What did you do in the shop today?

[George N. M.]

You can get them on Amazon for about $12.  They are advertised for copper rivets but they work fine for hot iron rivets and I have no problem using them for cold iron rivets.  A rivet set with a tool looks much cleaner than one that is just peened over.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[bluerooster]

Rojo, rivet setter or not, those are some very nice looking ladles.

[alexandr]

15 hours ago, Frosty said:

. A railing perhaps a landing? The branch and leaves are part of another sculpture or a stand alone itself, no?

Hello Jer! A few years ago I made a stair railing. The owner of the house is doing major renovations, she needs to add another section and a Christmas tree. New Year's amulets will hang on it.

[LarryFahnoe]

Your stair railings are so graceful Alex, well done!! I would be certain that your client is just thrilled to have them.

--Larry

[BillyBones]

That 3rd pic took me a minute to try and figure out the stairs, then i realized it was a mirror. 

Not real fancy nor elegant, actually pretty simple but i made one of the hangers for my dad's gun rack. There will be 2, one for each side. What is different is that this is only the 2nd time i have ever worked with wrought iron successfully. Quite a learning curve. Still need to drill the holes but the forging is done. And yes i did think about punching but i do not want to push my luck. 

[Frosty]

Being able to match the original stair railings perfectly is the best reason for keeping in touch with the original artist. 

I know there's a term for that type of jewelry rack, hanger, tree, (?) over here I just can't bring it to mind. 

Happy New Year Alex!

Frosty The Lucky.

[M3F]

Those railings are beautiful. Just amazing. BillyB are going to etch the wrought?

[Hefty]

Merry Christmas IForgers!

Somehow, on a sweltering Christmas day (Australia, remember!), my son and I found the time to do our first (semi) successful metal casting.

He has just gotten into DnD (actually Pathfinder, for those in the know). I've always wanted to play but never did as a kid so we're doing it together. We bought some dice for the game but we wanted to try casting some too. So we cast an 8 sided die, in aluminium, in homemade green sand.

The pour worked so much better than I expected, for a first pour, that I thought it had failed and frozen in the sprue, but when I tried to pull the frozen blob out with tongs, the whole sprue and die came out of the sand!

It's by no means perfect, but a successful proof of our initial setup!

Here it is with most of the imperfections filed off.

Cheers,

Jono.

 

[Jo_Bai]

9 hours ago, Hefty said:

Here it is with most of the imperfections filed off.

Make the side with the 1 a bit bigger, so it rolls more 8’s. Your friend will be happy with his "lucky" die

[Frosty]

Joining the ranks of Geekdom are you Jono? Welcome aboard, what character classes are you playing? Are you playing table top or online? I've never played online and it's hard to find anybody who wants to play in person. A friend and I get together and game but we switch out games. If you want to get into creepy scary try "Call Of Cthulhu."

Pretty good looking die. It's going to get more difficult when you try 12 or 20 die, you'll probably want to switch to making rubber masters and wax forms for Lost Wax casting. You wont have the problems of getting the master out of a green sand mold and cleaning it up to cast.

Enjoy the play, it's fun times.

Frosty The human Ranger. 

[Hefty]

Hehe, yeah Frosty, I've dallied in many and varied forms of geekdom and I've played some online versions before but we're wanting to do a proper tabletop game. We've actually set up characters for everyone in the family, and my son has helped some of his cousins do the same, but we're about 3 hours deep in that process and all the core rule learning involved, and we still haven't started an adventure yet!!

My character is a half-Orc ranger. My son's is a Dwarven Rogue.

[Nobody Special]

9 hours ago, Frosty said:

Pretty good looking die. It's going to get more difficult when you try 12 or 20 die, you'll probably want to switch to making rubber masters and wax forms for Lost Wax casting. You wont have the problems of getting the master out of a green sand mold and cleaning it up to cast.

Used to be in the Alex Bealer group in Atlanta; Mark Hopper at the Goat N Hammer was in the group and forged either a D12 or D20 (that one I think) for a demo. Fun to watch, but I didn't feel up to it. If you wanted to do lost wax castings, they make silicone D12 and D20 molds for plastic that would work well for making lots of wax forms. There's also the lost foam method, which has the advantage of not requiring removal of the master from the green sand mold.

Forged a little with the kid today, nothing special - banded the second anvil stand with my kid and then just practiced tapers and points for a bit. Tomorrow, I think we'll make a stand for one of the post-vises and maybe a stand for tongs and tools.

 

[aaamax]

9 hours ago, Nobody Special said:

Tomorrow, I think we'll make a stand for one of the post-vises and maybe a stand for tongs and tools

that looks like a massive hand sledge you have there.  what weight is that and do you use it regularly?

is your shop outdoors?  Looks like a lot of light streaming in.  but I see el machines as well, so maybe not...

cheers.

[BillyBones]

Showing my age a bit here but when i started paying D&D dwarf, elf, and half orc were character classes, not races. But then i also started playing before Advanced D&D came out. 

[Nobody Special]

7 hours ago, aaamax said:

that looks like a massive hand sledge you have there.  what weight is that and do you use it regularly?

is your shop outdoors?  Looks like a lot of light streaming in.  but I see el machines as well, so maybe not...

cheers.

About 3.75 lbs with the handle (1.75 kg). Got a cheap 4 lb sledge at a yard sale and ground a diagonal peen into it years ago. When I forged every day, it was my go-to hammer. Since I'm just getting back into forging, most of the time I use about a two-lb hammer (.9 kg) so I don't end up with tendonitis.

I have a ridiculous Mjolnir looking thing I made as a joke too. Something like a 16 lb square sledge that I found on a farm and they gave to me. They used to use it to drive wooden fence posts. I liked to have it out at demos so kids could try and pick it up, but I've only ever used it when I was seriously mad at a piece.

For my shop, when they installed my house, some yahoo put a carport over the septic tank, with a brick floor. Only an idiot would put that kind of weight over the septic tank and drain field pipes, but it works nicely for light storage and working on projects outside, so that's where I do my forging. The light you see is electric - it gets dark here around 4 pm right now.

[JHCC]

Improved the swarf catcher for my horizontal bandsaw. 

[Nobody Special]

Swarf catcher? Like not all over the motor and the floor? That's genius! And it looks good too.

I went to go start my kid forging some points and leaves, and realized I still needed a proper post vise stand, which meant I started measuring the post vises and realized they needed some TLC...which lead to degreasing and cleaning the rust on one and realizing the other needed a screw replacement...which led to hunting around home depotism for something to weld in as a replacement acme screw and nut (I'm thinking house screw jack)...and heck, while I'm at it, let's do some rust proofing. Paint dries faster than linseed oil, and comes in prettier colors, so long story short...here's today's leaves.

 

[JHCC]

I can’t claim originality on this idea, which I borrowed from Kim Thomas. 

After posting the above photo, I added another bit of sheet that makes the catcher even more effective:

The metal in this case followed me home from a friend’s remodeling project, but any thin sheet metal will do. 

[BillyBones]

I have to admit i had to look up what "swarf" was. Me and most people i know just call them "chips", or "Hey you, get that broom and clean that ... up around the saw." was another i heard. 

[alexandr]

Finished the bookshelves. It's a pity I didn't have time to install it before the new year.

[George N. M.]

Alexandr, lovely, as usual.  Will they be mounter with the 3 bays vertical and book shelves installed across the bays or is it to be install with the bays horizontal and the bays themselves the book shelves? I can see advantages to either orientation.

Thanks.

George

[Frosty]

Beautiful as always Alex. George beat me to the question I had.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Jo_Bai]

On 12/25/2023 at 6:27 PM, Frosty said:

Joining the ranks of Geekdom are you Jono? Welcome aboard, what character classes are you playing?

Jer, I have always been a nerd. It helped me a lot to get out of my comfort zone and talk much. I think this is why I have a good standing for my forging demos because I can talk the whole day and be entertaining. For my character: 90% human mage and always in person. I don't find playing in front of the pc, without seeing the other, fun. So far I have been playing on and off for around 20 years (AD&D, D&D 3.0+3.5 and nowadays 5.0)

 

On 12/27/2023 at 5:12 AM, JHCC said:

After posting the above photo, I added another bit of sheet that makes the catcher even more effective:

That thing looks great and surly will be a great time saver for you.

[alexandr]

22 hours ago, George N. M. said:

Will they be mounter with the 3 bays vertical and book shelves installed across the bays or is it to be install with the bays horizontal and the bays themselves the book shelves?

Jer, Georgе Thank you!
Final work for this year.

[George N. M.]

OK, thanks.  That will look very good in place.  My only suggestion is to make sure that the parts that stick out towards the TV are very sucurely anchored to the wall to take the weight of the books.  I have discovered through sad experience that the best bookshelves are over engineered and built.  The books are always heavier than you think and the shelves are not as strong as you would think.

Happy New Year!  May 2024 be the year that wars and pandemics decrease.

George