ill share my 'life is good' moment from two weekends ago. Mark Aspery came to Adam's Forge and taught a class on how to forge Darryl Nelson style bear heads on 1 1/4" square bar, plus forging the tooling to do so. I ran out of time so mine isn't complete but its at least bear flavored :) and I got him to autograph my MTF volume 3, which completes the my set with autographed copies :) ill get a pic of my bear when I go home, pretty rough though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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