Ahhh, another example of easy in principle but difficult in practice. How'd you feed the wires up the posts? Or was that the hard to figure out part? 

Did you bend the wood yourself? That would have made wiring easier.

It's a pretty cool floor lamp even if it wouldn't fit in our place.

Frosty The Lucky.

6 hours ago, Frosty said:

It's a pretty cool floor lamp even if it wouldn't fit in our place.

Hi Jer! Thanks! I made it from oak strips, then covered it with veneer. I cut a hole for the wire during gluing.

That's about what I was thinking. A lot of work but you like to work and the results came out very well. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Was rooting around in my shop yesterday and found this guy.

Finished another project. Moved the floor lamp back to its original place. Several years ago, this room was empty.

It's an interesting counterpoint to all the right angles of the other pieces you have in the room. The lighted shelves have always been favorites of mine and the one over the writing desks looks nice, reminds me of a flow chart. The lamp is much more striking than the desk and chair, stool and top of the headboard. 

I'm not sure what the lamp makes me think of, a sea plant doesn't really fit but Senita cactus or perhaps an organ pipe cactus sort of comes to mind.

https://www.americansouthwest.net/plants/cacti/pachycereus-schottii.html

Seen in person Senita is different than the above link shows but I looked at a few thousand last year driving across Arizona with my Sister.

Same for the Organ pipe cactus, link below, we saw, even walked out and walked around on rest breaks. Many of their stands were less dense than the below pics and winds tend to have caused them to grow in curves.

https://www.americansouthwest.net/plants/cacti/stenocereus-thurberi.html

Frosty The Lucky.

I had to look it up because I know nothing of mushroom varieties, but it reminds me of "pixie cap" mushrooms!

I had to look it up too. Pixie cap mushrooms are found on your side of the planet and I agree the lamp is reminiscent of them. Some even have the long curving stems.

Good call mate.

Frosty The Lucky.

I've been working on quick change dies for my DKE66 power hammer.  My inspiration came from another forum member who may or may not still be active.  I made the 3/8" rods as part of the base plate and bottom half of the die instead on upper half of the die.  This allows me to weld the rod to the base plate on the bottom and maintain a tight, clean surface between the two 4140 pieces.

I also learned to not tack weld where you intend to drill holes. I'm going to have to spot anneal those two spots today.  The set screws will be in the ends of the top half.

I think I only need a flat die and a drawing die.  Any recommendations for any others?

Got some forge time in today. got a start on V bit tongs.  I cut blanks out of some 3/8" flat stock yesterday. 

The notch cut in was due to the plan for twisted slot jaws. But i changed my mind, and found that it caused me problems later on. That problem really stands out in this pic:

 

I'll weld that spot together and see how it works out.  As it stands its a weak spot, and I'm afraid it will snap off when I go to adjust the jaws.  And I may draw the reins a bit more. 

I preheated the 4140/mild steel assembly for an hour, and welded it up using fresh 7018 rods.  After post-weld heat treating, I tucked it into a pail of vermiculite.  Finished the drawing die (3.5" radius) and  the flat die. 

Busy day. First, during downtime while helping at the yarn store, I inventoried my Morse taper drill bits. 

(Preliminary to designing a rack to go on the wall next to the drill press.)

Then I finished forging four yarn bowls: 

And cut out four more blanks and pre-formed them cold on the fly press:

And finally, finished up a pair of slot-jaw tongs, sized for 3/8” x 3/4” flat bar:

The little triangular bit in front is a drift I banged out quickly to enlarge the slits in the tong blanks. 

WOW, you Did have a busy day John! If you keep selling yarn bowls this fast you'll need to set up a spinning lathe.

Frosty The Lucky.

Trying to get plenty of stock in the store for Black Friday. 

8 hours ago, Frosty said:

you Did have a busy day John!

But wait: there's more! I forgot to mention that I reforged the big end of the double-ended wrench I’m converting to scrolling:

I’m seriously considering cutting this in half and welding on some longer handles. 

 

Get to go back to work today. It will be almost like starting a new job having been off for so long, 2+ months. But i wonder what kind of mess i am going to walk into. 

It shouldn't be too hard to make up a cheater for it John, something like one used to tighten binders on trucks. 

Today is going to be good news HOLY CRAP!! day. If I'd seen this yesterday I would've told you the basic formula for estimating this sort of situation. Average the mess after a 2 day weekend if crews are working weekends and multiply by the number of work days plus 1 per off day. That's not YOUR work days of course, it's shop operating days. 

The rough answer would be on the order of 90x the typical weekend mess. 

When I worked at the rubber plant I'd get back from a break to find Julius who was supposed to be MY gofer had turned my room into how it was done in France. Evidently the wire machine room in France is used as random storage AND the place to cut grooves into the mandrels cutting parts. 

Frosty The Lucky.

I salvaged a chunk of 4140 that was supposed to be my original die, but the cut under the bandsaw went wonky, so I didn't use it (I contemplated buying a HF mini-mill though).  I spent two or three hours getting it square and thicknessed to within 0.1 mm.  Preheated, three pass weld with 7018, then post-weld heat treating.  It's in the vermiculite now.

Quick-change dies turned out nice.  Switching from drawing to flat--or vice versa--takes just a minute.

I didn't do any heat treating of the two dies.  The stock was annealed to begin with.  I just cut and ground on it.

I tried recreating hook №310 from the book Hooked by Matt Jenkins of Cloverdale Forge. I decided on this hook only because it was the hook from November 5th, which was the day the Monthly Blacksmithing Challenge was announced on Facebook. I'm happy with the drifted/sized rings but I feel like the arms could have used a bit more refinement. I didn't notice how ugly they were till I saw the picture again, lol

If I were to attempt this again, I would try a longer slot punch to start, which will maybe help me size the rings larger while maintaining outer mass.

Here's a link to the original: 

https://cloverdaleforge.com/portfolio-items/hook-310-november-5/

 

That's a pretty cool hook Shaina and not a bad make. Yes, slitting and drifting the rings will keep the mass of the stock more even around the rings because it doesn't stretch it. Unless you have practice with the technique, leave a little extra on the ends to trim to be sure. 

With the description on the the Cloverdaleforge site I can visualize one of these slanting away from a cabin wall in a sailing boat. I wonder if 4 of them would make a hammock swing less in rough seas. 

Nice job, well done.

Frosty The Lucky.

Well, it was bad. Spindex left on the grinder with 3 collets, one of my arbors for the surface grinder is MIA, tooling left in my mill, chips all around it, tools left on the mill, my lathe has a chipped out tool in it someone was trying to cut with.

Went out on the floor and fired up one of the Davenports for my last 2 hours, it ran long enough to read the paperwork and locked up, lube oiler empty. 

But all in all not as bad as i expected. 

I read the preview as “Spandex left on the grinder.”  Had fun trying to work that one out. 

That would be a stretch!

10 hours ago, Frosty said:

slitting and drifting the rings

I did slot & drift these - just with a smaller slot punch than I should have started with - and punching horizontal rather than vertical which was just a brain derp, I knew better. Another blacksmithing friend sent me a page from the Blacksmith's Cookbook after seeing my post, showing the ratios of starting slot to drifted hole. And after seeing that, all my memories came back of watching the Aspery videos a few years back covering drifting to size, lol

 

Was full day in shop. After a long time.

My steelrack has fallen over. Construction nearby and a missing leg was the cause.

Finishing 2 tongs I had waiting in pieces for me.

And started on some numbers.

Oh and also made a bonehead move and lifted hot steel up with my hand. Is a nice burnmark. Will have some weeks of fun with it.

No pictures, after the burn, I closed shop, before I something more stupid happend.