Too hot to light the fire today, so I fooled around with some copper, annealing with the torch as necessary.  One piece forged, split and rolled Trillium flower, as seen in ABANA’s Hammers Blow a few issues ago. 
Steve

Alexandr, looks like some fine places to rest. The dog and cat seem to think so it looks. 

This frame followed me home about twenty years ago. It is ten feet long made for shipping Polaris 4 Wheeler's on it. I had plans to make a couple of tables for welding and other stuff out of it. It got buried behind a lot of other stuff beside the shop. I finally dug it out a couple of weeks ago along with that front frame section from an old Chevy pick-up (have no idea what I drug that home for).

Today I got out the Porta-Band and cut the frame in half to get rountuit in making the tables. Now to scrounge some legs for them.

I cut the Chevy frame in half to make it easier hauling it to the scrap yard.

We already told the kids that we plan to do something special for our 40th and spend their inheritance!

All my forge minions seem to go through the Thor Minion phase...

Got back just in time to load stuff to try to sell at the NMABA meeting tomorrow, couple of chunks of RR rail and a large broken base screw jack for a large postvise screw/screwbox repair.  I figured that having the money to hand would be better than the extra weight on the trip out to Q-S!  Gas is coming down; may it continue to mid  October.

Made some tooling for the fly press. (Not shown: a T-handled set screw for the holding the tools in the ram.)

Also played around a bit with some scrap 16 ga. and the dishing tools. It went very well. 

Finished this anvil stand a couple days ago. Making the hold down straps was the final step,

Limped around on my bad knee to make more brooches. Got 2 done and started a 3rd when my exhaust fan decided to leap out of the hole in the wall. So had to stop and break out the ladder and re-install it. What fun climbing a ladder with a bum knee. 

The broaches are looking better and better every time I see them.

Been away from the forge for a few months now with the "honey do" list, coupled with the heat.  Decided to forge out a handle for the latest gate latch today, only to find that the flue has rusted away, and will need replaced prior to any forging. And all the bits of rusted flue pieces will need to be sorted from the pile of coke.

Last week I hauled off a load of scrap iron, (mostly sheet steel, and stuff not really useful at the forge).  Got $5/100 for it.  Cleaned out the shop, hauled off 2 pickup loads of stuff to the dumpster.  Re-arranged everything else in the process. Made several trips to the burn pit with the tractor.  Then cut up an old floor jack. hated to do that, but the sum of the parts being worth more than the whole, and I needed the wheels anyway. Saved the hydraulics for a future press project. but still no forge time. :(

Spend some time on the San Mai blade today. Unfortunately some cracks in the WI appeared when I forged out the profile. They don't seem to go to the steel and it's on the back with a pretty thick blade. I'm going to finish and HT it for practice, but I don't know if I'll doe a handle as well or start over. Pic is after a test etch to spot file marks I still need to sand out before starting with higher grits.

I do remember again why I don't make knives very often.

~Jobtiel

Jobtiel1, that’s a great looking blade, I hope your able to take care of the cracks with grinding and not throw it away, do the cracks go to the other side also or just on the one side?

Made a wall hook as a demo for a friend of a friend who’s interested in smithing:

 And had my first go at cold-forging a bowl with the fly press. It took a lot longer, although allowances must be made for this being my first time with this new method. I’m interested to see how this goes. 

The cold-forged bowl is on  the left; the hot-forged, on the right. Interestingly, they were both made from ~8-1/2” blanks.

The cold forged looks a little smoother, interesting that it came out larger. One would think the hot forged one would be the larger one.

John; now you can get a haircut!

I went to the NMABA meeting today; met some new smiths and directed them to this site.  I volunteered to help set up for the NMABA demo trailer at the State Fair in Sept and will be doing a couple of days there too.  I'd do it all except it's about a 75 mile drive each way...

57 minutes ago, Irondragon ForgeClay Works said:

The cold forged looks a little smoother, interesting that it came out larger. One would think the hot forged one would be the larger one.

The cold-forged bowl is all sinking -- that is, everything is getting pushed down. The hot-forged bowl is a combination of sinking in the middle and raising at the top, so the circumference of the bowl is getting shrunk.

On a side note, I'm pleased to note that today is the seventh anniversary of my joining IFI, in which I made a lengthy post about an utterly worthless and foolhardy gas forge build made with a large coffee can, some clay, and a weed burner. Ah, youth....

Jhcc, look up the thread on pins and cow pies. Consider the difference between forging with a hammer vs hydraulics and each moves metal and grain. There is also the subject of regular metal and deep draw metals. Have you tried different lubricants with the fly press.  Bet it will make a noticeable improvement.

Les, the cracks are just on one side. But they're too deep to be able to grind it out with the profile in mind. Maybe a false edge or something now that I'm thinking about it. I'll have to see. Does anyone know how much of a problem such a crack in the WI is for a blade? The steel part is still solid and crackless.

~Jobtiel

Well, I spent 6hrs in the forge today. I probably shouldn’t have. The heat/humidity is crazy. I guess I calculated my billet size wrong, because this won’t become the carpenter’s hammer I was aiming for:

So, I started over and made a few hooks:

The new billet is very much oversized (2”x1-1/8”x6”), but I can always cut the ends back if it works out. Hooks aren’t anything special, but I am pretty happy with the one on the bottom of the picture with the forge welded collar in the center.

Keep it fun, and stay hydrated!

David

Had a first time Smith in the shop today.   I walked her through doing a j hook with a leaf and a twist then have her a piece of 3/8s round.  Explained to her that an s hook used the same techniques as the j hook and let her go.   I answered questions but let her work through it.   Actually did really  well.  She made an s hook t with a twist that actually stopped at 90 degrees so she could hang out from a specific spot.  She  stated a couple of times "pretty good for a girl" before I pointed her towards Jennifer's instructional videos. 

I also heat treated that big knife, assembled my horse shoe trivet, and the horse shoe wine rack. 

 

 

Very interesting John.

Nice work Goods and lots of it

looking good Chad.

Yesterdays fun cooling after wax. s hook, brooch that is too small but looks ok and a little leaf keyring. 

One i bought couple months a go other I forged i needed smaller one .

Had a weekend of failures and disappointment. I managed to get just a single ladle accomplished yesterday afternoon. 

And that’s the straight scoop.  

I've been practicing making smaller things like spoons for a while now but this fire poker has been my largest project so far. Definitely got a few blisters!

Love the dragon penannular's Rojo Pedro!

Helped out in a friend's shop on Saturday. After grinding and sanding welds on railings, pulled out an old project from when I first got started smithing, making a small axe out of 1.5 lb ball peen.  Hydraulic press made quick work of squishing the ball into a blade. Hand hammer and a gorgeous, 270 lb French pig anvil (so much anvil envy!) got the little 'beard' going on this. Still needs grinding and a handle but should be good for kindling and tent stakes.