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got my 3 gallon pail of parks 50 and a half pint of 5000* refractory to patch a few spots in my forge

5,000* refractory? Isn't the jar in the pic ITC-100?. Zirconium melts around 3,370f and kaolin less than that. 

Please share the name of the 5,000* refractory. Pyramid Super was phosphate bonded and had a max sustained temp rated at 4,500f and I sorely miss the stuff. Pyramid was bought out then the super high temp refractories discontinued. Borax based fluxes couldn't touch the stuff. 

I'm always on the look out for a good replacement.

Frosty The Lucky.

Didn’t follow me home. More like it just showed up. Friend gave me this bandsaw. It needed some work. Got some tires for it and a new, wider blade, cleaned it up and she runs good. Sluggish starting so I ordered bearings for the pulleys. I’m impressed the way it cuts.

Did you get the adjustable fence too? Sweet score regardless.

Frosty The Lucky.

Not exactly blacksmithing, per say, but, found this bad boy while exploring Lancaster County, PA, home of Hershey Chocolate. 
This is one of the aluminum trays that they mold 5# bars of Hershey’s Chocolate into.  Never bought one of those massive bars but this tray will never leave my shop, it’s absolute fire.  

Cool BEANS! I'm visualizing a party plate with chocolate chip Jello mold, or chocolate brownies!

Frosty The Lucky.

One of those hideous mid-century gelatin salads with tuna, olives, canned green beans, and the like. 

 !!!

It makes it sound so fancy when people use the term “mid century” 

John, you forgot the pimentos and the leftover vegetables like cold peas and green beens.  And, of course, it needs to be lime jello. :-(

GNM

4 hours ago, TWISTEDWILLOW said:

It makes it sound so fancy when people use the term “mid century” 

Better than “stuff that was already twenty years out of fashion when they tried to feed it to us.”

  Gelatin salad sounds like a mutated Fruit Cake.

  I was thinking of a giant s'more when I saw that pan.

My grandmother put diced up walnuts in the jello.

  That beats tuna...

2kg. Forsbacka hammer from a weekend fleamarket in Sweden - ca. US $7.

Forsbacka is a old steel town, 45 mins from another Swedish steel town - Söderfors.

I have not seen this shape before.

I could be wrong but I think the generation that really used gelatin an mixed random bits of food in it remembered the Great Depression, and it was their version of stone soup,

 

   Nice hammer twar.

  Mom said when they were kids they ate a lot of corn and potatos in every possible combination you could think of.   They probably didn't have stores with 35 varieties of spaghetti sauce on the shelf.

36 minutes ago, TWISTEDWILLOW said:

I could be wrong but I think the generation that really used gelatin an mixed random bits of food in it remembered the Great Depression, and it was their version of stone soup,

Basically yes, but (as always) the full history is more complicated and quite interesting. 
https://www.seriouseats.com/history-of-jell-o-salad

My recent online auction acquisitions and yard sale stuff.  The hoe is interesting in that it is made of some serious high carbon steel and has quite a ring to it and sparked lots when I was driving the rotted wooden handle from it.  It's shape is unusual and appears to have been made that way and is not from wear.  Any ideas why it was made/shaped  that way?  Also, I believe it is one piece and I wonder how it was made like that as in how was the eye formed from the plate? 

The torches and gauge came from an online auction for only $9 (with some other gauges not pictured) and the burner and rusty snips from a yard sale for a dollar.  Does anybody know what the burner may have been for?  It has a rather specific form to it and I guess was used to heat a particular thing.  I don't know if I'll ever use it but thought it interesting for a dollar and think the gauge might work for controlling the gas to it.  I have wondered about spray metalization in the past and may now be able to look into that.  Gotta find the powdered metals for it and wonder if the stuff they sell for knife making will work.  My buddy got a Rigid power pipe threader for $100 with dies at the same yardsale.  He recently made a nice charcoal cooker and wants to use the waste gas to power his propane generator so he needs to do some plumbing.  I was thinking twisting machine but he bought as he needed it.

On 7/14/2022 at 9:45 PM, Frosty said:

5,000* refractory? Isn't the jar in the pic ITC-100?. Zirconium melts around 3,370f and kaolin less than that. 

yes it is ITC-100 on the site I buy from ( Canadian Forge and Farrier Supplies) it is listed as 5000* refractory coating

 

Got this box at a garage sale Saturday. I was told that it might be made around the late 1800’s to early 1900’s. Some great tools, and some confusing ones. Any ideas? The one tool looks like it might be a rasp, but with a handle? The other one looks like an early version of channel locks lol.

To me it looks like a rasp for aluminum with the tang removed and a holder added. The pliers look like some type of crimping device. Just wild guessing but I have a rasp like that and was told it may be for shaping aluminium. 

Thanks Pedro, I looked at the end and there was a cut mark. It is weird though, the wooden handle has OTTO stamped into the side of it.

Old school auto body file. Before they invented two-part filler, a lot of body work was done by melting lead into the low spots and leveling it out with this kind of file. Whoever Otto was, he seems to have preferred a center-mounted handle.

Gazz: Look up Eutalloy powdered metal and pick your metal. You can get it in little plastic bottles that screw into your new torch. There are LOTS of alloys to choose from, I don't know if knife makers use Eutalloy powdered metals but you could have some really exotic blades.

No idea what the hoe looking blade is maybe a digging tool or something for mixing something that needs a lot of force. who knows. Looks like a good haul.

Frosty The Lucky.