The other day I stumbled upon some flower heads I'd made some time back & although not products of smithing, I thought of Glenn's memorial so I contacted Steve to see if these might be of use. I got an affirmative reply so yesterday added some stems. Next to find a box and get them sent off!

The backstory on these https://www.fahnoetech.com/carpenters-flowers/

--Larry

Those are really nice Larry, I'd bet they'd be very marketable as well as perfect for Glenn's memorial.

Frosty The Lucky.

That stake anvil looks great, JHCC. Very nice work and smart to rivet the tenon. I probably would have tried a forge weld on the tenon and then realized I would never get both clean and to heat at the same time in my forge in a week of Sundays.

Thanks, NS. ThomasPowers made a couple that way. The welding on the underside was my tweak to the process, and it did a great job holding the pieces together riveting. 

Someone else here (Daswulf?) made one that was completely arc welded. 

Thanks Jerry! Maybe marketable, but probably not profitable given how much time went into them. They were prototype tinkerings though & I could streamline the process somewhat if/when I get back to my boxes of nails.

--Larry

Lots of nice work everyone. Always inspirational and sorry I never can comment on all the great work. 

Love the spoon Rojo.

Jennifer that fire poker handle is Amazing.

Love the flower style Larry. I could see the landscape nails working for large dandelion puffs too. Great idea and nice of you to offer it to the memorial. 

 

Yes, yes.. Lots of great work here..   

Larry, very nice..  Wow.. 

Thanks Das..  it's a smear of butter on glass..     It's a lot of work to get that butter off. 

Still not quite there.. 

Just got back from Deer Island Maine..   Haystack School.  6hrs one way..  Absolutely beautiful place.. 

Welding class..  8 students  6 complete newbs never touched smithing garb. 

Chain, herb hook (treble hook), basket twist handle or spoon..    I gave them all a list of 4 different projects for the last day. (spoon,  O or heart trivet, or  basket twist)  Their choice.   

5 picked basket twist, 3 picked spoons..   One of the guys came back later that night for an open forge and made an twist Icicle. 

19hrs total class time..   Was super fun. 

Lots of great work indeed. Super cool flowers Lary, reminds me of Chihuly glass and would look good in any garden. 
 

Class looks like fun, I would like to take a welding class someday.  

Haystack is a great place and you eat well too.

Rojo Pedro, if your struggling with forge welding at all, it's well worth it..  Can be a game changer for sure. 

Gazz,  oh my gosh..  What a beautiful place.. The stairs are a killer when you've got issues but the food is crazy good and people are top notch. 

I'd go back if asked.. 

Thanks for the kind words Aric, Jennifer, Rojo! I'm far from Chihuly though, but that's a high compliment indeed! Today is recycling pickup in our neighborhood which was fortuitous as my neighbor had tossed a box that can be modified to fit the flowers... 

--Larry

I got a couple hours in the shop tonight and worked on the sledgehammer head some more. Facets are done and the eye is punched:

I’m not super happy with any of it. I can at least say that I kept the hammer face flat while working in the Facets, the eye is straight, and I only lot 6oz to scale and the slug.

I’m honestly a little unhappy with the eye. The last on of these when I knocked the cheeks back in, the eye was a perfect fit to my handles. I didn’t need a drift. I’m not sure what I did differently on this one, but know I need to make a big drift! (Maybe not as hot?)

Only 17 more days till the IBA conference, my dead line…

 

Keep it fun,

David

Nice looking flowers, Larry.

Here's the in-progress shots of 'W' I did for the new NWBA sign.   I didn't really have a plan for this, and while it turned out OK, I wouldn't recommend winging it when you are on a time crunch.

Starting stock was a ~ 3/4" x 1-1/2" chunk of 225 layer damascus I had laying around for a few years that I first needed to get to about 3/4" square.

Starting to forge the W

And the obligatory "I wanna see what the pattern looks like!" quick etch after forging and surface grinding...

Here is the final shape after heat treating, and sanded to 400 grit before etching

I'll try to get a final pic before delivering it to the conference tomorrow.
Have a good weekend all.

The pattern came out very nice Billy, I'll be looking forward to finished pics and pics of the whole NWBA sign. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Working on my idea for a table on wheels. It's coming along.

I got some forge time in yesterday. I needed a tool to push the pins out of some soft magnesium door handles.

These pins have been in place since 1946, and the latch mechanism is mounted in a very light door, so using a hammer and punch is out of the question.   I had an old coil spring from a '65 GMC pickup front end.  So I used that.  Worked pretty well, but would have been better if I had a socket head screw, instead of a hex head. I used garage door spring for the "pusher". 

   While the fire was hot i decided to work on the blade project some.  Between the flux, and the apparently dirty coal, I was getting a good amount of clinker, which in and of it's self would normally be no worries. But lately I've been unable to just pick the clinker out without pulling out the fire grate. It seems that the clinker sticks to the fire grate, and the only way to get it off is to tap it on the anvil.  End result, after a few welding heats, I've got to pull the fire out, remove the grate, peck on it until it's clean, put it back, re start the fire, and forge on.   It used to form a ring, that could be hooked, and pulled out. What changed?  I dunno.

What kind of grate do you have, cast iron or steel? If it's steel you can just toss it in the slack tub an the clinker will "mostly" break and fall off.

Maybe build a deeper fire over the grate so it stays a little cooler and the slagginess has a bit more time to solidify before they meet?

Frosty The Lucky.

Eric and Billy came down to help work on school..   

They had questions on forging socketed chisels so after work was done I gave them a quick demo.. 1.25" wide 

Not cleaned up but as forged..  The only socket mandrel I had was 3/4" so made it work.. Ideally this really could have used a 1". 

Could use a little clean up forging wise.. But not bad from a cold forge with no prep..  1hr 20 min. 

Jennifer, very nice (as usual).  Sometimes I would like to see a video of you doing a forge welded socket. Do you preheat the mandrel?

G

George..   Thanks..  Once the school is up and running I'm not sure where the video channel will go.. 

I started the channel just coming out of retirement trying to show old school work..  I wasn't really in forging shape and just finding my wings, hard to believe it's taken 6+ years to get back on the horse. 

So, I might visit some subjects in the school.. To soon to tell.. 

The mandrel is hot the whole time.   The chisel has a Mild steel body.  Tool steel cutting edge.   

If ever welding a slice of tool steel onto a flat there is a seam that forms..   There is a way to do it so the seam never happens..   

There were a lot of insider tricks shown.  I'll keep your request in mind.. 

 

Frosty, It's a steel grate. I never had this problem until the past couple of fires.  Fire is 4" deep at a minimum.

Jennifer, That's a good lookin' chisel. 

How is it made? When I used a piece of 1/2" plate with a bunch of holes drilled in it I had a heck of a time getting clinker knocked off it and had to use an alignment punch from the underside to clean the air holes. When I replaced it with one made from 3/8" x 1/2" bar on edge it cleaned up much better, I don't think it was getting nearly as hot so clinker wasn't fusing, just sticking. Glass and steel have a surprisingly good affinity when gooey hot but rapid cooling like a dunk in the slack tub tends to pop it off. Not a good idea if you have a cast iron grate.

I rarely burn coal, it's just too hard to collect and smithing coal isn't available here without shipping it in from outside. That means I haven't tried Glenn's pieces 3/8" round stock bent like a hairpin that is laid over the tuyere in an interlocking pattern. They're bent so there is a gap between "hair pin" (deep staple?) shapes. And because they can shift it's easy to run a coal rake in the gaps to scrape clinker. The thicker stock puts a lot of surface area in contact with the strong flow of the blast.

I know guys on the forum have tried it and the couple guys in the club who have like it for being really easy to keep clean. Yeah, there are a number of guys in our club who are young enough to collect at the old mine or can afford shipping.

Frosty The Lucky.

I have been busy preparing some products for the Catoctin Iron Festival, which ended today. 
Below are some of what I made in my shop over the last two weeks!

 

 

did you have good sales?  Items look great. 

 

Jennifer, sales exceeded expectations. I was demonstrating as well; I love the patter and chatter of folks watching me.