What tube for a small forge tuyere?

[Tomteifi]

We learn something every day! Snatch that leg vise at that price too! 6" jaws are a rarity these days-very useful. Give it the same treatment and it'll more than see you out mate. Happy birthday too!!! A little shot of my own anvil for you too.


cheers

Tom.

ps made in 1944 in Gateshead, a military model London pattern. the marks 1/1/9 mean one hundredweight, one quarter and nine pounds; total is 149lbs. When I weighed it, it is actually 142lbs. Are there any marks on yours at all?

Some more shots of it: This was pre cleaning off of muck rust and yukky blue paint.

 

[tombear]

Nice! I've a weakness for ex WD kit, I've picked up a lot of NoS tools that's never been used and everything pre the 1970s has been real quality stuff". Some of the wArtime hand tools have been " war quality " but that's usually just a case of the amount of time allowed for finishing and the tools are sound. You can almost feel the embarrassment of the famous old firms wanting everyone to know this isn't what they usually produce!

We are picking up the leg vice after 4 when he'll be home and herself will be back from work. I could get it home on the bus but I'd rather not. The worsed I've had, apsrt from the full pattern makers chest, was crossing London on public transport with a stuffed 120 litre bergan, two deactivated Bren guns and a No. 5 carbine, the later three wrapped in bin liners but remarkably still gun shaped. No one batted a eyelid but it near crippled me.

The markings are all on one side and are patchy but go

Wm. PARKER
ATTERCLIFFE
0. 2. 1.

So 57lb when made.

ATB

tom

 

[Tomteifi]

Great stuff isn't it? Looking forward to seeing pics of your 'baby.' If you look closely at my photos, you'll see from the top down view that there is quite a radius been put on the face edge from the horn end on the right side-its about 4 inches long, whereas some of the rest of the face edges on both sides are quite sharp edged and chipped in places. You can also see it in the close up shot on the top right. Anyhow the point is, the whole length of the face should really be like that on both edges so that when working metal, you don't get any marks from the sharp/broken edges transferred to the piece. When I find my spanners for me grinder in the dark depths of my overcrowded garage, i'll be putting on a new flap disc and GENTLY putting on small radius as described. Literally just let the flapwheel rest on it and brushstroke it down the edges to form a radius. Don't know what yours is like in that respect so far but will discuss when you post pics. Wouldn't fancy going across London carrying guns of whatever description these days!!!

cheers

Tom.

 

[tombear]

Back from Bacup and for the price of a Chinese for the 5 of us ( and not a big blow out one either ) here's my new toy.

6 inch jaws and the screw threads have been kept well greased and are in excellent condition. I may need to make another variation on the rubble sack and scrap wood bath I made for derusting the two handed saw blade, deeper and wider but much shorter.

Still need to download the proper camera with the anvil photos on it. The guy said he had radiiaused at least part of the right side as he likes that on his . Inside his rather large shed was like Aladins cave, some serious kit and more being restored. What I think he called a Perkins engine was in parts on the floor, something to power drive belts? Looked complicated anyway.

Anyroad, I've some decent flappy wheels and all the silly model making has left me with a light touch so I should be able to do at least one edge. The chavelled edges offend my sense of neatness!

better go, foods up!

ATB

TOM

 

[Tomteifi]

Great looking vise. I stripped mine down to individual parts for cleaning-it was easier that way-you can get into all the small spaces and theyre a doddle to reassemble. Theres any number of ways to mount it but the 2 main important bits are; mount it permanently so it cant move at all and the leg needs fixing in a way so that the forces of hammering something downwards that is held in the jaws, are directed down through the leg bottom into the mount, whether that be a large wooden post or concrete block or solid ground. Height for jaws generally in the area of your elbow height is fine. Normally with a large immovable anvil it would be fixed near to it but with your setup you can move the anvil near to the vise. Your choice if its out or indoors.

cheers

Tom.

 

[tombear]

Cheers! I'll see how this one comes apart. The last one I looked at closely on Huddersfield flea ( smaller jaws, poorer condition and had black paint slapped over the rust and they still wanted £80 ) had huge rivets so would have been a pig to take apart but I'll have a closer look later. I've not dragged it to the weaving shed mainly as it would be a pig to carry back down and it's going outside eventually. If I set the base of the post in concrete I'll extend that out to make a proper footing for the leg, if I put a wooden peg in where the foots going it will be easier to drill out than concrete, if it won't just pull out when it's set.

Meant to be ebaying stuff ( which is why my chauffeurs is home) but been to Whititaker Park Museum to photograph and measure a nailed wooden pipe rack , probably a 19th c tavern job, I'm going to copy for my delicate clay churchwardens now I've some decent wood. That was after a trip round Accy flea that got me a roll with 43 brace bits in for £12.50, most of which are types I don't have, I've a fullish set of Irwins already but there's lots of nice Jennings here. Should clean up lovely.

ATB

tom

 

[Tomteifi]

A nice big heavy lump of telegraph pole/railway sleeper/log or similar dug straight into a soil hole, rammed in and backfilled at least 3ft deep will do nicely. Any decent vise worth its salt will usually have its original square head nuts/coachbolts holding it together apart from the key wedge(do a sketch of how it fits as you take it out so you can get it back in first time is a good tip!)If you can, put a spreader metal plate atop whatever you use as a post to preserve the wood underneath by spreading the load, anything 1/4" or thicker would do. A man can never have too many bits!!lol.

cheers

Tom.

 

[tombear]

We finally got to try out the mini forge, having taken it to a mates place over in North Notts. Will attach pics when we get home. All we had to work on was some rusty scrap from where he has bonfires but since it was mainly to try out the kit we weren't expecting to make any keepers. I'm actually chuffed how well the forge and bellows worked.

We started a small wood fire with broken up lump wood charcoal but when we added smithies breeze it took quickly and from then on we just used that. The fire stayed nice and tight above the 5 holes I'd left uncovered and after 2 hours use there seams to be no damage to the base and extension. We straightened various bits of scrap, put points on things and then the middle son had a go at making a knife from a heavily rusted file which for s first go turned out remarkably well. The teeth had rusted away years ago and a prodigious amount of scale was produced. We'll take it home tidy it up and look at heat treating it and putting a edge on it. Still we know it works better than we hoped and now just need to practice a lot. It was very enjoyable , no one was hurt and I think we learned a lot, Holding round rod in the tongs we had was a real pig!

ATB

Tom

 

[tombear]

Ive reviewed my thoughts on sitting on the ground to forge, it's not for me, so I now need to sort some raised mounts for the anvil, hearth and bellows. Sleepers or sections of telegraph pole are on the cards. Also I've a better idea about what tools to use when. Lots and lots of fun!

ATB

Tom

 

[Everything Mac]

Looking good Tom. I've started series of videos on youtube you may wish to check out. I don't recall if I've posted it here before.
https://youtu.be/eVI-QYT_7pk
Start with episode 1 and work your way through the series. In my opinion it sets out a fairly decent set of projects for the beginner to follow, with the idea that new techniques / skills are learned every episode.

That vice looks decent too. You don't see many 6" ones around these days. Mine is a 5" American made vice. It's much more robust than my old 5" one though. Pros and cons.

All the best
Andy

 

[tombear]

Excellent, thanks! That will make it much easier to get the info into the lads head as he is definitely of the YouTube generation. Text books he has to be in a rare frame of mind to sit down and enjoy reading at length. It has happened but not very often. Next session is planned on Wednesday when he can be home by 2.30, early closing for some reason and no after school revision clubs. We'll mainly be heating up old files to soften them after slow cooling, going to fill a bucket with sand for that until after bonfire night when we'll have all the wood ash we could possibly want. I've a old rough wheel I can put on the bench grinder I don't mind sacrificing to the teeth on the old files. A few are so smooth from rust that they won't need doing.

At first we will be making a lot of fire steels, various periods and styles, hence the stash of old files, so we will get experience of heat treating them . Need to look all that up again as the whole process of getting my bum in gear has been so protracted that I have forgot what we were told ( sorry folks! )

For that matter we need to refind what we're were told about heat treating the file knife he roughed out. It's the first thing he's ever forged so he wants to make it a keeper. It's rough and I'm not letting it anywhere near my water wheel until it's had the jagged bits smoothed off and it's been heat treated as any fine edge would burn and any extreme sticky out bits would bugg@r up my stone! I've already lost too much off it after I was volunteered to revamp a dozen sadly abused axes from the wife's scouts. I've since got a cheap hand driven wheel for that sort of stuff.

Off to asda while the eldest is dumped at the teenager crèche also known as Explorers ( tonight it's a three legged race to the kebab shop in the valley ). So I'm wondering what veg oil to use for certain quenching operations until I get some engine oil to filter and use. Too skint to blow much on kit after my recent extravagances!

Next big spend will be on a bunch of railway sleepers and cement to make some permanent stands out at the top of the back lot. For some reason the lads love digging deep narrow holes ( must have skipped a generation ) so getting then in wont be a problem. One halved and bolted together to stand the mini forge on, one half to take the bellows and its eventual more elaborate replacement, another half to take the leg vice and I estimate 3 to make the super heavy duty pole lathe I want to do big stuff and ladles. At least we have plenty of bricks and broken slabs to beak up further for hardcore. The big question is the layout, relationship, between the forge , anvil and vice. I'm resigned to having some sort of lock up at the top of the garden as the whole carrying stuff up and down would put us off having short sessions when the weathers right. A sort of small coal house we could keep the fuel and heavier gear in. But they can wait!

Thanks again for everyone's advice and help!

ATB
Tom

 

[tombear]

Since he's snowed under with extra curricular activities ( jeeze, he makes my school days look like one long skive ) I finished off grinding the tang on the rustic knife he's abandoned on my work bench.

Despite the abuse it's received the metals extremely hard so as this was a first go practice piece we've agreed to leave it as is with regards to heat treatment and will do that on the next one. We are waiting to normalise all the small scrap files after bonfire night when we will have all the wood ash we could want for the slow cooling part. I'm tempted to chuck a few of the big ones on the bonfire ( let's face it there's a bag full of them) to see what happens softness wise. Not very scientific but the one that came out of my mates fire pit worked nicely.

Anyroad i've dug out Bo Bergmans book for when he has time to read up on putting handles on and sheath making. I think he has an eye on a scrap of yew in the wood basket, should be big enough. If not we'll walk down to the tree it came off and see if more dead woods fallen in the last 3 years.

The rustic, hammer marked look isn't to my taste but he's done the hard work and that how he wants it. Oddly without intending to the blades come out at exactly 7 inches. He was rather chuffed that some of the original file teeth show through, very feint but just visible.


ATB

Tom

 

[mrcharly]

That's a great shape. I like the hammered looks as well.

 

[Robson Valley]

Looks good. I don't mind the file teeth at all. Mid-1700's whe the Hudson's Bay Co was selling the Sheffield Mocotaugan-style knife blades in Canada,
other natives were reworking files, the forge was a trench in the ground. Tossing a few into a bonfire is a useful experiment.

I've tried making copper blades. My striking accuracy really stinks.

Have seen a couple of big blades made from farrier's rasps with the tooth marks making a rather nice pattern.

 

[tombear]

Ok its taken us a while to get around to it but over the weekend the lad and I finished the knife he forged last year. He drilled and filed a thick piece of copper to shape to act as a bolster and I used the lathe and a 1/8" drill with a No.1 morse taper to drill the pilot hole for cutting the hole for the tang. Ive found it much easier than putting the block in a vice and trying to drill it precisely using a drill press or other guide.

Anyroad I gave him a bit of the scrap quarter sawn oak from the chest of drawers I bought to knock apart and once the tang was fitted, with copious amounts of araldite and a clamp over night. he rough shaped the handle on the belt sander. All I had to do was correct the odd lack of symmetry ( at his request ) and make him go through the grades of sandpaper when doing the final shaping. He has a tendency to think something is done as soon as it is good enough rather than the best you can do yet perversely if Im doing it for him he wants the bells and whistles....

Anuroad is done now as far as Im concerned, had a overnight in the oil bath and after it was out gave it a wipe down every few hours until the oil stopped coming out.

Ill get him to polish the handle with our home made polish as being oak the woods quite open grained and asking for dirt to be rubbed in. For a first go we are pretty pleased with it and will make a faux early medieval style sheath for it copied from one dug up at York.

The blade was reshaped a bit to make it more functional and less likely to lose the tip. the bevel we put on with the Tormek was too acute by his reckoning and likely to blunt or chip in use too easily so we have put on a secondary bevel. By chance the thing is remarkably tough and was as hard to sharpen as the good kitchen knives we were doing at the same time.

Incidentally the piece of chain was made for me by the eldest son from split rings from the hardware store to make a chest protector for when I am using the draw knives on the horse. Being rather fat I get perilously close to disemboweling myself when I am using them according to him. I need to back it with leather and make a belt and neck strap for it.

ATB

Tom