Jump to content
I Forge Iron

What did you do in the shop today?


Recommended Posts

  • Replies 26.4k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

  • JHCC

    3154

  • ThomasPowers

    1935

  • Frosty

    1668

  • Daswulf

    1649

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted Images

Today I cleaned, assembled, and finished two hose/cable/cord hooks, based on John Switzer's video. I had a week off work, so I put some work over the last several days and turned out a few key racks and a couple fireplace tool sets as well. I'm trying to build up some inventory for my first vendor event.

 

hose hanger_small1.jpg

may16week work_small1.jpg

keyracks_small2.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not sure what you mean by "on an angle." Not a vertical angle I assume. If you mean with the jaws at an angle to the cinderblock wall so long stock will clear it. Yes, the more unencumbered access to your vise is the better. 

Holding it the way you are in the pic could mean not being able to hold a long piece in the middle as the end on the left is angled towards the wall. 

If you rotate it so the jaws are parallel to the wall and shift it to the right enough at least half the jaws clear the end of the wall you'll be able to hold lengths extending out both sides of the vise to the limits of the space and be able to bend long pieces held vertically all the way around the jaw and clear the wall.

Make sense?

A pipe set in concrete is a perfect place to mount a leg vise. If you make the mounting plate a LITTLE larger than the bolt plate with a rim around it, it makes a good place to lay things you're using at the time, say chisel, punch, collars, etc. Just don't make it so wide it interferes with being able to bend over the top and around the jaws. You can only do that on the ends of the jaws out past the bolt an mounting plate.

The action I'm talking about is easy to visualize if you hold a piece of wire, string, etc. between your first two fingers then wrap it around them. You may not bend steel all the way around but you'll often make a 90* bend reposition it and make another to say make a step or staple, etc. Make sense? It's really handy to have one end of the vise jaws clear front and back for long pieces.

Sure you can bend a step horizontally though the jaws but it's easier to pull towards you and down and easier to align the next bend so they come out evenly.

I hope that makes more sense than muddy waters. 

Frosty The Lucky. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well I was planning a lot of work today; but my diabetes decided not to cooperate.  Went way high during the night and started producing ketones and I was looking at an ER run around 5 am; but testing a lot and pumping insulin brought me back down, then I ended up going low, 61.  Anyway 3 of my friends came out to visit and mounted 40' of gutter for my wife's rain collection project---they wouldn't let me climb a ladder for some reason.  I did cut some bandsaw blades up into billet pieces.  Perhaps tomorrow will be on a more even keel.  We did do a bit of plotting about Quad-State; I found it funny that one friends Toyota Tundra actually has a smaller bed than my 4 cylinder Tacoma!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lots of nice work going on. Well done!

Billy, she should love it. 

Mothman, great start to sales stock. Good work!

Wandering rogue, I ended up using two thirds of a barrel as my forge hood. It did not draw enough until it was hot. Advise given was to make an insert of sheet metal curved around in the barrel to narrow the space of the opening. It has worked great for around 8 years. I can lift it up and into the barrel hood with a friction fit when heated up and working longer stock. I keep it down for small work. 

20201227_003659.thumb.jpg.88e38c957cae9a1e3c1969c4de254b39.jpg

20201227_003643.thumb.jpg.dc438416afbd5c05bd3d28abbf40bd0a.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

DASWULF: Seems like a simple solution to the problem! Unfortunately, I only had access to the half barrel, and the original intent was to have it sitting right down over the fire pot, hence it being cut this way.... Unfortunately I ran out of stove pipe. I will need to pick up some more and then I can lower it down a bit closer to the table top. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Frosty, 

Makes Sense.  Jaws parallel to the wall, Shelf plate not to big. 

I will get out there today after I finish a Program update for my day job. 

Thanks for the advise. 

 

Mothman, nice looking creations.

Daswulf that forge LOOKS xxxxxxx cool.

WanderingRogue that is a pretty darn good looking set up.  Nice size shed, is it dedicated to your forging? When are you firing it up?

 

ARMY

Link to comment
Share on other sites

An additional little project for the shop (if not actually in the shop): I recently got some new glasses to replace a pair with a broken frame. I realized last night that I could turn the old pair into shop glasses by adding a pair of removable side shields (picked up at the flea market for 50 cents) and reattaching the earpiece. A good bit of hot glue later, et voilá!

0055D9F5-8D27-42C2-80B2-03E28D30E1C1.jpeg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dang, ya'll are making some really nice things. Very cool.

Here's the next set of tongs I'm working on. Little problem, unfortunately, as you can see. I marked these out exactly the same, but the jaw portion on the left is about 3/4 of an inch longer. When I was drawing it out and setting up the boss with half-faced blows, I screwed up and struck a blow that indented the material a bit past where I had started to establish the boss, maybe a 1/16th.

I couldn't see how to fix that without causign a cold shut,  so I decided to just use the new indentation as the start of the boss, knowing that the jaw would be a bit longer. The stock I'm using is pretty meaty, 1 by 1/5, so it drew out a fair bit longer than I expected. I'm not sure at this point if I should just continue wiht this set and have the bend in the jaw be asymetric or if I should make two new sides, one to match each of the existing ones. I hadn't planned on making another set of bolt tongs right away after making this one, but I guess it wouldn't hurt to have on set for 3/8 as well as for 3/4, which is what I intended for this one.

801747348_20220520_1954391.thumb.jpg.2a9d4b84a7c7c4f05abfa7833a26d494.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Got back to some metal work yesterday and this a.m.  forge is figured out and running great now.   The are two brackets I made yesterday to hold my wife's families spinning wheel up on our wall.  There will be some runners that extend our on top to hold each set of legs, this way a shelf was not needed.   Going to wait a few days to mount the runners as they were stained.and want to let the smell fade.  Also working on a wall hanging bracket for an oxen yolk.  

Smaller one has a bend in it that I tried to straighten out, tried to do the 90 on the anvil instead of the vise.  Learning in progress.IMG_20220522_110846621.thumb.jpg.8c0e4492f887aaeda5fe1f7d96766609.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

John, those glasses just add to your geek/nerd cred!    

Not much in the shop but as it was a cool day, only in the mid 80's degF, I worked on my wife's rainwater catching project. Cutting and stacking the "cribbing" to support the tank off the ground so we can get hose flow to the garden and finally moving the 600 gallon tank up onto the stack---had to have my wife crank the come-a-long while I did the rollers and keeping it on track to go up the ramp.  I managed the 54" dia, 3/8" steel disk to top off the cribbing by myself. Still to do the finishing touches and send pictures to my minions showing that their old feeble smithing friend still can move metal!

Now if we get any rain...couple of months without any so far...I was pushing it as we had a 14% chance of rain today!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Went on a family vacation to Alabama last week, and got to tour the battleship USS Alabama.  It was amazing, and I could have spent an entire week there, just looking around at the engineering and construction marvels around every corner.  Around one corner though, we found the ship's blacksmith shop.  I had no idea that we were going to stumble across a blacksmith's setup that has floated around the world, and through numerous large battles.  It makes sense after thinking about it, but never would have guessed I was going to see an anvil and forge on that tour.

There was also 2 impressive machine shops on board, with enough equipment to perform some pretty massive repairs.  It was a very cool tour, and I highly recommend it.  My kids loved it as well.

image.jpeg.54d8a019e0fd82338a531ef8e5b15e42.jpeg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


×
×
  • Create New...