Blacksmithing tools

[ronsii]

spring is right around the corner.


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lol!!!!!

[psacustomcreations]

Lol

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[Shootr]

I want to build a little stand/clamp jig to hold a piece of fire brick in front of the opening (instead of my makeshift stack of crap to set a broken chunk on).

I needed another brick, but I saw this 1/2" ceramic board rated at 2300F so decided to give it a try.





Holy heck - I re-lined the forge with it and gave it a go. It got to max heat in 7 minutes! Got a 3/8" rod up to bright cherry red in 5. Reheats - about 2-3 minutes.





Now I have a bigger area to heat in, the heat is more even throughout, and I can work a little quicker. This weekend I'll make the door with the leftover piece.

Bright red is as good as it will do with propane and the bernzomatic - not enough to forge weld - but plenty for what I intend to do. I'm quite a happy camper!

[ronsii]

Nice job there shooter

Looks like you are forging ahead with more outstanding accomplishments


Keep this up and Pat may have to spring for lunch!!!!

[N2 Welding]

Not if the spring is broke

[whtbaron]

Yes, time to bounce us back into action here. A friend of mine says he knows somebody that is doing small scale casting and his furnace runs on waste oil. Staying on topic, my question here is, if we can generate enough heat with waste oil to melt metal, why aren't we using it as a fuel source for forging? With multiple engines in the yard, I generate around 500 litres of waste oil a year, so I'm looking at this as free fuel. So much of our forge design goes into making them more fuel efficient, but in this case I wouldn't even worry about being a little wasteful as long as I could generate the heat. Thoughts?

[Meltedmetal]

There is no reason it won't work with a properly designed burner and you have a home grown oil supply. It may be a bit dirtier than propane and might be more complicated but that is the fun part. We used to melt iron with regular furnace oil. It worked okay but was noisy and expensive. 20 imperial gallons per hour producing about 500 lbs. of iron per hour after a 1 hour preheat. The colder(denser-drier) the air was, the hotter it melted. We graduated to electric induction to melt higher temperature alloys and never wanted to go back to oil but that is a different story.

[Lis2323]

Yes, time to bounce us back into action here. A friend of mine says he knows somebody that is doing small scale casting and his furnace runs on waste oil. Staying on topic, my question here is, if we can generate enough heat with waste oil to melt metal, why aren't we using it as a fuel source for forging? With multiple engines in the yard, I generate around 500 litres of waste oil a year, so I'm looking at this as free fuel. So much of our forge design goes into making them more fuel efficient, but in this case I wouldn't even worry about being a little wasteful as long as I could generate the heat. Thoughts?

I’ll donate these three drums of waste oil to the cause. I keep forgetting to call the recyclers for a pick up.




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[whtbaron]

lol.... have to throw those in the back of the wife's Rav when I'm out there...right now I've got about 800 litres in a tote. There's also an old oil furnace that was "running when parked" about 40 yrs ago. I might be able to scrounge the blower/burner off of it. I expect it would take courser nozzles than the diesel.

[VaughnT]

I needed another brick, but I saw this 1/2" ceramic board rated at 2300F so decided to give it a try. It got to max heat in 7 minutes! Got a 3/8" rod up to bright cherry red in 5. Reheats - about 2-3 minutes. Now I have a bigger area to heat in, the heat is more even throughout, and I can work a little quicker. Bright red is as good as it will do with propane and the bernzomatic - not enough to forge weld - but plenty for what I intend to do. I'm quite a happy camper!

I'd be really curious to see how the performance changes if you paint the inside with something like ITC100 or Plistix.

Can't remember the last time I did a forge weld. While they're handy, for sure, and I wish my forge would get that hot, not being able to forge weld also gives you an excuse to explore riveted and dovetail joints.

[Shootr]

Yeah, I need to bite the bullet and splurge on some - the board is very soft and I have to be careful to not scrape it up to much.

I did manage to make another set of tongs, for 1/2" round/square bar. It's in preparation for trying to make stick figures out of rebar or concrete form spikes.





Trying to figure out what to make with last 2 pairs of blanks. I'm not sure what I'd use scrolling tongs for at this point.

[whtbaron]

Maybe just leave them blank for now. Sooner or later you'll come up with a job that requires something odd you wouldn't have thought of, then you'll be able to custom build them to fit.

[Lis2323]

Maybe just leave them blank for now. Sooner or later you'll come up with a job that requires something odd you wouldn't have thought of, then you'll be able to custom build them to fit.

I agree. Use them all up NOW and you will wish you hadn't.


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[psacustomcreations]

I agree. Use them all up NOW and you will wish you hadn't.


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You are thinking wrong. If you use them up now, it gives you an excuse to buy more.

[N2 Welding]

You are thinking wrong. If you use them up now, it gives you an excuse to buy more.

My thoughts exactly and this allows for practice now to hone in those newly acquired skills

[shortfuse]

Shootr, the blanks with the slots are used to make tongs to hold blade-like pieces, bar stock and the likes. You bend them at 90* like the other jaws and make the slotted jaws with gentle curves to the outside to hold the bars in the slots.

You will eventually find a use for the scrolling tongs.

[VaughnT]

As others have said, forge the tongs up right now rather than waiting. I have bunches of tongs just sitting around never getting used, but they're there if I need them.

Scrolling tongs come in very handy. If nothing else, they can be great as a pair of tweezers to help open up a curl that you collapsed a little more than you wanted. The only thing I don't like about Ken's pre-forms is that they are too thin for heavier needs. By the time you offset the rivet boss, you end up with something that's only for the lightest work.

The duck bill tongs.... well, I'm surprised you haven't done something with them since they're so handy. They hold a bunch of different sizes of flat bar depending on how you bend the jaws, and you can be doing a lot with flat bar in the little forge you have. Flat bar is great for making your own tongs. You can use a cut-off disk to chop up the bar much like Ken's Iron does, and then weld on round bar for the reigns. Or you can taper it, upset it, pierce it and whatnot. Tons of options for the little stick figures you're planning on.

Both give you more experience with swinging the hammer so even if you don't "need" them, it sure wouldn't hurt to forge them up.

To help strengthen the floor of your forge, try an unglazed ceramic tile from the home store. They're more durable than the brick is, but still thin enough that you don't lose a lot of space in the chamber. No idea what'd happen if you used a glazed tile, but..... unglazed works wonderfully. Even if it cracks after a few months..... it only cost a couple dollars.



Note: You'll have a lot more success making tongs for larger stock if you start with larger stock than the Ken's Iron pre-forms. 1/2"x1" or 1/2"x3/4", for example, gives you tons of meat for the bits and the rivet boss, yet it's still easy enough to twist like the Ken's Iron preforms. If you have a plasma cutter, you can cut pre-forms out of bigger plates in no time flat.

[shortfuse]

I generally use 3/8" x 3/4" (or 1") for tongs. Depends mostly on the type of tong jaw. The 3/8" thick stuff is a bit easier to work with, drawing and shaping, than the 1/2" stuff.

[psacustomcreations]

How not to make a forge. This just popped up on Facebook Blacksmith for Beginners. The guy is arguing about how he knows what he is doing.

I was going to post in the welding fail thread but it is a fail on so many levels.


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[Badgerboy]

I thought I would show some photos of tools I make and my workshop. Ive been a member here since 2013 but havnt been active since. Looking forward to getting involved again

[Badgerboy]

[VaughnT]

The guy is arguing about how he knows what he is doing. I was going to post in the welding fail thread but it is a fail on so many levels.

Ouch! After insulation, he'll have about a 1" chamber diameter! A good example of the kind of stuff that stopped me from frequenting the beginner's forums.

Welcome aboard, Badgerboy. I'm seriously jealous of your beautiful shop! I would put a cot in the corner and never leave if I had a place that nice!!

Look forward to seeing more of your work in the years ahead!

[Badgerboy]

Thank you for the welcome back. I noticed you mentioned that you like the design of the DP 120 power hammer a while back in the thread. I have one and it gets a lot of use, I could take some photos or even videos of how versatile it can be with the adjustable 'headstock' as Dave calls it, if anybody is interested. Very well built hammers by a skilled fabricator.

[VaughnT]

I thought that might be a DP120, but wasn't sure. You're a lucky guy to have one!

I think I can safely speak for everyone when I say we'd be glad to have more videos of the DP120 in action. Dave was gracious enough to give me permission to copy his design for sale here in the States, but that's not something I'm set up to do at the moment. Hands down the very best tire hammer design in history. That adjustable headstock is simply genius and it's a real shame that Dave doesn't get more credit for what he's done for the smithing community!

I might have come up with a way to adapt that adjustable headstock design to a hammer that uses the Little Giant axle and transmission, but haven't worked it all the way out yet. Works a treat in my brain, but that's a far cry from working right in the real world!

[whtbaron]

Great shop and beautiful work.... post at will...