Propane forge burner testing
Ron Riel’s contributions to the blacksmithing community by sharing his wealth of knowledge proved priceless during the research portion of this project.
I built everything from scratch and 30 dollars of hardware from my local ace hardware store.
Take a look at it in action!
I already have the kaowool and other pets necessary to finish my forge, all that will happen next week.
Thanks for reading.
More to come.
Making corkscrews with a forge
I fired up the forge and made a pair of blacksmith tongs based out of need.
Then I grabbed some 3/16″ pencil steel (a little bit too thick, I’ll probably go down to 1/8″ or even 1/16″ for the finished product), drew tapers on the end of the rods then got them to a dull glowing red, I then used vise grips to attach the rod to a 3/8″ rod I had clamped in a vise, after it was attached, I wrapped the rod around the other rod (I know, I know, Rodfest 2015) and came up with this.
I then flattened out the coil with some light taps to make a more consistant coil.
I then heated the metal back up one last time and stretched the coil out to a corkscrew.
After a couple mistakes and learning some good ways to make corkscrews, I have a better understanding of what I’ll be doing to refine this process and be using stainless steel rod for my next time with making these along with some hardwood handles.
Thanks for reading.
More to come.
Hand forged breaker bar from 1.75″ tool steel (part one)
I had a stressful day and felt the need to beat on steel, since I like for the things I do to have purpose, I decided to forge a breaker bar.
This bar is the real deal, I still need to weigh it, without a doubt the title, “heavy duty” will suffice until the weigh in.
I took a video during the last fire of the day to show how hot steel gets in a forge and show the millscale removal process.
On the right side of the next image, you’ll see a .5″ round stock that I squared up then drew to a taper while I was waiting for the forge to warm up enough to feed the octa stock and really beat on some steel.
This next picture shows the backstop I’m using to hold the heat in my forge, this 4″ square tube will eventually be millscaled from the heat, at that point, I’m going to make a “Thor Hammer” out of it by welding end caps on then adding more millscale and setting a nice hard wood handle with leather straps, hey, if you’re gonna use a forge, you may ad well take advantage of all the heat.
Thanks for reading.
More to come.
Tent stake prototyp’n
Last year I made the previous version of these tent stakes as a project that was handed over to me from a former mentor, ever since then I’ve been thinking how to improve them.
After allot of thought and a couple scribbles.
I’ve finally come up with something I’m really excited about and know this is a solid design.
I started out by cutting about a dozen small posts made out of 3/4″ tool steel and fit them up on a base plate, carefully considering the angle of each of the post, the smallest post is 3/4″ tall and the tallest is 3″ from the baseplate.
After getting everything fit up, I welded all the posts into place then started heating up some #4 rebar with a rosebud torch on an oxy acetelyne rig, this will require breaking out the forge to really get this rebar to a good bending temp next time I make these.
Here’s a shot of my first try (on top of jig) with the second try in the background.
After the bending is complete, I add a piece of angle iron to the top center of the stake so there’s a place to strike your mallet.
Here’s what the stake looks like out of the ground.
A shot of the stake in the ground.
Notice there are no places to cut your foot like the previous version and the hook bar on the outside also doubles as handles that help you easily pull these stakes out of the ground by adding a little twist to the removal process.
I talk all about this process and the stakes in this video.
I’ll be making a slew of these getting ready for the dusty campers that need to keep their gear on the ground.
Thanks for reading.
More to come.
Sharpening the first chisel I forged
I forged this chisel when I was in school for Blacksmithing. At the time I was way ahead in class & didn’t get around to putting the edge on it since I was already distracted with other toys (aka tools) when the time came around to sharpen. Well now is the perfect time.
I used a friends cold chisel to get a reference for how sharp the angle should be. Different chisels have different angles for, well. (SURPRISE!) different, reasons, As you see in the picture below, the angle on a cold steel chisel is pretty blunt looking compared to wood chisels.
After about 3 minutes on the bench grinder I’ve got a brand new hand forged cold steel hardened chisel that’s just become a newest member to my toolbox.
Hand created and forged chain curtain rod brackets
Here’s a project for some curtain rod brackets I made. I was looking for something to repurpose that would have a good fit to the curtain rods I made. So I found some extra chain scraps and welded them together to they would be ridged. I then took the welded chain and fired it in the forge to get the metal red hot. After the metal was to temperature, I took the chain over to the anvil and stretched out the last link in the chain to accommodate the curtain rod. Fits like a glove!! Now I’ll reheats these brackets so I can wire brush the mill coating caused by the forge and they are ready!
I’ll post the finished product in a future post.
Hand forge hardened tools
Here are some hardened steel tools I made while forging. They were both 1/4″ square stock bar. These were both forged to their shape, then I heat treated them to harden the metal. Now they are tools that will be a permanent part of my toolkit. Why buy tools when you can make them!
Blacksmithing leaves
Here’s some pictures of me using a forge to blacksmith some leaves for a art project that you’ll see pictures of in the future. I used 1/4″ square steel stock and forged and reforged and reforged under the watchful eye of a Master Blacksmith named Jeff Cawley. I made a half dozen of these that day. I’ll be making about 5 dozen of these before this project is complete. It’s on hold for the moment until the next time I make it up to Seattle where the forge is that I’m making these at.
DuckRoll Designs 