/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>>124297
Hobby or gaming stores ought to have paint that'll work on that material. As for content, I'd use your hobbies as a basis. If /v/, paint pokemans, if /o/ paint wheelwell flames, if /tg/ some monopoly squares, etc.

>>124416
Sticky.

Whup, quick correction on something I said; I'd claimed/inferred that rr spikes were high enough carbon to make knives out of.

My bad. Turns out they're 20 points, max, with a few exceptions, which is less than half the amount of carbon needed to harden. So... don't use RR spikes and expect them to hold an edge. :T

Sources;
http://www.britishblades.com/forums/showthread.php?4310-Railroad-or-track-spikes-carbon-content
http://forums.dfoggknives.com/index.php?showtopic=413&st=0

>>124168
Yeah, tell me about it. Not even a biggish town like Calgary or Edmonton, either. :T Still, there's always the blacksmithing competition at the Stampede I can hang out at every year.

As I understand it, the bog iron forms as a result of bubbling gases, so when you're looking there's a couple of telltales. Still, I'd rather hack it out of the living earth than sift it out of a swamp.

>>124169
Well, the ones we used in the plant were soft, anyway. Certainly not R60. It wasn't about the flexibility, though; we were scraping bone all the time. Even a hard edge will bend after a half hour of that, and getting dents out of hardened steel is a straight bitch. *shrug* Could be it was just the specialized application we used it for.

>>124181
Huh! Useful, I didn't know that either. Thanks!

>>124150
About soft edges, agreed- if someone asks me for a filet knife, I'd do it out of mild, or annealed carbon steel. I worked in a meat-packing plant once, and keeping the knives razor-sharp over 10 hours' cutting is done better with regular sharpening (and after-hours regrinding) than a hardened edge. There's a few digs I know of that uncovered medieval knives that were pure iron, no steel core or sides. They're more rare, but they existed. But _these_ days? If someone wants "a knife," they want a sharpened and hardened edge.

Also agreed about the early smiths making steel, especially medieval ones. In fact, I read recently about anglo-viking smiths living next to a swamp and harvesting sequential patches of bog-iron on a renewing 10-year cycle. But blacksmithing as a particular discipline, these days, generally doesn't address the creation of steels except theoretically- we're all too eager to hit things with hammers to spend our time sifting sand and building foundries.

I'm beside the states, actually- western Canada. My archeological sources are all European, though, and an increasing number of my contacts on deviantArt are English or European as well. I live in bumfuck nowhere, so most of my contacts are online. :T

>>124058
/shrug
I'll cop to ignorance, but not to trolling. I'm not a jeweler, I bash steel. In my defense, 800 grit gets you a mirror polish with a belt sander and a knife- I'd presumed forms existed for polishing rings. It seems emery cloth is around the 800 grit level anyway, isn't it?

I'm getting into casting bronze in a couple of weeks, so your informative post was appreciated, btw.

>>124054
>Is positive you don't need high carbon steel for hard cutting edges
>Talks about "refining" steel by "extracting" the good steel from it
>Doesn't mention slow rates of carbon absorption, case hardening, or difficulty in even industrial operations of adding precise amounts of carbon
Confirmed for troll.

To counteract the misinformation; without smelting, you can't increase the carbon content of steel, except to case-harden. Case hardening increases carbon content for a few mm inside the surface, if you cook steel at high temperatures in low-oxy, high-carbon environments for hours and hours. Not worth the time for most smiths when we can just go get a free RR spike or cheap leaf spring.

If (like me) you consider smelting and forging two different skill sets, "refining" steel is smelting, and sculpting it is forging. The extent of a blacksmith's domain is taking prepared stock and shaping it, then hardening or annealing it. A blacksmith does not "refine" steel, no matter what your MMO or fantasy books have told you. (though Wheel of Time got the process mostly right, for which I loved Jordan)

>>124117
>>124116
>>124113
>>124111
>>124109
>>124107
>>124104
Confirmed for 100% badass. The only other smelt I've seen was an anglo-saxon historical village recreation photoset. This looks way more fun than building a bonfire and crossing your fingers.

>>123526
Once you're done shaping, yes, sand with increasingly high grit numbers (iablacksmith, knife polishing gets up to 800 grit). If it's your first project be prepared to screw up enormously at some point and perhaps have to start over. Keep trying.

>>123624
Metallurgical opinion; no. Wrought iron is high-silicate iron, which has two effects. First, it's fibrous, restricting the angles you can bend it at- too far or too cold and it'll snap. Second, it is a _dream_ to forge-weld, because the silicate in the iron oozes out and forms on the surface, meaning wrought iron is self-fluxing.

If you want to make a gate or fence with a "wrought iron" look, then yes, 3/4" rebar is strong enough, though you'll have to draw it down a bit to get rid of the characteristic ridges.

>>123638
No. Some rebar is of adequate quality (high enough carbon) to be tool steel, but most of it isn't, and you never know which you have (though check the other smithing thread, there's advice on testing steels there). Assume any rebar you have is okay for sculpture but not tools.

>>123679
This poster has confused "smelting" with "forging" and "working" with "heat treating." And they're wrong about that, too.

>>123647
And from my experience, while you _can_ forge mild without borax, borax makes it a hell of a lot easier. Hit the grocery store, it'll be in the cleaning aisles, cook it at about 300F. Uncooked borax is full of water and will just fizz and bubble uselessly when you sprinkle it on hot steel.

http://www.siue.edu/COSTUMES/history.html

Shoes;
http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~marc-carlson/shoe/SHOEHOME.HTM

>>122896
Fuel can go one way or the other; propane fires are a buttload easier to maintain for a newbie than a coke fire, and if he's got a tiger torch or another kind of 80K+ BTU venturi, he can build a kaowool forge for $20 and shoot the flame directly into the side (see anvilfire from the sticky link, they've got designs). If he doesn't, then yeah, getting into propane burners can get expensive- but if he wants to build his own, anvilfire has $30 venturi assembly plans, too.

Which isn't to say one or the other is superior, but I've used both and I'd say propane is probably a lot easier to run, once the forge is set up. It's a bitch to get to welding heats, but as a newbie I had a terrible time keeping track of my forge heat while I was doing everything else.

Checking in! Just spent two hours bashing around in my forge, getting ready for the final stage on an arty project I'm doing for a friend. Good advice in this thread.
I'll also point out, STICKY.

>>123553
>>123118
>>123317
Only thing I'd add to this is that you can also test steel by heat-treating it (hot, then quench), and running a file or heavy sandpaper over it. If it shoots sparks, it's high-carbon. If it doesn't, it's mild and not hardenable. Mild steel can be useful (like for art projects or tongs or hooks or nails or any other tools that don't need a force-bearing surface), so don't throw it out, just be aware that it's there.

Rebar, by the way, is of _famously_ variable quality; don't make swords out of it unless you're damned sure it's high carbon and you can get it to R55-65. I use rebar for big stuff like stands, but I've got better sources of scrap for tools and blades (PROTIP: leaf springs from cars, and rr spikes as mentioned).

[spoiler]>>123065
actually not a bad idea. historical coats-of-plates were about 20ga, riveted to canvas or leather. overlap about 20 or 30% on each plate and you'll have something close to accurate. See Bengt Thordeman's _Armor of the Battle of Wisby_ for accurate 14th century designs.

Pic related; my armour. :P</spoiler>

The reason Ameribros can't make cheese (same as Canadafags) is that our milk is all pasteurized, which kills the delicious bacteria that turn cheese into milk.

If you try to make cheese at home, the most important thing is to find a source of unpasterurized milk. Hit your local farmer's market. You're unlikely to find it there (I think it's illegal to sell unpasteurized), but dairy farms will maybe be willing to let you have some of the good stuff in a backroom deal.

I am not a cheesemonger but I know a few, and pasteurized milk is the thing they whine about the most. You can get milk to form curds with lemon juice, but doing so alters the flavour of the cheese. You _can_ get pure lactic acid at pharmacies, if you ask for it specifically. That does the same thing, but it's the natural-milk-style of acid so it doesn't muck with the flavour.

>>120944
>>121132
>idiots making "deals" with insects that have a basically Nazi approach to the universe. Have fun being Poland in that little arrangement.

>>121289
This, but don't bother with the PB. 50/50 mix of Borax and honey, they'll go nuts for it. Afaik the borax doesn't dissolve them, it's just that it's harmless while suspended in honey but when they digest that the borax crystallizes, cutting them up.

The method doesn't really matter, though; borax/honey, 50/50, watch the little fuckers carry your poison to their queen and laugh like a supervillian.

>>121180
tl;dr: Size and heat.

The larger the piece of metal is, the longer it takes to heat up and cool down. The hotter the metal is, the more time you have before it cools down below a workable temperature. Cherry red is the _minimum_ working temperature; you can get it to orange-yellow and you won't be causing it any damage (besides increasing grain size, but that can be addressed when heat treating it).

Metal doesn't _stay_ hot. With practice, you just learn to swing your hammer faster and more accurately while it cools. The difference between a noob and an expert isn't in how long the steel stays hot- that's a universal constant- but in how much work they get done in the 5-10 seconds the piece is workable. (a master can keep a small piece red by hitting it hard and fast, but that won't work for detail, planishing, larger pieces, etc.)

It also helps to have your hammer in your hand, your anvil right next to your fire, and to know exactly what you're going to do when you pull the iron out. That third one comes with practice, but the first two prevent you from wasting half your heat while you're dithering and picking out a hammer and waving the piece around.

Oh, one last thing- the anvil sucks heat out of a piece. Don't pull the iron out, and don't lay it on the anvil, until you're ready to hit it. Air is an insulator; a piece that stays hot 6 seconds in the air will cool in 3-4 if you place it on the heat-conducting anvil.

>>120633
Not from me, I'm afraid. I only work with metal. Pity bump, though.

[spoiler]>>120529
I've got one in my backyard! :D 5 foot arm or so, great fun. Haven't done much work on or with it, but it was a bucket list sort of item.

Anyway, I only have one piece of advice. Safety. Oh god, safety. The energies involved get so ridiculous. If something goes snap at the wrong time and a steel cable (or, hell, a rope) goes flying at the wrong time and angle... man, at 3m, I think it might be able to cut you in half. :| It'll definitely break your arm, maybe cut a hand or foot off. Anyway; design and include safeties; locks that will hold things in place until everyone's clear (and out of the firing plane), that you can pull from a distance. This is NOT the same thing as a trigger. Make a trigger you can pull to fire it, and then add a safety that will stop it from punting rover/junior three blocks to land like a ripe watermelon if the trigger breaks while you're loading.

Have fun, though, it sounds like you know what you're doing. Post vids of firing to YT and link us to them!</spoiler>

>>120528
Yes, RR spikes are _the_ modern blacksmith "thing I used to forge this knife/tool/art." It's high-carbon steel, which means you can heat treat (to R60+ish afaik) and temper it, and it's considered _trash_, which means it's free. Great stuff. Also, they're not "straight iron." High-carbon steels still rust, _stainless_ steels (with, iirc, chromium added) don't, or rust less. That's why you line sheaths with wool (lanolin seals the blade) or oil your katana (/weeaboo).

Anyway, check the sticky for blacksmtihing how-to/faq stuff.

I'm making one into a chopper this weekend, to use for harvesting pine resin for whittle tang knives. I'm kind of bootstrapping; I'm forming the handle out of the split tang, then using pine resin to stick handles on further knives. I'll post pics if I get it done, and done before the thread dies. Maybe I'll take pics of the whole process, actually, and make a /diy/ guide.

>>120469
$25 propane/NG burner bottle (pic related), ball pein hammer, and a smooth rock. Wear eye protection, make sure your shoes are done up and your pants are over top of the openings.

If you like it you can upgrade to a chunk of rail for an anvil, build or buy a venturi burner for <$100, and a kaowool-lined or firebrick-built forge for <$50 that'll run off a BBQ propane bottle.

Do you have tools or materials available to you? Do you want to create a tool for a hobby you have? Do you want to pick up a new hobby?

For $10 you can buy a carving knife and a chunk of pine 2X4 and start whittling.

For $15 you can buy enough supplies to try a simple recipe; talk to /ck/ about learning to cook.

For $25 you can buy a propane burner bottle and a hammer and pliers, and experiment with heating up (non-galvanized) nails and shaping them on a smooth rock.

For $50 you can buy some acrylic paints, a couple of brushes, and some canvas or wood, and watch Bob Ross on Youtube.

Being bored is the consequence of being boring; the active mind with rich experience can entertain itself in a featureless room. Go out and fail at things until you become good at them, and do not complain that others will not entertain you.

The best thing about organizing a smithy is that you don't care about making holes in the rough wood, and you can forge your own staples for hanging hammers and nails for hanging tongs.

Pic related. I'm replacing the setup you see at bottom with cast fireclay in the next couple of weeks, and I've got an unpictured coal forge right next to it that I use for welding and tradition's sake. Ironically the stand it's on is a nail forge.

>>120229
Bellows or blower plus (in my case only marginally) bituminous/metallurgical coal. It'll hit 3000F and melt steel no problem. I don't know why your RR spike couldn't get hotter, but a) unless you were welding, that's a fine range to work with, b) more metal takes longer to heat and cool. It depends entirely on your fire. Coal, gas, wood? You need air blowing through it to get it really hot.

>>120222
Fizzy is welding colour. I was responding to a question about welding. I work at cherry red-yellow, just like everyone else.