BsnNFrnt;  I found that dome headed railroad *BOLTS*  make nice dishing hammers.  If you are working hot you don't need as much weight as cold dishing and the flatter curve leaves fewer dings than a true ball does.  I also found that curving the section from the face to the eye to follow the arc of my swing made a big difference too.  I always pick them up at the scrapyard these days for SCA armour makers.

Get it real clean, then simmer in white vinegar. 

I’m not sure how the other household residents would feel about that… does 40% ferric work?

Went and picked up our new Hot Water Heater. Downsized from the old one as nobody is living in that end of the house anymore.  40 gallons will take care of guests and the dishwasher and the kitchen sink. (Our house was built in two parts so we have 2 hot water heaters, 2 master bedroom suites, etc.)

Also picked up a proper 220 plug for the switching my grinder from 110 to 220; got the outlet wired, just need to rewire the 2hp baldor motor as I went ahead and put the 220 plug on it yesterday.

Don't simmer vinegar in the house!  I don't like doing it in the shop either, the grill works fine!

49 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

Went and picked up our new Hot Water Heater.

Why do you want to heat hot water. 

For my Plasma Shower of course!

1 hour ago, ThomasPowers said:

Our hose was built in two parts

I'm curious about the two part HOSE build myself. 

They wanted HOTTER water Randy. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Finished another table.

Alexandr, are the pieces of wood, etc. set in resin or possibly resin between two pieces of glass?

Thx.

George

17 minutes ago, George N. M. said:

Alexandr, are the pieces of wood, etc. set in resin or possibly resin between two pieces of glass?

Thx.

George

George

The table top is completely resin, no glass.

Always amazing work Alexandr.  How does the resin hold up to wear and tear?  Scratches, scrapes, etc.,  Must one treat it with great care?  (Everyone should treat their things with care).

Rain!  A lovely sound on the tin roof; of course my wife's water tank isn't in place and plumbed yet; we were pricing gutters yesterday...

I was doing cold work in the shop; cutting and bending 8 sheet metal brackets for my  wife's second raised bed garden so we can run the trellis/fence. Including drilling and deburring 78 holes; made me wonder about dropping everything and running a 220 line to the drill press and getting it back online.

Yes Thomas. Unless you like using the brace and bit that much. Let alone the hand deburring tool. 

Eh, better half has been moving most of my resources away from the house when I've also been trying to get a 6'x6' sandbox made for the kids. I'm certainly no wizz with pallets but I'm getting it slowly figured out on top of trying to find places for my other resources.  

Then on top of that my neighbor is going to be parking a pretty clean but older 20' motor home up on the hill for me to use for little campouts. He wants the engine and tranny eventually. I don't mind the use trade off. 

Had to move an old boat and trailer that was sunk into the ground and he will be hauling in a couple vehicles of mine for scrap, giving me the money. I give him some storage space for other vehicles and he helps me out. Good neighbor. 

Well I prefer to use my whitney punch; but it needs a new punch/die.  So I made do with a 3/8" VSR drill I picked up at the scrapyard and drilled all the holes individually.  With the drill press, (2hp baldor motor), I would have stacked them and drilled 8 at a time.

I cut them with a hand powered bench mount shear; flattened them (scrap so a few bends) with my screw press, filed the cutting burrs and wore hearing protectors when using the drill...silence is Aurum-ic!

Chimaera, I make stone points, at least I used to. I was to the point where I could do matching flake patterns, fairly deep narrow notches, made several clovis points, made a jig for fluting folsom points, the whole 9 yards. I let off quite a bit when I got married going on 7 years ago, but I still make an occasional point. Its like riding a bike. You may be a bit rusty after not doing it for a while, but its a skill you never lose once you learn. Don't have any pictures of my work on my phone unfortunately, but I'd be willing to make a few for your display. I'd like to get back into it. 

I finally got this hammer head handled! The head came from the shop at the college I used to go to and work for. I asked my old boss nicely and he gave me a “go ahead” grunt.

Then I bought 4, 2x2 ash turning blanks from Amazon and a weekend and some sawdust later, this (extremely ugly) hammer was given new life!

It is a 6lb, which I was and still am hoping my wife will use to strike for me. She says it is a bit heavy, but I think (and hope) she will get used to it.

A good sledge is a great tool.  

I made a couple bottle openers and a miniture horse shoe.   

Finished! After about 5hrs of etching in 20% Ferric, I just touched the high spots with a wire brush. 

11 hours ago, ChiefLittleBair said:

I'd be willing to make a few for your display. I'd like to get back into it. 

That’d be great, if you’d like to! While most of my points are authentic Native American, I do have a small number of modern points. The modern ones are nice because there are many varieties that are just too rare in Ohio, and it’s hard to find good condition stuff. 

That is really sweet! So glad the grain pattern showed up so well.

(Now I'm thinking that you could also heat it up and hit the high spots with a brass brush for golden highlights. Hmm....)

I made a tool holder so o can start making shorter tools. It will hold up to 1” diameter. I’m planning to make a few more so I can have multiple tools ready. 

Maybe I'll try that with the next one John. Thank you for the wrought iron in the first place. Sorry it took me so long to get up the nerve to use some.

9 minutes ago, Melancholy Rivet said:

a tool holder

Interesting idea. I would make one suggestion: instead of notching the end of a square tube, weld a small piece of angle iron on the end (say, 2"-3" of 3/4" x 3/4" or 1" x 1"), perpendicular to the tube with the angle in the same alignment as the existing "V". That will be a lot stronger that the wall of the tube alone and will therefore resist the force of the hammer blows a lot better.

Also, check out the thread on my own punch tong design.

4 minutes ago, Chimaera said:

Thank you for the wrought iron

You're welcome! 

That looks really cool Chimaera.  Got me wanting to make one from wrought iron now. 

It's got me wanting to make EVERYTHING from WI now! This was my first experience with it, and while it was a massive pain, I am ecstatic with the result.

15 minutes ago, JHCC said:

Also, check out the thread on my own punch tong design.

I've seen that thread before and I really like your design! I'm still pretty rough at tong making though so I wanted something that's easier for me to put together now. I'll probably switch to some nice tongs when I'm better at making them.

I got the idea for this from Dereck Glaser at the New England School of Metalwork. I recently took one of his classes and he has holders similar to this (but better made  ) in the class shop. 

Thank you for the angle iron suggestion, I'll try that on the next one.