August 9, 2025Aug 9 My wife finally grouted the tile table top for the little 2x2 tile table I made in the shop over the last <mumble> sessions, and I finally got the 3x3 table assembled and treated with paste wax today. The table top still needs grouting, but that's not my department.
August 9, 2025Aug 9 Frosty, I just had Madelynn, who is a retired educator with a literacy speciality, read your post about you and your mon and you and Cody. She was very impressed. She says that what your mom was doing with you and what you were doing with Cody was "creative, inventive teaching." She says that damn few teachers know how to do this. She did similar things with her kids and and her 2d graders got to reading at a 6th grade level. She also did something very similar to what you did with Cody with a family friend who was middle school age and had only been given 1st and 2d grade reading work sheets to address his literacy issues.. He was very interested in politics. So, she used Time magazine. He struggled with sounding out the words at first but moved along like Cody. Was your mother trained as a teacher or did she just do this instinctively? Good on you for what you did with Cody. He probably still remembers it.
August 9, 2025Aug 9 I've never used a bandsaw like a wood mizer. Mike and I went in together on a Mobile Dimension Saw, flew it out to his property, reassembled and set it up and made lumber. We'd dragged the logs in on a log arch sled the winter before to keep them off the ground and clean. Besides being SOOO much easier to let a snow machine pull them than drag themselves ourselves through the woods. We found out later a car hood makes a perfect log sledge in the snow. Saw green wood and rick it so it stays straight, flat and level with air space between layers and leave it to dry till the moisture content reaches optimum for your area. They make accurate gages / meters. If you mill dry logs they will have already started to shrink check and you won't be able to predict it. Also green logs being wet lubricate the blade and saw more easily. Bandsaws especially like to deflect and follow the path of least resistance if the blade has to work too hard. The vertical fibers in trees grows in a spiral, it's a fractal thing, a Fibonacci set. Check out a barrel cactus for a good visual of how trees twist as they grow. Don't hog feeding the saw, let it work but don't force it. Keep the blade sharp and the tension right and they work a treat. Clean the log as much as possible before you mill it, dust dulls heck out of saw blades, if it's a high texture bark, pressure wash it or better peal it first. If the blade starts to cur curves do NOT adjust the tracking! I'll put money on the blade starting to dull, sharpen it and check long before messing with the tracking! I don't know enough about Mizers to make specific suggestions, our mill is a circle saw with edger blades and self feeds and returns. It's powered by a VW pancake engine and will mill and return to start handing you a board in about 9 second. It makes a LOT more sawdust per board foot than a mizer, is higher maintenance, complicated and is scary to be around let alone operate. But BOY was it fun! Do you know the words to "The Lumberjack Song?" Breaking into a rousing rendition when you're both tired, sweaty, sore and frustrated is a good way to put a smile on your face and break the mood. More later, Frosty The Lucky.
August 9, 2025Aug 9 Frosty, "I know you are a logger and not a common bum. Because no one but a logger stirs his coffee with his thumb." Or, for medieval reenactors: "I know you are an anachronistic and not a common jerk, Because no one but an anachronist stirs his coffee with a dirk."
August 10, 2025Aug 10 That's an attractive table Tommy, you're getting this down. I'll bet they'd sell well and you can tailer the tile motif to suit different markets. Ever do mosaic tile? You know, break up different color, pattern, glaze, etc. tiles and lay them as a mosaic. Say, the painted desert, Montezuma's castle, cloudy skies, etc. Oh WAIT you have to grout them. . . Nevermind. Frosty The Lucky.
August 10, 2025Aug 10 9 hours ago, Frosty said: I always wondered about it though, originally wright is the present tense of wrought which originally meant beaten “Wright” is both noun and verb, just like “smith”.
August 10, 2025Aug 10 Thanks George. I remembered how Mother got me off the stick and gave it a try. Mother was one of the smartest people I've ever known and had a natural knack for solving problems. No special training except various OJT though she did study for a couple days to pass the Post Office tests. Mother and I used to play puns almost constantly, drove the rest of the family nuts but they'd just carry on with the conversation. The heart of our games were punning things that don't associate in any normal way. Sometimes we had to sneak up on them. If that makes sense. Anyway, I modeled a lot of the way I talk to kids on how she did. I never talk down to them, talk baby talk or make silly noises unless that's the game. If there's a real "secret" it's I watch, listen and in general pay attention them. In many ways it's like training dogs, cats, horses, etc. Many times I get good results just by paying attention to them. If I don't understand I tell them so, they don't have the vocabulary so we work on it till I know what they're saying and they have a broader vocabulary. I've just never worked with more than one or two at a time but I suppose I could pick that up. Right you are John but I was wrong it isn't derived from beaten. Wright derived from old English meaning worker or master and the sites I looked on didn't go any farther back. Wrought meaning worked. "Smith" on the other hand derives from smite, to strike. The noun comes from times past when a person was identified by his trade. Mr. from Master so Mr. Smith meant "master smith". The website didn't get into Germanic or earlier origins, Germanic languages being a conglomerate, more of a language group after people started migrating back after the ice drove them south. I wonder what my 35 YRO Oxford compact says, I don't know where the magnifier is though it should be in my lawyer's book cases up stairs.. Hmmmmm. Frosty The Lucky.
August 10, 2025Aug 10 Tommy looks good. Like the legs. Tiled tables here a for my grandparents. And even now with the revival of 2nd hands, i don't really see them coming back. They are heavy, maybe that is the reason. But also the overal styling is mostly heavy, big, fat lumber and design. Seldom elegant.
August 10, 2025Aug 10 Long time without posting. Not because I haven't done anything, but I wanted to catch up on what people had been doing here before loosing all the goodness being shared. Finiched those yesterday, a set of handles. They're not perfectly identical, but as close as I could make them at this time: About 7" in length. Made from 1/4" x 1/2" bar. Wire brushed and sprayed with a clear antirust finish.
August 10, 2025Aug 10 Looks pretty good Arthur, they're close enough to the same to use in the same area, no problem. If you wish to make matching items do all of them at the same time, step by step. For instance, cut 4 lengths of stock. Spread and punch for the screws on one end on all four, repeat for the other end. Bend the mounting flanges on one end on all four. And so on. Make sense? It's a pretty standard production technique and works well. Frosty The Lucky.
August 10, 2025Aug 10 I finally made the dreaded hammer eye drift. It wasn't so bad once I gave in and used the DKE12 press and DKE66 hammer. Still did quite a bit of handheld hammer work. I tried to follow TA's method: draw out a square taper, go to octagonal, then 16 sides (at least in spirit), then flatten out to an oval cross section. I intended to make it a 1-1/4" x 7/8" racetrack oval tapered down over 10" to 5/8" x 5/16". Got pretty close at 0.67" x .38" at the tip, .98" x .73" at 10", and 1" x .75" at 11". I need to trim down the handle, but not too much so I can keep my hands away from the hot hammer billet. What's a good length for the handle portion? Finally, look at that big clinker. I think it's my biggest one yet. I'm going to vacuum-encase it in epoxy and make a really interesting paperweight. JK.
August 10, 2025Aug 10 3 hours ago, Frosty said: If you wish to make matching items do all of them at the same time, step by step. For instance, cut 4 lengths of stock. Spread and punch for the screws on one end on all four, repeat for the other end. Bend the mounting flanges on one end on all four. And so on. That is exactly what I did. One of them is still slightly longer then the others. Not much, maybe 3/8", due to a combination of drawing it out a bit too much and the curve that is slightly flatter. Nothing to worry about for its intended purpose.
August 10, 2025Aug 10 Well O K A Y then, carry on. Minor inconsistencies are what makes hand forged worth owning. If folks want exactly the same they hit WallyWorld or . . . Used to be Sears, etc. Little things gives folks something to look for, maybe point out to friends, talk about, etc. Utilitarian products that serve their purpose are immune to little things like fractions of an inch. When I did demos my main product were leaf finial coat hooks because I could make them in 7-8 minutes while keeping up a patter. Sometimes Q&A sessions would start and we'd more spend time on each step. Anyway, sometimes the spectators would get in bidding wars over one I'd just finished. Not because it was a great hook but folk love being able to say a thing was hand forged and they held it while it was still warm from the fire. Etc. I was knocking them out fast enough I always had a bunch on my little table and when people went through them to buy one the majority picked ones with noticeable flaws. People liked to just pick them up and feel the texture shape, etc. I stopped worrying about making pieces match unless someone wanted to pay significantly more, sometimes my old shop rate even. I should just stop now. . . Frosty The Lucky.
August 10, 2025Aug 10 Arthur, your door pulls are very pretty. Very well done. That's something I like to make but haven't in ages. Melted, that's a super nice looking drift. Your tools are great looking and work well. The best of both worlds. Frosty, thanks for the comments on sawing. Sawyering? Whatever it is. Tommie, my daughter, my nephew and my father-in- law worked on putting the saw mill together all day yesterday and still not done. The instructions had them doing things backwards and then he broke some little connector thingy. I forgot what it's called. Got something at Home Depot that he thinks will work. But he thinks he can get it together tomorrow. We are in a busy time with back to school coming up and imminent calving, trying to get structures done and just all the things. Whew. I don't know when I'll get to my little shop
August 11, 2025Aug 11 Sawing lumber is called milling lumber though it's not really important. What model Wood Mizer did you get? I might have some tips and be able to help trouble shoot. They aren't simple at all no matter how it looks. FYE Chellie, a drift is meant to size holes precisely and are tapered at both ends like a lozenge with a cylindrical center section. I don't recall which is preferred, straight or curved tapers. Overall length is more a factor of how thick the stock to be drifted is. The tapered ends need to be longer to the straight section than the thickness of the steel being punched and drifted. If not, you can drive the drift through and out with a flat ended punch but you have to move F A S T er because you're stopping to grab the punch and even one less blow can matter. The cylindrical (straight) section doesn't need to be as long as the target is thick but it needs to be long enough it doesn't cock in the hole easily and make golly wobbly hole. The tapered sections need to have "points" just smaller than the pilot hole you punch. They don't need to come to a "sharp" point, you need to hit them with a hammer and maybe a flat ended punch so just smaller than the pilot hole. In use you have to get the target HOT, yellow is best and drive the lubricated drift through F A S T! It has to be fast because the drift will draw heat from the stock causing it to shrink while the heat it absorbs causes the drift to expand. If you stop part way through you'll have to drill it out unless you have an electron discharge machine handy. Why? Having a piece of steel in a hole smaller than it is is called an "Interference Fit." Just a couple thousandths of an inch and it's stuck like they're welded. Lubricant is important to help keep the drift moving. Without powdered graphite, coal dust, lithium dry lube, etc. friction can cause all kinds of problems worst is of course stopping in the hole. Long tapered punches can only drift tapered holes, if you drift to an equal depth from both sides an hourglass shape hole. Long tapers have greater contact area than a lozenge shape(?) The taper will be in full contact and heat VERY quickly and get locked in. Frosty The Lucky.
August 11, 2025Aug 11 Frosty, I have drifted material and have a basic understanding, but honestly not nearly to that extent at all. Thank you. You never cease to amaze me with your knowledge and I appreciate you so much It is a Woodmizer LX30 portable. The very basic model. They have a good sale on all their mills until the end of August I believe if anyone is interested. Tommie says it was a plastic bushing that broke and he replaced it with a small piece of copper tubing. And he said he will absolutely hit you up for advice if you are willing and thank you. He's already felt like beating it half to death lol. They really need to update the instructions on how to put it together.
August 11, 2025Aug 11 This was supposed to have been posted Friday! I’m not sure what happened, but it showed up in the editor, so here it is: I finally got some time in the shop for the first time in a month. I broke my 3/8 bolt jaw tongs during my last session and needed new ones. So, that was my project for this evening: I started with ~1-1/2” diameter rebar. Forged it down to 3/8” x 1”. Then used 8” of that for each half. My volume calculation worked out, ended up just about to my sketch. Next time I think I’ll go with 18” or more on the reigns. I just like longer tongs, but they seemed long in the sketch. I plan on finishing them out at our hammer-in tomorrow morning. I also packed up some of the ceramic fiber for the smiths in the group: I really don’t plan on bringing any back home with me! Keep it fun, David Hammer-in went well and the ceramic wool disappeared fast! Tonight I worked on a knife for my wife. We enjoy getting dressed up for Viking festivals and renfests. So I was working on a period style scaled knife: Forge welded a sanmai billet out of wrought iron and 8670 and forged it out from that. Right now it’s a about 3-1/2” too long, this is about what I’m thinking: Minus the last bit of the tang of course. Overall pretty pleased, but I still have some shaping to do, below is the inspiration photo: (reproduction by Roman Kral of Kings Craft) Hanlde is shorter both due to my wife’s request and the length of bone I had available. Not sure how I’m going to do the ring and dot motif… Keep it fun, David
August 11, 2025Aug 11 That'll be a nice blade David. The ring and dot decoration looks like scrimshaw but the dot could be copper pins or rivets. Either would be beautiful and period enough. Frosty The Lucky.
August 11, 2025Aug 11 Good looking work, everyone. I finished the basic welding of the body of the flamingo: And did the first test assembly of the head, neck, and body:
August 11, 2025Aug 11 It's really coming along John, I'm liking it better all the time. Frosty The Lucky.
August 11, 2025Aug 11 13 hours ago, Frosty said: I stopped worrying about making pieces match unless someone wanted to pay significantly more, sometimes my old shop rate even. Thank you for the long comment. It is quite true that many will prefer to purchase something that will be unique and visibly made by hand. I would add that even so there are some circumstances where people wilk look for closely matching items. With hinges, for example, you want to be able to have a reasonably matching pair, or the end result will look crooked. The pulls might end up in that category, for I suspect that some people to want to use them for chest handles. I do most of my smithing in a medieval recreation context.
August 11, 2025Aug 11 Did a couple test pieces. The first one did not "turn" the way i am wanting so tossed in the scrap. The second i made a rookie mistake on. Temp was >105F in my shop at that point, frustrated, hot, sweat quenching my steel as i took it out of the fire i threw my hands up and went to sit in the shade. Not pretty but i am getting the process down which is my goal right now. Bottom one is the first one, inserted my drift to show how it will all fit together when done. Made this guy about 6 years ago from an old ball pien, i had forgotten about it until this weekend. A little grinder work and it made an excellent slitter for those long straight runs.
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