If Carlsberg Did Saturdays

[Parm]

Had a brilliant day today @julianthegypsy came over to pick up the small potters turntable. He suggested we modify my home made forge a little then showed me how to build and maintain a fire. We heated up some random bits of metal and I was taught the basics of metal heating and hammer control. We made some points on a square bar, round points and other stuff. Next up was some tuition on on the arc welder to burn some rods on 5mm plate. I now know what ive been doing wrong. Ended up laying down some good beads.

Top man is @julianthegypsy. we had fun and I learned a lot.

Pictures of me at the forge to follow

 

[123hotchef]

cool glad you had fun and learnt a lot! we are all students in the university of life

 

[Parm]

cool glad you had fun and learnt a lot! we are all students in the university of life

I'm no blacksmith or welder but at least I can have a proper go now

 

[123hotchef]

more enjoyable when u have half a clue at least huh

 

[Parm]

more enjoyable when u have half a clue at least huh

Oh yes. Being shown how to prepare coal was ace. I can now properly heat up metal

 

[Tiggy_dorset]

Oh yes. Being shown how to prepare coal was ace. I can now properly heat up metal

...and barbeques

 

[ukracer]

Had a brilliant day today @julianthegypsy came over to pick up the small potters turntable. He suggested we modify my home made forge a little then showed me how to build and maintain a fire. We heated up some random bits of metal and I was taught the basics of metal heating and hammer control. We made some points on a square bar, round points and other stuff. Next up was some tuition on on the arc welder to burn some rods on 5mm plate. I now know what ive been doing wrong. Ended up laying down some good beads.

Top man is @julianthegypsy. we had fun and I learned a lot.

Pictures of me at the forge to follow

What was you doing wrong???

 

[optima21]

hmm potters wheel......sounds like an episode of the generation game, glad to hear it wasn't as chaotic though

 

[julianthegypsy]

Grand day out! @Parm , pictures just whatsapp'd to you! Splendid curry too, and Mrs Gypsy says thank you very much!
@ukracer , he had never had anyone look over his shoulder, see what he was doing, explain it, run a bead while he watched, then watch him run the next one screaming "ARC LENGTH! ROD ANGLE! SLOW DOWN! ARC LENGTH!" in his ear. He learns very quickly! Rinse and repeat a few times and he's well on his way.
On the forge, again, he was starting from scratch. His forge was too deep, so he set to with the plasma and cut it down. The next step was crushing the coal. You can't get a decent forge going with lumps of house coal, but again, how would you know? So once we had the coal crushed down into chips, we had proper metal heating fire. From there it was a crash course in the most basic forging techniques. Again, our man is a quick learner. The main thing is that hopefully now he's learned enough to know what he's looking for and can continue to practice and improve on his own. I'm looking forward to seeing some nice work. If not, I'll have to go and stand over him again!

 

[julianthegypsy]

hmm potters wheel......sounds like an episode of the generation game, glad to hear it wasn't as chaotic though

It's actually a turntable, not a wheel. Useful for trimming pots. Pottery is a bit of a hobby, and I built myself a propane powered kiln. One day I shall put up some photos!

 

[Mee]

Hand powered?

 

[RonA]

Oh yes. Being shown how to prepare coal was ace. I can now properly heat up metal

Coal? last time I used a forge we used coke.
RonA

 

[8ob]

@ukracer , he had never had anyone look over his shoulder, see what he was doing, explain it, run a bead while he watched, then watch him run the next one screaming "ARC LENGTH! ROD ANGLE! SLOW DOWN! ARC LENGTH!" in his ear. He learns very quickly! Rinse and repeat a few times and he's well on his way.

With hands on tuition from a competent welder I reckon you could learn more about stick,tig,gas or mig welding in an hour than watching or reading months of videos and books.

Bob

 

[julianthegypsy]

Coal? last time I used a forge we used coke.
RonA

I've used both, but I grew up using anthracite beans, and I still prefer them. Crushed housecoal worked quite well, in any case, it's all we had, but it does generate a fair bit of clinker.
@Mee Yes, it's more or less like a cake decorating stand. I'll be using it when the pots are half dry (leather hard). It just makes it easier being able to rotate things on a solid base.

 

[Parm]

Some pictures from yesterday

Forge is made from an old truck rim and the air supply is from a compressor with valve to control airflow. Heats up real nice but was too deep so we set out cutting it down a bit. First time my plasma was actually used for a job. It worked a treat going through the rim. Metal was quite thick

This is what we ended up with

Got the fire going nice. Worked a treat with crushed house coal and air control valve was excellent. A couple of additional modifications suggested to improve things a bit more and I need to get some antracite from the coal merchants. But so far so good. Much further forward than where I started from

Making a point on some flat bar

Learned a lot yesterday. Many thanks to @julianthegypsy

 

[Revs1972]

Was the end of the flat you are holding not hot then ?

 

[Parm]

Was the end of the flat you are holding not hot then ?

Good point, it was to start with but I wanted to make the point longer so I was shown how to not over heat the point to allow me to work on the shoulder

 

[Revs1972]

Good point, it was to start with but I wanted to make the point longer so I was shown how to not over heat the point to allow me to work on the shoulder

Seems the sort of thing where you should be wearing gloves / glasses etc.
Good job the H & S weren't there

 

[julianthegypsy]

Was the end of the flat you are holding not hot then ?

If it gets too hot, you dip it in the bucket of cold water you prepared earlier. Also, if the fire is going properly, you'll get it up to working temperature way before the heat has time to travel down to the other end. -)

 

[julianthegypsy]

Seems the sort of thing where you should be wearing gloves / glasses etc.
Good job the H & S weren't there

*Faints*