[TheForge] Changed to - riveting and dead blacksmith's tools.

[xlch58 at swbell.net]

The advantage of the sharper radius of the cross peen is that it allows 
me to work closer to the edge of the rivet without marring the surface 
below it, getting it real tight.  I think sheet metal worker may use a 
cross peen for riveting.  That is where I learned it.

I have three sons, 17, 5 and three.    It looks like all of them will be 
shop monkeys, so I expect(hope) that little will be sold when I die.  
Because my tools cover such a wide area there may still be a fair number 
they don't understand.    Machine tools, arc, gas, spot. stud and mig 
welders.   Oscilliscopes, engine rebuilding tools -- haven't found many 
tools I don't have an interest in learning how to use and I haven't even 
itemized my sewing and cooking tools!  I even have a couple of sewer 
machines.   I have a lot of them, but I buy busted and cheap, so not 
much money in any one of them, just time.   I even have a number of 
tools I don't know what they are (yet)   I collect old tool catalogs and 
a fair number are in the bathroom.   Its typical for me to buy a tool 
for a couple of bucks at a garage sale that I can't identify, take it 
home and throw it in a box, then three years later come across the 
purpose of it when I get a new old catalog thinking "Damn,  I could 
really use that"  and then spending three years looking for the box I 
put it in.   

Just got through helping my brother clean out and sell the tools of his 
father in law Hap.   Hap was an aircraft mechanic and also did 
ornamental iron work, as well as anything else that caught  his 
imagination in almost a century of life.  His shop was packed with tools 
of all sorts.  Unfortuneatley sets were spread out over the shop where 
bits of them were in use for various projects in progress.    His shop 
was also filled with various machines and devices he was repairing.  
I.E.  valves for an engine at the valve lathe,  block still setting next 
to the hot tank, heads on top of the sandblaster, crank wrapped up in 
paper on a shelf next to five other cranks.  My brother and his wife 
called me over to identify it all and help them sort it out.  When I got 
there they had already cleaned up a lot, and had filled up a barrell 
with stuff that was obviously just junk.   They pointed me to the stacks 
of stuff in the back of the shop.  I told them that I would start with 
the barrell.  When I was done going thruugh it, it was almost empty.  My 
favorite find was a little metal cylinder that looked like so much 
scrap.  It was a jack adapter for a Beech airplane, it retails for 
better than $150.  I had only ever seen one once a few years before 
while at the counter of the local metal mart where a guy was trying to 
buy some tubing to machine a copy out of.    Hap had several that I sold 
for the family for eighty each.    Hap's will was neat in that he wanted 
all of his tools given away to family and select firends provided they 
had a use for the tool.  Otherwise they could be sold.     I think I 
will do the same, but will both take the time to make my sons aware of 
the value and purpose of each and leave an inventory.    Still, out of 
twenty tons of iron in the shop, I think I can be forgiven taking a two 
dollar garage sale  three pound hammer with me. 

Charles

Ralph Sproul wrote:

>    Hi Charles,  I use a ball pein for setting a rivet head.  It doesn't mar
>the work with the radiused edges as much as then end of a cross pein
>does(even though those are radiused as well - they are sharper than a ball).
>    My favorite riveting hammer is a light hammer that a clock maker used
>and has a flat spot on the top of the ball and the rest of the edges blend
>into the rounds from there.  It works slick for setting rivets and the real
>trick is to go round the edges first to dull the sharp edge - then pein the
>rivet so as to not leave something of an edge that can catch your finger or
>clothing if the item you build is furniture.
>
>    I told my wife to either sell all my stuff for her retirement funds to
>friends that have shops, or give it to some young inspiring blacksmith of
>her choosing that would continue in the trade (as they had shown up for
>years to help me - which is the very limited number of 2 so far)   :-)
>
>    I don't think the hammer would do me much good when I'm dead, AND I knew
>it would bother me for some antique dealer to come in and offer her 1% of
>what it was worth to resell for a tidy sum........so selling to my friends
>at fair prices I have written down on a list of my tools in case something
>happens to me - was about the best method of keeping things fair to her when
>I'm gone.
>    I did this when I saw she sold a $2500 brick saw (of her deceast former
>husband) to a contractor for $50.  Then she gave away all his old english
>carving chisels and hand planes to a guy who resold them for about 12 grand
>(because he had worked with her husband many years ago for a week).........
>Needless to say she is a bit nieve about tool value and she really needed
>the money at the time - and it really sucked that people took advantage of
>her so much, therefore I figured the list of fair values on tools was a good
>way to plan for the future)..........along with two trusted friends names to
>help her contact people to get that fair price from.
>
>Ralph
>
>  
>