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I Forge Iron

What did you do in the shop today?


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I have found a fresh pair of socks are even nice in hot places also. We used to hang our britches in front of the stove in the winter also. 

Twigg, i wooden knock it. It's knot that bad. B)

So the lady of the estate told me that she needed some doors hung in the manor. I contacted the local crafts guild to do them. The head of the carpenters guild knows where in the dungeons below the estate are the original hardwood doors that guarded the manor, which will need some nice hardware from the smiths guild. Today i got a good start on a thumb latch. Started as 1/2" square, not enough for the top, so i bent it around, twice, welded it all up for enough mass. Roughed out the lever part, it will be a trial and error fit, and the locking bar. It will contact with another that goes horizontal on the door and locks in at the top in the frame, more towards the middle of the door. 

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Still a lot of clean up work to do and the like. 

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Got bit by a junkyard dog today and so not much work in the shop afterwards.  Not a bad bite and the scrapyard owner gave me the stuff I had already found for free and helped me douse my hand with Hydrogen Peroxide before I bound it up with my bandana...He assured me that the dog had had it's shots too.

My wife was not amused and washed, treated and bandaged my hand to suit herself...

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JHCC,

Has cogently suggested, that  "a leather welding jacket is good for shop work in the wind and the cold".

Similarly the SLAG has resorted to the combination of a down vest covered by a loose leather jacket,  also,  works very well in cold weather.

The Good Will and Saint Vincent de Paul etc.,  etc., stores  frequently have many such leather jackets for a very reasonable price.

Regards Ya'll,

SLAG.

 

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3 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

Got bit by a junkyard dog today

How'd that happen, I thought you frequented that yard regularly. Did you surprise it or maybe spilled can of anchovy juice on you at lunch? 

I'll bet the dog bite isn't as hard to take as the Mrs. ire. 

PR, Thomas, PR!

Frosty The Lucky.

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Chimaera, I love the whale. I've gotta try some of those.

I keep hearing people talk about solar heating + water heat pipe + heat exchanger for driveways to melt the snow (here in Colorado I think every house has this feature by default if they have direct sun on their driveways). That's all well and good, but how come no one's made one for socks and gloves like a clothes line? Guilt free warm socks!

Thomas, ouch! I hope it heals soon!

I got through another two leaves today when my forge started to self-destruct. Lining started falling off in chunks with bits of unrigidized fiber blanket everywhere. At least now I know how I messed up. I checked my bottle of water glass and it's still full. When I did the "rigidizing", I had two zepp sprayers: one for water for buttering and one for the water glass. I must've grabbed the wrong sprayer and used the water twice. D'oh!! Now I get why they dye the branded stuff blue. For dopes like me! :wacko:

Anyways, I'm not happy enough with this forge to justify sinking more time into it. The only thing going for it is size and being sturdy. Time to move on and simplify! There's nothing I want to do that I could do with that forge that I couldn't do with a good hand torch.

After that, I did a little burner testing on my 1/2" Mikey burner and there's a lot of secondary flame. The jet ejector tip is wobbling loose even with the set screw... Might be time to retire it. Or solder the loose joint and give it a new life as a hand torch.

I'm thinking smaller and hotter for my next forge. Right now I'm thinking of copying teenylittlemetalguy's two-brick forge design with the 1/2" frosty T. That thing looks fun! Going to throw up a thread for advice in the gas forges section.

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Thomas, 

My wife the nurse would have been furious, especially with the dog. I'm sorry to hear you had such a rough day; I shudder at the scene in my mind! I nicked the tip of my thumb this evening on my table saw while processing some tinder for a charcoal burn. After a proper cleaning and bandaging, she might as well have cauterized me considering her scalding reprimand of my incompetence!

Sidewalk Cold Work

This afternoon as I was rounding the west side of my front yard with a bundle of willow in my arms to cut in the garage, I noticed a guy stop on the main road just before my driveway. He then put it in reverse and backed around the corner onto the intersecting road (I live on a corner), attempting to turn around on the main road. Unfortunately when he did so, he backed up over the snow bank and the curb and straight into the stop sign that stood on the corner, knocking it right over. He saw me see him do it. I smiled, waved, set down my bundle and headed his way. 

"Well, it's not the first time its happened!" I said. Truly, it happened last summer when I wasn't home. It was a bit worse that time and the Village took care of it, eventually. 

"I would fix it but I would have to go get my tools", he said.

"No worries, I've got the tools." My garage just steps away, I went and grabbed a 1/2" socket wrench and pliers, cranked the bolt off and removed the remaining chunk of post from inside the female end of square tubing buried in the ground. We noticed that due to the way the post broke at the base, it was bent on one side of the square tubing and needed to be corrected to fit in the receiving end again. I went and grabbed a 2lb hammer in the garage.

When I got back, he had the working end of the post resting atop a brake rotor --yes, an unrelated brake rotor was found mysteriously embedded in the snow bank-- which was placed on the sidewalk. He held the long post level with the face of the thin, momentary, urban anvil as I took to it with the hammer, making quick work of the shape we needed. With a light shimmy and little more force with the hammer, we sunk the post into place and bolted it back together. 

In no more than 10 minutes we, as strangers, shared in a little civic work. While attempting to part after exchanging niceties, a stutter-step and shoulder-lean occurred between us as we both resisted the inclination to shake hands. An unfortunate, unnatural, confused consideration of the moment. I walked back to my willow, to the garage and back to work toward pyrolysis. 

 

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My ex-wifes step father owned a garage and behind it was a small junk yard. He kept a huge mongrel of a beast to guard it, one of those dogs missing half an ear, huge scar across one eye, and built like a brick... He was quite a good natured lovable beast once you got to know him. He would come over and lean on my legs to get scratches behind his ears, but he weighed every bit of 100# and he would lean all his weight into you. 

Thomas, look on the bright side at least it was not a junkyard Komodo Dragon. Seriously though, hope it heals soon with out complications.  

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BB, Komodo’s what I keep in the garage, in the basement during the winter. Twigg, I really do want to try one of those whales. Now, if I can find some wrought iron, I think that’d be an awesome first wrought iron project.

And I’m not sure if you realized or not, I didn’t make that. I just want to

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Doing well so far, more of a slice than a puncture.  Some of the family live at the yard and currently have 3 GSDs and a chihuahua, the chihuahua usually being the problem.  One of the GSDs was keeping an eye on me and I guess I went for a piece of scrap a bit too close, no growling just a lunge and a snap.  The junkyard cats I'd worry more about as I don't think they receive the level of care that the large healthy dogs do.

They have had issues with folks stealing scrap from near the back entrance and then trying to sell it back to them.

I'll probably go out to the shop after church and brush any snow that made it over to the anvils off.  I think *someone* was telling me to take it easy yesterday afternoon as we had the second snow of the season; probably about 1/2"... supposed to get in the 60's later next week.  We generally go with thermonuclear snow removal down here in the valley while our friends in the mountains have to deal with more taxing snow removal methods.

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Did nothing in the shop today but did get some reading done. I was reading some old blacksmiths books on-line and it kind of struck me how they would, like many things today, contradict each other. Like one book i read said you can not weld cast iron, while another told how to do it. I guess it kind of shows there is no right or wrong way just what works for you. 

A couple things that i read made me chortle a little. One described how to build a JABOD, did not call it that though. And one said do not use cast iron anvils. Not that i think any of that is new but just kind of made me smile seeing it having heard both here so much. 

Learned a lot today really though. Even how to tie a bridle. Big thanks to the Missouri Blacksmiths Association that provided much of the info i read free on-line.  

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I played around at the forge for a while, and came up with a bottle opener made from a head bolt from a Mercedes ML320. I'll give it to a friend of mine who is into Mercedes, and bottled beer.  Then roughed out bolt tongs. Still need some tweaking, and finishing. And one big honkin' clinker.

big clinker (Copy).jpg

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Today I made another knife. I used that same steel rod I've been using. First knife I used an 8 inch piece. Next it was a 6 inch piece. Today I  did a 4 inch piece and figure that's about right for a small knife. I only used the three pound cross peen to spread it some and the two pound ball peen for the same reason. The rest of the forging I used that little bodywork hammer. I didn't wear out as fast this time and the metal responded well. 

 

Also made another spoon. Used an allen head bolt and this time it welded just perfect. And the thing might be useable when I'm done with it. 

 

Here's the blade fresh from the quench.

WIN_20210110_14_24_40_Pro.jpg

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Spent a little time out in the shop yesterday between my two oldest girls swimming meet ( pickup/drop off) since no spectators are allowed. 

Drew out another spike for a steak turner, still have to perform the tail but my 11 year old made me promise to wait for her as she wants to help so that will happen another day.

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Then decided to try a hammer out a knife.  Made some mistakes as the blade started to banana a little and I did not forge the tip well at all.  I will probably hit it with the grinder to get the tip, but the bevels are even and I have a nice straight edge. 

 

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Some things learned yesterday:

 

1.  Need to plumb in shut off valves in the forge so I can run one burner when only needing to heat a small portion of the medium.  Or maybe I am wrong and it will use more fuel to keep it at temp only running one burner. 

2.  Once I get the spike flattened out a bit, use the horn and bend the spike down so when working the bevels the blade comes back up and does not banana

3.  Work the tip in the beginning.  NOT the end... AS you can see.

4.  I need a post vice.  Twisting on the bench, at least on mine, is a pain.  A post vice on its own on a stand would help this. 

5.  A long distance relative reached out to me and said he had two books on blacksmithing he wants to send me and I can't wait to read them.  " The Complete Blacksmith" and " The Pattern Welded Blade".  Looking forward to both.

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I confess I'm kind of fascinated by those big ol' clinkers.  I'm still figuring out my charcoal forge so they aren't a problem for me.  Anyway, I'm trying to think of ways to recycle or otherwise use those things, probably a lost cause or too much work, but still wondering.

 

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Paul, I haven’t had too much clinker with a few exceptions-

1 when I spilled borax in the gorge. Not a fun day

2 when I melted some mokume game and I had copper infused coal

3 when my idiot friend put his piece in when the shop vac was hooked up (to preheat it) and melted 5” of .5” rebar and I had a clinker made of steel and coal 4” round.

those aren’t really clinkers, but they sure are messes. Sorry for bad typing, on mobile

Hornet, looks good, especially for a first. The top pic looks like the spike head is off to the side instead of up and down. Might just be perspective. While the tip is less than perfect, very nice straight bevels. Sweet of your daughter to want to get involved, and seeet if you to let her

TP, was it BB that got you? I hear he’s Back to giving free tooth hugs.

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On 1/11/2021 at 11:08 AM, Paul TIKI said:

I confess I'm kind of fascinated by those big ol' clinkers.

Me too. They seem to be glass/iron. I use anthracite coal and those clinkers make me wonder what was that coal other than dead wood. I did find a broken piece of pottery in my last bag of coal. Gotta wonder where that came from.

I took a picture of my latest spoon. here it is

WIN_20210111_09_10_20_Pro.jpg

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Don't you just hate it when you spill borax in the forge!   

I try to keep the borax away from the forge and usually use a steel dustpan to go under the billet to save any popcorn or over spread---it goes back in the flux barrel and gradually it becomes more and more anhydrous.

Recycling Clinker, are you old enough to remember "cinder tracks" at the high school?  Back when coal was a common heating fuel cinders were used for many garden walkways too.  I throw it out on the dirt driveway to the smithy---if you can call what we have out here dirt...

Hornet do you know the trick of heating the curving blade and placing it arc up on the anvil face and tapping it with the hammer till the spine is in contact with the anvil face.  I find that easier then doing a pre curved blank.  I also don't consider RR spikes a proper alloy for a knife post the Dark Ages---RR clips have about double the carbon content of a spike!

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