11 hours ago, JHCC said:

Vernonia noveboracensis?

No, just some species of Mentha Spicata. It grows wild around my shop, i love the smell in the spring and summer. 

I took Latin in high school. I remember very little, but we did have to translate Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" into Latin. We were each given one part of the play that was translated then we had to stand in front of the class and read the translations. 

Not my shop but at work. Just though this was kind of cool looking and thought i would share. After i shut down for the night my chips had made pillar under the chute the parts drop out of. 

Edit: Just had to be the first to post on THIS page, my luck.

Just goes to show that mint will grow just about anywhere. 

(Although "spicata" is the species; you might be thinking "variety".)

A friend came and picked up his jetski from the shop.  I  took the time to rearrange everything since it was in the back.  I'm trying to decide how to best set up my shop.   Organization is not my strong suit but it seems to me that I'm going to want to build a fairly  substantial partition between the hot works side of my shop and the woodworking.  My biggest concern is future purchases of toys, I mean equipment.  

A substantial partition between the side that produces fire and the side that produces flammable dust? Sounds like a good idea to me!

Aw come on JHCC, fine wood dust is only SLIGHLTY flammable. What could possibly go wrong if you do separate the two sides? 

Billy is that stack an alloy you can weld back together in a cannister weld?  At a Quad-State about 25 years ago I saw a blade a fellow had made from lathe swarf that way.  (If it's Low C you could mix it with some cast iron shavings; a brake lathe probably has pounds around it!)

As for shop "Partings"  My original shop was 20'x30' and built by a commercial builder; all steel  with a concrete floor. This is my "clean shop".    To that *I* added another 20'x30' mainly steel, (4 utility pole sections hold up the structure), addition with a dirt/sand/clay/gravel---whatever was in the arroyo---floor with open gables; which is my "dirty shop".  For forge work grinding, welding, rough storage, etc.  The two have a steel wall and a 10'x10' roll up door so I can keep them separate when it helps the project I am doing.  The total shop actually has 3 10'x10' roll up doors pretty much in line and inline with the common wind directions, (up and down the valley).

With electrification I expect I will be spending more time in the clean shop AND more time in my dirty shop.  My wife is expecting that too.

19 minutes ago, SinDoc said:

What could possibly go wrong

You're talking to a guy who (a) used to be a professional woodworker and (b) may or may not have been involved in the creation of sawdust bombs that produced fifty-foot flames.

 

If they were "intentional" then they weren't "wrong".  If not, then OOPS!

Let's not forget my shop is a hundred year old timber frame barn.   I'm planning on framing out the walls in the hot works area and putting corrugated on the base of the walls.

I'd go high with that, it's a pain when a piece flips up and over the fire shield and you have to pour water over it to cool things off. 

Out here where you can often light a 6" log with a kitchen match I went with steel walls and a steel roof and heavily creosoted utility poles for the uprights in my smithy---you can smell when a hot piece hits them!

Thomas, i do not know. It is 12L14 which i thought we could not forge with but have been told different recently. I have also never done a canister. Maybe one day but i do not make a lot of knives so it is not real high on my things to do list. 

JHCC, variety is it then, i see you know much more about plants than i. To be honest i had to look up the name. I love mint one of if not my favorite flavors, especially ice cream with some chocolate chips, the shavings kind not the ones in a bag. 

2 hours ago, Chad J. said:

Organization is not my strong suit

My wife says, "organized folks are just too lazy to look for things". She counts me in that category.

ChadJ, I think I would do some sort of fireproofing behind the sheeting. Maybe a cement / clay wash, or stucco. Anything to help seal the dry wood from any sparks.

Pattern welding doesn't have to be a blade!  I'm slowly working on a pattern welded spangen helm and I've seen pictures of a pattern welded pastry tool with an ivory wheel.  Pattern welded bowls, shoot if the laws were not so picky I'd do a pattern welded bumper!

5 minutes ago, BIGGUNDOCTOR said:

ChadJ, I think I would do some sort of fireproofing behind the sheeting.

Spraying or painting on a solution (in water) of equal parts borax and boric acid is a cheap and effective fire retardant. The borax inhibits flame spread, while the boric acid inhibits smoldering.

Make sure to avoid coating any wiring inside the wall.

Today I tried making barrels for my hinges again, this time with a proper drift in the right size, and also put together the pintle plates for said hinges. Now I want to do a fleur de lis finial on the ends, but I haven't decided what decoration I want to do for the rest of the hinge. Tonight I'm making some sketches to see what I like best.

 

~Jobtiel

That Early American Wrought Iron book by Sonn would be good for such ideas. 

6 hours ago, Irondragon ForgeClay Works said:

My wife says, "organized folks are just too lazy to look for things". She counts me in that category.

my mother is the opposite of that. me and my father have given her that line a few times or "ok you want a ___________ give me 15 minutes and I'll bring it to you"

 

Today I got to fire up my forge for a couple hours or so. My mom gave me a bunch of hinges. Well half hinges made of 1/4 inch steel welded to a tube. I have one I cut the tube off one and sanded/ground on it until it became an adapter for my tool rest on my lathe. I cut off a kinda small piece and hammered it into a blade.  I don't know if it hardened on the quench yet. It's still 115 in my shop. When it gets down to 90 I'll go up and see how it did.  Only had a couple blades harden. Both made from a really, really rusty piece of threaded rod. I use one of them as a utility knife and it has already cut me bad several times. But when your hands are numbed, and deadened by strokes it's to be expected.

7 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

shoot if the laws were not so picky I'd do a pattern welded bumper!

Usually the laws seem to be about height maybe width and no sharp edges to catch on things. Not sure about everywhere tho.

Finally got out to forge a little. Didnt do much, but I did take one of my knife like objects and tried a heat treat. I successfully hardened it, at least I assume so since it snapped like a twig with minimal force. Ill have to take a picture or two of the cross section so I can have some of you experts explain what I am looking at lol.

Was 1084 quenced in water that was roughly 100 degrees. Didnt have any pings or concerning sounds when I quenched it. I assume if i had gone and done a tempering cycle, while a badly shaped one, it could have been called a knife.

Ah, touché, Thomas, touché. Of course you can do more with pattern welding, i just always think of knives with canister. Probably becuase of that show that shall not be named.  

Not having a TV or smart phone and not streaming stuff on the computer; I have only seen one episode of FiF and that was not even the one one of my former students was in!  I didn't like it as the better designer and better smith lost to someone who basically made a crowbar---the tests were not representative of what the blade they asked for would have faces in use.

Probably why the fancier ways of making pattern welded  materials are generally associated with blades is that the time and the effort to do them can generally only be cost effective for a blade---or a wedding ring!

22 hours ago, BillyBones said:

ice cream with some chocolate chips, the shavings kind not the ones in a bag. 

Talenti makes a great raspberry gelato with chocolate shavings, and their cylindrical 1-pint plastic jars are perfect for sorting and storing nuts, bolts, screws, etc.