Show me your use of waste

[Archie Zietman]

Hello.
William McDonough wrote a book called Cradle to Cradle based on the idea that waste always is food for something else. He applies this to ecological cycles and extrapolates it to industry. I am putting out an invitation for people to try and use as much junk as they can in their smithing setups and show it in this thread.

Ideas would be: make a post anvil from giant 3-inch thick bolts, waste oil forges, making charcoal from old brush and scrap wood, using second or third hand tools and revamping old broken tools, making blades and tools from leafsprings and old cold chisels etc.) I know a lot of people do these things on a regular basis, but it would be great if people could showcase their use of waste as "food" for smithing.
be merry,
Archie

[trying-it]

I am no bladesmith, but love making and using pattern welded stock. Sure blades need high quality start materials used in the billet making process, but as stated my final uses are generally not blade related. I save band saw drops, lathe/mill/drill chips, bandsaw dust (dry cut), etc. and keep each material seperate for later use. These can be mixed with other materials and forge welded together using the "canned" Damascus process. Final products such as jewelry, lathe turned objects, split crosses, etc. merely scratch the surface of currently hidden and/or overlooked niches and markets.

[Wayne]

A friend of mine is a potter specialising in reproduction pottery for museums and historic houses etc. At the end of the day I sweep up all my forging scale with a magnet and when I have a large tub of it I pass it on to him.
He grinds the scale down and uses it for his medieval pots which had an iron oxide glaze.

[Doug C]

Archie,
I tried to do a search on 'waste oil forge' but because oil is only 3 letters and hence ignored I got back a result list of virtually every page in the forum. Do you have any plans, pictures etc for your waste oil forge?

I am surprised that this thread did not get more attention.

[NateDJ]

I have a waste oil forge, built with no refractory just thick walls and floor (1/4" wall pipe x ~3/4" floor). The problem with it is the availability of the oil. Apparently in Oklahoma it is not legal to sell/give it away to an unlicensed recycler. It will however get MUCH hotter than my propane forge burner placed in the same "forge". I had no trouble melting down an entire 3.5 HP lawn mower engine and letting the AL run out a hole in the bottom. The hardest part of operation is controlling the fire with out creating more heat than I can get close to (I need to build a real forge for that) with out creating WAY too much smoke. I have scrapped the idea due to the oil shortage problem but it was a good thought!

[Glenn]

Waste motor oil has some nasty things in it. Waste veggy oil is much better but is now being used for bio-diesel. There is a thread on IFI about the Waste oil and the stuff it contains.

[ThomasPowers]

I'm saving my scale from the anvil for smelting back into wrought iron in a bloomery.

The stuff on the floor gets swept up and dumped around my evergreens.

Thrown out Band Saw Blade and Pallet strapping is my general material for decorative pattern welded billets.

[Trollhammer]

Lionel Oliver has a huge amount of information and experimentation with waste oil burners(both motor and veggy) over at backyardmetalcasting.com. He also did comparisons of propane, charcoal, and waste oil. He has spent insane amounts of time and effort on using junk for everything. I thought I was one of the cheapest guys in the world until I found his site.

Glenn: You're correct, its really hard to find a decent supply of waste veggy oil because of the biodiesel thing. Restaurants used to have to pay to have it hauled off, but now there's a bunch of people buying it up as soon as its tossed. There's another fellow, can't remember his site right now, but he has started experimenting with a 2 acre sunflower patch to make his own oil. He's attempting to become completely self-reliant. I'll post the site when I find it. Its worth a read either way, lots of DIY projects.
Mickey

[Trollhammer]

Ok, here's the link. I waste alot of time on this site without even realizing it. I had to ban myself from reading it at work because I couldn't get anything done.

theworkshop.ca - Home Page

Mickey

[chyancarrek]

I use only reclaimed materials for all of my products.
Everything from old farm/heavy equipment to discarded furniture.

A woodworking friend and I recently purchased 14,000 linear ft of Bankari and Brazilian walnut that was rejected at a lumber yard due to yard damage and customer rejection. All of this was destined to be cut up and headed for the dumpster.

Everything (well almost) gets used. The small drop from larger projects gets turned into smaller pieces or used as components

It's amazing what's out there if you have a little imagination.

Here's a couple of pics of what it gets used for.

[Archie Zietman]

If you go to the forums at forums.dfoggknives.com and search wvo forge in the Tool Making subforum you'll get a bunch of stuff on my forge. It will burn any liquid fuel.

All the restaurants by me are sending their oiul to biodiesel places. Alas. I can still get a couple gallons of motor oil when I need. If I let it sit for a couple days, a lot of the crud and metals percolate to the bottom, which helps a lot with the nasty metals. I wish I could find a good source of veggie oil again.

I'm probably going to go back to solid fuel and biomass soon. It's much easier to get than oil: woodchips from trimmed brush, old wood being thrown away on the side of the road, nut husks, tree seed pods, corn cobs etc.
be merry,
Archie

EDIT: I've heard of glass workshops which fire their furnaces with the scrap wood from local carpenters and from brush being trimmed, and they get all the broken glass which the recyclers won't touch.

Edited August 14, 2008 by Archie Zietman

[BeaverDamForge]

I had found an archived thread of yours about a gasifier you tried. Are there any pics posted anywhere? I'm using an updraft gasifier with chips of Virginia Pine (grows like crazy here, pretty useless for anything else).

Elmer Roush told me he makes his charcoal from the scraps of a cabinetmaking business.

Almost all the steel I use is scrap.

Good Luck!

[philip in china]

I live in rural China. Do you really want to see how we reuse waste?

[Archie Zietman]

Beaverdam, the gasifier I made didn't work so well, it was very very jury-rigged/jerry built. I once saw a video of a "dasifier" made my a guy called Das, which he used to fire a bronze furnace, got plenty hot.
be merry,
Archie

[bipolarandy]

I live in rural China. Do you really want to see how we reuse waste?

LOL , Is it as bad as burning used motor oil?? I think might?

[Golden_eagle]

this thread is to small to post all the stuff i re-use, almost all the stuff i forge is 'junk' and my anvil is a tractor weight (i call it a 'generic brand'-inside joke) the stand is reclaimed lumber, the forge stand is an old skill saw table and pavers.

Edited August 15, 2008 by Golden_eagle

[ThomasPowers]

Does the term "honey bucket" mean anything to you Bipola Randy?

[bipolarandy]

Yes it does, my Mom grew up in Japan...

[Doug C]

In the north country I always heard it referred to as a Thunder Jug.

[firegnome]

I truly like taking all the old scraps for demos. I take a small steel box with screw on lid and fill it with small scraps bits and bobs hammer it all together and flux it and screw on the lid and into the fire it goes, welding heat and poof you have a block of steel to do with as you please. If you what to have real fun save your paper clips we have made several letter openers for folk out of paperclips all welded together.
Firegnome

[Ferrous Beuler]

Being born and raised hungry leaves a soul with an aquired perspective that a silver spoon cannot scoop.:DDan.

[jayco]

Dan, that's a great quote.........is that your's?

I reuse everything, but I had a fairly unique experience recently.
I had a pile of old barn and fence boards that I set afire and made charcoal from.
The next day I was shoveling up the charcoal when I started noticing some crudely made square nails in the charcoal.
It took me a minute, then I realized that I had made the nails 30 years ago!
So what did I do? I picked up the nails and took them back to the forge....thought I might straighten 'em , reforge them a little........and USE THEM AGAIN!
Iron lasts a long time...........
James

[craig]

I work in a large bakery, and live out of town...I take all the broken pallet scraps to make charcoal out of it, and have a small but steady supply of clean canola oil (about 10 L/week from the bottoms of barrels) which I have recently started using as a large portion of fuel for the heat to make the charcoal...being on the farm also makes broken machinery a handy source of junk too, with which I have just finished putting together an "OK" forge.

[Ferrous Beuler]

Dan, that's a great quote.........is that your's?

I reuse everything, but I had a fairly unique experience recently.
I had a pile of old barn and fence boards that I set afire and made charcoal from.
The next day I was shoveling up the charcoal when I started noticing some crudely made square nails in the charcoal.
It took me a minute, then I realized that I had made the nails 30 years ago!
So what did I do? I picked up the nails and took them back to the forge....thought I might straighten 'em , reforge them a little........and USE THEM AGAIN!
Iron lasts a long time...........
James

James, Yes that was me straight off the cuff. If it gets repeated somewhere then I suppose it becomes a real live quote. Ironic that I had to click on the little "quote" thingy to post this, Ha! Dan:)

[BeaverDamForge]

Beaverdam, the gasifier I made didn't work so well, it was very very jury-rigged/jerry built. I once saw a video of a "dasifier" made my a guy called Das, which he used to fire a bronze furnace, got plenty hot.
be merry,
Archie

Heck, mine is just some stove pipe, but I found I needed a stainless core tube from the local muffler shop. It's basically a big MIDGE with a blower or a turbostove, operated in continuous updraft mode. My build is buried in this thread:
http://www.iforgeiron.com/forum/f7/fuel-5001/

The 'Dasifier' link there got me started too - my club had just had a demo on bronze casting so I knew it should be hot enough.

I'm working on a smaller, better insulated oven to try to get a little more heat - hoping for yellow. It was working better than my wood/charcoal forge did, on about half as much wood.

I'm trying to figure out a good downdraft setup without using a compressor - blowers are so much cheaper to obtain and maintain.

Good Luck!