On 6/4/2024 at 1:50 PM, Rojo Pedro said:

Im really impressed with how fast it cut this 3/8” especially since they are like $220 new on amazon

 

And you'll find that it's a very handy tool that will cut anything that electricity will flow through.

here's what followed me home yesterday:

pair of mufflers to be installed on my pickup

complete bumper jack for 1970 Chevelle

and various bits of spring steel.

The coil is for a Toyota Corolla, brand new never used. The 3 long rods are trunk springs for  67 Camaro, and (I think) Mustang. Not sure what the damper hook looking thing is, but it's steel.  I've no clue what the sway bar came from, but I figure it to be useable spring steel.  All free for the taking.

 

 

JHCC, are you serious? Thank you!

Okay this is something that didn't follow me home, but I suppose I followed it home. This is one of the wheels I was telling y'all about in the conversation about WI. The others are not WI, but this one has me excited to hope it is, but I don't know yet. Going to do a spark test

Cut apiece off of the parent... wheel. It's about 1/2" thick by about 1 1/2" wide. This is what I could actually get to break. Or rather Tommie did. He's helping me.  What do y'all think?

 

Did you spark test it?

G

Yes sir. I'm still not sure, but it had straight lines and a few bursts, but not many. The color was yellow, but not real bright

Looks like wrought iron to me!

 

Tell me what you guys think about these? They followed me home a while ago. Apparently they are the older version or a different version of pipe wrenches? I don’t have a ton of use for pipe wrenches, and was thinking I might modify them into some kind of heavy tongs. Thoughts?

I hope it is. As soon as I can, I'm going to heat some up. 

Those wrenches are cool. They LOOK like they want a second life as a pair of tongs!

Will, those are some cool old wrench/ plier/tongs. Lol. 

I would really be tempted to clean them up with either electrolysis, Evaporust or atleast wire wheel to see if there is a maker mark on them to look up. 

Either way they are your tools and could be made into good usable tongs. 

CGL, that looks very much like WI. Good find!

The wheel is pretty big. I don't have exact measurements and probably weighs 30- 40 lbs. ish?

Chellie, between the photo and what you report from the spark test I think that it is highly probable that the tire/wheel is, indeed, wrought iron.  Since vehicle tires took a lot of abuse it may be a high grade of WI.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

George, I forgot to mention also that I read here on IFI about someone having a hard time cutting through WI with a hacksaw. We had the same problem. It chewed up a new saw blade. In fact, it was hard to cut with a grinder even. Sorry to talk about it so much, but I have yet to come across any here anywhere. Maybe Texas isn't rich in wrought iron. Just sucker rod 

It's the silica inclusions that eat hack saw blades, the tungsten carbide tipped ones work but you still have to be careful not to knock the carbides off on the back stroke. 

It should cut with a sharp chisel, score it deeply across the tire and bend it till it breaks.

Cut off blades will go right through it IF it's held solidly in the clamp, hand held right angle grinders not so much, even a little chatter kills composition blades.

Frosty The Lucky.

I'm with others and it looks like wrought to me also.

I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sail’s.
Semper Paratus

 

Frosty, thank you. We went through 2 grinding wheels and dulled the hacksaw blade just trying to get a small piece cut off. Looks like a chisel it is to break it down. 

Thanks Irondragon. All you guys are the best!

14 hours ago, George N. M. said:

Since vehicle tires took a lot of abuse it may be a high grade of WI.

I would disagree with this, on both theoretical and practical grounds. For the first, I don’t think any wheelwrights would waste higher quality material on what was essentially a consumable (if a rather durable one). This is rather like the myth of the S7 jackhammer bit: it might perform better in theory, but at an unreasonably higher cost. 

For the second, I’ve got a couple of similar heavy tires, and the fibers are significantly coarser than the high-grade material l salvaged from one of the college buildings during roof repairs. I grant that there’s no indication (indeed, it’s quite unlikely) that an Ohio tire was made by the wheelwright as one in Texas, but it’s still significant. 

John, you may be correct.  It is mere speculation on my part.

However, I can argue my position too.  The wheel wright would want the cheapest tire to minimize his costs but the customer would want one that did not need to be replaced as often.  So, a pull in two directions re quality of metal, assuming that a multiple refined WI would last longer than a lower quality metal.

Also, it may depend on the vehicle and how it is used.  A farm wagon hauling hay around a farm may get away with a lower quality tire just fine but a buggy used on city streets which may be paved may need a higher quality tire to last longer.

Basically, more variables than we can know.  CGL said that this was a large tire.  So, I suspect it was originally on a farm wagon or some other heavy hauler.  On dirt roads in North Texas it probably would not encounter as many rocks as, say, a mining wagon in the Rocky Mountains.

Mail call: a couple of additions to the library. 

This forge followed me home a while ago. It sat in the barn for a few years and I finally cleaned it and used it in a hammer in. This is a yearly event held in Dunvegan Ontario. This is where Iit it up for the first time. It came with all original parts. The blower works like a charm. 

I forged the wing nuts because I have to take the forge apart for transport and it is more difficult to loose them than the 7/16" nuts, you do not need another tool and it was fun to forge. I had to replace one leg as the threads broke when I took the forge apart.

It is a Thompson forge. The company was in business from 1906 to 1921 (my dates may be inaccurate). It operated out of Grand Bay New Brunswick. 

 

 

 

 

ill 

 

Nice looking wing nuts Yves. Good job getting that old forge back to operational. 

Well done, I love using my crank blower and rivet forge. Very blacksmitherly wing nuts, cool and practical is perfect.

Frosty The Lucky. 

Very pretty!

I was surprised at how well you could build a fire to forge weld. Fire bricks permit to have a fire high enough that there is a neutral zone. Like I said, it was the first time I used it and the first time using a rivet forge.