What did you do in the shop today?

[Daswulf]

Got accepted to sell at the Pittsburgh Freaky Fair ( kinda show right up my ally.) so having had my welding table buried for a while I cleaned around and on it to get moving on some small stuff I'll need to fill the table. Got a little time yesterday and more tonight between visitors wanting to steal my baby.  

now tomorrow starts the juggling act of work, family and artwork. Really wish I could make the jump to make sculpture and forging my day job. Too scary to do for me now but each step forward is another step in that direction. 

 

All ready to knock out some small dragonflies. 

[Frosty]

Good deal Das. Are you sure dragon flies are freaky enough? 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Daswulf]

Well people like them. Next will be smaller spiders and scorpions. Just gatta do batches to make enough for the table. Whatever is left is going to be some of the first pieces I actually list on my website for sale. 

I also need to make a batch of roses then on to more forged items. 

It's  a little easier to get pulled away from welding and cutting then with the forge up and going. 

Baby steps.  

[Farmall]

Das, where do get all those old motor shafts for the bodies?

[Daswulf]

Made a post about making the dragonflies step by step some time back. ( I'd have to try to find it again) 

The motor shafts are from power window motors from cars. They are pretty easy to remove. Don't have a picture of the whole thing handy but I'll see if I can find or get one tomorrow. Usually torx or Phillips screws holding the case together. 

Any other questions I'm glad to help. Just ask. 

[Gergely]

6 hours ago, Hans Richter said:

Gergely, a nice booth -looks very authentic with the filigree legs of the exposure table and the scrim cover. Well done. Specially like the wine holder and I'm curious if there is some Tokay still in the bottles.

Let me know

Thanks!  For safety reasons only the wine was consumed from the bottles. Safety first

Bests:

Gergely

[JHCC]

Hardened and tempered the long hammer:

Also made a new hot-cut from a jackhammer bit and another yarn bowl. 

This last is an important experiment: a woman who runs a local yarn store wants to sell these, so I wanted to see how long it would take me to make one start to finish, uninterrupted. This first one has about an hour of work, so I’m thinking about what to charge that will both compensate me adequately for my time and still give her room for a reasonable markup. 

[Daswulf]

Gergely, I missed that post, yup nice better setup.  Good thing you emptied those bottles first.  dangerous selling displays with full bottles. You could get swarmed. 

I am on the slow hunt for a canvas 10'x10' canopy. I have a lead with a friend of mine. 

 

All kinds of fun stuff going on since I've been on new daddy duty.  

[ausfire]

21 hours ago, tkunkel said:

Ausfire,  Nice collection of scrap art and also love the vehicles in the back!  The Holden looks awesome, also!

Thank you. Yes, the old vehicles were all over the place and we decided to gather them up in a line and level and label them (as best we could). They are dead but not forgotten. We have put together a similar patch of bigger vehicles - old trucks like Diamond Ts, Chev and Ford Blitzes, military vehicles, along with some old American Buicks, Pontiacs, Packards and Studebakers in various states of repair. They are very popular with wedding photographers - brides in their white lace and finery contrast well with the rusty relics.

 

20 hours ago, Hans Richter said:

Aus, you are a blessed person to do/live your passion in this beautiful environment. If you ever think about pension or retirement please give me a sign. I gladly want to take over this great occupation ;-)

Hans, I count my blessings everyday. The Village is a great place to work ... acres of scrap to play with, forging every day if I like, vintage cars and tractors to drive around, and lots of interesting people from all over the world visiting. No intention of retiring yet ... well, I am retired from the teaching profession but the blacksmithing and general museum work keep me busy.

 

20 hours ago, Daswulf said:

Great display Aus. I love when you post pictures with so much to look at in them.  

Well, there's lots to see here, Das. We have about 60 buildings on site, but only a few have anything blacksmith related.

On another tack, I had a young bloke here helping me out with our demos on our busy Pioneer Weekend.  He looked after the forge while I had a break and hammered out a couple of nice pieces for the visitors. He is very capable, aware of the safety requirements, and shows a lot of promise. This is a hanging basket bracket he made. Not bad for a first try:

 

[Frosty]

I didn't get out to the shop Sunday but drove into Anchorage to spend a day with Tristan, Teenylittlemetalguy to experiment with zircopax and bentonite. I finally pulled my head out into the light and called a drilling company to find out where they buy drill mud. A 50 lb. sack of Baroid quick gel bentonite ran $18.75 which is soooooo much better than ceramics additives, dietary supplements, detox, cosmetic, etc. bentonite prices. 

I should've looked up the thread Maarten AKA Monkeyforge was talking about his experiments we were mixing it with WAY too much bentonite. 

However my main question was answered in a couple interesting ways. My first one, Can it be fired as wet mud? Yes, it works just fine sort of. The interesting perhaps useful result was what happens when the water evaporates out of the mix. The mix doesn't shrink, it stays the same volume, the water leaves voids, it resembles foam. 

Mixed to the consistency of thick latex paint and fired wet it just dries and fires onto the base. It's only okay on kaowool and in a couple cases the kaowool melted under it. 

So, Saturday's experiments results appear to be: good kiln wash. Maybe worth experimenting for an insulating refractory.

As a last note, wear latex or neoprene gloves when handling Zircopax or bentonite if your hands are even nearly as dry as mine are, I have cracks and sores since Saturday evening. Hand lotion is fixing them up fine.

And THAT'S what I did in A shop this weekend. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

I've seen it used for mud wrestling and we've bought clay packaged as a dietary additive for cattle before; back when I was in the oilpatch it was everywhere as it was a major component of Drilling Mud.

[Jackdawg]

8 hours ago, ausfire said:

On another tack, I had a young bloke here helping me out with our demos on our busy Pioneer Weekend.  He looked after the forge while I had a break and hammered out a couple of nice pieces for the visitors. He is very capable, aware of the safety requirements, and shows a lot of promise. This is a hanging basket bracket he made. Not bad for a first try:

Now all you have to do is show the poor bugger how to set a rivet! 

Please do not include pictures in quotes unless you are discussing something specific in that photo.

Edited May 7, 2018 by Mod34
Excessive quoting

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

On 5/6/2018 at 3:53 PM, VaughnT said:

Now I have to come up with a way of bending these brackets more efficiently. 

I would make a simple hinged break that mounts in the vise. Drop them to a bottom stop, then bend. Having them hot will help, but if you made it beefy enough with a long enough handle you could do them cold. Make a stop that you can set so you get repeatable results. Hammering them tends to put a curve in the part being hammered. Just pulling them over a block won't. 

When quoting, only quote the text to which you are directly referring. DO NOT INCLUDE PHOTOS IN YOUR QUOTE unless you are specifically addressing something shown in that photo that must be seen to be understood.

Edited May 7, 2018 by Mod34
Excessive quoting

[Frosty]

2 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

I've seen it used for mud wrestling and we've bought clay packaged as a dietary additive for cattle before; back when I was in the oilpatch it was everywhere as it was a major component of Drilling Mud.

What's the other component of drill mud? . . . Water? Occasionally there are trace additives like Epsom salts but. . .  .

Rings, wrist watches, etc. add themselves once you get a little on your hands it lubes them up so jewelry slips right off. I don't think that's considered a component but I didn't work in our oil fields long enough to learn the insider stuff.

Frosty The Lucky.

[SLAG]

Frosty,

A quick search in the Patent Office archives should turn up very many recipes for drilling mud and its components. Google's patent search system is very good for your search.

SLAG.

[ThomasPowers]

Bentonite for it's thixotropic properties, Barium for its weight then a lot of other stuff for specific reasons.  

The idea is that you want the column of drilling mud to weigh about what the missing rock did so any oil or gas under pressure doesn't burst out, come up the pipe and cause a blowout; blowouts are hard on the equipment and the hands!  At least on land you can run.  I had some basic training way back when in evacuating an offshore drilling rig: the Drill Floor is high above the sea, in case of a blowout you run to a rescue craft and dive in,  In the craft there are 2 handles: one green, one red. One lowers the craft to the sea and the other releases it. Use them in the correct order!  Under some circumstances invert the order!!!!!!  I did a job where I had to test for sour gas as well.

[VaughnT]

2 hours ago, BIGGUNDOCTOR said:

I would make a simple hinged break that mounts in the vise. Drop them to a bottom stop, then bend. Having them hot will help, but if you made it beefy enough with a long enough handle you could do them cold. Make a stop that you can set so you get repeatable results. Hammering them tends to put a curve in the part being hammered. Just pulling them over a block won't. 

That something to ponder on.  The bottom stop would need to be adjustable for different lengths, which should be easy enough to finagle.  It's the geometry of the bending part that flummoxes me!

[Frosty]

Boy, make one little, "can't keep a ring on your finger if you get drill mud on it," joke and see what happens! Not being an oil field driller means we only used mud to get return, plug fissures and carry cuttings.  A sack of Quick Gell in the mud tub once every couple years whether we needed it or not.

I've led such a sheltered life.  

Frosty The Lucky.

[JHCC]

We’ve all been sheltered from something. 

[Daswulf]

Got 8 dragonflies mostly done. Only need to bend the legs, sign and clear coat. 

These are less expensive table fodder for the freaky fair or website. Next up after are spiders. 

[Frosty]

Those are so cool Das. This is a good really tutorial for the production technique of doing the same step on each piece to make sets. This technique just came up in a thread about making tongs. 

You're going to knock em dead at the freaky fair. Makes lots. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[ausfire]

13 hours ago, Jackdawg said:

Now all you have to do is show the poor bugger how to set a rivet! 

Didn't need to show him - he riveted the stay before wrapping.  The wrap was probably overdoing it a bit, but I think he liked trying new ideas. And he wanted to add the hot brass.

[Daswulf]

Frosty,  batch runs do work great when all the parts are known and you have made a few to know the order of the processes. 

Saves time since you just set up your tools for one process at a time and get in the rythem. Most sculptures can't work like this for me but this is one that does. Roses are the same way as well. I need to make some of them as well. 

[Bounty Forge]

Here is a 12 pound sledge hammer that Mark (littleblacksmith) and I recently made. It's forged from a billet about 6.5" long x 3" round diameter of 1045.

It took about 6 hours to make, which is a lot less than we expected. We switched off striking and directing so we wouldn't get worn out and it worked out pretty well. It turned out great and it was a lot of fun to make. We plan to make another one in a couple weeks. Mark got some videos of us working on it.

 

https://www.facebook.com/mark.ling.731/videos/pcb.177815726381211/177791003050350/?type=3&theater

https://www.facebook.com/mark.ling.731/videos/pcb.177815726381211/177802439715873/?type=3&theater

https://www.facebook.com/mark.ling.731/videos/pcb.177815726381211/177812329714884/?type=3&theater

 

[Daswulf]

Bounty, you and Mark did great on that. Sure looks bigger than 12lbs.