Giddy up, lol. Been trying to think of other uses for these things. I may make a few more sets to tie the Christmas stockings up on this year, put that matchplate to work. Maybe I need a 7X7 snap flask... Jeff
So the lady who collects the antique artificial horses came back for more! This time it was a small blacksmithing job. Not my area of expertise at all, but I did take a one day lesson a while back, and it seemed a good excuse to finally use my railroad track anvil. Also made use of some of Bill J's hard kiln bricks stacked up to blast the weed burner into, and a set of tongs that also came from Bill's foundry. It is a steel stirrup she is missing this time, not a set of stirrup strap holder castings like last time. And it's for a rocking horse, not a carousel horse. I wonder where she finds space for all these horses? Blacksmithing is not something I have done much of. At all. It was the blacksmith I took that class from who first referred her to me for the castings she needed before. She must have really liked what she got to not go back to him for this, I even suggested it when I saw what she wanted made, but nothing doing. Somehow it came out not bad in the end. Not perfect, but good enough. She is happy with the pictures, so today after work I'm off to the post office to send back her original with the new copy: Lefty is mine, rightie is the original. If it isn't obvious. Not sure why the copy looks so much longer in the next pic, that is (mostly) an illusion If I was a real blacksmith the kinda riveted/upset ends would be enough to hold the 2 pieces together in the right spot. But I am not. So while the foot rest would not come off, I had to tack weld it together too to keep the foot rest from climbing UP the arch. It was that or put some nasty teeth marks on the steel from my vise jaws to hold it more securely for beating on. I went with the welder; even with my little 110v flux-core machine and beginner skills, that was a much faster and easier and cheaper way to go than making smooth new vise jaws for this one small project just to MAYBE avoid welding. Made a bit of a mess grinding off excess weld, but she is going to paint them anyhow, so that should be well hidden unless maybe someone really wants to get down on the ground on their hands and knees to closely examine and compare the undersides of the stirrups. Good thing too, after much filing I was at the point where I was pretty sure anything else I did to clean it up would only cause a ding or a scratch somewhere else! Proceeds are going to my big new foundry shed build fund, which will be needed to set up and use Bill's humungous furnace and crucibles one day. Jeff
Most of the time that's true, just make sure the reputation you create for yourself is the one you want.
At it again. This latest ancient rocking horse was made for bigger kids with bigger feet than the last one and I didn't have any example to copy. I made an aluminum bending jig to help them end up looking the same and symmetrical. Worked well enough and (but?) I think I actually spent more time grinding and redoing the welds than making the simple pattern for the jig. Jeff
Pretty cool Jeff! If you were t make it as an old time blacksmith you would fuller the ends so you have a step on the rod to go in a hole a bit smaller than the rod. Then upset it while the end is red hot and the footrest is cold. Then when the upset pin shrinks it holds tightly like a rivet. Without a fuller you would taper the ends of the rods and drive a tapered punch into the holes so taper to taper prevents the footrest from moving up. Nothing you did wrong. The basic blacksmith premise is to get the work done with the tools available and they started gas welding then arc welding as soon as those tools were available. A blacksmith in the thirties would have done exactly as you did. Maybe stop the rod just shy f the surface and plug weld it. P.S. Looks like someone tried to offer your flask to the casting gods.
That was me of course, I had a pretty exciting bronze casting runout using that flask one time... I need to build some new ones, that guy is my best 12x12. Thanks for the info! Jeff
Clarke from Windy Hill Foundry showed off some flasks he still uses for iron casting that looked to be about 80% charcoal in one of his videos a while back... Couldn't find the link to that, but I did find a pic of my runout with this flask in progress... Jeff
