"Backyard Blacksmithing" pounding iron on the forge this evening!

Thanks man. They definitely do. My son cut some cornbread up at a ceremony this weekend at the house with the English trade knife I made. Sort of contributing to enhancing the local history I guess.

 

+1

 

I am jealous of you fishingpol getting to spend so much time at your forge! Great work looks authentic as usual they should be quite pleases.
I actually have two projects to do for two people. I have to repair a set of antique andirons and make a twisted metal frame for a wooden sign for a guy at work. When I get around to it I'll post some pictures!

 

I probably spend more time drawing out and planning how the piece will come together.

 

Isn't that the truth!
PPPPPPP or Proper Pryor Planning Prevents Pisz Poor Projects

 

Glad I found this thread. I need to learn more about forging iron.

 

Nice work fellas! I really liked the strap hinges and other hardware - that's the type of stuff I think I'd want to make if I ever got into it. My grandfather always used old fashioned hardware like that on all the furniture he built. The knives look great too.

My Dad went to farrier school before becoming an electrician. He told me he's thinking about setting up a forge in his new shop.

 

I did burgers and blacksmithing this evening. I wanted to use the small anvil, one hammer, one tong and one file. Simple, right?

Burgers were great over charcoal.



Carbon steel not so great. After about 8 heats, it cracked a good size chunk off. I was forging at bright yellow to the point it was mildly sparking coming out of the forge. Not far from forge weld temp. Maybe it cooled further back and developed a crack when striking. I gave up at that point. I need more practice on higher carbon steel.



It's feet up and sipping an iced tea on the porch watching the sun set.

 

I know coil springs can have little stress cracks that can cause problems while forging.

I also read it doesn't like to be heated to bright yellow.

 

Yeah I was told heat them to a bright orange color to avoid the cracking and breaking. Also did you ever hear of the term packing? It heating it to a dull orange to red and lightly tap to help relieve the stess and will prevent cracking. That what I read about.

 

The burger look sooo tasty as well! Whith burgers like that and some beer kind of makes you forget about the mishap with the steel!

 

I used the leftover coals from the grill to get the forge going and added more charcoal and a little bituminous coal. It was hot.

 

What if you would add some flux to it and brought it up to welding temp? I'd think that it would forge weld all the little cracks. That maybe a little to much work you might as well add some other steel to ut and just make a Damascus billet!

 

I did more reading and there seems to be a small window for high carbon steel to work.

When hammering, small flecks of scale is ok, but larger flakes of scale is working it too hot and can lead to failure. Seems like red to dull orange is good. It is hard material to work at those temps.

I did wet a ring around the coal mound with the water dipper to keep the fire central, I may have thermal shocked it when water hit the metal. I usually do that with mild steel without issue. Different monster it seems.

 

A little iron eye candy today. A local farm was having an estate sale of two generations of blacksmithing and foundry equipment. All the gear was much too big for what I do, but it was awesome looking at the goods.

Most of this is for blacksmithing. All the tongs in the following pictures were between 2-5 feet in length.



These look to be crucible tongs. The middle one was about 6' tall.



Here is my son next to one of the taller ones. No photoshop here. Real deal big gear.



This is the largest collection I have seen of large tongs. It was quite impressive.

 

This was a just a small project, but took lots of adjusting. I wanted to add a plate damper just above the stove but the metal rod is never long enough, and there is only a few inches of clearance to reach in above the stove.

I took some 1/4" steel rod and forged the bend in it and installed in the flue pipe. I measured out just beyond the bricks and hammered a small flat handle. Up at 90 degrees is an open damper, turned right or left horizontal is closed. The spring is nice and tight against the flue pipe, so the handle stays put at any position. I've seen some pretty sloppy damper plates with play in them, but the rod does not wobble on this one.

I took the secondary assembly out so I had plenty of access up through the outlet collar. I bought a 12" long drill bit to make the holes, and it was so worth it as I did not have to remove the stove out of the fireplace.

New fabricated rod at top, the lower one came with the damper.

 

Thank you. It was long time planning this out. The extended drill bit saved the day. I'm going to slow the choochin' down on the stove this season.