1 hour ago, Arthur210 said:

11 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.

"Left unhardened" in the sense that the Great Pyramid was left uneaten or the Gobi Desert was left unmarried. Some things aren't even worth attempting.

Oh, attempting the unattainable is pretty normal human. Ever wonder what was going through the person's mind who first decided to ride a horse? Poking a Mastodon with a pointy stick can be explained by hunger. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Grok: "bet you cant ride that thing."

Thag: "Hold my beer." 

Thus also began a long history of bad decisions while hanging out with the boys around the fire. 

I think I remember reading something somewhere about it being a question of whether horses were used as mounts before or after they were used as pack animals. It's possible that the latter may be more likely, given that some animals can be trained to carry burdens without actually being rideable (e.g., llamas).

Whichever came first, it's certainly true that horses were domesticated for meat and milk long before they were trained for riding and carrying. That being the case, it's quite possible that Thag would have said, "Hold my kumis."

Probably as draft animals pulling travios before pack or riding, though they'd been kept as food a lot longer. There are hypothesis that the increase in size and muscle mass is the result of being bred for food.

I'd be willing to put money on children climbing the travois poles to ride the horse. Kids tend to make a pet out of anything.

Frosty The Lucky. 

57 minutes ago, Frosty said:

There are hypothesis that the increase in size and muscle mass is the result of being bred for food.

Yes, this is part of the distinction between "domesticated" and "tamed". The former is characterized by morphological and behavioral changes caused by selective breeding, while the latter does not. For example, zebras and elephants -- even those raised in captivity -- are not domesticated, even though they can be tamed.

Yes, I was avoiding terminology we'd have to define in a the general discussion. Thinking about it now I wonder how many people an elephant filet would feed, 1.5 tons of jerky?

Frosty The Lucky.

I made a $40 mistake today.  I was tweaking the shape of the up-valve ramp on the top of the tup. I was tack welding another piece of metal on top of the ramp, but didn't preflight the path of the current.  I had a piece of wood in between anvil and tup, so the current went up the hammer frame, through the cylinder body, jumped into the rod at the lower grease seal, and ruining the smooth chrome finish and melting the seal.  The piston seal and cylinder bore look okay.  I ordered a replacement and this one will be my backup.

4 hours ago, Frosty said:

I wonder how many people an elephant filet would feed, 1.5 tons of jerky?

Castor and Pollux, the two elephants in the Paris Zoo, were slaughtered and eaten during the 1870 Siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War. 

In other news, the first coats of paint are on the flamingo. 

Arthur210, is that railroad clip? The reason I'm asking is I had some follow me home or rather, brought home to me today. Along with another track plate, some bolts and spikes and about a 3 foot section of rail. I already have several pieces of rail so I don't know what I'll do with it. But anyhoo, I've never had clips before and was looking at what kind of steel they are and what you can make from them was curious if that's what's in your picture

JHCC, liking the flamingo. Is he going to be pink?

Black with red eyes. The assignment was “[six letter expletive beginning with ‘bad’] flamingo”.

Ooo cool! He'll be the baddest flamingo on the block. Smoke coming from his nostrils would be a good effect. 

Yeah, that's a pretty B A D Flamingo alright, too bad you didn't put red LED eyes in it. I like it.

Okay, I spent some time finding a pic of the replica Mastermyr tool box, nail header. The original tool box had a couple few hundred nails in it, different sizes, some headed some not. It was not a domed header. 

Frosty The Lucky.

I hope your customer anchors the legs in 80 lbs of concrete to deter those of the porch-pirate class of human being.

11 hours ago, CrazyGoatLady said:

Arthur210, is that railroad clip?

Yes, it is some sort of railroad iron. Very tough alloy.

Edited August 19, 2025Aug 19 by Mod34
Trimmed quote, fixed typo

That flamingo is freaking great!  Love it. 

Aurthur, Crazy Goat Lady, I've used the rail road clips several times.  I beleive you can treat them like S-7 I think it was.  I usually make blades out of them because they take a beating and it's relatively easy to draw them out.   Getting them straight can be a different story. 

Started in on some new roses last night.   I'm running low and have a couple shoes coming up.   My daughter's coworker also lost her step daughter to a motorcycle accident and I'm going to be providing one to my kids to give her coworker.

1 hour ago, Chad J. said:

I've used the rail road clips several times.  I beleive you can treat them like S-7 I think it was.

Rail anchors are generally made of medium carbon (0.55% - 0.65% C) spring steel with slightly higher silicon (1.5% - 3% Si) for increased tensile strength. S-7 has slightly lower carbon (0.45% - 0.55% C) and less silicon (0.2% - 1% Si), but with added molybdenum (1.3% - 1.8% Mb) for increased hardenability and toughness.

Depending on the alloy, spring steel is generally oil-hardening, while S-7 is air-hardening.

(Caveat: I am NOT a metallurgist, but both data and experience indicate that spring steel and S-7 are not particularly interchangeable.)

Thanks, not sure where I had picked that but up but it was apparently very wrong. 

Lots of people mistake rail clips as spring because they have a lot of strength to return to position and can "spring" thousands of times. They were however meant to stay put even if flexed every time a train truck rolled over. 

They are terrific stock for things that need great strength without work hardening, like speed bars, pry bars, lock plates hasps, rake tines, etc. Top and bottom tools, hatchets, chisels, log tools, like hold fasts, slicks, peelers, spud points, hold fasts, etc.

Consistently good quality, medium high carbon stock.

Frosty The Lucky.

The Panderol rail clips act a lot like 5160-ish, except all the extra molybdenum makes it a righteous pain in the fundament to move under the hammer. I used to bring them home occasionally as a conductor, then stopped after I'd used a few. They're nice if you have a power hammer or a striker, but otherwise it's a lot of extra work.

Don't know if they have welding to itself issues, never tried with one. I wouldn't use them as knife material, but they're as tough as nails, and it was usually an oil quench if I quenched at all. I imagine they would make great struck tools, and I'm pretty sure I've got at least one header I made from one.

Speaking of the Count of Monte Cristo - did you ever read up on Alexandre Dumas and his family? Their history is almost as good a read as the novels.

I don't believe moly steels have forge welding issues but I do NOT know for sure. Chrome in an alloy has a strong effect as it oxidizes almost instantly on contact with oxy and chrome oxide's melting temp is VERY high. 

HOT fires, BIG hammers and youthful helpers is what blacksmithing is all about, making rail clips good stock.  You're absolutely right, hand forging clips is a stone bear, a power hammer or forging press can make it worth the work. Bending fork and wrench and a torch is the easiest way to straighten them. 

How about cutting one in half, punching and drifting a hawk eye a bit in from one end, slitting and welding a high carbon bit in the other and forging out the blade.

Dang, I wish I'd looked up Panderol clips again a little earlier in this conversation, I was envisioning rectangular steel instead of round. Not that it would alter my approach that much but it would make different, maybe more work.

I've read blurbs about Dumas but not much about him. IIRC a sort of controversial character. 

Once Deb's rested up after yesterday's flight and long drive home I'll see about talking her into picking up Count of M audio and go from there. 

Frosty The Lucky.

This evening I started on the door prize for next month’s hammer-in. I’ve wanted to try this for a while now:

Hardy bending fork in progress… Still need to finish rounding the one tine file clean up, touch mark, bend the tines in shape, and trim the length; but it was too late to keep the hammer running. (Need to stay in the neighbors’ good graces!) Starting stock was 6” of the strange leaf spring in the photo. Not something I would want to work without a power hammer!

This is the second attempt of the evening. The first was from a typical leaf spring, 1/2” x 3” cross section. The volume was there but I couldn’t get it to move where I wanted it. I guess there’s a lot of truth to the 1 to 3 rule… (at least I think that the traditional max forging ratio). When I did a good job keeping it from bending into a taco while forging the 1/2” down, it just drew out too long. Tried upsetting it, but it just got ugly! I was probably could have finished tonight if I chose the right starting stock.

I’ve never received one of the panderol clips, but I bet they’d make great punches! I love working with the  rectangle cross section clips. I’ve make some really good tools out of those.

Keep it fun,

David

Don't sweat it Chad, one of the dangers of the internet is mistakenly taking taking what a BUNCH of people say as correct. Lots of people thing S-7 is THE steel to use and imagine almost everything needing higher grade than mild must be S-7.

It catches all of us. Now move along and try to come up with a mistake we haven't made so we can avoid it. To paraphrase Thomas Powers.

That looks like it'll be a nice bending fork David. I'm looking forward to seeing pics of it finished.

Frosty The Lucky.

I like the bending fork David. Whoever wins it will be a happy camper.

Lots of good information on the pandoral clips. The ones I have are round. I had to look up what steel they are. 1060 I believe. I saw people making knives and hawks with them. That's not something I do so I was thinking tooling but after reading how hard it is to move hand hammering, I'm not sure I'll try. Well, probably will but may not get anywhere. I imagine it's like leaf spring maybe? That is a little bit of a bear to move 

Went into work today. My boss gives me this piece of paper with a web address with a video on friction welding. He asks if i can watch it and figure out how to do it on the lathe. Mostly to figure out how to make a rotating fixture for the tail stock. He wants to weld ball bearings onto the ends of a piece of round bar to make ball punches. 

He has a part that he wants us to get the job on that has a hole and in the bottom of the hole a piened "half" round impression. I have not seen a print yet so no idea how big. 

The first thing i did was go to our requisitions guy and ask him to see if we could just buy them. 

But my second thought is why? Why would they need friction welded?  I think just a good tig weld should do the job.