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I Forge Iron

What did you do in the shop today?


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You need to build a mommy spider with several small babies riding on her back. 

The spider here on the porch is large enough with a properly sized hole on the back to hold a flower pot off the floor. The big one holds a Mum in season which is held off the ground and covers most of the spider. It is always interesting to see someone look at the Mum in full bloom and then quickly step back (shrieking optional) when they finally see the spider.

Great sculpture, let the arachnophobia begin.

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Das, those are beautiful spiders! One has the general shape of a spider here that we call a wolf spider. (And they do actually carry a heap of spiderlings on their backs). I like the use of the gears and roller bearings and the screws for the spinnerets look good.  The front legs up pose looks real. And the 'Mini Ductor Venom"  - Ha Ha very funny.

Crabby is looking good too!

 

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I want to thank everyone for their kind words. This project was very satisfying for me on several levels. One, it was outside of the scope of most of my work, but when you brake it down it was tapers, 1/2 face blows, bending, fullering, and collaring. Two, I was informed the afternoon before it was finished that I will need another shoulder surgery, the 3erd in less than 4 years, to be done next week.  I will be "down" for a minimum of 8 weeks, and the wife is planning on putting the force field of doom around the shop. Best to All.  Al

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2 hours ago, Glenn said:

Great sculpture, let the arachnophobia begin.

Love the planter idea. I have this idea to make a large spider to mount on the wall and have it as a center pull papertowel dispenser. 

 

Aus, we have the wolf spiders too. One of the more common to see round my area.  And I have seen them with the babies on the back. Really neat. 

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These gears were parts from tractors that a friend of mine dismantled and scrapped. He brings me parts and I give him some forged stuff or help him with projects. 

I get parts from all over. Haven't got n in to a scrap yard yet. 

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Hans , check with auto collision repair shops. His dragonflies use the armatures out of window motors, electric seats would have a similar motor. Transmission shops toss a lot of gears and clutch plates. Electric motor shops will have bearings and shot motors. Industrial companies toss a lot of interesting items like ball valves, motors, gearboxes, old equipment, etc.. The small commercial bakery I work at has kept me supplied with a lot of interesting items.

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Oh yeah... :) and wheel bearing balls for the eyes. That or in blown/deployed seat belt assemblies that have the explody charge there is one easy to get ball bearing and usually more if you have the time to tear them apart. Tho that's not something that would usually come upon unless you did collision repair. Only blown/deployed seat belts. !!!!The live ones are too dangerous to mess with!!!!!

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Yup, explody driver and passenger seatbelts. They have the explody bits like an airbag but used to lock the seatbelt and tension it. Common on most all cars now and have been for a few years. Some have 2 on each belt. 

On the somewhat rare occasion one goes off that wasn't worn in a collision it's so tight it sounds like a bass guitar string when strummed. :rolleyes:

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BGD –thanks for your advice. Went to a car scrapyard yesterday 50 miles away and buy two cast iron brake drums 10in wide and 2 1/2 in deep. After all I also could look for some suspension springs and other things:(. Next time I make up a shopping list before I leave.

Just buisy to build two other forges, a light solid fuel field forge and a slightly bigger gas forge wich I want to line with something else then the heavy cast refractory.

DSC00433.JPG

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Made some progress on the solid fuel brake drum forges. Stich the parts together and will finish them next week. Not sure yet how to aspirate them. Maybe by blowing function of the Kaercher-vacuum cleaner, second hand hair dryer or a new tube-ventilator I have to buy. And yes the ‘Hans-disorder’ strikes again, so I make two of them. One for use and the other for spare or sale.

DSC00440.JPG

DSC00439.JPG

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Messed around with a bunch of bits and pieces of cold work, cleanup, and handle fitting, so I didn’t actually fire up the forge. However, I did need to heat up a yarn bowl for finishing and patination, so I popped it on one of the burners of the induction cooktop. Pleasantly surprised to see that it got the bottom up to a nice glowing red. 

0F1DFC40-7D41-4056-82EF-21CA70BAED40.jpeg

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Finished putting a handle on the new 2 lb. long rounding hammer:

D7A76819-6CDA-4612-961C-4FC0A79E51A8.jpeg

Unfortunately, the wood cracked as I was charring it.

A7559198-53D6-4084-AD1B-99F1B4110E5B.jpeg

If this is/becomes a problem in use, I’ll put on another one. Annoying, but not really a big deal. 

Close-up of the head:

4FF49E08-09EA-4E9D-9CBD-89B51B667FBD.jpeg

6” long x 1-1/16” at the thinnest. The faces are approximately 1-1/2” across and 1-1/4” high. 

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Thank you. It was inspired by memories of a hammer made by my teacher Fred Crist, combined with a desire for something with more precision and finesse than my other forging hammers. I’m looking forward to giving it a try.

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Nice hammer, and the touch-mark on it looks great.

As far as precision goes, I have always preferred a farrier style hammer, because the faces are extra close to the eye (if you turn your wrist a tad, the consequenses are much more subtle than with a really long face). Thoughts?

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