2 hours ago, BillyBones said:

Gives me an excuse to buy more cast iron.

You need an excuse?

12 hours ago, BillyBones said:

Today the wife was doing dishes and told me one of our pans needed tossed. Not sure where this one came from and i am sure in is just a cheap pan but i like it very much. The bottom fell off. 

Get your wife a set of Hexclad cookware for the next big occasion.  That's Gordon Ramsey's brand. It's the best I've ever used. She'll love them.

A couple days ago I bent this piece of 7/8” 4140 and forged another rivet header out of an old rr bolt. Today I welded a shank to it and another shank to a block of mild to use as a shelf mostly. Lots of fun. 

might heat treat the swage and try to super quench the block, its is cold rolled but specs a36

Remember: cold-rolled is a surface finish, not a material composition. 

12 hours ago, MeltedSocks said:

Get your wife

I think you may have missed the "i liked this pan" part. My wife cant cook, i do the cooking. She tries bless her heart but she is like Ellie May Clampett in the kitchen. When i get another it will be for me and i like cast iron. 

4 hours ago, BillyBones said:

i do the cooking.

Me too.  Cast iron definitely has its place.  I have one dedicated to cornbread and another to blackening steak and redfish, and of course the griddle for pancakes and homemade masa tortillas. 

Funny story:  About 30 years ago, a door-to-door high-end cookware salesman knocked on my dad's front door.  My dad was a caterer and amateur gourmet chef, so he was intrigued and invited him in.

During his shpeel, he asked to borrow one of my dad's cast iron skillet.  The salesman put some water in it, scrubbed it a little with a Scotchbrite pad, poured the water into a clear glass, and with disgusted and outraged fake emotion asked my dad, "would you drink that!?!?"

My dad reached out and did the bottoms up; drank the entire glass.  The salesman was speechless. 

If you like cast iron, you might try carbon steel pans. And not just as a forging project. It has to be seasoned too, but it has a lot of the advantages of cast iron without risking breaking your foot if you drop it (or just your big toe...or so I've heard).

I just re-seasoned my favorite Lodge pan yesterday, alternating grapeseed and linseed. Keep debating on whether to polish it smooth first every time my wife destro...I mean, I decide to re-season it. We'll just leave it at that I'm the cook in the house.

If that pan is steel to more steel, I might be tempted to try a forge braze with brass powder...for umm, science. Finish work would still suck though.

5 hours ago, BillyBones said:

I think you may have missed the "i liked this pan" part

I have a favorite pan just like yours and when it separated, I didn't think of fixing it except maybe TIG welding, but how to get full penetration all around in the center was the major stumbling block. Wouldn't ya know it, found a replacement on eBay after looking for a while.

I can’t control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sails ~ Semper Paratus~

Last night I decided I needed more practice making spoons.   Forgot what I used to start but it was 1/8 inch thick.  In the past I had tried to use round stock and would occasionally break the head off.  I'm pretty happy with how this approach is working now.   

I have some bread stick pans that are cast iron for cornbread i inherited from my grandmother. Skillets that are from 3" to 14", dutch oven, baking sheet, etc. about the only thing i do not have in cast is a 2 quart sauce pan. 

I use either bacon grease or lard to season with becuase that is how grandma showed me to do it. 

The hardest part about cast iron for me was getting the wife to quit scrubbing them in the dish water. Same with the coffee pot. My coffee pot has always just rinse out and wipe down do not ever dare to get soap near my coffee pot. 

 

1 hour ago, Chad J. said:

Last night I decided I needed more practice making spoons.

Very nice, Chad. I particularly like the twisted handle.

One suggestion: the grinder marks aren't the best finish; I would suggest heating the finished spoon up to a bright red (so that you get a bit of scale formation), wire brush it until it cools to black, let it cool until about the temperature of a very hot cup of coffee, rub it over with some pure beeswax, and then buff with a soft cloth until completely cooled. That will even out some of the grinding marks, make all of the steel the same color, and give it a nontoxic, food-safe finish. If you wanted to, you could also drawfile the ground areas, which will remove those marks and look much more pleasing to the eye. This last step is optional, but worth the investment of your time.

11 minutes ago, BillyBones said:

becuase that is how grandma showed me to do it. 

11th commandment:  Honor thy grandma!  I'm glad I ask mine for all her recipes before she passed on.

One of my biggest regrets, however, is not recognizing the value of my granddaddy's anvil.  When he died 30 years ago, my grandmother decided to move from Alabama to Atlanta to live with my aunt.  My aunt let us go through everything and pick out what we wanted.  I took his old Montgomery Wards wood lathe, the easy-chair he made for himself, and some hand tools.  I looked at this big anvil and his old hand-cranked blower and forge, but I didn't know then what I was looking at.  We left it for the new owners of his 5 acre homestead.  I think about it now and could cry. 

Today, I made that aunt a little split cross.  Her birthday is in February.  I haven't had my smithy set up for a couple of years because I let my wife have the poolside structure for her succulents.  I put my smitty in storage until I got my new one finished.  Two years later, I'm basically having to start over with the basics and relearn all those techniques that are covered in cobwebs.

 

Split Cross.pdf

Unfortunately, neither of my grandmothers was much of a cook. Now, my wife’s grandma? Different story. 

I quickly ramped up to 3/4" square stock.  It's looking good. Symmetrical. Almost through.

 

We used to eat my maternal Grandmother's cooking regularly seeing as she lived with us. She was a much better baker, made the best pie crust ever. Mother was a good plain food cook Dad's idea of spiced was salt and pepper. Mother was the bread and cake baker, we ate nothing but home made bread, a Wonderbread sandwich was a real treat. 

I only ate my Paternal Grandmother's cooking once and she was in her 90s and out of practice. I loved it, it was packed with onion. Grammy (Irene) Frost was a professional cook, in fact the head of housekeeping (Head Bullcook) in logging camps till she retired after 40+ years.

I really wish I'd gotten a chance to get to know Grammy better, not only could she cook but she had a wicked good sense of humor. It's a special event when you sit at the dining room table with your 95 YRO Grandmother swapping dirty jokes. Dad was put completely aback and just sat there looking uncomfortable. In part probably because he couldn't tell a joke when you wrote it down for him.

Good times!  

Frosty The Lucky.

 

11 hours ago, Frosty said:

the best pie crust ever

I have my faults as a husband, a father, a smith, and a human being, but I do make a good pie crust. 

11 hours ago, Frosty said:

packed with onion

My maternal grandmother was the ultra-frugal sort that would add onion to a dish by cutting one in half, finely scoring its cut surface, gently scraping off about 1/4 teaspoon’s worth, adding it to the dish, and wrapping up the rest of the onion to use later. When my dad first cooked dinner for my mom when they were courting, he used A WHOLE ONION in a dish, and she was completely blown away by the utter luxury. 

Getting back to the shop, I cut out some pieces for a couple of in-process projects. 

John, I really like the lower cutout, suggests Chinese brush painting to me. Nice! Will be interested to see what the pile 'o cutouts (above) become...

--Larry

No one thought to get grandma's recipes before she passed. 3 things i really wish for cornbread, chicken and dumplins', and peanut butter fudge. I do a pretty good job at making them but nothing like grandma. She grew up dirt poor in a holler in KY during the depression, i swear she could go into a kitchen with nothing but a neck bone, half gallon of milk, and 2 carrots and make a meal fit for a king.  

When we moved to Ohio the anvil and forge were left in the barn, still had family living and working the farm. But my grandpa was a master carpenter and he took the post vice, which i still use today. I did inherit a lot of his wood working tools. Hand planes, braces, etc. I even have a collection of bell hangers he had. Super long drills, some upward of 60", for anyone not knowing what a bell hanger is. What i did not inherit is the skill and passion for wood work he had. 

Larry, the lower cutout is actually going to be stretched vertically, as I didn’t have a piece of stock wide enough to cut out the design in its intended dimensions. (This also reduces waste, which is a good thing.)

 The other pieces are going to become spacers and mounting brackets in some table legs. More to come…

Hello all.  This week I was able to finally finish the 12 hooks for Phoebe.  She wanted 3 of the double hooks in the last pic.

Thanks for looking and have a good weekend all!

Nice hooks!

In my shop, a bit improvised, I'm not sure if it will work. It's a matrix for a hydaulic press to make a flatter hammer.

After spending a good part of yesterday and today chiseling this thing apart, I saw a marked increase in my right arm's muscle mass. 

This split-cross made from 3/4" square stock turned out good enough to make my aunt happy.  If I ever make another one, I won't use my handled-hammer-chisel-splitter thingy (name please?) near the ends of the cuts.  I'd use a narrow chisel to finish it so that the lines are curvy.

 

 

9 minutes ago, MeltedSocks said:

handled-hammer-chisel-splitter thingy (name please?)

If you're asking about a top tool you strike with a hammer like a flatter but with a chisel bit, it would be a "Top Cut" sometimes called a hot or cold cut. I prefer top, HOT cut or top Cold cut but that's just me.

I've been on a low key quest for some years now trying to get folks to use the same blacksmithing terms, (Jargon) so we don't spend so much time describing what we mean.

Frosty The Lucky.

Good Morning,

I happen to have a couple barns of VW parts. The front torsion bars for the Beetle and the Vans are multiple flat blades that come in at least 3 widths. I find a piece of torsion bar (about 3/4" wide), ground sharp like a chisel, works the best for opening up the 'Crosses'. It doesn't leave any marks and a longer piece gives enough leverage. Yes, it then requires a little 'Loving' with a Hammer and the edge of the Anvil, before it becomes a Flatty on the Anvil face. The way 'you' do it, is always still correct. The Torsion Bars make the 'Best' scrapers, lots of support, Takes a Lickin', comes back Kickin'.

Neil

1 hour ago, Frosty said:

If you're asking about a top tool you strike with a hammer like a flatter but with a chisel bit, it would be a "Top Cut" 

Thanks! Top cut.  Agree with the need for using proper terminology.

36 minutes ago, swedefiddle said:

I find a piece of torsion bar (about 3/4" wide), ground sharp like a chisel

So like a tall hardy hot cut?  Mine wasn't tall enough to use on the long section, so I put it in my leg vice and used the top cut to open it. It was a PITA for sure.