Returning to IFI

[twigg]

Hi all,

Been a while since I've posted on the forums. I'm a total beginner who opened shop last summer. Grad school and family emergencies had me out of action since October. I'm just getting back into it now. I have to downsize my shop at my landlord's request (he was totally fair about it and I knew it could happen). For the next few years at least, it looks like I'll still be able to do some forging, if the grad school gods are feeling merciful. I've got a ton of broken equipment to fix before that though haha

[Frosty]

Good to see your AVATAR in the new posts again Twigg. I hope the pressure is easing up enough you can get to the anvil, it's a good way to decompress and you need it. I'm glad you have an understanding landlord, that makes a HUGE difference.

So, how much smithing equipment do you have so far? Pics would be good too.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Jasent]

Welcome back twigg    

[George N. M.]

Dear Twigg,

I'm only about 2 hours north of you.  I'm still getting my new shop set up but I should be operational some time this spring (hopefully early spring rather than later).  if you want to come up some weekend and pound some metal send me a message.  Also, you should consider joining Rocky Mountain Smiths.  BTW, grad school in what discipline?

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[twigg]

Thanks all for the encouraging words! I appreciate it.

George, thanks for the heads up! I'll reach out. I'm in for experimental physics. It's what got me into working with my hands. 

Frosty, right now I have an improvised crane rail anvil, a very sad gas forge, a 5" bench vise (it's my hero), the cheapest plastic belt 1x30 belt sander on the market, and the cheapest AC stick welder on the market. My landlord (cabinet maker) lets me use his tools (drill press, air compressor, MIG welder, plasma cutter, lots of woodworking tools) so long as I don't cause problems. (He's an awesome guy!) I avoid his welder though because I am a total greenhorn welder and worry I would somehow break it.

Anvil: 

The crane rail was one of my first purchases, and I really regret it. I paid almost $300 for 70 lbs of hardenable but structurally flexible steel when I should've just looked for the biggest hunk of mild steel I could find. On a ball bearing test, I get about ~30% of the energy lost, whether I use the hard horizontal surface or the soft vertical surface. It's better than my shop vise, but honestly it was nowhere near worth it. Anyways, this is how I make the most of it:

The setup is really top heavy, because the first 18" off the ground is all wood boards, with 70lbs of steel and 10lbs of cement on top of it. The shop casters are really convenient though and worth every penny. I intend to use this setup until the stand inevitably falls apart (the screws holding it together keep stripping cause it's soft pine I got from a friend's old ikea bed).

Gas forge:

This was a custom build (as you can tell by my ghastly welds lol). I made a post about this in the gas forge forums, but I don't think I ever showed the final product. The body is a helium tank (same as in the earlier post) with 16 gauge steel sheet front and back. It lets me do basic forging but there are multiple red flags. The interior is 4.5" diameter x 6" long (95 cu in). There's 3 inches of kaowool and 1/8" of refractory coated with ITC-100 HT. The burner is a 1/2" burner following Mikey's designs with the flexible accelerator. On my last forging session, using 30 psi of propane I was able to heat the end of a 3/16" x 3" flatbar to a bright orange. Based on the prescribed burner-to-volume ratios, my burner is seriously underperforming for some reason. But more importantly, the forge shell started ripping itself apart from thermal stresses. I wasn't able to get very sturdy welds between the helium tank and the sheet metal ends with my stick welder, and those joints have opened up. I accidentally melted a bunch of the helium tank while welding, so I ended up only having a few scattered tacks holding it together. If I do try and repair it, I'll probably braze it together instead. 

Grinder: 

These two machines are a 1x30 belt/disk combination sander and a Foley-Belsaw 1055 sharpening tool. I bought the belt sander on the cheap hoping to get up to one year off it to play around before doing anything serious. A lot of screws have already seized up from metal dust though, even though I use the dust collection system. The Foley I inherited from my grandfather, but I'm not sure how I use it to do what I want. 

Arc welder: 

Another bad buy. I knew I had to be careful about amperages, but I goofed up and read "30 amp" as "20 amp." (It wants 120V 30A, but comes with a 20A plug). I can do a little work on it, but I have to constantly stop and reset the breaker. I'm postponing my welding practice until I can replace it. I love that it's so small though. I can deal with 10% duty cycles, but my storage space is really limited. I went with stick because I eventually want to learn TIG in the long run and because having such a small unit seemed really appealing. 

Other blacksmithing tools:

A quick note on the burners:

There are two 1/2" burners following Mikey's designs, and one 3/4" burner following David Hammer's design. I was just having too much fun building these things and couldn't help myself!