No, but it does often have roving for those who want to spin their own yarn.

In other news, cleaning up the shop necessitates a lot of sorting. 

Subfreezing is easy, especially standing next to a forge. I'm not sure what to call the "not a camp axe" it looks sort of like a bearded war hammer. The spike would encourage enemy helms to leak.

I used to use lanolin to finish my Doffers and it's lasted quite a while on Deb's. Deb got a small jar from one of the spinners in trade for something. I don't recall what she used it for though.

Handling raw wool is the best hand lotion ever.

About all that sorting you have to do. I thought the magnetic pickup tool was supposed to save you work?

Frosty The Lucky. 

 

 

On 12/21/2025 at 2:05 AM, Frosty said:

Maybe some day we can tip a glass together.

Great idea!

I didn't have time to finish it this year; I was a couple of days short. Happy New Year everyone!

7 hours ago, Frosty said:

I thought the magnetic pickup tool was supposed to save you work?

It does save some work in the “picking up” stage of the process, but the sorting stage remains the same. More importantly, though, it saves *my back*. 

My dogs love the taste and smell of that spray.  They'll lap up any drips.  I'm careful to wipe it up.

12 hours ago, Chad J. said:

The fudge keeps me warm

Chocolate or peanut butter? My daughter made some great PB fudge for Christmas but i have eaten it all. My forge does nothing to heat my shop, notice the torpedo in the background. 

23 hours ago, Frosty said:

The bale should be a staple with two peined tenons.

The backing is only 1" wide. Hence the reason i used the tab and slot method. It also does not need to be that strong, there is a piece of wire holding the door closed now. 

I redid the rivet yesterday and in the process drilled it off center and messed up both the hook and the backing plate so i remade both. Or all 3 i guess actually. Here is also a pic of the back of the bale and how the tab is peined. 

Happy New Year Alex. I don't think you'll ever be finished, do you? Are the vine and birds on the candelabra finished, is it stainless steel?  The gate is hard to see on my screen but what I can see is as masterful as I've come to expect. 

I think until we can meet in real time I'll lift a glass to you and yours tonight. 

Oh yes saving the back is a worthy cause. I don't remember who said it but it was as true in the day I was drilling as it is now. Take care of your back and feet, everything you do depends on them. That is why I bought a cabin tent, queen sized air mattress and several sleeping bags. That way I wasn't crawling into a tube tent and squirming into a mummy bag on a foam pad. I slept on a thick bag on the air mattress inside a partly closed bag with two more I could pull over my if I got cold. In the morning I could stand up and get dressed instead of trying to get dressed in damp clothes inside a mummy bag. I'd wake up open my cover a bit, light my Coleman lantern and lean my boots up with the soles towards the lantern. In about 10 minutes the bitter cold was off the tent and I could stand up in the top bag and get dressed in my freeze dried clothes. 

I also paid a BUNCH for a pair of White's Logger Smokejumper boots. Whites were maybe still are custom fitted to your feet and cost a bunch but your feet don't hurt, you don't turn ankles, get blisters, etc. There's a trick to breaking them in though, get them wet and walk them dry. One and done.

Feet and back, nothing else works without them.

Frosty The Lucky. 

 

Billy, while fudge is tasty, unless there is a pepper of some kind innings there it doesn't keep me warm.  My phone,  however,  seems to think when i type forge i want fudge.   

 

Now I want to make a chipoltle chocolate fudge.   I've never even made fudge. 

That should say in it, not innings.

"some kind innings," Chad?  Every stinking time my phone updates I have to figure out how to Turn Auto correct OFF. I've managed to finally set my laptop so it only underlines words it THINKS () I got wrong in red. THAT is a good thing, I make more typos now on this small keyboard and my big old stiff sausage fingers is another reason I do NOT use my "smart" phone for anything but talking, taking pics and similar useful things.

I don't text unless I have no choice. In fact I'm going to have to call my Dermatologist's office today and YELL at them about texting me a signup notice to another medical network. That actually translates to Opt in MARKETING network. I told her specifically to email the report directly to me. 

Yeah, I usually have to lean on the counter and discuss it in (pretend) suppressed fury and explain what's wrong with selling my personal information to marketers. It's amazing how effective it is when you do that in an office full of people who HATE being spammed.

Sure you can select the "do not" contact me button but that's ONLY effective with companies subject to USA laws. Pakistan, India, etc. will dump persistent full screen ads on you that you can't close without following the windows. 

A police whistle is a good way to respond to telephone solicitors though. 

Sorry to vent, it's an old gripe of mine that almost never happens on IFI.

Frosty The Lucky. 

My breathing no longer sounds like Regan from The Exorcist as she floats above the bed, and my coughing fits are down to just a couple dozen per day, so I finally got out to the shop and actually did something productive.  I made these fullering dies for my forge press.  I'll use these to spread the cheeks on this hammer I'm getting ready to forge.

Melted Socks, I am sure that those will be useful! I love that we blacksmiths can make almost any tool we need. I just finished this gift for a friend. It’s a miners candle stick. I used John Switzer’s videos and buyable PDF to make it. There was some minor cracking, I think it was from drawing out the material, and accidentally folding in a cold shut. I did put my touch mark on it, so that it would not be mistaken for a historical one.

Nice miner's candle holder Asa, well done.

Frosty The Lucky. 

On the last heat for the last adjustment on the last tine, while I was holding it and looking directly at it (!!!), I melted it! 

This type of thing normally happens when I stick a work piece in the fire then see a few weeds by the smithy that need pulling and I bend down to pull them but get enthralled by a pair of roly polies fighting over a fragment of organic material that I pick up and carefully dissect to find out what it is they're fight over.

I remember both of my kids complaining that algebra was a waste of time and they'd never, ever use it again.  This morning, I started mathing.  Starting with a 3/4" diameter round bar, I wanted to forge it down to a rectangular bar such that the width was three times the thickness, but after completing two 1/16" wide cuts making the three tines.

Before I knew it, I was trying to solve a quadratic equation!  This is the second time I've used algebra since graduating college in 1986!  I was stoked.  However, I had Grok solve it for me.  Ain't nobody got time for that! 

 

 

I finally gave my monkey tool a test and made a hook out of some scrap. Fun times. 

 

Asa,  Over 40 years ago (early '80s) I sold a dozen miner's candlesticks to a place in Central City.  IIRC they paid me about $10 each.  At some later point my then girlfriend (later wife) and I were back in Central City and I sent her into the shop to see how much they were selling them for.  I expected them to mark them up to $20-25.  They had soaked them in salt water to rust them and were saying that they were 100 years old and asking $100-125.  I was livid but finally decided that it wasn't my sin or problem.  The karma was on them.  Of course, I never went back to sell anything else to them.

However, now when I make a miner's candlestick I put my touchmark on it and the year in Roman numerals.  Arabic numerals would work as well but I don't want to be quite that obvious.  Not many folk would recognize my touchmark but most folk could work out that MMXVI is 2026.

BTW, you may know that miner's candle sticks are also known as "tommy stickers."  They were commonly used for mine lighting from the late 1860s (when paraffin candles became cheap as a byproduct of oil refining) until the advent of carbide lights in the late 1890s and early 1900s.  A lot of commercial ones were made in Denver.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Happy New Year,

My Math says MMXVI is not 2026. Maybe I need to play X's & O's to gain a spare X. LOL

No Harm Done, Nobody got Hurt, No Red Paint on the Floor, Not Serious.

Neil

MMXVI looks like 2016 to me George. Duck Duck Go says 2026 is MMXXVI in roman numerals. Of course I looked it up, don't be silly. 

Frosty The Lucky.

And, as usual, you are correct, Frosty.  I guess my neorons were firing properly.  But even is I had mistakenly put 2016 on an item it would serve to alert someone that it wasn't "old."  So, no harm, no foul.

I don't know why anybody uses Roman numerals anymore though one math teacher I had in college spent a ridiculous amount of time teaching a college algebra class how to do math in Roman numerals. 

I just deleted my rant about S. Cal edu. system. It gets federal money based on completed classes, NOT grades or subject value, just student throughput. I even got a letter some years ago saying my records were incomplete and without filling out the questionnaire they couldn't  award my degree. It actually asked how many courses I completed and what degree I'd earned. It was VERY important I fill it out because their funding depended on it and they'd mail my degree as soon as they received the completed form and corrected their records. 

It still steams me. I LOVE to know things, read constantly but it doesn't count officially. . . 

Frosty The Lucky.

 

Pedro, nice looking hook.  I need to make a coat hook for my Baerskin tactical hoodie (yep, they reel me in with the toxic masculinity).  Wife is not digging me using the back of a barstool as my coat rack.

They could probably find buyers who would believe the Roman numerals meant it was made in 2026 BC. 

I use math every single day for my job. Mostly trig figuring angles and the like. 

 

Sohcahtoa, dude!

I coated my little forge with ITC 100HT today.  Isn't this stuff supposed to be a powder?  My jar was wet clay. Mixed up okay, though.

Made a dibbler today, per a clients request.

lots of forge welding on this one, and I’m pretty pleased!