What did you do in the shop today?

[Chad J.]

3 hours ago, Michael said:

 Looks like you have a little shop tucked behind the house in the suburbs. 

Middle of the town.  My neighbors like me and I check with them often to make sure I haven't been too loud.  Very blue collar area.   My house was actually the farm house for the land that makes up a good chunk of the north west part of town.  So this is my shop..

[Frosty]

Nice shop Chad, pretty yard.

Nat: You're over thinking it, chipping welding slag doesn't require a "real" hammer. Factory made ones are or were in my day made of mild steel and had a wire rod handle with a coil grip to absorb shock. In jr. high school metal shop a chipping hammer was an "allowed" required project and we just ground them out of hot rolled round stock and drilled for the handle. 

If you want to slit and drift for a wooden handle you'll need to start with heavier round stock, say 20mm? and do a lot of forging or grinding to get the weight down to reasonable.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Gandalfgreen]

Wise words i have heard many times. Overthinking well put Frosty K.I.S.S. is easy way i remember. This flat tire killed my fuel budget lol.

[Frosty]

If you can't afford a tire you don't need gas, do you? Just think how much that'll free up the budget.

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

Working on the lawn mower that was given to us as the weeds have finally grown tall enough to need mowing---first time this year!  Looks like the spark plug was gapped incorrectly; lets see if the Briggs & Stratton website helps.  I also did another seasoning run on the 12" Lodge skillet and wire brushed and waxed the cowboy cook frame previously forged.  I've done a couple from old pitted steel for the "instant antique" look; lets see how they do at the Fair.  (And yes they are marked as new made on the tag.)

[Gandalfgreen]

Thats why i didnt get gas. Life happend and poof what i thought i had dissappeared like thin air thru a sidewall.  Back to carving as of now still free as long as i see a tree and only use a branch that isnt owned. Lol

Any pics of skillet or frame i love a good piece of cookware. Have my great grandmothers skillet from 1886 my go to pan.

[JHCC]

I’ve been planning for a while now to make a skillet. With the dishing rig on the fly press working so well, that’s moved higher up on the list. 

And speaking of the fly press, today’s project was making a bending jig. 

[ThomasPowers]

We use a 100+ year old Erie skillet all the time.

OK the simple 3 bar cook frame that also can be used as a tripod: the small one is made from heavily pitted scrap and is probably 100+ year old metal; but not real wrought iron.  The large one is newer scrap and I used it to show the tripod configuration:

[Gandalfgreen]

Nice thankyou.

[Frosty]

How well do the cook frames sell Thomas?

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

We will see next month!

[Daswulf]

Progress, even if it is slower than I wanted. 

Next is string winds then I can lay strings and figure out the final placement on the pickups and string lock. 

[natkova]

Well I guess you are right guys but Ian really thinking of making hot set vchisel from this piece .

I like to have it on wooden handle 

I know it will be ugly shaped but maybe worth trying.

 

I know I will lost lots of fuel in process 

But i think od it as exercising.

[Buzzkill]

14 hours ago, JHCC said:

And speaking of the fly press, today’s project was making a bending jig. 

Looks good. I like the simple but effective way you've given yourself for easily changing the radii of your bends.

[natkova]

Well I quit it .

Deednt get enough temperature today and I guess I will stick to lighter one.

 

I will use this piece for other project but it's really time and fuel consuming 

[Buzzkill]

I have a number of leaf springs that I don't even try to work with a hand hammer anymore.  However, if you have the means to split them in half lengthwise, the halves are much easier to manage.  Otherwise it's hard to use them without a press or power hammer.

[natkova]

It's hard to cut them to with angle grinder.

 

I might try to buy coil spring I saw video it can be made of coil a lot.

[Charles R. Stevens]

Leaf spring makes good tools, hot chisels can easaly be made from them. Wire handled hot and cold chisels can be made, as well as small diameter fullers. 
mine can also make hardies and hardie tools if you deign them to fit diagonal in the hole. Easy for beginners to get started.

a bit more advanced is to set a dimple into the flat of the spring ( a bolster, a ball pein or in my case an old ball joint and a soft hammer) and then punching and drifting to form an eye allows one to make a light adz or garden tools. 

[JHCC]

3 hours ago, Buzzkill said:

Looks good. I like the simple but effective way you've given yourself for easily changing the radii of your bends.

Thank you! That’s made of a dozen pieces of 1/2” x 1” C-channel (salvaged from a damaged set of stair railings someone was throwing away), welded side-by-side onto a pair of 1/2” square bars, with the 1-1/4” square tube providing additional support on the sides.

I’m planning two improvements. First, the top tool needs to be both longer and with the business end protecting forward somewhat. This will eliminate the need for me to block up the jig (as shown in the photo) and will also allow full circles to clear the front of the press. Second, a Facebook friend recommended welding some pieces of 1/2” x 1-1/2” bar onto the two round bottom pieces; they will still be free to rotate, but the flat surfaces will be less likely to damage the outsides of the curves. 

[Buzzkill]

1 hour ago, natkova said:

It's hard to cut them to with angle grinder.

If you have an extra ball peen hammer you can forge that into a handled hot cut fairly easily.  I wouldn't want to cut those with an angle grinder either.

[BillyBones]

Natkova, try an old tire iron. One end already has a chisel end for prying. Just cut it, make a hole for a handle and then point the other end. That is what mine was, i just did not point one end and left it more hammer like. The handle is just a piece of 3/8" (~10mm) round bar that i made a tenon on then set in the hole. Only forging done was making the tenon and the grip end of the handle a bit more ergonomical. Also if i am not mistaken, and if i am someone please correct me, i believe that tire irons are somewhere in the 4140 range of steels. 

[natkova]

Bill Ian not familiar with  carbon rage in steela and I heard it depend on countries how they mark them.

1 hour ago, Buzzkill said:

If you have an extra ball peen hammer you can forge that into a handled hot cut fairly easily.  I wouldn't want to cut those with an angle grinder either.

Well I don't i wanted to buy one for rivet making but I see I will have to have two one for that soinga me other for working.

 

And one thing too which is wierd in country like this I visited like three junkjard for some materials and got only lucky with leaf spring wich folk gave me for free when he heard I want it for blacksmithing.

 

Ian looking now for some coli springs but I want to buy it like junk iron steel not like car part, it is cheaper to buy it by weight then by "car part" but didn't had lucky.

I have to search more those car wrecked places.

[Buzzkill]

As has been mentioned elsewhere, the true cost of scrap steel isn't always easy to define.  For instance, if you get some free steel, but it takes you a lot of fuel and 4 hours of your time to forge it to the shape  you want, that may have cost you more than purchasing new steel that is already close to the shape and size you want.

I think nearly all of us have at least one time worked on a piece of "free" steel for several hours before concluding that it may not have been the best choice.  

There is definitely something satisfying about taking a piece of steel that would just be junked or recycled and turning it into something that can be used for generations, but sometimes it's not worth the effort.

BillyBones' suggestion of using a tire iron is a good example of trying to find something much closer to shape and size you need for your project.  Coil spring is also probably a better choice than the leaf spring.    I have hammered out a couple things from leaf springs which are about 5/8" thick and 3" wide.  Those experiences convinced me to choose starting stock more wisely in the future.

[BillyBones]

Forgot about the country differences so yes it could be a different alloy. However a tire iron is both a pry bar and a wrench so it will need to be strong enough to break loose the wheel lugs. 

Terminology note here. Different places use different terms for the same things so what i refer to as a tire iron many call a lug wrench. 

 

[ThomasPowers]

So far I 2-" hacksaw cut 7 of the 12 sections of 1" conduit I need for Quad-State.  The pickup bed is less than 6' long and the 10' long conduit would protrude too far.  So I'll hunt for some unions at the scrapyard Saturday and stock to cut 5 more 5' pieces from.  I'm trying to avoid cutting the 10' sections we usually use for the structure.

I also heated and waxed the larger tripod pieces so they are ready to sell at the State Fair---and did another seasoning run on the 12" Lodge skillet while I had the propane stove running.