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What did you do in the shop today?


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Stake anvil looks pretty good to me. I assume you did a proper preheat and slow cool on the hammer head when welding?  I've "riveted" the stake anvils I've made and then sometimes welded the top of the rivet to make it harder. (And need to do so for one I've had on hand for a while.)

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Hot and muggy; did some work in the shop in short  bursts in between "cooling" which I spent reading a book on Damascus Steel, Gunther Löbach; cover to cover.  Sure wished the translator knew something about metalwork; kept using annealing when they meant tempering "you can use a regular kitchen oven for annealing" and fat when they meant grease, "clean off all the oil and fat before etching".  Good book anyway.  (I started correcting the wording after a while...)

I handled a couple of tools working the handles down from broken sledge hammer handles.  Moved my 50# adjunct hardy hole plate to the screwpress so I could use some of my bottom tooling with it. Removed the union from a very rusty old sucker rod---headed up to dull red and it unscrewed with no issue, then forged the square part to fit a hardy hole---probably make a ball stake from it when I get electricity to the welder.  I also resized a simple spring fuller to work with a project I'm working on.  Hope to be done and show it off at Q-S 2021.

Went to the scrapyard Saturday.  Not much coming in as they are not buying.  I did notice a hand forged item looked rather like a hydraulics lever for a tractor---got it home and cleaned it up and nope it was a hack for a powerhammer...I tend to grab most anything that looks to be hand forged and examine it later.  Too hot to go over it in detail at the 'yard.  Not too many smithing tools show up there in 16 years I have only gotten a couple of anvils and pairs of tongs, a bunch of hammer heads and a post vise body.  The owner puts stuff aside for me if they think I might be interested...

No bites on the heavy old  flat belt driven grinders I put up on CL yet.

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 I've been doing all blacksmith related stuff at night on my days off because its been so hot and humid i barely want to move during the day. unfortunately i cant really hammer and try to do all the cutting i need to do before 9ish.  I've developed a good relationship with the neighbors no need to spoil it although its so hard to resist the urge sometimes especially when you finish up a swage or top tool and want to test it. Today was the worst heat wise its been this summer so far, but its cooled down finally so i may go work on a spring fuller i shaped and normalized everything for last night.  I used an oddly shaped piece of high carbon steel i found a the scrap yard, it was some kind of latch or coupling with one part that was clearly a hook that got bent so that the whole thing from one side looked like an elephants head lol.  one section of it was already perfect shape and size for one side of the fuller and i straightened out the hook (which was a real pain) for the top.  The spring is from a coil spring wouldnt you know. 

Here's a concave forming tool i did last night, not much had to be done accept put a pin between the 2 pieces and weld. i have no idea what that thing used to be but it is low carbon unfortunately so ill have to be careful not to deform it to much

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Since I'm using hammer heads with eyes for wooden handles, I butcher the shaft and then draw down the end of the shaft into a tenon that fits the eye and  use the hammer head as a monkey tool to fit it. Then I hot rivet it with a big hammer to get the shaft to fill any gaps and let it cool pulling it tighter.  I put a tapered spike on the other end to use in stumps. (Usually drill out a starter hole and heat the taper up and burn to fit---stopping a bit before all the way down to allow for char removal and a tight driven fit.)

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Stayed home from work today after waking up with a migraine headache... after setting around suffering all day, I couldnt take it anymore.

Went out to the shed and worked on making my hot cut hardy tool, and my brother's requested kukri blade- my take on one anyways.

Blade is rough ground, hardening and tempering to go yet. Leaf spring source for steel. I really need to look into a surfacing grinder/sander setup.:unsure: lot of length to smooth out.

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I got hemorrhaged and concussed after I was skiing like an idiot on a black diamond and decided to go straight down to see how fast I go.

well long story short my skis crossed and fell of causing me to fly forward hitting head first in the snow.

I've had weekly migraines since.

By the way I checked to see how fast i was going during the crash (I had an app that tracks your speed on each run) and it said i was going 147 mph. I dont know if its 100 percent accurate but it was pretty fast. 

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jaeger, find some old hinges and some bolts until the welder man shows up.  And skiing/snowboarding can be a deceptively dangerous sport, especially for your casual riders who only make it up once or twice a year if that.  it's easy to forget you're gliding as fast as a car on the highway but on sometimes you're on bullet proof ice or just a little dust on crust. not to mention on deep days you got the padding but you still have trees that will most definately win in a wrestingly match against you, even the small ones, take it from me i broke 2 ribs hitting a treet and i was barely moving, my buddy whos an airborne ranger was quite amused at the face i was making he just had to get a picture of me in agonizing pain with the wind knocked out of me. bit of a sick puppy that one.

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I can also attest to snowboarding being a dangerous sport. My whole elbow is screwed back together after a fall on some ice. That long screw is 50mm long... Yes, this is my hammering arm. Took me out of blacksmithing for several months, but I kept asking my doc, when can I swing a hammer or draw a bow again? 

She thought I was crazy... But she does good work. 

I decided if I ever have the plate removed I want to forge it into something... it's 316 SS. Only get one try with that one.

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Patient with broken finger: “Doc, will I be able to play the piano?”

Doctor: “Don’t worry! As soon as I’m done, you’ll be able to play the piano beautifully!”

 Patient: “That’s good, because I can’t play at all now!”

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John; I pulled that one back in my college days when I crushed a finger, (last joint in my right pinky, *flat*, had scars from where the end burst and tried to extrude.)   The joke may have backfired; as when she was later trying to put a plastic shield over the finger with side protrusions, she was trying to hold the side pieces bent out away from the damaged finger and slipped and all the side slats slapped inward hitting my finger.  

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My senior year in high school, I put a nasty gash in my left palm while woodcarving. They used up an entire bottle of novocaine trying it numb it for suturing, but I was still screaming my head off -- that is, I would have been, but the doctor doing the sewing was really cute, and I was trying to impress her with my stoic manliness. Ah, youth.

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Whatever works, works.

Didn't work in the shop last night. Instead I finished cleaning out/up my old pickup, 2004 Nissan 4cyl, extended cab with about 189,900 miles on it.  It's getting donated to NPR. Funny, my old vehicles tend to be given away or scrapped once they get to the "not worth fixing" stage.  My "new pickup is a 4 cyl 2004 Toyota with 92,000 miles on it,  not as fancy as the Nissan (which had power windows, door locks, automatic transmission.) 

My "new" Toy has crank up windows, rear side windows that open slightly, manual door locks, standard transmission and  KEY operated locks on *each* door!  Plain metal key too.  All *FEATURES* as far as I'm concerned!  (Rather than fancy luxuries that are expensive to fix when they break.)  Also the cruise control works!  I've never bought a vehicle based on Color or what kind of transmission it had and tend to go for older imported pickups with low miles; I love "estate" vehicles from old curmudgeons who followed the maintenance schedule to the letter!

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Had the subframe of a bucket truck fall on my hand one day. Severed the pinky at the first knuckle joint, luckily it dislocated the joint rather than cut the bone. It was danglig by a little skin and meat. Layed my hand flat on a table and with a good whack by the heal of the opposite hand i relocated the knuckle. Took a piece of paper towel soaked it in peroxide and wrapped it in. Then covered with electrical tape and back to pulling the trans out of that truck. My finger is now "L" shaped becuase of the severed tendon on the top. 

Wish i could still drive a standard but my knees do not allow that for very long.  

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The told me that they could splint my finger and it would look great---but wouldn't bend at that joint ever again.  Or they could splint it overnight and the next day we could break open the joint and if I kept working it as it "healed"; it may end up looking funny; but work for some definitions of working.    As I'm more a "function over appearance" type of guy---well it sort of works. Also tells me when the weather is changing and DOES NOT LIKE COLD.  "Breaking it open" that first time would have amused the Marquis d' Sade though I was not amused.

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14 hours ago, Jaegers Forge and Foundry said:

I'm still looking for someone to weld my burners holders on

That's about the lamest excuse I've heard all week. Don't you know how to use pop rivets or a drill? 

Cut three 1" x 2" strips per burner from sheet steel, 18ga. would do but thicker would be better, 14 ga. is more than enough. Put 1/2 of the strips in the vise (If you make me tell you lengthwise I'm going to write you off as un-helpable) Bend the strips 90*. drill a hole each side of the bend and clamp it to the burner sleeve. Drill the sleeve and pop rivet them together. Set the burner in position in the burner port, drill the forge shell and pop rivet them together. 

Frosty The Lucky.

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You can rivet a sheet metal "washer" over the gap while you are riveting the burner port on. 

 

Q: When is the preferred solution not really the preferred solution? 

A: When you cannot accomplish the preferred solution with your resources. 

 

Some common phrases associated with the topic:

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Good enough is good enough. 

Don't gold plate it. 

Make do. 

Use what you've got. 

A bird in hand is worth two in the bush. 

 

Every now and then, we all try to do something "right" without realizing that we are defining "right" too tightly. 

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Yeah, he's a kid Thomas. Look at his posts he can't stay on topic long enough to read the replies let alone use one. Riveted tabs to  mount burner sleeves has been getting mentioned every couple weeks for years. Reading doesn't seem to enter into a kid's idea of research. 

It's why I so seldom offer a solution, I don't think he pays enough attention to ignore them.

Frosty The Lucky.

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         speaking of welding that old monkey ward buzz box has been pretty fun.  im horrible at using 6011 but luckily my buddy gave me a bunch of 7018 and this 7014 that works so well you just give it a tappity tap and the slag shell pops off revealing a crispy stack of uncirculated dimes.  im getting pretty ambitious with this lathe build.  hopefully im not in over my head.

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