I give you what I'm calling the Fuglies. They're a "special" breed of tongs. They're not pretty, they're surely not comfortable, but they work. Although I did crack one of them. Probably beat it a little too cold, trying to line things up. I made this as a proof of concept. This is from the t-stake I mentioned in another thread. And I cut the rivet too long, so peening it became bending it.

Functional. I might take the angle grinder to the jaws just to even them up, and I might try to fold over the reins again to make them a little more comfortable in the hand. But as a first set of tongs, you gotta start somewhere. And if that one crack doesn't cause a self-destruction before I can get a real pair made, I'll consider this a win. Right now, it's on the bubble. Could go either way.

 

Built a vise table, stand,catch-all, hammer holder, tong rack, thingy today

Nice. The round part on the ground looks like concrete; is the post sunk in that, or will the bottom plate bolt into anchors therein?

JHCC The post sits in a pocket on the base plate. The base plate will be anchored to the concrete pad that it is sitting on.

Solid mount. No movement while twisting with this vise.

TY  btw

Looks good. 

Lil more work on the guitar after a long day doing yard work. 

Guts and body, knobs and switch are welded up. Neck and headstock are tacked. Trying a "better" idea for the string winds.  Going to drill the machine screws to accept the strings. I'll be able to wind the strings tight before tacking the screws in place. Last one was a bear to get the strings tight and in place. More work but worth it. "I think."

 

Dashwulf I continue to believe you are a genius with your vision for art. I know-in a previous post I may have stated you must be a little bit off kilter but meant it the best way possible. That piece is an art piece that so few of us can see. Just awesome please do not stop creating these pieces of fine art. It is a gift that I truly envy. 

12 hours ago, Daswulf said:

Really looking forward to seeing progress on the croc. You have enough great old scrap there that you should be able to weld up a small crane easy. 

Yes, that's true. I'm thinking a hoist attached to the roof of the shed and a couple of slings. As you know with these things, it's good to conceal as many welds as you can, so I need to turn him over to weld from the underside. It already takes two of us to roll him and he's going to get much heavier. And when it comes time to create the legs I will need him at floor level to even things up. I want the main weight on the belly with legs to stabilise. I have no idea how I'm going to do the legs yet, but something will happen.

I'll post pics when it starts to look like a croc. And it's not a baby - 3 metres nose to tail. 

Ask a blacksmith to make you a motorcycle. This is what you get. 

It's lovely. but I'd say you need to go back to school to find out what a motorcycle is.. LOL..  

If the pay was as much as what  a motorcycle goes for then you made out really well on the pay scale..  

Were you able to pull it off?  Customer in a drunkin stupor.. 

You said motorcycle, and that is what I see in that nice scroll piece. Hmm. Had you not mentioned it I wonder if I would have seen that in it. 

Nice artistic symbology. If thats a word.... Is to me.

thanks,

didn't quite get the motorcycle price, but got another happy customer.......that's better to me.....

 

I kind of wish I'd seen a pic before you told us it's a motorcycle. With the suggestion I have to strain to see anything else. I really like it and think it'll make shadow magic behind it.

Jennifer is joshing with you, she's much better with a hot punch than a punch line. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Thanks Frosty for sure was joking but as you pointed out.. LOL..  I'm much more funny in person..  

It is lovely and very neat indeed..  I was actually thinking early Harley..   But some of those early Knuckle heads are going for pretty good coin today.. 

 

I'll leave levity to others who are much for qualified than I..  

Epic fail on an experimental handle design.. Decided to head in a different direction and it back fired.. 

Ya win some ya lose some. Thanks for sharing something that went wrong. Lol Sometimes we wonder if it happens other than you saying it didn't go as expected. Certainly not laughing at your failure, just that your bad days are sometimes better than our better. 

Personally I'd still use that as a handle on something for my home forge haha.  I've got more mangled failures tucked in corners and under tables than I should mention. Really need to head to the recyclers with those poor misfit toys. 

On a positive note, I think I have my guitar frets nailed. Tho with being up early with my daughter and wrestling my tiller on the tractor, and tilling most of the day I'm going to wait till I'm more fresh to finalize and weld it up, so I'm taking it easy tonight. 

Das,  No worries.. I get it..  While it is true that there are a lot of mistakes that can be corrected.. When it comes to experimenting I have failures for sure.. I've had more failures then successes in 42 years of forging..  But eventually you get to a point where the average starts to swing the other way..  

The steel guitar is coming along nicely.. Love the looks and the frets.. 

Spent a solid 4 hours. Made a water can holder, a shawl pin and hair pin out of a garage door spring (broke one), a leaf key chain and a couple hooks. Plus some general bending and pounding......Good times

those look very good.. nicely done..  

Can't really see the sprinkler can..    Is there a way to replace the can easily? 

This is what I was going for 

 This is my third knife to date and first knife finished, I didn't put handles on the first two. Not because I'm not proud of them it's just that I'm currently more interested in the forging process. 

I know the thread says today but I made this yesterday and I worked on it all the way up to my bed time and could not post it. 4:30 comes mighty early and I'm definitely not a morning person by any means.

Finishing up a cat tail themed fireplace set for my daughters mom in law to be. Its going to be a surprise. She showed me a pic from over at anvilfire. You send him a rock from your place and then adds the art to it. I had no rock so the base is 14g mild that a friend help me to beat into a rock like shape then polished. The tails are mild steel with 1 being stainless. Still have to polish that one. The leaves are stainless angle textured cold so they stay bright. The corner this will be in is a little dark so I wanted some shine to it. The pic does not do it justus. Not pictured is the poker made from textured stainless rod with stainless cat tail.   I thought it was to bright but everone I showed it to said its fine so I'm going with it. 

My cats reviewed your post and both agree you probably meant cattail.  Going to mount a few led's on the base to give it more glow in the corner?

It had been too long since I lit up the forge. Just another coat hook, this time with a leaf (third one ever). Had trouble with the veining, so I ended using a dremmel tool. Far from perfect, but part of the learning curve.

Everything looks great everyone. 

Today I did a little repousse on a 6in² piece of alluminum sheet I had laying around, the first time I've done anything more than a random practice design, also first time using alluminum. I broke through in one spot, right side under the eye, but all in all it went ok for using nails as tools and cardboard on top of a block of wood for 'pitch'. The design came from my doodle book from high school. Also did my first copper rose yesterday.