What did you do in the shop today?

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

Workin on some ornaments this week just finished another icicle 

[Shainarue]

Purple, that's a beautiful gift. At first glance, I thought it was a mixed-media type thing and the feathers were real. I have some pheasant feathers from my first (and likely only) pheasant hunt and I've been tossing around ideas of what kind of forged items I could incorporate them with. I like this.

Twisted, those are nice ornaments. Where do you hang them? I'd think too heavy for the tree.

I finally got out and worked on some rivet tooling. I took the shortcut and just drilled the holes for the bolster plate. I also started the headers with a drill - just not very far. I started to forge the 1/2" ball punch and then realized the stock was already 1/2" so I really just needed to shape it on the sander. I have a belt sander - but it's buried under some stuff and I haven't gotten around to uncovering the mess on that side of the basement. I didn't want to get pulled into another project so I just used the flap disc on my angle grinder. It's a bit too harsh but it got me close. Basically I ended up with 3/8" instead of 1/2" but I figure I can always revisit that one and enlarge later. It'll work for now. While I had the flap disc on the angle grinder, I also cleaned up a few hammers that I had picked up at an estate sale and been using and only now realized I had never dressed. They're the lightest hammers I have, around a pound or so. I started with the cross peen and that's when I noticed it had a crack going all the way across the peen! Until I had sanded it, it just looked like a shadow. So I just kept sanding until the crack was gone - which was quite a while, lol. But they're both dressed and good to go now! 

I used the ball punches to finish the rivet headers - both on the bolster plate and on the handhelds. I also used the ball punches to soften the edges of the holes. I have a 1/4" bolt that I can use to anchor it in the pritchel hole. When in the 1/4" hole, the 1/8" hole or 3/8" hole lines up with the hardy hole for punching the slug through or drifting. When I want the 1/4" hole over the hardy, I can move the bolt to the 3/8" hole. I made a 3/4" ball punch and used that for the bolster plate but I wasn't successful in using it to make the handheld header tool. I think I'll wait until I actually need it before I try again. I'm honestly not sure I'll ever need the ball punches again except to make more headers, lol. I can't think of anything I'd be making that would call for a feature that large. An 1/8" ball punch - yes. I can see using all sorts of various 1/8" punches for eyes, nostrils, scrolly decoration, etc. But I didn't make an 1/8" ball punch, lol.

I'm expecting to finish up the winter decoration project tomorrow - and maybe get that cutoff hardy tool started.

[Goods]

We had our hammer-in today, and I mostly just hung out with everyone. At the end of the day I worked on a test piece for a project:

Not real symmetrical, but the pieces were just hammered out fast. I was worried about pulling off the weld and weld surviving the punching. Pretty happy with the results.

Keep it fun,

David
 

 

[anvil]

Very nice!. I have a sample piece from Francis Whitaker where he forge welded the two pieces onto the center piece as you did. 

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

14 hours ago, Shainarue said:

Twisted, those are nice ornaments. Where do you hang them? I'd think too heavy for the tree

They look bigger then they really are

the icicles are just small pieces of 1/4” not very heavy, 

the cross is 3/8” split but hangs fine on a thicker branch or off light strand

 

[alexandr]

On 12/8/2022 at 10:51 PM, Frosty said:

 

Sunday!  Back at work.

[Frosty]

I wonder how many visitors to those homes bump into walls and furniture because they're staring at your work Alex? I wouldn't want to put a cushion on that bench even though it'll probably have wet boots on it before long. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[BillyBones]

Alexandr, as always beautiful work. 

Shainarue, i make some candle holders using tubing. I will use a large ball punch to make the flare on the candle cups with. 

[Donal Harris]

On 12/4/2022 at 10:37 PM, JHCC said:

A stylized yarn ball to go atop a new sign for my wife’s yarn shop:

How do you clean up the welds inside the corners? I have been wanting to buy a die grinder for that and fixing wonky hammer eyes, but those which aren’t air tools seem like they would be too bulky to use. Dremel carbide bits do the job, but are really too small for it. 

 

On 12/5/2022 at 10:44 PM, Daswulf said:

Finished this guy.

Psycho jack. 

Have you considered making a small axe to put in his hands?

[JHCC]

2 minutes ago, DHarris said:

How do you clean up the welds inside the corners?

Die grinder with a carbide bit. I got a nice Metabo model 700 a while back, and it's great for this kind of work. Touch up with a file.

[BillyBones]

DHarris, look up "electric flex shaft die grinder". The grinder itself is a bit smaller than a dremmel tool but has a flex shaft a couple feet long that attaches to a motor. That way the bulk of the motor is not "attached" to the working end of the tool. Not as common as a pneumatic but they are out there. 

[JHCC]

Also a good option. I find the die grinder to be faster, if somewhat trickier to control.

[George N. M.]

One of the advantages to a flex shaft is that you don't have the gyroscopic effect of the spinning armature of the motor  there in your hand and attached directly to the cutting/grinding tool.  I hadn't noticed the difference until I tried a flex shaft.  It is a lot easier to control.  For something failrly coarse, like just cutting something off, it doesn't make much of a difference but if you are doing something delicate or fussy every bit of control helps.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[Goods]

Started cleaning up the forge today. I also got the power hammer moved hole drilled in the plywood and rubber pad. Tomorrow I get the rent a big hammer drill and drill to holes for the anchors. Hopefully, by next weekend everything will be back in running condition.

Keep it fun,

David

[JHCC]

Progress on the elements of the yarn shop sign: 

Also made turned some straightened-out coil spring into an idea I’d been playing with in my head:

This is what I’m calling a “tucking stake”, for shrinking down hot-forged hollow forms:

I’ve tried a more conventional tucking fork, but found that the resulting narrow dents can lead to cold shuts. The changing radii of the two side pieces and the flared space between them should give me a nice variety of possible shapes. 

(N.B.: thanks to IFI member Steven Bronstein for the conversation about tooling that partly inspired this idea. Also, if/when I make another version of this, it’ll probably be in A36; the spring steel was a bear to forge.)

[Chad J.]

Did a quick Blacksmith's knife that's going to be part of a carving set and then reforged the guard for the sword that's been sticking out of a stump in the shop.  Also made a drift for the guard that worked perfectly after I punched it.  It's dry fit there, tomorrow more finish work and maybe epoxy and weld in the pommel.   

[Daswulf]

17 hours ago, DHarris said:

small axe

I like the idea. 

[Michael]

Pouring rain this weekend so a great chance to light to coal forge and not worry about sparks or smoke.

Made an iron bubble wand out of 1/4 by 3/4 stock. This was a demo I assisted with back in August and finally got around to making one for a friends daughter, who specifically asked for a hole in the handle for ribbons. Now to find some bubble solution in the dead of winter.

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

Check the clearance isle at Wally World! That’s where we stock up on bubbles for max

[BillyBones]

3 cups of water

1 cup Dawn dish soap

1/2 cup corn syrup

Quick easy recipe for bubble solution. Mix the water and corn syrup together first then, as making good Martini, stirred not shaken, gently stir in the soap. 

[NoGoodWithUsernames]

Not "Today" per-se but over the last several weekends have gotten two Christmas presents done. One for my mom and one for my MIL. A potted plant hanger after the style of the one Joey VDS made a while back from railroad spikes, and a set of dragons to hang on the wall and hold a sword in the MIL's library. 

Hopefully the photos are all small enough, I tried to keep them all under 2mb. (For some scale the back plate on the hanger is about 9" tall, and the hook is 1/2" square bar. The placques the dragons mount to are 8" tall pieces of 1"x4" {so 3/4"x3-1/2" for any not familiar with our weird lumber measurements})

I think I most enjoyed the hanger as it is all traditional blacksmithing and was very fun to put together. This was my first tenon joint, not that it's much different than doing a rivet really. I did tack weld the collar on the top with the MIG gun just to make sure it doesn't open up over time. It is finished with beeswax applied hot. And I'm supplying two pyramid head lag screws with it to attach it to a wall or pillar or whatever it ends up on.

The dragons were a lot of welding and filing and carbide burring to get all the fingers and arms and tails attached. There was plenty of forging shaping the fingers and tails and arms and such but I am not good enough at this point to do some of these parts out of one piece, but I think they turned out looking nice. Used parts and stuff all laying around so didn't have to purchase any material which is always a plus. The dragons and mounting plaques are gloss clear coated, sorry that makes some of the photos kinda hard to make out. 

Feel free to give thoughts and criticisms, I am still learning a lot so none of it is perfect and I could find details I wished were better all day long.

Edited December 12, 2022 by NoGoodWithUsernames
To give some sizes for scale.

[Shainarue]

NoGood - those are great! Also, your MIL sounds awesome. She wanted DRAGON brackets to hold her SWORD?!?! Sweet.

[Goods]

Really nice work NoGood! I especially like the line of the plant hanger.

Keep it fun,

David

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

I really like your dragons, I bet your MIL will too.

[ThomasPowers]

 Mother in Laws and weapons-----BRAVE MAN!

Still flat on my back in a hospital bed; though just spent a few minutes fighting with a Gamma Ray Knife....