What did you do in the shop today?

[Frosty]

Another masterful job Aleandr. I wasn't sure how the hangers worked until I saw them installed then they made perfect sense. I really like how the square profile of the lanterns compliments the exposed lumber interior, they go together beautifully. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[pnut]

4 hours ago, Irondragon ForgeClay Works said:

If you have one of those self storage units close by and it's in your budget, might think about renting a small unit

I do have one but the management doesn't want me to work there. I can't store fuel there either.  

Pnut

[Chimaera]

Pnut- that makes sense. Wait, is it discount in the spring??

[pnut]

Is TSC anthracite discounted in the spring or a storage unit? If you talk with a supervisor you can usually get a deal on seasonal items if you catch them at the end of the season. I've never heard of a storage unit being discounted seasonally but it wouldn't surprise me. 

Pnut

[JHCC]

Individual branches will sometimes discount if they have overstock and need the warehouse space. 

I worked on a couple of paying jobs: a custom hatchet and a wallhanger Viking sword. The latter will be going to the husband of an old school friend when he finished chemotherapy next month. 

Also made some heavier hooks and reorganized the long stock rack.

[BillyBones]

Alexandr, as always nice. I too was not sure how them would hang. 

JHCC, handle plans? 

Finished my flower rake for the wife and started my first claw hammer. Would have finished more of it but i ovr indulged last night and i am feeling like "The all American kid from NY city."

I mostly tried the hammer so i could try out my new swage block stand, worked purty good a few tweeks are needed but supported the block quite nicely. 

 

[JHCC]

2 hours ago, BillyBones said:

JHCC, handle plans?

Something along the lines of a Peterson type A or type H/I, with a bone grip.

[BillyBones]

15 hours ago, JHCC said:

Peterson type A or type H/I

Well to be honest that is Greek to me. So thankfully we live in an age where info is at my fingertips. I honestly did not know there were that many Viking sword variations. 

Years ago i watched a show were a guy made a Viking sword in the traditional method. Or at least that is what they said. Even went as far as gathering peat to put in a bloomery to get the iron from it. Took the iron and refined it into rods, then twisted them together, welded and made a sword from them. Pretty cool to watch.

[Chad J.]

I work in a rough environment and tools rarely last.   They never break,  they get dropped and disappear into the void composed of chicken droppings.  Anyway I decided I need a better pry bar for my mechanic for getting 2 hole bearings off equipment. So on that I made this.  I made 2 others before this without the split end.   It's not as nice as I'd like but, well his much time do I want to spend on something that will end up in a farmer's field?  I used a railroad spike and let it air cool.

 

 

[ThomasPowers]

Now spray paint it that lime green safety color to help keep it visible when dropped.

Anstee did some great work trying to figure out how pattern welded swords were made; but the idea that they were made by twisting round rods together is pretty much disproved.  Round rods take a lot more time and effort to make, are harder to weld together without gaps and the patterns seen are easily made by welding square stock of various alloys together and *then* twisting and welding the resultant pieces together.

Also you don't smelt peat, you do smelt "bog iron" found in peat bogs with the right chemistry---it's a renewable resource too!

[Donal Harris]

Never work at the forge without PPE.

 

Needed to just do a quick trim up on a piece of gate hardware. Piece slipped in the jaws of the vise. Grinding disc jumps down to try to make a snack of my thumb. I cleaned it up and taped it back closed as best as I could. 
 

I did get the piece I was trimming trimmed before going to the house for a cleanup. 

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

Ouch! Glad it didn’t go any deeper! Thumbs are kinda hard to operate without 

[SLAG]

SLAG,     Here,

That gash should be looked at, by a medical practitioner 

For one to prevent infection.

Two:  it may require stitches.

If you can afford it, get a plastic surgeon to examine it and do the stitching.

They do the best job and leave the least scars. 

Good luck with it.

SLAG.

[Goods]

Not today, but yesterday at a local hammer in. I was working on making a small ball been hammer and all was going well. Keep it good and hot while working it, and normalized twice. Then at the heart treat, I learned the material I started with wasn’t 1045 like I thought. Loud “tink” sound, and everyone thought it was just the tongs, but it didn’t sound right to me, then another “tink”.  Took it out and several large cracks. Looked up the specs on the guide post material I was using, and boy was I wrong, 52100!

I guess, next time I use this material it will be oil quenched. At least the grain was really fine. 

Overall, I was pretty happy. Haven’t swung a hammer since the last meet-up (and my gear is probably going to stay packed for at least another month.) It was a good time with great folks!

Any other ideas for 52100 material. This was a 25mm diameter post, but I have almost unlimited supply of it up to 75mm diameter.

 Keep it fun,

David

[JHCC]

I welded a bit into a hatchet I’m making and did the initial grinding:

(The customer likes the rough forged/smooth ground contrast.)

 There’s a bit of a cold shut between the mild body and the bit on the other side, and I’m seriously considering running a bead of weld across it to make it a bit more solid. I have to reheat the blade anyway, as there’s an asymmetry that needs to get straightened beyond what I can do with grinding. 

 

[Jonnytait]

Nice hatchet. Nothing wrong with reaching for the electric welder. Thats what its there for, when all else fails! 

[gmbobnick]

God delivered free quenchant here in Wyoming today.  What better reason to go out to the forge and tinker?

[George N. M.]

A couple feet here at 7500' in Laramie. 5-6' drifts.  Visibility less than 50' when we got up this morning.  Partially clear now but more coming. 35 mph winds with 50+ gusts.  Worst storm in the nearly 3 years we've been here. Will have to dig out the path to the shop.  Good time to stay in and read IFI.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand." 

[Donal Harris]

Working on gate anchors for my fence. I am not sure why I decided the “hard way” was the way to go. I could have just punched and drifted a hole on each end of a piece of flat bar, bent the ends 90 degrees, punched a couple of holes to attach it to the gate and called it done. 
 

But where is the fun in that. I decided I wanted two guides for the anchor rod to slide through. Wasn’t sure how to best do that, so I experimented with two methods. 
 

1. Wrap flat bar around the anchor and then open it up and bend the wings flat. Then forge weld that bit to another piece of flat bar. Just in case my weld failed, I riveted the two halve together before welding them. 
 

2. Same except laid the top flat bar over the anchor in the anvil and hammered the flat bar down over the anchor. Then forge welded the two halves together without riveting. 
 

Method 1 seems to be best. It has material below the anchor hole that can stretch without putting stress on the welds. The second method doesn’t have that. If the top bar stops stretching, there is very good chance the welds on one side or the other will fail. Would rivets have helped prevent that. I really don’t believe it would.

 

Tomorrow I will just go the easy way and use a single piece of flat bar. 

The forge welding practice was nice though. 

[Frosty]

7 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

Also you don't smelt peat, you do smelt "bog iron" found in peat bogs with the right chemistry---it's a renewable resource too!

Wasn't peat burned down for the iron content which was then smelted in a bloomery? Same source of iron just skipping the middle microbes necessary to make bog iron. 

Goodness DHarris, you put a bandage on THAT? Joking aside you might want to have that looked at in case. Were we closer I'd cauterize it for you and take care of infection worries.

I don't know how good a hammer 52100 would make, I'd be concerned about work hardening and needing chips dug out of my hide. 

Nice looking hatchet John, you're getting good at them.

Frosty The Lucky.

[JHCC]

Thanks, Frosty. Only my second, and  the first with a punched eye. 

[bluerooster]

52100 makes nice blades.

[ThomasPowers]

52100: blades and ball bearings and smaller bearing races  if you have a supply of it, it would be popular at Quad-State as selling or trading material!!!!  1" stock, (25mm) could probably pay for your trip and entry fee if it was in convenient lengths and prices!

Bogs: the iron was in the water and concentrated by the microbes; burning peat would be a lot like trying to get the iron out of blood, a lot more work to get very little payoff.

Wounds:  I'm not much worried about scars---unless they will cause problems in using that area.  My dogbite scar follows a line on my palm so few people even notice it.  I'm getting rather gap toothed too as I don't want to spend thousands on cosmetic dentistry when the anchoring teeth will probably not last long as it is---genetics and diabetes are a double whammy on my mouth. I'll live with the hillbilly look till I go artificial.

I've always been perplexed about people doing "Medieval and Renaissance Cooking" using a modern stove/oven.  The taste of a hamburger cooked on a grill is different than the taste of one cooked in a frying pan; the methods used are *part* of the recipe in my opinion!  "The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi" pub 1570 has a very nice set of woodcuts showing the equipment he used to cook with for 5 Popes including when travelling. Lots of things to be forged!

Blacksmithing:  finished off the 5th  coat hook; one more to go!  Tried some differing things doing the head this time---including after cutting the mouth, taking the lower section and drawing it out and then cutting it lengthwise to make two tusks. Didn't have a bridge that would fit so I drew it out against the side of a stout well fitting hardy.  "There is only ONE correct way to do a blacksmithing task!  *ANYWAY* that *WORKS*"

[Chimaera]

On 3/13/2021 at 5:14 PM, pnut said:

s TSC anthracite discounted in the spring or a storage unit?

Sorry, coal.

[Deimos]

18 hours ago, DHarris said:

I cleaned it up and taped it back closed as best as I could. 

Anything over 10mm should be looked at by a professional, if only for getting a fresh Tetanus injection.