February 28, 200917 yr Hey Frosty, DO IT!! If for no other reason but to see how long it would take her to notice! When you do, I have an extra bedroom and bath I'll rent out cheap. :)
February 28, 200917 yr We are having a cold front move in tonight...47Low 57high tomorrow, Sunday and Monday lows of 31 & 32!! Bring out the long underware!!
February 28, 200917 yr BTW... I don't own a jeep. As a plank owner in the Big Boys club I can only ride in pickups and full size sedans. In case your wondering how big.... Life starts for me at XXL, or better yet...anything less than a 12lb sledge is a toy. Now if I can get someone to buy my Hofi 3lb hammer so I can buy a 4lb one...
February 28, 200917 yr WOW! 31-32f Shall I send a care package? Emergency gear? We can send a long hair a dog but would want her back before next winter. We don't need her now the temps have warmed up so much. Heck, it was 3 ABOVE this morning! T-shirt and shorts weather! Frosty (who wants to be known as Toasty)
February 28, 200917 yr Only joined IFI 2 days ago and allready this blacksmithing is wrecking my body. Sore neck shoulders and back, headache - and that's only from trolling through 300 BP's and 145 pages of posts in this forum alone. Been worth it to find out that all that 'stuff' that has been following me home for the last twenty years is actually more than enough to set up a well appointed "smithy". Can't wait to get back home (1500 miles) from this contract and get started. Now all I need to figure out is how to get some of the 1.2 million tonnes of fine coking coal they pull out of the ground here every week to follow me home. Edited February 28, 200917 yr by Mick Dyslexic keyboard.
February 28, 200917 yr Mick, welcome to the addiction, I suggest looking at the blacksmiths anonymous thread to prepare you for the inevitable. We have a lot of resources here, even a home for wayward tools if you decide to bail. Anytime you make something, we want to know about it, pics and all!
February 28, 200917 yr Welcome aboard Mick, glad to have ya. However I must caution you before it's too late. This is a horrible addiction, just horrible I say! Spare yourself the anguish of burns, unsociable personal scent, sooty discoloration, the looks of your friends, neighbors and spousal unit when you do a screaming stop on the highway to pick up a piece of iron you spotted from the corner of your eye at 70+mph. And that's just the start! Oh woe unto you if you begin the long slide into our affliction. Save yourself before all those evil blacksmithing tools steal your soul! Seeing as I'm already hopelessly lost I have generously offered to take all those awful things off other poor helpless folks hands before irreparable harm comes to them. I promise to keep them securely locked away and dry so you will no longer have to fear addiction and it's terrible ravages. I'll PM my shipping info immediately. No, no, don't thank me. I do it for humanitarian reasons only. Frosty
March 1, 200917 yr Found this cone at the scrap yard. It appears to be heat treated.cone3 - Blacksmith Photo Gallery brad Edited March 1, 200917 yr by NeatGuy
March 5, 200917 yr The problem with my current portable forge is just that- current! I have no speed control on the blower so it is either on full or off. Today I was looking at some shelves of general junk whilst the photocopier was churning away when I saw something I can use to control the speed of my fan. It is..... a fan speed controller. (Should do the trick?) So this weekend that will be wired in! Should give me good control and save me a lot of coal!
March 8, 200917 yr Went to a local bootsale today. Picked up a nice rams head poker. It was a bit rusty but after 10mins with a wire brush it looks great. I bought it as a source of inspiration, to study how it is made etc. (they usually sell for
March 9, 200917 yr Nice finds Bob! Poker for inspiration, hammer for building your own and a way to keep the coal dust off your sugar for your tea as you sit and admire your creation!
March 9, 200917 yr Yup that's a french pattern crosspein and they will work fine for smithing if the face is dressed correctly.
March 9, 200917 yr Went to a local bootsale today. Picked up a nice rams head poker. It was a bit rusty but after 10mins with a wire brush it looks great. I bought it as a source of inspiration, to study how it is made etc. (they usually sell for
March 9, 200917 yr I will probably try and sell the sugar cutters - I had thought about using them in a beetle sculpture - but seems a shame to alter something that is potentially over 100yrs old (i think they are cast iron anyway) Hammer face is nice and smooth - slightly rounded, the only damage is a small nick out of the edge of the pein. Stamped L P. Sam, is it one of yours, can you be certain? 19'' long, top twist has chiseled lines, then there is an X in a box, another twist half way down then it tapers slightly then widens before it tapers to a point. Would be nice to know who made it.
March 9, 200917 yr 2 40' utility poles chopped into 4 20' uprghts for the long planned shop extension, (adds another 20'x30'), followed me home from the local Electric CoOp Thursday. They give away old ones; but these babies were only in the ground 10 years before they got pulled to expand a RR line. Sunday some of my students/friends came over and hand dug 3 of the holes for them. Except for the typical 60+ mph spring winds around these parts the coal shop extension si really zooming!
March 9, 200917 yr I picked some up the other day, but they were 10 footers, and much older, I figure I'm gonna need an outside forge for the summer time, so it will be covered, but open sides, and I want to try making one of the wooden forges I saw, lined with refractory cement, made out of heavy timbers, and firebricks etc. Looks a lot easier than a whole brick job, and should work just as well.
March 10, 200917 yr [ Sam, is it one of yours, can you be certain? 19'' long, top twist has chiseled lines, then there is an X in a box, another twist half way down then it tapers slightly then widens before it tapers to a point. Would be nice to know who made it.
March 11, 200917 yr No, I don't think it's one of mine, although I do make ramsheads like that, I've always used a bigger punch for the nose and eyes and twisted the horns. That one's rather elegant... Perhaps I should change my style!
March 17, 200917 yr After reading these I had to tell of my greatest "find" that followed me home. It wasn't a tool, but it allowed me to buy some tools. I had told a friend that I wanted some axles to build a trailer to haul scrap with. He soon after told me his dad had an old boat trailer at his farm, and he wanted someone to just haul it off. I could have it if I could get it moving. They said one hub was seized up. He didn't know how bad of shape it was in. Now I should say this is a wealthy family. Well I drove out to get the "old" boat trailer and found an aluminum, tri-axle trailer, with aluminum wheels, over 20' feet long and not 5 years old. I did not find anything wrong with a hub. I just hooked to it aand drove away. A tire wasn't even flat. I sold it for $2500 4 days later. I told my friend's father to give me a call if he ever wanted me to haul anything away again. :D Edited March 17, 200917 yr by Winston
March 17, 200917 yr Winston, you sure you hauled away and sold the right boat trailer? In my neck-of-the-woods, a five year old trailer would have a DMV title connected to it and, well, without the pink slip, I could not legally sell it.
March 17, 200917 yr I sold it about 6 or 7 years ago. I have never had a title or a tag on any trailer here in Alabama. You can get a tag, but most people I know do not have one unless commercial use. I have heard that they are tightening up on this. Either way nobody asked for one when I sold it. One more reason I like Alabama over California. :)
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.