What did you do in the shop today?

[A.R.]

Lol, took my chains off to do this. We will see if it gets in the way but looks neat for now. The horn wraps were just for good measure and have to go though.

[Frosty]

Are you going to carry her science project for her? Bet it's worth an A

Is the anvil magnetized? If it's annoyingly so you can demag it by running AC through the coils.

Just don't ask me how, house current makes lots of sparks but the buzzing is a pretty cool effect. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Rojo Pedro]

Awesome experiment!

I finished my bending forks. Works as intended and fun to make. Welds seem good so I guess I'm a fabricator now :-)

Need a hand held one

[A.R.]

Frosty, 

I haven’t thought to check if it’s still magnetic but the digging bar held washers up for 5 days. I will go check. We made a video of it for her school and I thought of this after the fact but it is what it is and I had fun.  and my daughter thinks I’m a nerd but of course my dad jokes are next level funny. 

Still magnetic, file just barely hanging on.

[JHCC]

Didn’t do much in the shop yesterday, apart from a five-minute demo of firing up the gas forge, tapering the end of a bar, and starting the flat scroll for a knitting bowl for one of Lisa’s knitting buddies. 

There is a funny story with that: Lisa had taken one of the spiral bowls to a knitting event yesterday, and the friend who gave her a ride fell in love with it and wanted one for herself. Lisa texted me about the price, and by the time her friend drove her back, we had a verbal agreement. I walked out to the car to greet them with a length of flat bar in my hand, held it out to the friend, and said “Here you go: it’s the IKEA version.”

[jlpservicesinc]

There is a reason I charge what I charge and it's not because of the smooth , awesome customer with check or cash in hand asking with a huge smile on their face eager to pay me....  

 

It's the other kind.  How much, oh.... can I think about it..  Sure,  but this price is a special for the next 2hrs. After that the price will be double.  And in 4 hrs it will be triple.

 

[JHCC]

 To be clear: there was no disagreement about the price; Lisa just needed to know so that she could pass that info on to the buyer. It was a little higher than what the buyer had anticipated, but she decided that it was worth it to her and didn’t attempt to haggle.

[jlpservicesinc]

Jhcc. No reflection on you, Lisa or the friend.  There are many who make a living doing smithing or facets of smithing and are very happy with what they make and what they sell and the customer base.  

[Ted Ewert]

Is that "magnet wire" you're using? It looks like bare copper, which of course would make a dead short across all the windings...

 

[jwmelvin]

Last night I fired up my forge and made a first attempt at making a thing:

...pretty ugly but a good time. I watched a couple videos and tried again during my lunch break today:

...better, I think? I also punched a hole this time so I can rivet them. I don’t have a 1/4” rivet, only some 5/16” ones and I’m thinking drilling out the hole will take away too much material. It seemed difficult to widen the hole with a punch...

[JHCC]

Well, you're moving in the right direction, but the edges of your anvil are MUCH TOO SHARP!!! 

Go put a 1/16" radius (or even slightly less) on the edge of your anvil, and try again. Otherwise, you're just putting the beginnings of cracks into your workpieces, and they're going to break apart sooner or later.

Drilling out the hole wouldn't be a problem, and you might want to go ahead and do that for the sake of practicing setting a rivet.

[jwmelvin]

Thanks. It’s somewhat disconcerting to take a flap wheel to my brand new anvil but I accept what you are saying and will do so. Gulp...

[JHCC]

An anvil is a tool, not a treasure. If it doesn't do its job, it's worthless.

[Glenn]

Better yet, weld a hardie post to a piece of plate steel and radius the edges of the plate steel. You can practice until you get the radius you want and NOT modify the anvil in a way that it can not be undone.

A piece of solid square will do just as well and provide 4 edges to radius to your liking.

You can use the horn as a fuller, or weld a piece of solid round or pipe to a hardie plate and post to give you a radius you can work with.

[JHCC]

 Normally I would agree, Glenn, but jwmelvin is using a brand-new Holland anvil with super-sharp edges. Even a minimal softening is called for right now. 

[Glenn]

I agree. But how do you know what radius you need until you use it a little?

[pnut]

It would be a shame to chip the edge cause it's too sharp.

Pnut (Mike)       

[jlpservicesinc]

Material is easy to remove and hard to put back.

I have a tendency to like softer corners now than when I was younger.  I'm not as careful as I was years ago. 

[pnut]

A hand file would make it harder to go too far and do something you may not like down the road.

Pnut (Mike)

[jwmelvin]

34 minutes ago, pnut said:

A hand file would make it harder to go too far and do something you may not like down the road.

Good point, thanks. I'll give that a try before I break out the flap disk. 

[Frosty]

A hand file isn't likely to do much of anything to it. Don't get carried away but  put a LITTLE radius on a couple inches of the face from the step back. A flap sander isn't ideal but if you use it longitudinally rather than across the edge it'll cut much faster. Longitudinally as if it were a wheel rolling up the corner say horn to heal. Yes? Pick up a coarse grit flap sander or a small right angle disk grinder at a yard, etc sale. 

Make the edge look like a coffee stirrer to start, it isn't really enough radius, given time you'll make it larger but that's good enough to start with. Right now the edges are doing more damage than work. You might was well be setting shoulders on a hardy.

Glenn's suggestion is a good one but in this case you really need to break those edges. Glenn's suggestion is more appropriate for  more radical changes or modifications. For instance you needed a 1/2" radius, (1" rnd.) THAT is a major change and one had better be darned sure it's what s/he needs, you can't put it back without putting the anvil at risk of damaging the face. Make sense? In a case like that I'd do as Glenn suggested and make a bottom tool with the radius I need, maybe a fuller or spring tool. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[anvil]

I suggest a radius tapering from 3/8" to zero starting at the step back to ~the end of the anvil waist and leave the rest sharp.

[ausfire]

Found a couple of long 3/8 " wrought iron square head bolts in the scrap and thought they would make a couple of quick fire pokers. Put a twist in one and figured that a knot would be a challenge. And it was. Got there eventually.

The top one is mild steel, the other two wrought. I did take the top corners off the square heads and the handles are surprisingly comfortable in the hand.

 

[BEJ431]

Noob here..have been lurking and reading a ton of good info here.  Got my first forge for Christmas this year and have finally gotten around to posting here. My first actual project after making a few tools. 

[Daswulf]

Aus, I've yet to try a knot. Those look great. Cool idea.

Great first opener BEJ.

 

I've been slowed down in the shop a bit lately. My boss hired on a consulting group or whatever to get our shop running better and reneged on our deal that I can start at 9am, and now I have to start at 8am for morning meetings. It's thrown off my daily routine which I got good with (and it's hard for me to even have a "routine"). So I've been bumbling aimlessly the past week, unable to concentrate or get going on anything. Tired earlier but my artistic side works best late. Oh what one hour can do. 

Anyway, clawing my way through making another skull for a larger piece. Already messed up the spine stem and have to rebend that. Probably going to redo the lower bolts for the eye sockets and move them up using thinner bolts. 

Guess it'll all come out in the mix.