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I Forge Iron

It followed me home


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I've got a couple of log racks made from Rail. I welded pipes to the end that I can drop verticals in and cross pieces to hold them together at the right spacing.  A nice trick is to get them 8' long and mark the uprights at 4' or higher depending on log length to show a true face cord and have a couple that way to show a true cord.

My longer lengths came from a cattle guard that was decommissioned.

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Old joke:

A Texan is giving directions to an out-of-state visitor and says, "About ten miles down the road, turn left when you see a cattle guard." The visitor replies, "Will the cattle guard be in uniform?"

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John,  that reminds me of when I was 17 and my south side of Chicago Box Scout Explorer Post went out to Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico for 2 weeks of back packing.   We had never seen a cattle guard before and had to ask what it was.  It also took us a bit to figure out how to operate a barbed wire gate.  City kids.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

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When I built the wood shed I made it 10' wide with the studs on 24" centers and a horizontal at 4'. I know it's not quite a proper cord but it's close enough to make estimation easy.

We used to joke about the armed cattle guards with city kids. Joked about a lot with the city kids but what was really fun was letting the ranch kids believe I was just another city kid. Just because I lived I a city. :rolleyes:

Frosty The Lucky.

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Just got back from digging around an old barn that was supposed to have an anvil In it but it  was missing along with several other things, the guy did feel bad for having me drive out there, I told him not to worry about it and I felt bad for him loosing his stuff, 

also I’m going to look at the 234 pound Peter Wright tomorrow so I didn’t really need to spend a lot of money today. 

Then I asked if I could walk around and see if there was anything else I could use and he ended up taking me through several buildings full of random stuff but nothing I really wanted or needed then I found an axe, a rasp, a little ball pein, a piece of copper rod and a feed hopper that I thought I could modify for use as a forge hood. 60D6DB9B-6E03-4B1A-99F5-39347F31B76B.thumb.jpeg.5b1b17f5ac5f9d364903f628674c0d84.jpeg

58923A5C-8482-41C6-B9B8-1F9D370F8044.jpeg

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Oooo, nice.  Your wife is a definite keeper.  My experience is that most spouses/partners of smiths are pretty supportive of the craft.  It may have something to do with making nice things for them and/or the house.  There are a lot of hobbies and interests which would not get the same level of support, e.g. dirt bikes, motorcycles, guns, sports, beer drinking with the bros, bass boats, etc..

And, I have observed that craft people often attract craft people.  There are a lot more steel/wool couples around than would be accounted for by mere random selection.  Probably the same for steel/clay.  It isn't always true but it is fairly common.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

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12 hours ago, George N. M. said:

And, I have observed that craft people often attract craft people.

  This applies to all sorts of people and situations as well.  I was at a flea market last weekend and waded through a couple of acres of people, stands and booths with the usual cheap plastic junk and clothes to get to where the guy's with the tools and rusty stuff were set up.  I made some new friends and got some scrap scrounging leads.  Birds of a feather....  Oh and I scored a pickaxe head and a pair of "grabbers", heavy tong looking things with cast hands on the business end.  I don't have a clue what they were used for, but to unique to pass on.

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The grabbers are likely a fireplace log grabber.

18 hours ago, TWISTEDWILLOW said:

a piece of copper rod and a feed hopper

Double check the copper rod that it is in fact fully copper before you use it. It could be copper coated ground rod. I've run into that a couple times. 

The feed hopper could work well for a forge hood.

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Ah the temptation lol. As cool as it would be it's hard to hurt a quality old tool or such to use for art. I have many I keep as is to preserve the history. 

Sorry to hear Twistedwillow. Still stock but I haven't forged any yet. Not sure if the copper burning off might pose an issue. It might. Mine were longer and wound up as garden poles.

Still haven't found any scrap copper rod to play with. Have enough to do to convince myself to buy some to play with. 

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My only experience with forging a copper clad grounding rod was when I tried to make a dinner triangle out of one. I drew down one end and formed a leaf without any problems. Then when I heated the first bend, it literally fell apart when I tried to bend it. It reminded me of forging rebar. It's like a box of chocolates, ya never know what you're going to get.:D Kinda disappointing because it rang like a bell when I tapped it with a hammer. It now resides behind my leg vise as a reminder about mystery steel.

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Depending on the length of the grabbers; they could be ones used to move charcoal briquettes around in a BBQ.

Nothing ferrous came home with me this weekend; I drove out to the scrapyard and it was closed.  "He had some errands to run".  So I went to the library booksale instead.  Much more was there in my wife's area of interest; so she was happy.

 Sunday my Nephew and his Fiancee visited my shop. (cue Frosty for a straight line about Thomas having a nephew and  perhaps a "a short rifle or musket used by cavalry")   His fiancee is going for a PhD at a University in Bremen in Germany; if it was at Heidelberg we'd go visit!

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