Nice flamingo, whats next, a garden gnome? :-)

I joked about wanting to copy that flamingo, but I don't think I have it in me.  Nice work!

12 hours ago, Nobody Special said:

For example

I may as well have been reading Greek. 

Got a little time in to make my sling blade. Used a piece of bad frame that i found is indeed hardenable, To thin to forge down a tang so i just made one from a piece of 3/8" round. Went to make a couple rivets for it and low and behold i have no 1/4" round. I thought i had about a 6' stick of it but that turned out to be 5/16". So today i need to get a fan for my shop and while at the hardware store i will grab a short piece, yeah i know box store steel is expensive but i only need a small piece and driving into the city for it is a non-starter for me. 

Speaking of steel suppliers, we got a new Haas mill at work and the chip tray needs a support made. We put a skimmer in the coolant and now the tray does not quite fit. So i told our acquisitions suit to get me a piece of 1"x1/4" flat to fabricate one out of. They quoted him $55! But i think that was to deliver that one piece and not a bulk order. 

 

So I taken the Kaiser blade mmmhm...

BillyBones, That's going to be a nice tool to have. Looks like a mini scythe. Probably morphed from one or maybe the other way around. 

I need to make a steel run myself but I'm with you. If you need a small piece, the box store is convenient for that. 

I was watching the live stream from Christ Centered Ironworks last night and when I tuned in, they offered me a video call with Roy if I had one of his treadle hammers to talk about it. Too bad I don't have one

Can you tell where your shears are missing? Try cutting white paper after smoking the blades even though they cut there will be sign on the paper, especially if you cut something they don't work on now. 

One way to adjust shear blades is by putting something between them near the rivet and GENTLY clamping them in the vise, remove test and repeat as necessary. 

You may need to re-rivet it with washers to distribute the force applied after they've been headed.

I love your flamingo John. Are you going to make the rather homely legs too? That has got to be one of the homeliest things I've seen you make. It's PERFECT for the job. 

Frosty The Lucky.

It’s already got legs, made from some salvaged 1/2” round bent in the Hossfeld. 

Not the ones in the above pic? Flamingo legs are cool in how they articulate and I was afraid those two straight pieces of rod were it. <WHEW>

Seeing as I'm replying to one of your posts already John, I want to thank you for the link to the Anglo-Scandinavian Ironwork papers, dissertation, (?). It's as slow a read as any academic paper but if you sift through it there is a lot of things to learn. So far since you posted the link I've made it 129 pages of the 498 in THIS part of the paper. 

I have to wonder if any of these academics ever ask modern practitioners of the crafts they're writing about. 

Thanks again.

Frosty The Lucky.

After an epic fight with a piece of leaf spring (which I realized was much too large for my purpose), I made a nail header.

I measured the hole and it is almost exactly 5/32". The tool is just a bit over 12" in length. The loop to hang it was slitted and drifted.

The battle was not without casualties. Yesterday, some of the increased heat required for the large piece of spring transfered to the back of my side hood, and my box bellows started to smoke. I had to doused it with some water to prevent it from bursting into flame.

I took it down this morning.

And swaped it with my Champion blowet to complete my project.

This made me realize that it is easier to reach a higher heat using the blower rather than the bellows.

Not sure at this point if I will fix the bellows, redesign it, or just keep using the blower. 

Looks like that should head nails alright, how does it work for you? It's hard to tell from here, how long is the handle?

Is that a double acting box bellows? Being wood you might want to put it farther from the forge with at least 1 bend in the air supply duct.

Frosty The Lucky.

Haven't tried the new nail header yet, that should be tomorrow morning. Not my first header, a few years ago I made a reproduction of the nail header from the Mastermyr find in Gotland. It will be interesting to compare how the two compare.

The tool is just a bit over 12" long, so the handle is about 10" long.

That is indeed a double action box bellows. I knew from the start that it was a thight fit behind the hood, but it didn't have any trouble in the almost 8 years since I installed it. Trouble this time was that I've been using wood scraps lately instead of charcoal. (Just because I'm getting rid of a lot of leftovers I collected along the years.) But wood means more flame than charcoal, and working with the large piece meant more fuel and heat.

Yeah, wood will cause problems. More radiant heat on the smith, smoke, sparks, gleeties, etc. and worst of all it doesn't make the stock hot very fast if at all.

For 19 years I was an exploration driller doing soil surveys and sampling for bridges and foundations and spent about 75% of that time in a tent in the bush. I did a lot of forging in a campfire while the other guys on the crew were knocking back a half rack of beer after work. Not the geologist, he spent his free time reading and eating Cheetos. Eating a family size bag of Cheetos every night can cause painful problems. Don't do that. 

Not being much of a drinker didn't leave much to do after work before hitting the rack so I'd salvage some steel, use my hammer on a smooth boulder and make things. Then I started thinking of not having punches, chisels, etc. and started making tools. The campfire was always the real drawback it was just too hot to work near. 

Frosty The Lucky.

5 hours ago, Frosty said:

So far since you posted the link I've made it 129 pages of the 498 in THIS part of the paper. 

I’m currently 36-1/2 hours into a 47 hour audiobook of The Count of Monte Cristo. I feel your pain. 

And in today’s episode of “Sentences I never thought I’d write”, I put Bondo on the seams of the flamingo. 

10 hours ago, Frosty said:

Try cutting white paper after smoking the blades

That's a good tip that I'll try to remember when I do my next pair. Someone else has this pair now as it was a trade item for today's meeting. 

There were 6 trade items and all cut paper at a minimum, and only one could cut string - if it was held taught. So we mostly made gardening shears, lol, because EVERYONE'S could cut stems!

 

You Bonbo'd your flamingo. You SURE you're not listening to Cheech and Chong?

Is "The Count Of Monte Cristo" worth the price I'm seeing online? It's going for over $10 on Amazon Prime and I'm not allowed to spend much on books. <sigh>

Shaina, I believe there are some good scissor how to's in some of the old ABANA or other club magazines. Maybe a back issue of "The Hammer's Blow" or "The Anvil's Ring."

Scissors and shears are NOT a beginner's project. That your's work at all is pretty impressive. You done good.

Frosty The Lucky.

I’m listening to a free audiobook through the Libby app, which is connected to the public library system. There’s sometimes a waitlist, but free is good. 

That said, The Count of Monte Cristo is really, really good. 

I've tried our library audio books but it's only so so. Not much of a library, waiting list and 2 weeks to listen to it. It's a new library too, more computer terminals than tables and chairs. Maybe they've improved their audio library.

I went back to Amazon prime kindle audio books, lots of choices, many free and always new titles. $10 might not be too much if it's as good as it's said to be. 

Frosty The Lucky.

So, I tested the nail header this morning. Made a decent nail.

But on the second nail it shattered.

The grain looks ok to me, so I don't think it was a bad quench. Maybe I didn't temper it enough. Or I simply forged it too thin (1/4").

I'll make the next one twice as thick to see if it helps.

I made one recently, too.  I made it too thick (so I thought), but maybe that was a serendipitous mistake?  I haven't hammered on it yet, though. 

39 minutes ago, Arthur210 said:

Maybe I didn't temper it enough.

This. A nail header needs to be hard enough to resist deformation, but no harder. Temper your header back to dark purple or blue, and you should be fine. 

47 minutes ago, Arthur210 said:

I’ll make the next one twice as thick to see if it helps.

The thickness is fine. Greater thickness won’t help if the steel is too brittle anyway. 

9 hours ago, Frosty said:

$10 might not be too much if it's as good as it's said to be. 

The one I’m listening to is narrated by the British actor John Lee, who’s one of my favorite audiobook readers. Lovely sonorous voice, excellent pacing, and very good at shading the tone of the dialogue to help distinguish who’s speaking when. 

I made a couple slot punches, one for the treadle hammer, a curved chisel and a rasp herb chopper. All quenched in veggie oil and toaster ovened at 450, 60 minutes twice.

The chopper is between 55 and 60 rockwell according to my files. The 2 slot punches (coil spring) between 50-55 and the chisel (different coil spring)40-45 interestingly.

I don’t like the tang on the chopper and may reshape it. I will also try quenching the chisel in water to see what happens. 

12 hours ago, JHCC said:

That said, The Count of Monte Cristo is really, really good. 

Absolutely hands down one of my favorite books. One of the few that i have read multiple times. 

John Lee eh? I'll check it out thanks.

Your nail header is more than thick enough to not need hardening. A rule of thumb for hardenable steel is ALWAYS temper as soon after the quench as possible. Sometimes hardened steel will do what yours did just sitting on the bench.

You don't need heavy blows to head nails but you don't want to hit it too many times.

Bummer though, welcome to the club. Keep it so you can look back where you started and see how far you've come. 

Frosty The Lucky.

5 hours ago, Frosty said:

Bummer though, welcome to the club. Keep it so you can look back where you started and see how far you've come. 

Thanks Frosty. Not my first setback; I see those as learning experiences.

I did temper it somewhat over the forge fire right after the quench, but obviously not enough. I was aiming for straw out of ignotance, but JHCC mentionned I should have gone for blue or purple.

As a comparison, the Mastermyr version was left unhardened. But it is a massive tool that wouldn't need it. And I used a rail anchor to make it (those shaped like a &), which is a tough alloy. 

Straw is a temper color for a simple steel knife edge, not an impact tool. Rail anchors are typically 45+ pts. of carbon and as forged and normalized are tough enough for your grand kids to head nails with. 

The Mastermyr nail header was "left unhardened" Really? I didn't know it was hardenable steel, I was under the impression it was wrought iron. 

Mastermyr took kit isn't a very good comparitor, not when there are literally thousands of years worth of almost anything you'd want to make that have pretty thorough provenance up to and including from the makers and users. 

Don't get me wrong virtually everything found in the Mastermyr kit is easily recognizable and in common use today. It's well worth study and using to model your own work after. I just suggest you use something with modern photos, drawings, measurements, etc. 

Probably 95% of a smith's trade didn't include anything needing heat treatment. Modern materials do tend to need basic heat treatment, normalization takes care of stresses and work hardening caused during forging. Annealing is for more exotic steels like high carbons or alloy steels and that is a generally pretty advanced process.

Doing good, keep at it.

Frosty The Lucky.

10 hours ago, Frosty said:

The Mastermyr nail header was "left unhardened" Really? I didn't know it was hardenable steel, I was under the impression it was wrought iron. 

The original, I would certainly agree that it was probably wrought iron and not hardened. My "left unhardened" comment was referring to my reproduction of it.

Here are pictures of the reproduction that I posted a few years ago, along with the original stock. I can confirm that it is tough enough for my great grand kids to head nails over it.