What did you do in the shop today?

[Frosty]

Not damaging the anvil, chisel or punch is what a chisel plate or bolster is for.

Of course you can arc or gas weld rather than forge weld, both types of welding were invented by blacksmiths. A Mr. Hobart developed the oxy acet torch to replace using a coal forge for remote repairs, it was less likely to damage an expensive gate to weld a broken piece in place than remove it bring it to the shop and reinstall it afterwards. A multiple generation blacksmith name of Miller was losing too much money of failed forge welds and developed the arc welder and later developed the coated electrode. Within a few years every blacksmith shop around had a Miller arc welder and bought improved designs as they came out, it was a competitive trade. Samuel Yellin had something like a dozen in his shop.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Gandalfgreen]

Natkova is it big piece of r.r. I have used one that sits on it end. The part of tie train wheels sit on is left same and the side that gets nailed to surface 1 side is ground 8nto a small horn and other side if i remember correctly is ground into chisel. Worked very well. JHCC if bit busy might be able to post a pic of it as it is his he teaches me on it.

 

Thomas mind sending or posting a pic of your snakes and if pissible next time make one a few pics of your forge stages when shaping. If not no big deal just more knowledge is power.

Keep up the excellent work everybody. End with a question if i try to forge weld files together can i hammer there surface flat before i clean them up for weld or should i grind the old file surface off before start weld?

Frosty thanks for the interesting facts did not know thats why it was started.

[natkova]

I dont have enaugh railroads now.
But iam thinking geting some. And making anvil. just i dont know will stick welding with 2.5 mm electrode hold up weld or 3.2 mm strong enaugh.
I heard you can weld with thin electrode and make more pass with it only.

My welder lie that it have 400 A strenght in practice it have only 200 -250 maybe.

Thats why iam asking .

Iam planing to build it more wide and thick than long because shop is not that big.
One hardy hole and one pritchet hole (rare some anvils have pritchet hole) and one horn for that.

Its big project , hardest part will welding bunch of rr and shaping cone, than attaching that cone of anvil body somehow tongue and grooving it and stick welding.

 

[Gandalfgreen]

Prolly poor explantion by me if i can find my picture ill send. I just meant you can modify 1 chunk of it. Found it. Yellow circle is a small horn red circle is a chisel.

[Frosty]

Nat: The picture posted by Gandalfgreen is an effective rail anvil. FAR more effective than laying rail flat and trying to make it "look" like a London or other pattern. Two pieces of angle iron welded edge to edge with two more pieces welded over the welds to reinforce it makes a good hardy hole. It can be long enough to reach the ground so it's at a comfortable working height. 

Pritchel holes, punch bolsters, chisel plates, etc. can have a square shank welded to them and drop in the hardy hole. Attempting to make an anvil with these features is more likely to make something that just doesn't work well at all.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Gandalfgreen]

Hi Frosty hows alaska on this saturday?. I listen and remeber when told or read.  Learning is one thing i can not get enough of. That little anvil i sometimes wish is what i had over the actual anvil i have. I like its horn and chisel. And Nat dont feel bad i have a mistrike on my actual anvil so atleast you learned before un like me. Dont work tired was lesson i learned and now have a ding to remind me every time i forge. It sticks out like a soar thumb no matter how much i try to forget or ignore.

[Daswulf]

5 hours ago, BillyBones said:

ever thought about or made a guitar that actually works?

Yeah, and it has been mentioned to me. I might one day. For all the work I put into these the extra work night be worth it to try out. People do love just the stylized art pieces tho. I'm thinking of putting a shiny backing plate on them and adding led lights around the boarder to illuminate the backing of the inside. That would really make the gears pop. 

I didn't sell this one at this event but have a standing offer from someone to purchase it if it didn't sell today. 

[BillyBones]

Das, LED's would make it pretty cool. Especially if you can get color changing ones. 

1 hour ago, Gandalfgreen said:

Learning is one thing i can not get enough of.

Some one told me many, many years ago that has always stuck with. A day you do not learn something is a wasted day. It does not have to be important  just try and learn something. 

Natkove, my anvil i was told when i bought it that it was made in the 1850's. It has many, many nicks and gouges. I have learned to just work around them, or at least the bigger ones. If i am really concerned about finish i have a hardy tool that is just a flat smooth piece of steel. If it is bothering you that much though and you are planning on welding on RR track any way, just fill it in with some weld. 

[JHCC]

Did the bending for another “initial” plant hanger (an “E” this time). Did all the bending cold on the fly press. 

[jlpservicesinc]

Nice work JHCC.. 

I went out and did the 1st real full day of demos..  Been giving some lessons to a friend but today was the first day with real forge work. 

Finished up this Maine swedish brush axe (was told by an old swede that it was a swedish style his grandfather brought over from the old country, but someone else said it is a Maine design.. Where ever it came from it's a great design).. 

 

A 45min knife demo on a semi Kukri from a rasp.. Only piece on hand that was convenient in the trailer..

Also started a sword blade for a walking cane out of some lawn mower blade which is a good tough steel. 

Breaking down the mower blade by hand was energy draining swinging the 9lb straight peen as this is the first time forging in months. 

Have about 2hrs into the sword blade as of the last photo. 

[Chad J.]

I need to remember to watch punctuation periodically.  

[ThomasPowers]

Just what we need---a knife for killing Semi's!

GG no pic's of making them as my hands are on the hammer and tongs...

However: I start with the tang end and draw it down into a long skinny roundish rat tail going all the way till the rasp cuts start.

Then I heat the other end and draw out a blunt triangular shape for the head.

Heat the length and hammer along the mid-line in a swage to make a U shape between head and tail. Coarse side out!

Bend over the edges till the meet in the middle. (If they get a twist it's easy to straighten in a postvise with a pipe wrench).

Center Punch the eyes and nostrils---I do the eyes on the anvil and the nostrils in a postvise.  It helps on the nostrils to make a flat where they will be punched ahead of time. 

Straighten and flatten with a soft hammer---rawhide or wood to not mess up the "scales".

To make the bends I open my 4" postvise several inches and with the body hot stick the head/neck interface over the front jaw and hook it under the back jaw and with the head vertical on the side slip a piece of pipe over the body and bend the snake in the first bend.  Reheat and flip the snake over and stick the first bend over the front jaw of the postvise and under the back jaw, stick the pipe over the body and bend the opposing curve.  Most snakes I get 4 curves for the long rasps and 3 for the short ones.

Heat and straighten adjust any unwanted bends with the soft hammer.

Flip around and heat and bend the tail straightish up.  Anneal the tail.

The rattles are bottle caps with the centers punched out with a flat steel punch with sharp edges done on the end grain of scrap lumber. Thread them on the tail making sure to leave enough room for them to be shaken up and down.

Then curl the tip of the tail over, (hence the annealing), and make a loop to keep the caps from coming off.

Wire brush and finish to choice.

Any questions?

Today I punched the face features and bent the curves on 2 rasptlesnakes and did a little clean up on the tails to make the bottle caps slide freely.  I also wire brushed another tripod ready to heat and wax and did another seasoning run on the skillet.  Had a forge friend over and he was forging a 5160 blade.  Scrapyard was closed as the owner went fishing...

[Gandalfgreen]

1 hour ago, ThomasPowers said:

Any questions?

No sir. Thank you very much your explanation i understood perfectly. Apreciate you taking time to type it out and it looks amazing. Thanks again. 

Jlp i really like your knife from rasp. 

[alexandr]

Finished another job.

[natkova]

 

Nice setup 

Thing is I need horn to make big radius and to forge circle 

Only for that , I saw on YouTube it's possible to forge ring with only hting piece on edge of anvil and it somehow sold in circle, don't know how. But it requires some skill 

 

Someone familiar with it

[anvil]

Nice railing

[Justor JeiGallo]

I finally worked out how to properly make a heart trinket today. 5/16" round tempered with a MAPP gas torch and coated with blacksmith goop while hot. I should have continued to grind out the crack in the bottom though.

[Cannon Cocker]

I got my new vise mounted and adjusted (the jaws were over a half inch out of alignment). I intended to put a 2” fence around the table, but now I’m debating mounting a small bench vise and a pipe vise on it. I also am thinking about adding two inches to the width of the jaws on the leg vise. It’s as heavy as most 6” vises I’ve seen but only has 4” jaws. 

[Frosty]

Good looking build, how much side force can you put on those "Mad Max," ATV tire bases?

Not bad though if you'd left one side of the table short of the vise jaw you could turn circles around the jaws without the table interfering.

It's really easy to put too much stuff on this type tool and make things too cluttered for easy use.

Nice job.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Les L]

 

 I need horn to make big radius and to forgecircle 

Natkova, I have several pieces of different size pipe that I use for that

[JHCC]

Welded, ground, and painted the plant stand (with the base of the welding cart making a convenient holder). 

Welded a bracket onto my torch cart for the small toolbox that holds my extra torch tips and other welding gear.

Also took a moment to hammer a flat spot onto the bottom of my wok, so it can sit flat on my induction cooktop. 

 

[ThomasPowers]

You can easily make large curves using a hardy tool that looks sort of like  this:   (Mine was a random piece of scrap I welded a hardy stem on about 25 years ago, never got around to making a "nicer" version.)

To use: I generally used a curved face hammer with the handle crossways to the axis of the piece; but for a Q&D picture...

And you get a curve---this was done cold with a 4# hammer, ouch!  Hot work is a LOT easier!  1 pass, no clean-up, you can see the curve developing.

IIRC JHC recently showed one of these as was shown in Schmirler's "Werk und Werkzeug des Kunstschmides"  where the guy I saw using one probably got it...

[BillyBones]

I needed a handle for my bedroom door so off to the forge (something i been putting off for about 6 months now). The handle on the doors are the mortis style that have the square rod. I do not know who chose the size but a good whack in the noggin should be applied. So i needed a rod and off to the hard ware store i go, no luck the only one i found was in a door knob set for $15, nope i will make one. So i go to where the square bar is kept and get, wait what size? Well i thought 1/4" but that dont look right, so i get a 6" peice of both 1/4" and 5/16". $2 each i can figure out a use for the one i do not need. Get home and as i thought 1/4" is way to small, 5/16" TOO BIG! These locks are over a 100 years old aint no way they are metric so 9/32"? Any who after some grinding and figuring out which die to use (3/8"-16 by the way) I got me a rod and after some forge time a handle.

 

[Cannon Cocker]

2 hours ago, Frosty said:

Good looking build, how much side force can you put on those "Mad Max," ATV tire bases?

Not bad though if you'd left one side of the table short of the vise jaw you could turn circles around the jaws without the table interfering.

It's really easy to put too much stuff on this type tool and make things too cluttered for easy use.

Nice job.

Frosty The Lucky.

I am afraid of making it too cluttered, and considered not doing one side of the table. But I figure it’s much easier to remove than add on. 
 

The base is a drive wheel for a log processor and they weigh about 80 lbs so I can put a decent amount of pressure on things. If it does start to twist or get tippy it’s easily handled with one foot on the base. I have my other leg vise similarly mounted. 

[Les L]

Billy, your doing good, I’ve been watching and amazed at your imagination and the quality of your work