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What did you do in the shop today?


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Thanks Frosty. I will get some better pictures during night time hours with and without the door down. 
Side note - I did not ask too many questions but I read about 20 hours of text in the forums about forge building and watched at least as many hours of videos before I did anything (lesson for newbies and those that aspire to be newbies). 

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Don't sell yourself short BsnNFrnt. Just reading and watching videos isn't enough, takes sense and knowhow to convert all the . . . stuff out there into a good machine. There are so many different ways to do any of this stuff it can be hard for experienced folk to sift the good from the bad. A new guy who can pull it off says a lot.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

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Thank you Sir. The juice was worth the squeeze, let it be said that I have three different kinds of welders, a super supportive spouse and no budget limits. Any of the three can be overwhelming for people looking to build a forge. 

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9 hours ago, Are John said:

the second piece different to the first,

What I would do is to make another set and make one match the one on the left and the other match the one on the right. Then put the matching sides together.

7 hours ago, Frosty said:

 matching the rivet holes so my trick is to punch one, then put the two halves together in position and mark the second half through the existing rivet hole.

You mean that's not how it's supposed to be done. I've been doing that for decades.:D

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I'm probably just slow and out of touch. A good friend hardly even looks and his tongs are always just what's needed. He has one whole wall of his garage covered several deep. It's faster for him to make a pair of tongs than find it.

Frosty The Lucky.

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Gave my first attempt at making a bottle opener and it ended in failure :(. I was able to drift a hole into the material, but I apparently need a larger drift as the horn on my anvil does not have a very fine point and I could not use to to help expand the hole I made. I am going to try to remedy the horn probably this coming weekend and make it a little less blunt so its a more usable.

I suppose on the plus side, one I fix the horn or get a larger drift, I should be able to finish the one I started.

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That forge is amazing oo I wish. But I will work with what I have soon as my packages come in the mail I get attempt 2 at getting my forge together. 

Hammers are beautiful.

just itching to use mine but did cold forge (I believe is correct term)started making a nail into little blade and a started old silver nickel into ring. 

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On 8/22/2021 at 10:51 PM, Ted Ewert said:

 

20210822_171019.thumb.jpg.7da4f1ff3f1003562c99f3db907eede3.jpg

Ted - these are amazing. I’m always jealous of the finish for the pictures you post - it’s one of my biggest problems with my own work. I already asked what you use once before and you said you apply a satin clear coat. I got a rustoleum satin clear coat but it seemed to literally peel off once it was dried and looked terrible. I’m guessing I maybe didn’t clean the surface well enough before applying. Do you have a specific brand you use/# of coats/process? The finish on this compared to the door knocker is quite different unless it’s just the lighting but both are finishes I’d really like to be able to replicate. Appreciate any tips you can give. Everyone here makes great stuff but yours and Alexandr’s work are always the ones that seem to strike a chord with me the most. 

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3 hours ago, SinDoc said:

I am going to try to remedy the horn probably this coming weekend and make it a little less blunt so its a more usable.

May I suggest that you make a drift of the size you want and use it for a while.  This will prove that is the size you need.  Change or modify the size as needed.  When you finish you will have the exact tool for the bottle openers.  It would seem that you would have to make a lot of bottles openers before you permanently modify and dedicate the anvil for the same task.

Look at the working end of a pick as a starting point.  There are other tools that are available that may work like a store bought drift, or a bolt that can be hammered into a drift. May be able to find a piece of pipe of the right OD and taper the rest.  Consider a two stage process, one to start, and one to finish the size you need.

Use all this as a reason to get a second anvil with a horn the size you want for this one job.

 

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I fully agree with the buying/making of a larger drift and will more than likely do that. The horn has been an ongoing problem whenever I try to utilize it as it is so "blunt" the end of it is larger than a quarter. Not the first time it has caused me a headache being unable to really use it because of that. I am going to try to find something I can use as a supplement instead before I go hogging off metal to make it more....pointy. Having an improvised horn that I could sit vertically would actually be super helpful. 

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Another good option would be to make a bick or cone for the hardie hole in you anvil. The horns of my anvils are in good condition, but I like to use a hardie cone for small detail work. It’s easier for me to look straight down on the work piece to see any imperfections. (Not that I can get them perfect…)

David

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A CV joint shaft makes a nice bick. Square one end to fit the hardy, taper the other. Bend it 90* at the hardy. You can turn it and use it as a fuller along the length of the anvil, turn it so it hangs over the side and it makes a nice small horn, i have one i even forged a half round in for rounding small stock.

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Bull pin with the base forged down to fit the hardy hole works for a vertical taper bic.  (Got a bunch cheap over the years at fleamarkets in Central OH).

Getting/making  drifts and a proper bolster plate for using it works fine.  Here in the USA a quarter is about the appropriate size for a bottle opener.  If you make a lot of them either making a drop through drift the correct size or marking the right place to stop on a dedicated drift will speed things up.

TW I have the opposite issue: my cat chews on power tool and extension cords till they are unusable.  I am seeing less rodent damage in the shop since the ferel "barn cats" have been hanging around the yard.  Unfortunately with a dirt/sand floor I don't let them *in* the shop!

Saturday took a new smith to the scrapyard in the morning; I think we got out with only 98# of steel including some tools, The large (2" across?) bar of hexagonal stock still needs testing to see if it's an interesting alloy.  Unfortunately the new fellow had a minor car accident when he went out to lunch and so couldn't attend the afternoon session when we fired up the forge and a couple of other smiths stopped by to play.  I had a twist example I was working on and had a failure. A36 I guess and cooling it to localize the twist ended up making a section brittle.  Memo to self---always draw temper after doing a "cooling to localize heat" process if the piece doesn't get reheated again!

Sunday worked on mounting the oak board that my coat hooks would go on.  Had trouble locating the studs as they seem to be spaced weird and I don't have a stud finder.  Finally went into the back of a closet on the opposite side of the wall and located them there as a shelf in the closet was fastened to the studs. Drilled a small hole next to the side of the stud where it will be covered by the oak board and was ablte to site, drill, countersink and mount the oak board.  Adding the hooks will be easier!

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I have been wanting a cone mandrel for my hardy as my anvils horn is in such bad shape it's hard to use it even for doing curves on hooks. I really want to just give it to my friend who's a machinist for a weekend and let him meticulously "repair" it and get it back into a more even and usable shape. Having both a vertical and horizontal cone would help immensely though. Maybe I will put that on the christmas list to the wife :lol:

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You can forge both, hot filing to smooth out the texture and sand it if you want smooth. You don't need a floor cone, just something to work curved sections smaller than will slip off the anvil's horn.

It's the blacksmitherly way to get the tools you need. Provided it's within your abilities and tools of course. 

Frosty The Lucky. 

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Cant answer about the power hammer but there website only activities listed is a knife making class and the monthly meeting. No open forging listed right now. 

Good move keeping the cats out. I keep my coal in the barn and the cats get in it. I learned the hard way to look carefully at my coal for "gifts", you really do not want one in your forge. 

I was hanging a TV bracket once, measured where the stud should be an drilled a hole. Nothing, moved some and nothing. I ended up drilling about 10 or 15 small holes looking for the stud. In that span i should have hit at least 2. Oh, i was not at my house in was my daughters, so i sucked it up and went and got the stud finder. The very first hole i drilled hit the stud but my small drill bit was so sharp it went  through the wood like there was nothing there. 

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Stud finders don't work in my house because my drywall is attached to the old lath board that I assume used to have plaster on it. Makes hanging heavy things like a tv hard as I have to guess where the actual studs are. On the upside, my average wall thickness is about an inch and a half, so lots of insulation!

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My previous house was structural brick---no studs on the outside walls, and plaster and lath on the inside walls.  100+ years old and horribly remuddled---I still have nightmares about the plumbing and wiring in that house.  One of the requirements in buying our current house was that it didn't need massive amounts of work!  (Of course we sold the old house for 3 times what we paid for it and that allowed us to get our current one and get it paid off in 15 years!) 

Nice thing about a metal walled shop is you can stick things to the walls with Magnets!

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