ThomasPowers

I don't know of many gas grills made from cast iron, cast aluminum or sheet steel is much more common. Does a magnet stick to the grill shell?

Since you already have the repair chops; finding tools at the scrapyard that just need a little TLC is a good fit. Wire brush and some oil fixes most I pick-up. The 1951 Delta Jointer, 200# with stand, needed a new motor, etc. It seems a lot of people just dump "Grandpa's garage" at the scrapyard. But of course you can never tell what will be their from time to time! Recently a water well driller shut down his business and flooded the scrapyard and most recently Wally World is remodeling and dumping all the metal at the scrapyard. I don't need the shelving units; but I did pick up some pegboard and some 20 amp electrical sockets. If you have room to store it, keep the round stock. If nothing else for trading stock! I prefer medium carbon steel sucker rods for tongs over mild and sucker rod seems pretty easy to find out here. Also may I commend to your attention the TPAAAT; last year I found a hoard of blacksmithing stuff just a couple of blocks from where I was working! (3 power hammers for instance!) I bought it all and sold off most of it to end up with the forge, 25# LG, cone mandrel, large postvise, etc that I kept for *FREE*! Never would have happened except that I had talked with lots of people about my being a blacksmith. Finally; I've been to a couple blacksmith estate sales only open to members of the NMABA to start with; much better prices than antique sales! (A few of us have been joking that we are just trading tools amongst ourselves as we age out...as we remember a piece that was sold at a previous estate sale and is back on the market at this one.)

Hard Firebricks: You will spend more on gas in a very short time than you would have spent on a better refractory, it will take long to heat up and long to cool down to safe temperatures. As for Plaster of Paris and stuff; plaster of paris starts to degrade about 1000 degF below good forging temps. It's a classic example of how BAD information gets spread on the internet---and a good touchstone; I'd not trust anything a site that recommends it has on it without a lot of double checking.

Had a hard enough time cleaning the bore after trying to fire hard boiled eggs from it...

I talked with Robb a couple of months ago and he's still selling coal; but call first and be sure he has some in stock! I learned on my own; took years back before the internet and few good smithing books around. The NMABA meetings are every other month; but there may be a hiatus because of the state fair. We usually have a 2 stations with coal forges Trailer on the "Street of Yesteryear" and do continuous demos and sell what we make. Usually pays for my propane for a 1/2-1 year! You may want to watch the website and just show up when there is a demo you are interested. Last meeting I talked with the host and hope to be doing a short show&tell for tooling you can make without a machine shop and is useful at the start of meetings for a while. Robb Gunther has demonstrated many a time for the group. If you only do a few items you don't need many tongs. I have one tong rack near the forges that covers about 80% of the wide range of stuff I do and 3 other tong racks that hold the once in a blue moon tongs that are *extremely* useful; but for a very few projects. One thing I have down here is a small Pop, son & grandson scrapyard that you can go in and rummage the piles. You never know what you will find. I've stopped buying tools at the scrapyard as I was hauling so many home from the scrapyard for 20 USCents a pound---4# sledge head for US$1 for example. Of course sometimes you don't find anything and sometimes you haul 800# home. It's about 6 miles from my shop off of exit 156 on I-25. Always call first to make sure they are open, (Saturdays to noon!) Amador Recycling. I usually go twice a week myself.

What, they are not covered by the Varmint Laws in CO?

Jobteil1: give new meaning to the term "Heart Burn". My falconette was made around 1981; so pre my marriage to Jo Ann in 1984. Seems like I fired it a lot more when I was single with no kids...

Hmm, I think a typical tube of grease would fit down the barrel of my falconette...I don't know if the clean-up would be pleasant...

Perhaps she can meet up with Morticia and let her show her the ropes; we lost her earlier this year to a pituitary tumor; again after only 15 years. It can be rough to do what's right for the pet; I hope the wake brings back happy memories!

What general area are you at? I'm near Socorro, NM. Will you be at the August New Mexico Artist Blacksmith Association meeting in Bernalillo in August?

If you are drilling the tang you can draw the temper on the tang a lot with the blade section immersed in water---they tang does NOT need to be hardened. I drilled a pivot hole using solid carbide drill bit and a good drill press----hand held drills will just shatter the expensive bits.

Ever feel you are being enveloped by bad puns?

How did you do the breech? Mine was made from high pressure flow line pipe, the weldor I got it from said they had run 20 KPSI for 24 hours through it one time. VoTech did the breech with 4" of fine thread IIRC.

I'd check with ABANA, have you contacted them?

So you are burning hydrogen in a blown burner? Can you give us DETAILS on the burner from the inside of the forge to the gas supply? This is like saying "My vehicle is running rough, how do I fix it?" without telling us if it's diesel, gas, carbureted, fuel injection, recently in a flood, etc... 6700' is not that high, I've successively run a NA burner on propane over 7000' and have always wanted to get permission to try one out at 10000'; I can see the Magdalena Ridge Observatory from my front yard.

Or an insulated cup for your plain old soup...

What he said!

*Chainsaws*!

They say that the memory is the first to go; I could use my screwpress to mint bulla though.

An old trick is to hide a bit of felt down in the base of the petals and put a drop of attar of roses on it so it actually *smells* like a rose. It's closed many a sale.

Those bugs were just hiding from the cook...

Scrapyard run today; not much---luckily as my allowance is dedicated to getting my LG new and repaired parts. About the only thing to brag about was 23 SAE lead? ingots + one unmarked one. Now if I don't just sell them on I can cast a score of cannon balls for my Falconette!

There are places that will heat treat blades for you if you can specify what alloy it is. Used to be ads for them in the back of the knife magazines. Not knowing which of the 100+ countries that participate in IFI on the World Wide Web, I can't make any suggestions of people to contact.

No forge? You must live in a houseboat or apartment; as a hole in the ground with an air source has been used as a forge for the last 3000 years or so. Take a look at the JABOD threads on how to build a solid fuel forge cheap and easy. Copper is a lot less finicky to forge than brass and is easily found in quite pure forms. You may want to look at some of the Viking hack silver hoards for examples of simple silver ones. Back around 1981 I was chosen to be the Arts & Sciences Officer for a SCA group in OKC; so I asked what folks wanted help doing and the first thing was making Penannular brooches. I figured I better do a few before teaching so I did my first copper one using a kitchen gas stove to do the annealing. I found it fun and so have been making them and teaching others ever since.

Lead seals are a bunch of bulla! (See Medieval Latin)