just get sticky led tape lights  and adhere to one side.

H-13 will "cottage cheese" on you if you get it too hot---unfortunately as stiff as it is under the hammer heating it hotter seems like a good idea.  IT IS NOT!

Look at the tempering temps for H-13.

Lots of scroll making for another commission:

Which got a lot easier when I converted one side of my smallest scrolling wrench into a cam that I could use to wedge the tip of the scroll in place:

Also split one of my chunks of S7 into three strips that I’ll make into punches or something eventually. 

Man, I love that treadle hammer. 

Haven't ran the forge lately. Tennis elbow struck my left arm so that makes both arms that become useless with little effort. Been wanting to get me a propane forge going. I had an old air compressor tank that is 10 gallon. I cut the end off it thinking that was going to be my new forge and I saw how big it was. I'll never afford to run one that size. So I welded the end back on and turned it into a bbq grill. Yesterday I burned a bunch of scrap wood in it to burn off the paint. Today I eventually got hinges on it and got some tabs welded in so it holds the grill. At first I tried old cabinet hinges I had. They sorta worked until I had to manhandle it some and they broke off. I went to Lowe's and bought some good steel hinges and they were in in less than 20 minutes. Tomorrow I have to get the vent cover on it so I can adjust how much air it's getting. My wife says I need to put legs on it since it's so low to the ground. I don't have any steel that would work as legs though so it's gonna be short for a while. At least I don't have to worry about a cheap flimsy falling apart grill anymore. Now if only I had some charcoal and some meat. 

Two bunnies make four bunnies and four bunnies make more bunnies. 

Once you make some nice commissions word travels fast. You are on your way to being busy John. 

This one was already in progress, actually. However, since it’s not going to be needed until June, I had no compunction about shelving it while the sign bracket was in progress. 

I forged another hatchet head today, this time to sell it! Instead of an old file I have now forge welded a 1095 bit in. So the hatchet is completely known steel now. I'm very happy with how the hatchet turned out!

~Jobtiel

Hondo; why not mount it on an old propane grill cart?  Some of them are quite large. Junk the grill body and bolt your grill in place?  I must pass a discarded propane grill several times a week and I DON'T live in a thickly settled area!

JHCC, that is quite the idea for the wrench there. I did a pile of scrolls over the summer and wish i would have thought of that. 

Hondo, wish you were closer i would tell you to come over and get some of this pile of tubing i acquired. Tore apart a couple porch swings square and round tubing.

Jobtiel, nice hatchet. I like that shape. 

Thanks, BillyBones. I think I'm going to weld that bit of pipe permanently in place, as it currently only works counterclockwise.

Widdershins!  Perhaps you should make another with a fixture on either side, one for deosil and the other for widdershins.

Marking them to make it easy to use the correct side "is left as an exercise for the student"...

JHCC those look great. bet splitting that s7 was fun. everyones work looks great cant wait to get back to my forge. 

Speaking of which, I still have the Kevlar glove you left behind a few sessions ago, as well as the block plane and the chunks of S7 you wanted to buy.

Also, it's kind of amazing how quiet the treadle hammer can be:

 

Treadle hammer? Would that be the knodding donkey?

Made a base for my candle holder today and 5 more links and a hook for my chain.

18 minutes ago, BillyBones said:

Would that be the knodding donkey?

Yep.

JHCC I still want these just starting this new job has been crazy in middle of December. I will contact you and get out there one of these days.

Working on a snowman from bicycle wheels and some rebar. Brake rotor for the base. This is a concept piece so its a little rough right now. Trying to think of a better sellable pose with his arms. Wheels are bigger bottom to top but the perspective makes it look different.  Also, it will get painted.

One arm could be holding a pipe as if ready to take a draw. Or holding a broom or snow shovel. Tongs in one hand and hammer in the other is maybe a limited market.

Frosty The Lucky

It is 3.88889 degrees Celsius today. SI units are Ok for most things, but lousy for temperature and club selection in golf. 39 degrees is bloody cold. 3.88889 degrees Celsius is the same uncomfortably cold as 39, but sounds much worse. 9 degrees C sounds just as cold, but really isn’t.

Anyway, what I plan to do outside at the forge today is make a few ornaments. If they don’t turn out terrible, I will post pictures. 
 

I am curious about that S7 (H13 also) If you buy it in an annealed state and heat it up to cut it, wouldn’t it be hard to forge later after it has cooled, even when brought back up to a forging temp?  I have never used it, mainly because I have no press or power hammer, but also because I thought I would have to keep it hot the entire time I was working it. It is very rare that I would totally finish something in a single session. I get bored after a bit and do a little on other things. 

I like the shovel or broom idea Frosty. 

1 hour ago, DHarris said:

I am curious about that S7 (H13 also) If you buy it in an annealed state and heat it up to cut it, wouldn’t it be hard to forge later after it has cooled, even when brought back up to a forging temp?

Short answer: No. 

Longer answer: Nooooooooooo.

Serious longer answer: Once you heat steel into the proper temperature range for forging (which for S7 is a starting temperature of 1950°F to 2050°F, and don’t forge it below 1695°F), its forging characteristics are going to be the same regardless of what heat treatments have or have not been done prior to forging. This is true for practically all steels, and any  annealing before forging is basically a waste of time and fuel. 

That said, if I wanted to *machine* the S7, I would definitely do that in its annealed state, before I do any forging. I haven’t taken those forged pieces to the bandsaw since I split them, but I’d wager they’d do more damage to the blade now than the blade previously did to them. However, I’m not worried about them being in forgeable once I heat them up again. 

4 hours ago, Daswulf said:

I like the shovel or broom idea Frosty. 

How about tipping his top nut?

A snowwoman would have two acorn nuts below the head. no?

Frosty The Lucky

On 12/1/2021 at 10:16 PM, JHCC said:

we made him a curved-blade two-handed froe for slicing wooden shingles.

[…]

We had a LOT of fun with Lou and his student striking while I directed. Another friend took a video, which I will try to post later. 

As promised:

 

Daswulf   I can see using a front rim from a little girls bike for the head. That's a little tricky welding bushings and nuts on to those spokes. I like the concept.

22 hours ago, DHarris said:

I am curious about that S7

I have a hammer eye punch made from S7. Started as a 1 1/2" x 2" round worked completely by hand at the anvil. I did not find it anymore difficult to work than any other high carbon steel. I actually find A-2 to be much more difficult to work with, but i think most of my problem with the A-2 is heat management. 

Jus looked up some info on S7. Found an amusing typo that says its working temp is 15,500* F, think they meant 1550.0*F. 

Something else as a curiosity, another site, from a supplier, said that S7 is air hardening OR oil hardening. Not quite sure what to make of that.