June 16, 20242 yr Paul, I'm in Texas and that's normal for this time of year. I can handle the heat pretty well, but I was forging at the wrong time of day with the sun up high and no shade. So when I could hear my heart pounding in my skull, I figured it was time to stop lol. I envy your weather at °75. Daswulf, I think those anhks look pretty good. That's what I had visualized Paul, I'm in Texas and that's normal for this time of year. I can handle the heat pretty well, but I was forging at the wrong time of day with the sun up high and no shade. So when I could hear my heart pounding in my skull, I figured it was time to stop lol. I envy your weather at °75. Daswulf, I think those anhks look pretty good. That's what I had visualized
June 16, 20242 yr Working on chased decoration (showing the nine stars and falcon of the Azorean flag) the number tile frame :
June 16, 20242 yr Scroll looks good from here Paul. Chisel work look good John. love the progress pic and cant wait to see finished product.
June 16, 20242 yr 11 hours ago, Paul_Lake_Echo said: This is a bit "top-heavy" looking, but it's my first attempt at scrolling. For a first attempt it's very, very good. As far as top heavy, you could straighten the shaft and turn the scroll out so it's a combination coat & hat hook. Wouldn't look top heavy then. Good job as it is though. I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sail’s. Semper Paratus Edited June 16, 20242 yr by Irondragon Forge ClayWorks Didn't think it went the first time & it doubled up.
June 17, 20242 yr Okay Gewoon, a jelly squid it is! You fit in here so well it's amazing, only an IFI member could mis-translate himself! Not bad at all Paul, I think everybody who has tried scrolling for a finial against a flat surface has scrolled way more stock than we should have. Truth is I've never been satisfied with one of my efforts. I also have trouble getting the transition from the hook's shank and scroll to look well. What I learned about that kind so scroll is less is more. You almost can't have too little scroll of that type but it's silly easy to make it look too busy, top heavy. Keep at it though, one you get it down I'll copy you and take another lash at it. That's coming along nicely John. Have you considered filling the chasing with braze and sanding it off for "gold" stars? Good grief, you guys and HOT weather! I just rolled in a couple hours ago from our first shake down cruise in the RV and it was sweltering out, positively SEARING, in the 70s for 3 days in a row! 76f today! HELP, I'm RENDERING! Frosty The Lucky.
June 17, 20242 yr 16 minutes ago, Frosty said: Have you considered filling the chasing with braze and sanding it off for "gold" stars? Yes, but decided not to.
June 17, 20242 yr My last post doubled up too but it didn't go through until some time later and I didn't know it. Sorry about that or I would have fixed it JHCC, that looks really good. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product
June 17, 20242 yr 14 hours ago, JHCC said: Working on chased decoration (showing the nine stars and falcon of the Azorean flag) the number tile frame : Wow, JHCC! How long have you been blacksmithing? Talent like this does not occur in a few months. Great work. I took a screenshot of your design. As I get better, I will try to replicate your work. I'm off to make something . . . It's 8:40 AM here, and I don't want to waste the cooler temps in the AM. - Paul
June 17, 20242 yr Started in my mid-teens, forged as a hobby into my mid-twenties, took a lengthy break from smithing from 1992 to 2015, been building back up project by project ever since. I describe myself as somewhere between semi-professional and serious amateur; I do NOT do this for a living.
June 17, 20242 yr I spent the weekend avoiding firing up the forge. Friday I decided to buy a cheap little pool to deal with the heat this week and worked in the garden. Yesterday, I did spend some time on the grinder cleaning up a couple blades before I heat treated them. Not likely to get into the shop today with the temps hitting the 90's. That little pool I bought though...
June 17, 20242 yr Maybe this is time to rig up one of those big water-cooled grinding wheels that deluges the operator in a constant spray of droplets.
June 17, 20242 yr A neighbour gave me some "steel" he salvaged from an old table saw. I was suspicious of the metal; I thought it was cast. I cut a piece off and made it into a back plate for a three-item coat hook. It's a joy to work hot, but when I tried to rivet it - CRACK! Looking at the coarse grain, I see why. I took a piece of mild steel and finished the project, and it's OK. The question I have for the gurus is, what do I do with this table saw mystery metal? I think it's cast iron, but I don't know how to tell. Whatever it is, it works well when hot, drills nicely, etc. Is the best guess, looking at the photos, that it is cast iron? I have no idea how old it is, but I'm pretty sure it's not from the 21st century. - Paul
June 17, 20242 yr Yeah, pieces like that tend to be cast. My suggestion would be either find some use for it as-is or sell it to the scrapyard and buy some real steel.
June 17, 20242 yr Is it fabricated or one piece (cast)? Have you touched it to a disk grinder, tried a magnet, etc.? Just because it cracked when you tried riveting it doesn't mean it's cast but it could be other than mild steel or air hardened after you forged it. There's a lot of evaluating found "steels." Frosty The Lucky.
June 18, 20242 yr I would find another use for it if i could not forge it as planned. The middle section looks like it would make a dandy small ladder. Small stream out back by that lake, the bottom of a foot bridge to cross it. The base of a catapult maybe. I think it would make a pretty cool garden gate or some kind of trellis.
June 20, 20242 yr On 6/17/2024 at 10:27 AM, JHCC said: I do NOT do this for a living. Me either. One has to be both very good at it and a wise business person to make a living doing so. I am neither. But I love moving steel and learning new ways to make things. I have been doing this off and on since 2016, but the early effort was more brute force and ignorance than art. These days, I'm trying to make things smaller and better looking. Here's what I managed to do in the past couple of months. There are some duplicates, and I gave some away. - Paul
June 20, 20242 yr Not bad at all Paul, no beating up on yourself or I'll have to resort to silly jokes! Nobody is born knowing this or any stuff. One of the things about blacksmithing I love is it's an endless learning curve. No matter how much you know there is always something else. You might like the hooks better if you don't draw them out so long and thin. People who are presented with a large coat hook WILL hang heavy things from it and with the small diameter you've drawn and the small finial scrolls your hooks could tear through and will wear more quickly. Reverse scrolls are excellent for heavy coats. Just stop the taper 1/2" from the end in a reverse taper and flatten it in line with how you're going to turn the hook. It should look like a fish tail without the sharp outside corners. An exaggerated reverse scroll makes fine hat hangers. I've made hangers with that large or close hooks but they were on request mostly for hanging buckets and garden tools. I like your heart and feather hooks a lot better than the leaf hooks with the really long shank bent into the round curve. That's just a matter of taste and I'm not likely to buy one so . . . <go ahead stick your tongue out at me> Frosty The Lucky.
June 21, 20242 yr I haven’t spent much time in the forge lately, but I have finished a couple pendants and a necklace lately: These pendants were inspired, if not completely copied from the blacksmith on the YouTube channel lufolk crafts. (From Sweden (IIRC) and is very focused on traditional Viking forms and beliefs.) I need a lot more practice to reach his level. I neglected to get a picture of the necklace I made before gifting it, but it was very similar to other necklaces I’ve posted made with a bead swage… Keep it fun, David
June 21, 20242 yr Paul, that's a nice collection of hooks. I give away nearly everything I make. I have sold a few things, but mostly they go as gifts if someone likes a piece and I give it to them. Goods, I like the pendants. It's the one on the left representative of some kind of bird? It's pretty cool looking
June 21, 20242 yr I like them David. Huginn and Muninn are VERY Norse, did you have one or the other in mind? I know I sure could use Muninn's help. Frosty The Lucky.
June 21, 20242 yr PL Echo nice stuff Goods - love that pendant Once again I don't forge iron but spent some time with copper and decided to try some pitch to clean it up and add a little detail - although I am pretty happy with as is. I will forge a frame for it however. thanks for looking
June 21, 20242 yr I hadn’t really thought about which one in particular, but a I get older, I’m more concerned about help from muninn myself.
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