TWISTEDWILLOW Posted September 10, 2022 Share Posted September 10, 2022 Just got back from tired iron of the ozarks, BOA held a meeting in conjunction there today, we had a pretty decent turnout for the meeting, it was my first time goin to that shop, it was pretty cool and well stocked, we had three forges running today I did a little bit of demoing for some festival goers on a split cross, I also won a 30” buzzsaw blade at the silent auction, Randy an Debi made it out too! arkie, I know you wasn’t able to make it so I took some pictures for ya! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George N. M. Posted September 10, 2022 Share Posted September 10, 2022 Looks like a cool event. Reminds me of "Old Threshers Days" in NE Colorado where they have steam traction engines running old machines via belt drives and plowing and baling and threshing. One of the more interesting uses of a steam traction engine was in Niagara on the Lake, Ontario where they were having "Sweet Corn Days." The had a flexible steam line running off the boiler of a traction engine into a 55 gallon drum full of sweet corn to cook it. It was not a steam traction engine, it was the world's most complex and expensive corn steamer. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted September 10, 2022 Share Posted September 10, 2022 Looks like a good time Billy, I could walk around looking at old machinery for quite a while. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TWISTEDWILLOW Posted September 11, 2022 Author Share Posted September 11, 2022 2 hours ago, George N. M. said: Looks like a cool event It was! I had a ball looking around after the meeting! ash an max came up in the afternoon and they walked around and found a railroad engine from the 1940s, and we went back to look at it and we almost couldn’t pry max off the fence tryin to get at it! Lol Jerry, there’s lot of festivals an get to gathers here in the fall, you an Deb would be more then welcome to come down for a visit one year an I’ll show y’all we’re all the cool stuff to see is! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irondragon Forge ClayWorks Posted September 11, 2022 Share Posted September 11, 2022 We had a pretty good time too. After J.D. left I decided to make a couple of S-hooks. While I was making the first end a crowd gathered. Nothing like some coal smoke and the sound of steel being hammered on the anvil to draw folks in. One of the men asked if it was possible to harden re-bar which I was making the hook out of. I explained the drawback to using re-bar and the poor quality available and it really wasn't harden-able. The piece I was using was about 2 feet long and I was wanting to make a long hook with a 90 degree bend on one end but it was too short to do that. The crowd was interested and asking a lot of questions about forging. I decided to demonstrate forge welding after someone asked how I would make it longer. Had another shorter piece about a foot long. I scarfed both ends and told everyone, I was going to try and weld them together. Someone said they didn't see a welder anywhere and I said it would be forge welded, they didn't believe that could be done. The first couple of tries wouldn't stick. I explained the secret to forge welding depended upon the phase of the moon, how you held your mouth, and if the spirits were smiling on you. They thought that was funny. It also depended on how clean the steel was and using some flux if a flux less weld wasn't working. All the time I was talking with them I'm cranking on the blower and when I went to check the small piece the heat had traveled up the rod and it was hot. Dropped it and got some tongs and dunked the end I wanted to hold in water to cool it. I told them the first thing my teacher taught me was to hold the cold end and hit the hot end, they all laughed. Anyway the next attempt to weld it after wire brushing and fluxing it stuck. My back was to the crowd while at the anvil. I picked up the piece by the long end with the hook and turned around showing them the short piece was now welded to the long one. I put it back in the fire to refine the weld but I didn't get it hot enough and when I started to refine the edges, yep you guessed it they came apart. I told the folks what I had done wrong and said that I would use the MIG welder when I got home. They all laughed. By then it was lunch time so demo ended. I then went on to tell them about how blacksmiths were always willing to adopt new technology and the story of Francis Whitaker switching from forge welding to arc welding when it came along. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arkie Posted September 12, 2022 Share Posted September 12, 2022 Billy, thanks for the pictures! Very thoughtful of you to think of me. Glad you enjoyed Tired Iron, it is/was my favorite of all the meeting places. The smithy is A+ and lots to see other than smithing. When the vendors show up with used tools and parts, it's like Christmas in September!! As I recall, you had to miss it last year due to COVID (me too). Randy, so you were the star of the show, huh??? LOL You are brave to try to do something sophisticated like forge welding with rebar. Technicus Joe does/did it with rebar in many of his videos. I usually burn myself when I'm working with two matching pieces, like tong halves, and forget which one is still hot...I find out really quickly! On 9/10/2022 at 4:33 PM, TWISTEDWILLOW said: Just got back from tired iron of the ozarks, BOA held a meeting in conjunction there today, we had a pretty decent turnout for the meeting, it was my first time goin to that shop, it was pretty cool and well stocked, we had three forges running today I did a little bit of demoing for some festival goers on a split cross, I also won a 30” buzzsaw blade at the silent auction, Randy an Debi made it out too! arkie, I know you wasn’t able to make it so I took some pictures for ya! Billy, thanks for the pictures! Very thoughtful of you to think of me. Glad you enjoyed Tired Iron, it is/was my favorite of all the meeting places. The smithy is A+ and lots to see other than smithing. When the vendors show up with used tools and parts, it's like Christmas in September!! As I recall, you had to miss it last year due to COVID (me too). Randy, so you were the star of the show, huh??? LOL You are brave to try to do something sophisticated like forge welding with rebar. Technicus Joe does/did it with rebar in many of his videos. I usually burn myself when I'm working with two matching pieces, like tong halves, and forget which one is still hot...I find out really quickly! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TWISTEDWILLOW Posted September 12, 2022 Author Share Posted September 12, 2022 Your welcome arkie! yeah I had to miss last year, I was okay no symptoms but I didn’t wanna get no one else sick so I stayed home, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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