Going to puzzle some Machinists?

  Some of us are smithachinist's with some scrap artist thrown in for good measure....     

That's sort of a shibboleth to differentiate the two crafts: Ask a Blacksmith to put a 1/2" hole in 1/2" stock or even a 3/4" hole in 1/2" stock  and they say "Sure, how many do you want?"  Ask a strictly Machinist to do so and they look at you funny.  The hybrid craftsperson can say "Sure, what is the tolerance you want?"

Agree!

I finished a long overdue item my mother asked for a while ago, a rack to hang her keys on. They were using screws ever since moving last summer.

Well, it's done, and I quite like it! Unfortunately I dropped my calipers after the first hook, so the hooks are not all the same. 

~Jobtiel

Looks good Jobtiel. Not all the same? Of course not, don't be silly!

Frosty The Lucky.

Perfectly alike would be silly, looking at it now they are close enough to look good, so I'm happy with how it turned out.

~Jobtiel

My recent coat rack; I didn't want to make the same dragon head over and over; so I made 2 extra and let my wife choose which ones she wanted on it.

Same way I tend to go when making "identical" items.  Make extras and then choose the most identical ones.  ("The Last Remake of Beau Geste" which had Marty Feldman and Michael York as "Identical Twins"; but as Marty's character said; "his brother was always more identical than he was"...)

On 1/29/2022 at 8:08 PM, JHCC said:

made a new control arm for the gas saver on my torch cart, to move the torch farther from the regulators. 

This evening, I decided to tweak the hook a bit, to fit the three types of torch tip. Here’s the new shape:

With a brazing tip:

With a rosebud:

And with a cutting tip:

nicely done john.

Thanks. I might move the right-angle bend up a bit. 

Tonight got the gomai knife billet welded up and drawn out into a 12” x 1-3/8” x 1/4” blank.

Planning on forging the blade mostly to shape. Not worried about that part, but am I crazy thinking about doing a through tang with guard and pommel for my first real handle?

Keep it fun,

David

Looks like it was made for it John. 

I'm looking forward to seeing how your blade turns out David.

Frosty The Lucky.

I made a mouse hawk yesterday, my first wrapped eye and one of a few forge welds I have made. 1/4 X 1 flat bar with a 1056 bit, sharp enough to shave. I still have to finish the handle, when I went to get my stain out of the cabinet I learned the "someone" had decided to throw all my cans of stain away to make room for her to store some of her things

Maybe it's a good thing my shop is over on the east edge of our property and my wife only comes out to it about once a year and can't remember where she put the key I gave her...

Make a black walnut hull stain?  Or tobacco?

Thanks for the ideas, but we don’t have any black walnuts in our area and I stopped using tobacco products about 35 years ago. My neighbor had some red mahogany stain that worked well on it 

Rusty metal and vinegar is also an option.

John, thanks for that idea, I’ll definitely try it.I don’t know how I said the bit was 1056, that should be 5160. Either no coffee yet or the awfullmatic correct got me again. 

You had all the digits, so they were a little jumbled. Normal morning conditions.

How about tea? Tea stains everything.

Frosty The Lucky.

Most of my handles lately have  been charred on the surface, wiped with a mix of linseed oil, turpentine, beeswax, and pine tar, and buffed with a cotton rag. Gives a nice look and a nice surface that's neither too slick nor too grippy.

.

Didn't work today. For the third time during the winter,  removed snow from the roof of the workshop.

I think that was a good decision Alex. Cleaning up after snow has collapsed a building is too much work.

There was a quick spot on the national news last night about a young lady who left her college room window open while she was at classes and her after school job. There was probably half a foot of snow on everything. The snow storm had been predicted for several days in advance. 

The things you learn in college, eh?

Frosty The Lucky.

When I was in college, I learned that you could chill a bottle of vodka by keeping it on the outside windowsill in wintertime.

Been There, Done That!  Of course the Drinking Age was 18 then.

When I was in college I learned that it's not good to let the basement of your fraternity get below freezing... Coincidentally, I also learned how to replace sections of burst pipe tucked in dark, dirty, inconvenient areas. Sharkbite fittings are your friend.

Being a glass half full sort of guy myself, at least the kegs were cold!