Home Projects
(2/11/2001)
Now that I've got a shop, although still limited, I think I'll start a "gallery"
of the projects as I complete them, and maybe even in progress.
First, my shop was still missing a very important tool. Tongs. I looked around the classifieds but couldn't find any general purpose ones. And at E-bay, I just didn't feel like spending $20 (after shipping). We haven't gotten to making tongs in class yet, so I thought this might be a good time to pick up something on my own. Blacksmiths make their own tongs, right?
I found several tong plans on the net, plus every blacksmithing book has its own set of plans. I settled on some plans found on AnvilFire. They looked simple enough - no tricky upsetting - just drawing down some 1" X 3/8" stock and a twist at the end for the jaws. And I actually had some stock the right size from the scrap yard.
Here's one half of the set of tongs. Drawing that 1" (actually more like 1 1/8)down to 3/8 square was a whole lot more work than expected. All I had was a 2lb ball pein hammer, so I was fullering with the ball and then flattening and drawing the bumps. I thought my hand was going to explode. But it still felt good - even productive.
And now here are the finished tongs. The other half was drawn out using a 2 1/2lb cross-pein, a real "blacksmith hammer". This definitely made the going easier. I rounded the 3/8" square reins using my good ol' ball-pein. I think faster, lighter hits with a lighter hammer got better results than bashing with the heavier hammer.
One thing about these tongs. As ugly as they are, I now feel like a "real" blacksmith. From a bar of junk I made a very useful tool, something I needed to continue. And continue I will.
(05/19/2001)
Most of the time has been spent getting my forge (and shop) up to a more
workable condition. I also got myself an arc welder, a Miller Thunderbolt
AC/DC. So I had to wire up 220V to the shop. But I did find the time
to play around with a few projects.
This is a latch for my garage door. My garage doors are big, swing-out types. Basically, the left side of the latch is on the outside of the garage, er, shop. The center goes through a pipe through a hole in the door header. In the down position, the wooden piece on the left holds the door closed. Pretty complicated, huh? It's a two-piece assembly, put together using a cam through a slot on the right. The handle on the right allows me to lock/unlock the door from the inside.
This was made out of rebar. One thing I found out about rebar, it's a hardenable metal. When quenched in water it 1) becomes brittle, and 2) it hardens to the point of not being drillable. Annealing fixes both problems.
Here's a closeup of the cam. I made it a cam to tighten up the assembly once mounted. To put it together, I tapped the cam handle into the slot, then screwed the handle to the wooden piece.
This latch is something I've been needing for about 20 years. I tried putting together all sorts of complicated spring latches, but the recently discovered blacksmith in me made it possible. I also made a similar latch for my garbage bin.
I got a dozen railroad spikes at the flea market to play with. So far I've only made a knife.
You can see I still need some practice on my hammer control.
Other projects (but no pics) - A coathook for my wife's office, scrolling pliers converted from a pair of cheap import pliers, and a hot-cut chisel.
That's it for now - more to come.
(07/05/2001)
Most of the projects I've been making have been tools. I've done a few more
leaf keyrings for friends, but every time I get an idea for something new,
I think of a tool to I "need" for it. Whatever I hammer (or weld)
on, though, it's fun and my wife knows where I am at night.
Some of these projects are going to be mostly, if not completely, fabricator's weld-up type projects, as opposed to blacksmith's forged projects. For me, anyway, this was a natural outgrowth from blacksmithing. That, and the need to weld up tools, is taking me to the welder almost as much as to the forge. I hope you blacksmith purists out there don't mind the tangent.
Here's my new-to-me anvil on my home-made stand. This entire contraption (minus the anvil, of course) was built out of scrap-yard stuff. Between the anvil and the I-beam is a piece of 11/2" thick plywood. This very effectively kills the clang of the I-beam. I don't know if it makes a difference, but I lag-screwed the plywood to the I-beam and the anvil to to the plywood. Basically I left no metal-to-metal contact between the anvil and I-beam. I just had this feeling that connecting the anvil directly to the I-beam would have transmitted energy acoustically through the bolts longitudinal axis into I-beam, which would thence resonate at a frequency of ... oh, never mind. It's quiet now.
Below the plywood is the 12" X 8" X 15" long I-beam, the two legs made of 4" pipe X 6" long, and two 2" X 6" X 15" channel feet. When I first put it together, I ran into an un-anticipated problem. When a 140 lb anvil is secured to the top of a 12" I-beam (even with 1/2" thick steel), the I-beam sways. Just a hand tap on the side of the anvil caused the anvil to vibrate sideways. I felt this might be a bad thing, as my hammer control is bad enough without having to hit a moving target. Hence the 11/2" black pipe supports on the back. These fixed the sway.
The whole stand weighs in at about 80 lbs, bringing the entire assembly to 220 lbs. It's still light enough to drag around the shop, but should be heavy enough for my purposes (for now). I should teach it to walk, as it looks a little like one of those Star Wars robot extras :-)
I needed something to help me hold long pieces in the forge. When I put together my forge cart, I made it a more convenient height, but that put it out of reach of the stand I had. So I made a new one. As you can see, it's made out of rebar, except for the piece that holds the stock. I even forged the brackets that hold it in place.
And it all tucks in close to the cart, out of the way when not in use.
My next project will involve twisting. Previously I had been using an adjustable crescent wrench, but I had an idea for an "invention". Suppose I weld (I can do that, now) a bar onto an old, right-angle, adjustable wrench? The wrench came from the flea market (about $1 if I remember correctly) and I made the handle from scrap stock. I thought I was pretty clever until I ran across the same idea on some web site a week ago. Well, maybe it's still clever, just not original.