[TheForge] What are you up to.

[Bruce Freeman]

The middle of last month, NJBA held another anvil repair workshop --
our fifth, I think.  I understand we repaired eight anvils this time
(I wasn't counting), which is less than usual.  Things went very
smoothly.  So smoothly that we're in the process of writing up our
procedures for the next (?) newsletter.

I myself have been doing work around house and yard, in the time
between going out and playing.  Among other things, I got the garage
shop cleaned up to a fair degree, though I still have to get it
operational again.  (With a weekly open forge meeting 20 minutes from
home, the motivation is not so keen.)

Newly (officially!) retired (as opposed to unemployed with no job
prospects in sight), I've been enjoying the beautiful, prolonged
autumn we've had here.

One "activity" has been involvement in a "makerspace".  This is just
getting off the ground, but has the potential for real interesting
activities.  Already I've started building a book scanner (see
diybookscanner.org), and a couple of the guys there debugged my laptop
which got shut down by a virus.

Best wishes for the holidays,

On Sat, Dec 3, 2011 at 10:05 PM, Bob Ehrenberger <eforge at centurytel.net> wrote:
> The list has been kind of quiet, so I thought I ask what the rest of you are
> up to.
>
> BAM had a hammer-in on Black Friday.  12 or 15 of us got together to make
> hammers. We had 2 gas forges going and had 2 or 3 hammer heads in each one
> most of the day.  Hammer-in host, Ken Jansen, had made handled slitting
> tools and drifts ahead of time for us to use. I think he said that they were
> made of S7, they held well. Ken had a pile of 1045 hammer blanks ready to
> go, they were drops that someone had given him and he wanted to share the
> wealth.  Another member brought a dozen high carbon (52100 or 1096) pins
> that he had picked up at the machine shop where he works.
>
> At my end of the shop, I spent most of the day holding and guiding the
> slitting tool for the strikers. Some of the guys were rank beginners so I
> made sure that the holes went in straight. When it came to drifting my
> apprentice, Thomas, did most of the striking. I wasn't willing to hold a
> drift for a beginner to try and hit.
>
> Thomas is getting into armor work so we made him 2 raising hammers. I made
> myself a slitting tool and a rounding hammer.  We made diagonal pien
> hammers, straight pien hammers, cross pien hammers, and rounding hammers for
> several other participants.
>
> One of the guys also brought a box of assorted handles to donate to the
> cause, so most of us went home with hammer heads and handles. A couple of
> the guys managed to get their hammers ground and heat treated so they went
> home with compleated, ready to use hammers.
>
> Monday I heated my hammers and put them in vermiculite to anniel them. I
> started grinding on them today after my paying work was done. I'm not sure
> when I'll get them done, but will try to work on them when I have time, in
> the next couple weeks.
>
> I think all total we made 14 hammers out of the 1045 blanks and another 10
> hammers and tools from the pins. Every one had a great time and most went
> home with something to show for their day.
>
>
> Robert Ehrenberger
> Shelbyville, Mo.
> eforge at centurytel.net
>
>
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-- 
Bruce
NJ