That's disgusting, JHCC.  Don't you know it's a sin to be such a braggart.  I mean, after all, the old "mine is bigger than yours" attitude is for school kids.

WHEW!  Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I have to admit I'm drooling all over my keyboard and will probably short it out, so you're going to owe me a new one.  I mean, I've got  3 hammers and two un-handled heads and think I'm in Heaven!    With just a quick glance, I see at least a half dozen hammers in your rack I'd sure like to have in mine.  One of these days, if I ever learn how to swing them, I'd sure like to have a "herd" of hammers like that.

Forged railroad lantern hanger several weeks ago, forged the light house bird feeder hanger for the mrs today, she let me forge on Easter... question...I could only heat and bend  the bird feeder once so I couldn't really transition the curve to a gentle radius.  Due to size of forge, how could of I done so. Ps Happy Easter to all , and let's pray for this country. 

 

Chris

Is it a Herd?

I think that he has a whole "flocking" bunch of hammers!

If only I had such a large flock

I think it’s a strike of hammers. 

LBS.. I will show you, your lil'ones  great, great granpappy tomorrow..    

I just called it a round flatter, but hey Elephant is cute too. 

Works great when i want a really light foot print on the stock. 

2 hours ago, bill duckworth said:

I could only heat and bend  the bird feeder once so I couldn't really transition the curve to a gentle radius.  Due to size of forge, how could of I done so.

You can bend 3/8 round cold, and 1/2 in round cold with leverage.  

If you want to do it hot, you can slide the stock in and out of the forge to extend the hot spot to a much longer section.

 With the bends already in place: close up the back door and stick a couple of firebricks with a slight gap between them and the front opening. Let it warm up and then put your metal sideways in the hot spot between the bricks and the front opening.

Lets see: Friday went to the scrapyard, they are talking about shutting down so I need to "fill up" beforehand. 53 pounds out + a 1.3 hp motor---almost brand new from the college building renovation scrap getting dumped there.  (Tip: some of the oldest looking HVAC stuff has the newest motors in them as they have been replaced on schedule.) US$10 for the motor, 20 cents a pound for the rest.  Helping a small family business; priceless!

Fired up the forge Friday afternoon and worked on the tentacular bud vase holder and did some more stakes to hold the bottom of the new fence down while the forge was warming up---using *rebar* I sourced as scrap earlier that day.

Saturday: finished off the bud vase: couldn't find my drill so I used the hand powered one to drill and also a pointed punch to start the holes hot.  Also I wasn't happy with the riveting to the mounting plate so I forge brazed the backside of the tentacles. Wire brushed and waxed.    Decided to use the spare tentacles to make a wall mount drinking horn holder and started making the mounting plate using the screwpress. Took pictures of my 25# LG for the folks at LG. (serial 1814, sold 1915 and sent to Merino CO, USA.)

Sunday; read 3 apostles' accounts of the resurrection at breakfast and went out to the shop; 20 mph winds so a good day to run the propane forge, 3 doors open + the open gables.  Worked on the drinking horn holder some and then decided to make a flower for my wife as a surprise. I also dressed a hardy's stem to fit the 248# PW anvil using a farrier's rasp.  I sure hope I get power to this shop in the "near future".

Watched the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, again, with my wife.  Checked the weather before going to bed. Out the back door, low hanging thick clouds, murky. Out the front door, absolutely clear skies and tons of starts---seeing the Milky Way with no problem---It's our galaxy, so it's good to keep an eye on it from time to time...

Thomas:

One of my favorite astronomical posters is a mosaic of photos of the Milky Way from both the northern and southern hemispheres and titled "The home galaxy as seen from the home planet."

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Curved cold chisel Inspired by a Black Bear Forge video. Coil spring quenched in oil and tempered back to straw. Got it right for there is no deformation at all. Very happy with heat treat. Finally figuring it out

Handy thing to have at the scrapyard for quick disassembly of rusted together nuts and bolts.

Ok, so as promised Littleblacksmith, here is the "Elephant flatter)..  I just used to call it a round flatter but hey.. I like elephant better. 

More shop organizing: cleared off the mensa omnia tenens and converted it to tool storage. 

Although it should be noted that the red toolbox on the lower right is actually my hot box for annealing things.

what i got done over the weekend, cant wait to test that hot cut. what do you guys think? im really happy with how the tongs work, they're made with leaf spring.

(the piece on the right is slitter/drift, used it to start the eye of the hot cut)

I love the parking bump stop.. 

That’s the side of the garage that actually gets used as a garage. 

I thought it might be used as a speed bump when your working frantically at the forge. 

I have many of them in the fab shop so I have to move at a reduced rate of speed.  

3 hours ago, CheechWizard said:

(the piece on the right is slitter/drift, used it to start the eye of the hot cut)

The hot cut looks good. What is the slitter made from?  The tongs look good too. What material is the hot cut? I've thought about making a disposable one out of a spike. 

Pnut

 

Never use mild steels for a quality, long lived tool. 

A drift or even a mandrel is ok..  

If only using it one to do a job on as a hot cut it works well enough if done quickly.  

But overall, pick any other steel than mild steel.   Railroad spikes even of the higher carbon content are marginal at best.. 

For me personally not worth the time invested in making unless it's a special tool that will see very limited use and it's not worth the time to make a model that I will add to the tool shelf. 

You are way better off using mild steel to work out designs but for the most part once you have a working design make it from a good material. 

 

As a corollary to this; it's a good idea to have some suitable steels for tool making to hand.  I pick up high alloy steels, like S-7 or H-13 at blacksmithing conferences when I can find them cheap and store them ready to be used. Last weekend I needed a curved (like a gouge) small chisel to do some ornamentation on hot steel and had a piece of 5/16" H-13 rod to hand.

Even if you don't want to use the high alloy stuff; automotive coil springs are cheap and easy to throw on the scrap pile. I actually have some just for giving away to new smiths in order to wean them off rebar and RR spikes...

the drift was an unkown piece of hex i found at habitat, pretty hard stuff on its own, it skated a chainsaw file when quenched in oil (i always test before committing to making a tool out of something) the hot cut was a very large very old looking cold chisel,  would have been smart to use an air hardening steel however atleast its not plain old mild steel. got it done in one night too. about to go out and give it a test. 

i think tonight im make a hatched drift. i got some leaf spring that tapers almost to a point from like 7/16ths. gonna cut it in half long ways and work from there. if it works well i may commit to an axe drift later

that rr spike in the picture is wrought iron believe it or not. the shape is more of a diamond shape and the head is much smaller then modern spikes. its also smaller in general

Cheech:  Are you sure that it is a RR spike?  I have seen harrow teeth exactly that shape and about the same size.  If it was old enough it could have been made our of wrought iron.  By the late 19th century when steel became cheaper they would have been fairly high carbon steel.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Made a sliding stock support for the gas forge cart. The long sides of the top are pipe and open at both ends, so this can be used with either forge. The stock rests on either a standard 4-1/2” x 9” hard firebrick or a large industrial roller; converting from one to the other is as simple as flipping the rest 90 degrees. 

Here's a little video of the support in action:

 

I turned 1 tool into 3 Sunday.

The asymmetrical tip and slight swelling at the head makes me think harrow tooth as well. Often quite high carbon to provide wear resistance when going through soil.