tanglediver Posted May 9, 2020 Share Posted May 9, 2020 I got started back, after a funny winter break, and hung a pull up bar in the doorway . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted May 9, 2020 Share Posted May 9, 2020 The switch arrived a couple of days early, so with a bit of tinkering, The Pressciousss is good to go! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted May 9, 2020 Share Posted May 9, 2020 28 minutes ago, JHCC said: The Pressciousss is good to go! Excellent. Does The Pressciousss go good? Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted May 9, 2020 Share Posted May 9, 2020 Haven’t had a chance to try it with hot steel yet — had to make dinner for the family — but the electrical and mechanical systems are working great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlpservicesinc Posted May 10, 2020 Share Posted May 10, 2020 Hans Nice work.. I am intrigued by your new stand.. Well designed. Did you put a foot for the center section to hit the ground or will you shim it? JHCC.. OOOOHHHH I"m so excited.. I made a little progress me self in the Ax department. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shabumi Posted May 10, 2020 Share Posted May 10, 2020 today i had a day where nothing seemed to go right, it might have had something to do with me working too hard on the first 90+ degree day we had yesterday. No heat stroke, but it felt like i was close, which is why i took it easy today and was able to get a bit of shop time in. i had enough .01" brass left for 3 tries at making the tip of the raven/plague mask i am working on, and i made a sheet steel rivet-less trial 2 days ago with little trouble, but the brass didn't want to cooperate. the first try i chiseled the fold lines all the way through with out thinking, and the second time i was much more careful and got it all folded together, but on the 2nd hit when riveting it fell apart on me. any suggestions for improvement? perhaps my design is to difficult for this thin of brass, am i just too heavy handed or should i just go with the sheet steel and brass bush it (after i clean it up)? I'm showing a picture of the 2nd failed brass piece, the steel piece that is should look like and the riveting anvil i made from a tooth off an unknown farm implement and a 25 lb counter weight off an old homemade sawmill that has had more salvaged from it than is left on it. I drew a rough profile of the tooth as you cant see it in the picture. the tooth fits right up to the last rivet in the tip of the beak, but only just, so that may have been my problem as well. it worked fine on the test rivet i did on a random piece a few days ago, it didnt even shift as i hammered the head on the bailing wire test rivet like i was expecting it to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted May 10, 2020 Share Posted May 10, 2020 2 hours ago, Frosty said: Does The Pressciousss go good? Well ... yes and no. I just posted about my first go with the new setup; I'd appreciate folks taking a look and giving their best advice. (On the other hand, I did get some good work in on a little cooking pan I've been playing with for a couple of days.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George N. M. Posted May 10, 2020 Share Posted May 10, 2020 Dear Shambui, One of the problems with working with sheet brass is that it is already fairly work hardened from the rolling process. It is a lot more forgiving if you anneal it. Heat it and then quench it. Copper and copper alloys work the reverse from iron, heat + quenching softens them. If you haven't worked much with brass or bronze here are a few tips: Generally, you can't hot forge brass because most brass alloys have lead in them to make them easier to machine. If you get them hot and hit them with a hammer they just crumble. So, brass is worked best annealled and cold. Re-anneal often. Some bronze alloys can be hot forged but it is very hard to judge temperature by the color of the heated metal. It will just show a dull red and then melt. I heat it by time, number of turns of the blower or, if I'm using propane, a slow count. You REALLY have to keep your attention focused if you are forging bronze. You'll have to ruin a number of pieces to judge how it will work for you and your forge. GNM "By hammer and hand all arts do stand." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hefty Posted May 10, 2020 Share Posted May 10, 2020 What is this sorcery?! I did my first successful (butt ugly, yes, but successful!) forge weld this afternoon (well, technically Friday afternoon, but my pics wouldn't load when I tried to post it Friday night on my phone.) I hit it with a hammer while it was in the vice and it bent as far as this but then I couldn't get the last bit to break! This was what it looked like inside the section I got to separate. Now I just need to do it a couple hundred more times! Cheers, Jono. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlpservicesinc Posted May 10, 2020 Share Posted May 10, 2020 Nice job.. Now all the rest will be easy.. Once you get 1 good one. it's all gravy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hans Richter Posted May 10, 2020 Share Posted May 10, 2020 13 hours ago, jlpservicesinc said: I am intrigued by your new stand.. Well designed. Did you put a foot for the center section to hit the ground or will you shim it? Hi Jennifer, in this case end because of the small size, I put the anvil base in the centre of the stand. Try to make sure that the stand legs and their radius are the same as the ‘staking out parts’ of the anvil (this take care of stability without stumbling over the legs). Pushed and beat on them (horn and heel) as well (while stack welded) to see if hi will react instable. No way, and I can use pritchel hole and hardy hole to stick long material in them. Count the weight of the whole stand around 50lbs. Gives still a good rebound of ca. 85%. Silenced the 'crying little baby' with a rubber plate below the base, and a double twist op 1 ¼ “ anchor chain. Will use this anvil together with the UAT to give some workshops to students and public, both are ‘light’ enough to carry in the trailer or car trunk together with the already known field forges. Carry on with the very promising axes , I soon have to make some scout knifes for the kids of a friend of me how already paid me with al delicious ‘French whiskey’ (empty now after Covid) an looks forward to the products. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awrksmokey Posted May 10, 2020 Share Posted May 10, 2020 I bought an anvil!!! It's in good condition other then the chip in the foot. It's 157 lbs and looks like a peter wright to me but it doesn't have a makers stamp. I might make an identification post if I still cant figure it out after some more research. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlpservicesinc Posted May 10, 2020 Share Posted May 10, 2020 thanks Hans.. Looks great.. Awrksmokey: Nice find.. Gongrats for sure. Looks like you got a stump with it.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DSW HandCraft Posted May 10, 2020 Share Posted May 10, 2020 In the past two days, I've bitten more than I can chew... I found some 69mm round pin used on some piece of heavy machinery and decided to make a forging hammer out of it, by hand... Curvatures were all made with an angle grinder. The hammer turned out great, and it's nice to forge with but I can surely say: I will never make another one this big! The weight of the hammer is 2.2kg (4.85lb) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awrksmokey Posted May 10, 2020 Share Posted May 10, 2020 2 hours ago, jlpservicesinc said: Awrksmokey: Nice find.. Gongrats for sure. Looks like you got a stump with it.. Yeah, the guy was nice enough to give me a spruce stump for it too. He was a woodworker, and apparently it was from the site of a church he built! DSW, that is a cool funky hammer! Is there a certain reason why it's shaped like that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DSW HandCraft Posted May 10, 2020 Share Posted May 10, 2020 No particular reason... The shape was created "on the fly" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shabumi Posted May 10, 2020 Share Posted May 10, 2020 12 hours ago, George N. M. said: Re-anneal often Thank you, I was forgetting this part. I will try again when I have some time and see if I can get the last chance to work. If not I may just go for the steel sheet version that's been brass brushed instead Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CheechWizard Posted May 11, 2020 Share Posted May 11, 2020 finally finished the hawk, the first couple inches to just over critical. quenched in heated veggie oil, turned off forged, wire brushed and sanded lightly the first 2 or so inches and used the forge to relieve some hardness, ended up at a nice medium brown on the cutting edge broken sledge handle i repurposed wasnt quite wide enough so theres a little gap on the tapered side, need invest in some wider stock. so... can i get some honest opinions? with the welding issues aside aesthetically wise lay it on me. to me the drift is made for more your classic hand axe style hatchet then a hawk. but idk what do yall think Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Latticino Posted May 11, 2020 Share Posted May 11, 2020 First I'd like to say that I wish my first real solo forged hawk looked as good as yours. That being said, I agree that the eye shape is more characteristic of a typical single bit axe than a hawk (even though there are a lot of eye shape variations for hawks, including pointed D shape, egg shape, diamond shape, round...). Aesthetically I would say that the cheeks and body of the piece are more on the order of a small belt axe rather than a hawk. Possibly because the eye is so narrow, but it does appear that the cheeks and body are a little thick visually. As for the spike/skull breaker... well it looks like you haven't made up your mind how you want that to look. If a spike, I'd like to see it drawn out further. If a hammer poll (a very useful addition IMHO) it would need to be reshaped. Still, all in all a great first effort. For myself, this weekend I worked on a project for a friend that was a little unusual, or at least out of my wheelhouse. He needed a replacement for his adjustable scythe handles. Fortunately he is a woodworker and will be doing that part of the project. I made them a little extra robust so he can file them down to fit as required. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted May 11, 2020 Share Posted May 11, 2020 Saturday, went to the scrapyard, only took out 32 pounds with the big find being another steel wheelbarrow wheel of the type I use for tong racks. Also a 1/2" dia x 12" long wrought iron rod---tested as WI. An old cold chisel and old rusty file to be used as stock, some 3/8" rod about 8' long and a piece of 3" thick black foam rubber insulation to use as a kneeling pad as my knees don't like the ground anymore and we're working on a garden plot. Saturday afternoon I forge the end of a sucker rod with the union on it to fit the hardy hole of my 165# HB---working on making a dishing form for small flowers. I also did the curling of the tentacles for my wall mount drinking horn holder. Sunday; blissfully cool, I did the Swamp cooler maintenance: 3 or 8 spiders were clogged and I ramrodded them clear with some light steel cable and took off the water fitting and cleaned out the crud in it. Our old swamp cooler never had a problem with this but the new one that replaced it has to be cleaned out a couple of times the summer. After that was done I went to the smithy and finished the dishing form by widening and turning the lip of the sucker rod union, hot of course. Worked on another flower and decided to add in a copper piece as well, again a poppy as I need to make a set of them for Father's Day---when I give my wife her big present. I'm liking the new dishing form. I was down to the last heat on my drinking horn holder and the rear burner of my forge stopped working and I couldn't tweak it to work. Probably a clog in the orifice; so I hunted down my tip cleaners, (console of my new pickup) and started trying to disassemble the burner. Well it's been in the forge for around 20 years now with zero maintenance and so it was not agreeable with disassembly. I did get the pipe with the orifice removed and cleaned it. Looks like rust had built up as a bunch fell out when I tapped the pipe on the anvil. I decided I was tired of having to tweak the system and it was time to go to new burners and so My Drinking Horn Holder will have to finish on my coal forge till I can get a set of FT's built and installed and tuned. Sigh. So on to working on a 5.75" postvise I hope to sell. I had swapped the screwbox with the one in the vise I want to keep and it wasn't fitting all the way in. I found there was a projecting seam, (no not the locking fin), from when it was made and rasped it down. I found that it would insert well turned 90 deg from where it will end up and found that the locking fin was wider on this one than the last. So a nice cool afternoon filing and fitting till it slid in place and another task done. I finished "Around California in 1891", a bit of a travelogue that I picked up as the cover had a picture of Miners hold star drills and drilling hammers. More of a historical curiosity than a good read though. Fellow was a Russian with a strong political bias. It did have a picture of the "Main Street" of a small town with a partial sign of Smith and tacked to it Shoeing $2. Thence to bed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimmyw Posted May 11, 2020 Share Posted May 11, 2020 I installed a new forge blower! Or rather a ventilation fan... But it works very well. My first forge I made was with dirt and it was too deep. The second one I made(the one I have now) also was too deep so last weekend I decided to move up the bottom plate but I drilled a bit to big holes so I didn't get enough pressure on the coal making the steel just dull orange. Well, with this new fan it surely gets hot! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluerooster Posted May 11, 2020 Share Posted May 11, 2020 Took my piece of "roadkill" steel for a test drive today. Found it to be a decent quality hardenable steel. So now I need to find a project for it. Also made a swage block of sorts, to help me shape a gouge chisel. It worked quite well for a down and dirty home brew tool. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted May 11, 2020 Share Posted May 11, 2020 Have you read Alexander Weygers discussion on how to forge wood carving gouges? (In "The Complete Modern Blacksmith"). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HondoWalker Posted May 11, 2020 Share Posted May 11, 2020 Didn't make anything metal today. Yesterday I took an old bolt that had been my toolbox for over 30 years and turned it into a butter knife. Also I used my forge to heat some brass for casting, which did not work. It melted but didn't cast. Had too much water in my greensand. Today I took a piece of noak tree and made a nice sized bowl out of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluerooster Posted May 12, 2020 Share Posted May 12, 2020 49 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said: Have you read Alexander Weygers discussion on how to forge wood carving gouges? (In "The Complete Modern Blacksmith"). I haven't, but I will if I can find a copy for cheap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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