June 8, 20242 yr Welcome aboard, Paul, from 7500' in SE Wyoming. Glad to have you. It would be nice if you put your general location in your profile. This is a world wide forum and we don't know if you are in Kansas, Siberia, or Tierra del Fuego. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."
June 8, 20242 yr Thanks, CrazyGoatLady. George, I just updated it. Hopefully, it'll show in this post.
June 8, 20242 yr Good Morning Paul, Welcome from the Left Coast. There is 'Maritime Blacksmith Association' in your part of the Rock. I have been your way for CanIRON at Annapolis Royal and also Baddeck. One of our daughters met and became friends with one of the Rankin daughters. John and Nancy Little have their Shop at home, West Dover (south of Halifax). They are well worth meeting!! I am still in touch with some of the folks out your way. Let me know if I can help connect you. Neil
June 8, 20242 yr Dang, alexandr, that is one beautiful chandelier. Me, I just finished up a wreath hanger. I am planning on making a bunch of these for the state fair in September, and decided that the over-the-door bit was too fiddly to do over and over again by hand at the anvil, so I welded up a few bending jigs to sit in the hardy hole of my new anvil or my vise. Left to right, a jig and struck tool to make bending that part wreath hanger faster (much, much faster) and neater (much, much, much neater); a jig to do the hook part repeatably (this hook was not made using the latter jig, but the jig is sized to match this one; and an adjustable vise insert bending jig. The over-the-door hook bending jig worked like a charm, unlike previous attempts at bending it in my vise. The welds themselves show that while I own a welder, I am NOT a welder.
June 8, 20242 yr Alex that is just beautiful, seems like a perfect fit to the room. I do not envy you having to get up to hang it, but it looks like you had a sturdy scaffolding and platform to work from. Lots of driving too! One long day for the install? Tommy, nice job of showing the jigs and the resulting hooks, you look to be well set for a production run! --Larry
June 9, 20242 yr Another breath takingly beautiful chandelier Alex! It's an easy match for such a beautiful room. Looking good Tommy, making jigs is an acquired skill, you've got a winner and will get better fast. Frosty The Lucky.
June 9, 20242 yr alexandr, just gorgeous TommyVee,I can't weld well at all lol. Your hooks look very nice. With those jigs, you'll be able to make a bunch and I hope you sell every one
June 9, 20242 yr I finished up the (hopefully final) modification to the mounting system of my Hossfeld bender. The involved replacing the toggle bolt system I’d previously built with bolts that swing down to engage fork-shaped brackets on the base. There are more photos and a more detailed explanation in a new post on my Hossfeld bender thread. I also did a quick welding job for the customer from my last railing project, as his kids had bent the frame of a hammock stand. A little judicious torch work and welding on a beefy gusset to prevent further bending, and we’re good to go. Should cover a fresh tank of O2 and a propane tank refill or two.
June 9, 20242 yr On 6/8/2024 at 1:20 PM, swedefiddle said: Good Morning Paul, Welcome from the Left Coast. Hi Neil, I have a son in Sidney and a daughter in Victoria, so it's a small world. I am aware of the MBA, but haven't joined as of yet. Been doing it solo since 2016 with some email tutoring from Mike Spencer (and the stuff I glean from the Internet and books.) I reckon you have heard of, or met Mike, if you are familiar with the smiths in the Maritime Provinces. He's one of the best. I went to a hammer in last fall and they said Mike was the Linus Pauling of blacksmiths. I have a bit of a sticky situation in that we had a couple of wildfires last year and there's a burn ban for outside fires until October from 8 AM until 2 PM daily. I can't get anyone in the government to say if a homemade coal forge (brake drum) is exempt. I need to use in "outside" on the doorstep of my shed. As such, I have been using my gas forge inside the door . . . that works well, but it isn't coal. - Paul Edited June 9, 20242 yr by Mod30 Fixed quote...
June 10, 20242 yr Good Morning, Coal/Coke is nice, but it is not the 'everything'. I use Coal when I am at the Vancouver Island Blacksmiths Association Blacksmith Shop. I teach in Coal, I use Propane a lot (I can't remember how many Gas Forges I have, more than 10 for sure.). I have a 15kw Induction Forge/Heater that is the cat's meow. No Fire Risk!! No scale, Almost no smoke (only the junk on the outside burning off). I don't recall if I met Mike Spencer. If he was at either CanIRON, I will have seen him. We had John and Nancy Little out for a 2 weekend Workshop, about 15-20 years ago. I let them loose in my Jetta, to go to Long Beach. I asked them to take the time and stop at Cathedral Grove, on their way through. They were both numb struck with the size of the Trees. When I was in the Maritimes, I asked about their Trees, over 400 years of Boat Building, took care of where the Trees went. I have a Marine engine, Hawboldt, that was made in Chester. I drove that section of the road, to see where Chester is, the business is still going, but they no longer make engines for Dories. Thanks, Neil
June 10, 20242 yr Among other things, I was playing around with forging a little piece of the wrought iron wagon wheel I have. I started at a lower temperature and sure enough, it started splitting real quick. Just got it up to temp but had some technical difficulties so I'll get back at it after awhile and see about getting it good and hot and explore further. I've never forged WI before but it's a very cool experience
June 10, 20242 yr Ta-da! One wrought iron S hook. Not perfect, but not bad since I haven't made one in forever and it was fun playing with the wrought iron. I learned with this particular bunch that I have anyway, that it can be forged at a lower heat. But you can't wail on it and you have to work it quick and then back in the heat. If it's not hot enough, as has been said many times, it wants to come apart. This started as a fairly big piece of material and this is what I ended up with, so it reduces in mass by quite a bit. Fun stuff. Ihighly recommend if you haven't tried forging WI, do it if you can
June 10, 20242 yr On 6/9/2024 at 1:46 AM, LarryFahnoe said: Lots of driving too! One long day for the install? Thank you everyone for your ratings! The actual installation took less than 2 hours. I spent most of the time searching for the beam hidden under the casing and the cable. I did all the work alone; the owner of the house only helped to carry the chandelier into the room from the car. I have worked on the technology for many years and there have never been any problems. One of my past works. The assistant lifts the chandelier (approximately 100 kg) without much effort.
June 11, 20242 yr Your helper doesn't look the least mutinous Alex, the chandelier must not be as heavy as it looks. When you've hung as many as you have you get good at it so I'm not surprised you can do the install in 2 hours. Most of it taken up by the wiring and locating suitable support in the ceiling. I must say your helper certainly brings scale to that spectacularly beautiful chandelier, it's huge. Frosty The Lucky.
June 11, 20242 yr Alexandr, Madelynn would like to have one in our dining room but, unfortunately, we'd have to take the table out and the bottom tier would be close to the floor. Sigh. Are the chandeliers rigged so that they can be lowered to replace burned out light bulbs or does someone have to go up on a ladder to do that? As usual, lovely work. George
June 11, 20242 yr 4 hours ago, Frosty said: I must say your helper certainly brings scale to that spectacularly beautiful chandelier, it's huge. 3 hours ago, George N. M. said: Are the chandeliers rigged so that they can be lowered to replace burned out light bulbs or does someone have to go up on a ladder to do that? Jer, thank you! You always find kind words! George, on this chandelier, like on many others, the bulbs will be changed from the stairs. I installed the winch a couple of times.
June 11, 20242 yr Alex, thanks for sharing the additional photos! These are really beautiful (& functional!) works of art. --Larry
June 12, 20242 yr Last night I made a gift to give our realtor at closing on the 25th. Needed a few tweaks which I was able to do over my lunch break today (this aspect of working from home is awesome and I wish I could do it more often) then gave it a wax finish and let it sit until I got off work. Then I gave it a good rub down with my T-shirt in attempt to buff it. Last night as I was coming inside for the night, I managed to trip coming up the stairs. In an effort to keep from breaking the stemware I was carrying, I managed to fall in a way the pulled a muscle in my lower back pretty badly. My lower back was already pretty tight from sleeping in a very uncomfortable car Thursday night so I'm not surprised I pulled it. But that pain was the worst pain I've had in quite a long time. I got some food, meds, heat, and massage gun. After about an hour, I was finally able to move enough to climb into bed. Anyway, it's a little better today and I'm sure tomorrow will be even better.
June 12, 20242 yr Cool, very unique design. I can see various modifications and elaborations. Take it easy and heal up. Let Ashley take care of you and spoil you for awhile. Back injuries take their own good time to get right. G.
June 12, 20242 yr That is a cool design, Shain. I hope your back heals up fast. On the weekend I tried my biggest damascus billet yet, out of mild steel and leaf spring, but I'm still getting some delaminations. I'm much more confident in my process than with previous attempts but this I time think it was caused by the pieces being not quite the same width. I gave it 3 or 4 good welding heats to consolidate, but then when I tried to hammer the side of the stack to square it up, the wider piece took the brunt of the blows and separated slightly. This only really became evident to me when I twisted the bar. Tonight, I ground off the scale and tried to grind the cracks out, but a few half-faced blows, cold, confirmed they were significant cracks, not just lines. I did a test etch of the end anyway just to see how much contrast to expect from these steels. It's still progress. 3 out of 4 welds were successful and I learned another "don't": don't try to weld a billet with different width pieces and then hammer it sideways!
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