Mark, 

 

A day at the scrap yard trumps a day at school ..  Glad you had a great birthday..   I spent part of the day machining a top for a friends cone mandrel that some on in the past chose to cut off.. Why??  I also made a part for a cool post drill that is real unique. This one the flywheel runs close to the wall and the only one I have ever come across designed this way.. Got way to many now but I enjoy rebuilding them..  Most of my students once I show them how they work love to drill holes.. Fun.. KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK..

Forge on and make beautiful things 

Jim

Hello Jim,

Real nice looking cone. And I love that table you have the drill on!

 

I finished this flower. Its base was the most fun to forge: it's made of 60mm / 2 3/8" x 20mm / 3/4" flat stock.  Last couple of weeks I mostly forged small stuff so I really enjoyed banging heavy metal.

I spent a couple hours building a new rest for the 2x72 belt grinder I needed more space and more solid. Once I got that finished I ground a piece of 2" x 2" into an angle guide push block thingy whatever you call them to I could maintain even grinds on the Long Seax I'm finishing as my part of Theo's collaborative project. MAN having a solid, flat, square rest and pusher thingy to mainting things grind angles makes a BIG difference!  

And I discovered my metal bandsaw doesn't cut Myrtle wood very efficiently, I'm going to have to find someone I know with a wood band saw or use a hand saw to rip the scales. 

I'll post some pics when I get a little farther along.

Frosty The Lucky.

My wife found a Ozark Hoe in an antique store. It was made by my mentor Isaac (Ike) Doss of Berryville AR. It followed her home so I decided to make a copy of it. Made out of leaf spring bolted to the haft. Ike designed it and made many for digging in our rocky ground. Had fun making it and it works well.

That is a cool tool. Nice handle attachment set up. Another one for the inspirations file.

Nice hoe, looks like a good rock picker, root whacker, down and dirty garden weapon! I like it a lot. Bet it's marketable and not a lot of time and labor once you're set up to make them.

Frosty The Lucky.

It took me about 3 hours to make it, spent almost as much time on the haft as the bit because it was too long for my wood lathe. Ike sold a ton of them in several local hardware stores. The nice thing about it is it's lighter than a pick axe so not as tiring to use.

Thank you very much Mr. Coke! Nice cone top. Some one tried to give me a cone mandrel that had the first four inches cut off....only problem was the van already had an anvil and swags block, 5 people, and luggage. Maybe next time we're there I'll get it.

I like that flower Gergely, especially the base.

neat hoe. For the handle, what about a wheelbarrow handle? That's what came to my mind first.

Forged a claw hammer out of some axle.

                                                                      Littleblacksmith 

 

That's a nice hammer LB, how long did it take? it looks like it would be pretty simple to make.

SWEET hammer Mark. Now you just need figure out how to do a waffle face. I like my framing hammers to have hachet style handles, but that is just me.

19 hours ago, Irondragon Forge & Clay said:

My wife found a Ozark Hoe in an antique store. It was made by my mentor Isaac (Ike) Doss of Berryville AR. It followed her home so I decided to make a copy of it. Made out of leaf spring bolted to the haft. Ike designed it and made many for digging in our rocky ground. Had fun making it and it works well.

 

Never saw one but now I want one! very cool. About how long is the handle?

The handle is 45 inches long (could be longer) made from a 2X2 with the rear section planed & sanded to round and the leaf spring is 11 inches long (drawn to a point) by 2 inches wide.

Made a pair of tong's to hold 3/16 x 1" flat bar yesterday.

3 hours ago, Dylan Sawicki said:

That's a nice hammer LB, how long did it take? it looks like it would be pretty simple to make.

Thank you. Well, it took longer than it should have, about three hours. It wasn't the one striking who made it take long, he was doing excellent with a 12lb. It was that thinks we're a little wonky and not right. So we had to go back and forth from trying to get things in line and straight. I think if we didn't have to deal with the wonkyness than it would have taken about 1-1/2 -2 hours, that includes grinding (though all that was ground was the face) and handling.

it was pretty simple. Started with some 1 1/4" axle, flattened to half round (like you would a hammer eye punch), then punch on the high side. Drift it open, and using a top fuller take down the swell created from punching and drifting, then using the top fuller, fuller fro. O e side on either side of the eye, creating a set down. Then using the too fuller draw out the claw, and cut off the excess. Take a set hammer or flatter, and move to the face and forge it down square (it had been oval from the original flattening of two sides). Then drift the eye open again because from fuller I get the set downs it will have crushed the eye, and now spread the cheeks some. Now fuller all the way around next to the face as if you were making a rounding hammer. Split the claw and bend it, that's about it. If you type in to YouTube "forging a claw hammer" there are a couple of videos of Alec making one the same way, and one of him and his Freind, who I know, is making one, that one I found the best.

2 hours ago, Tubalcain2 said:

SWEET hammer Mark. Now you just need figure out how to do a waffle face. I like my framing hammers to have hachet style handles, but that is just me.

Thank you Elijah. Waffle face I think wouldn't be too difficult. Just an angle grinder with a cut off wheel, or maybe even a chisel. Interesting, like with a curve in them? I prefer hammer handles like this, but, that's just me.

                                                                                           Littleblacksmith 

Lbs

I like your hammer. I showed it to my wife she said it was pretty.

Good job!

Mel

Cut up big bits of steel into little bits of steel that will get welded back together into more complicated, medium-sized bits of steel. 

That claw hammer is fantastic! i would use that any day.

been looking through here, you are quite impressive!

2 hours ago, Melw45 said:

Lbs

I like your hammer. I showed it to my wife she said it was pretty.

Good job!

Mel

Thank you very much, glad to hear the wife likes it too!

 

1 hour ago, BubbaNash said:

That claw hammer is fantastic! i would use that any day.

been looking through here, you are quite impressive!

Thank you very very much sir. I really needed to hear something like this right now.

                                                                                  Littleblacksmith 

Today I "finished" carving, grinding and filing the logo for my favorite beer outlet into a piece of leaf spring from an armored truck.   I offered to make a bottle opener for the owner and wanted to put his logo on it.  This was a labor of love.  All I need to do is smash it into some hot steel to see where the high/low spots are, adjust and then make the bottle opener.  I have an idea for a business opportunity and this is my trial run.

Made a scoop for the dog food.

Also reforged a big cold chisel from the flea market into a big punch. 

That is really nice JHCC! Beats the heck out of the plastic cup I use

I somewhat sort of finished my first hammer shaped object today. I found it much harder to forge the large coil spring I had. I have plenty of things I'll do different next time. Im looking forward to when my local chapter of the AFC does a hammer workshop this winter.

More rasptlesnakes yesterday and helping a student with some forge welding practice. He had strips off of commercial reel mowers---golf course maintenance---and was real excited to see if they would make a blade.  I warned him about the new alloys like boron steels; but.... He got it to weld to itself and then agreed to heat a piece, quench in water and try the break test---didn't even bend!  Not even when I put it into the whomp vise and hit a couple of licks with a 3# hammer.  He then confessed that when he did the grind test there were lots of lines but no bursts....  So I suggested san mai...

You made rattlesnakes? That sounds awesome sir. Can we see pictures please? By the way glad your back Ive been missing your posts the past few days!

On 8/27/2017 at 7:48 PM, Scrambler82 said:

Little Blacksmith,

Was just rereading some of the posts, I saw this knife photo, 

The mosaic insert, nice !

Thank you very much sir. The guy I gave it to said it was basic at best, that it would be lucky to fetch $50, and that there was no craftsmen ship involved.

 

                                                                              Littleblacksmith