You can place a socket over one of the pins for a different radius.

Got a few minutes in the shop to clean a bit more; spent most of Saturday going to the NM Artist Blacksmiths Association meeting in Santa Fe; 2+ hour drive and the meeting was to start at 8 am. I got up at 4:30 and stopped by a friend/student's place in Albuquerque to mooch a ride the rest of the way.  Nice short meeting showing a simple yet creative way of make rosettes for ornamental work. Got a really really good pick in iron in the hat, (I'll post a picture on it followed me home.) and gave my second pick to the friend who drove me to the meeting.

Then we drove a short way over to Frank Turley's Blacksmithing school where he received the Heritage Award from ABANA for running his school for 50 years!  (Previous recipients include Colonial Williamsburg  and the John C Campbell school!) It was an honor just being there to see Frank receive it!

 

The second week of rain and cold. In the new painting area it is warm and dry.

On 10/12/2019 at 4:38 PM, jlpservicesinc said:

2" lower than I like..  the weird thing is there is no room. I'm nearly into the vise.

It looks like it was laid out by a curator rather than a blacksmith but I've seen some pretty . . . interesting set ups in blacksmith shops. 

Nice looking hatchet. t'

That's an interesting wood stove Alexandr. Is the ducting and wedge shaped pieces on top a heat exchanger? What else is part of that part of the stove? We supplement heat in the house with a wood stove and wood is the only heat in my shop. I'm always interested in different ways to squeeze every bit of warm from burning wood. I LIKE warm and dry. 

Frosty The Lucky.

An attempt at a wall candle hookydoo. Ran out of time. 1st time forging a pipe to shape.

1 hour ago, Frosty said:

Is the ducting and wedge shaped pieces on top a heat exchanger? What else is part of that part of the stove?

HI !

Sorry my english.

This is blowing from a neighboring room so that the paint does not stick to the furnace and does not emit harmful gases.

The workshop is heated with coal and diesel fuel.

Here’s the one I enable. Thus my name ForgeDad. We had what I call “Forged in fire garage edition “ this weekend 

We were able to have some friends forge with us as well. One friend brought his NARB forge. We want one really bad. It was AWESOME! 

5 hours ago, alexandr said:

This is blowing from a neighboring room so that the paint does not stick to the furnace and does not emit harmful gases. The workshop is heated with coal and diesel fuel.

Your English is fine, better than some of our native speakers. Blowing air across the stove from another room to keep paint off makes perfect sense. Smart move.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

6 hours ago, Frosty said:

It looks like it was laid out by a curator rather than a blacksmith but I've seen some pretty. Nice looking hatchet. t'

Frosty the original shop was moved to OSV.  There the anvils are free to move around as the place had a cellar put under it for heat and some electric tools down there. 

this shop is supposed to be an exact copy of the original shop before it moved.  and the stumps are put into the dirt under the floor. I'm guessing in there original locations.   this shop was primarily used to forge tools for the lime quarry behind the shop. Actually a very well to do quarry.  This particular smith also did some wagon work. the forge on the other side seems to have a little more room. 

I think the work bench might have been moved forwards a little more which cuts into the forging room. 

Thanks.. I will forge one more at the next demo. A smaller version. 

3 minutes ago, jlpservicesinc said:

this shop is supposed to be an exact copy of the original shop before it moved.

Yeah and we're all about a foot taller than our great grand parents. I put my 50# Little Giant on 4" x 12" laid flat to get it closer to a good working height and wish I'd sprung for 6" x 12"s, it's still too low and I've shrunk to 5' 7". 

Frosty The Lucky.

You’re still a giant in the blacksmithing world!

If you want to sit in the shade maybe. 

Frosty The Lucky.

6 hours ago, Frosty said:

Blowing air across the stove from another room to keep paint off makes perfect sense. Smart move.

Found a better way of making these longhorn business card holders. Much easier to do two at once and forge a bull on each end of a piece of 19mm x 10mm mild. That shape makes for equal sized square horns when split. It also eliminates the use of tongs and very little steel is wasted. A local fabrication shop saved me a bunch of off cuts which make great bases for these. Better than folding flat plate. I think I might texture the bases on the next ones to take out the 'machined' look. Anyway, here are today's holders:

Ausfire

They look good. I might have to try to make some eventually. Long Horns are very popular here in my part of Texas !!!

How do you get the gold color on the head and horns?

Just a quick lick with a brass brush while hot. (Not too hot - nowhere near red). Make sure you have a real brass brush - not brass coated steel!

Make a cow footprint punch and wander a series across the bottom piece to "dress it up" a bit.  Cow flops are not necessary...

Great work from everybody. Ausfire, your longhorn heads are perfect! Well, here's some of what I've done over the last week. The big Halloween critter I started yesterday and finished today. Inspired by John Switzer who was inspired by Mitchell Jacobsen. Not shown are the two attempts at tong making... really bad. 

 

 

 

C.G.L.,

Your two j-peg references do not work for me.

SLAG.

Sorry the weather is acting up and my signal is weak. It loaded two of the same picture and I didn't know it

CGL, nice work.  the forgings look nice and clean and smooth. Well done. Love the horse shoe s hooks. 

I think it's great you reference where you found the info.   That really is the best way to give credit where do.  

Very nice indeed. 

Thank you Jennifer! The horseshoe S hook idea came from hearts that didn't come out quite right. I'm sure I'm not the first to do this, but I was trying to think of a use for them. So I thought I'd cut them in half and make hooks. Still working on the form though. I try to keep the nail fullers intact and it's a little tricky for me to make them curve right without closing up too much of the fuller. I am trying for forged to finish to lessen work. Probably takes me a lot more time forging though because I fiddle with things a lot. But thank you again for the compliments

Your welcome.. I call it the way I see it.. Good work is good work.  It shows good technique and the pickiness is how you get good.  Many people never get that good even after years of working at it because they have the good enough bug when it still needs a little more attention (a lot).. LOL.. 

You have made steady progress and there are a few on here that inspire me to do better.. You for sure are one of those.  Keep it up. Again, i love those S hooks and the spooky critters. nice work all around. 

Got together with IFI member Stash for a truly excellent dinner and some forge time.

Stash made a kind of leaf I’d not seen before and showed off his ultra—simple holddown while punching the tab on a bottle opener:

And I played around with a waterleaf scroll:

Fun was had. 

Brilliant hold down Mr. Stash.

SLAG.