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About JNewman

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    Senior Member

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  • Location
    Hamilton, ON Canada


  • Location
    Hamilton Ontario Canada
  • Occupation
    Blacksmith, Patternmaker

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  1. Suspect it won't last due to oxidation. I do know a guy who found some Inconel in his local scrap yard and lined his gas forge with it very successfully. He felt the inconel was indispensable for his work preventing damaging his ceramic wool. I do know he needed a little more to cover an area that he had not covered wit the original piece of inconel and found buying it new was incredibly expensive.
  2. Maybe offer to come over Wednesday nights in the fall to organize the shop for Thursdays. Offer to come in and help with some sweeping, painting or any other help over the summer to help him out no strings attached. I understand being burned out and having a person take a bit of the load off can really help. On the other hand he might just want evenings and weekends for family and himself for a while.
  3. Try contacting Mathieu at Les Forges de Montreal. He was asking me about making them for him about a week ago. I think that is what he was used to using in France.
  4. There was an online book seller that was selling the video on DVD. Possibly blue moon press. Artisan????
  5. I am pretty sure the Canadian Giants were Little giants made under license here in Canada in Kitchener. So a 25 Lb little giant sizing will be the same and you may be able to buy one from Little Giant if you want.
  6. Come out to an Ontario artists blacksmith association meeting and join. There is a meeting in February in Milton. I am not sure if we are having a January meeting. We are here in Hamilton business hours and some times on the weekend. Not always forging but we will be tomorrow. Newman Forge & Pattern
  7. A number of years ago Forgemaster posted his kiss block set up which I modified and copied. The nice things about his setup is that the kiss block is on one side of the dies and any swages mount on the other. I can Forge down on the stopper hit the lever to remove the stopper (kiss block) and drop a swage on to swage on the same heat. You can search for pictures of his set up under his postings
  8. Hi Anvil. The pots and my swage blocks are sold in the US by Blacksmiths Depot. Unfortunately I have not made any progress on the new swage blocks as we have been so busy in the shop I have not had time to do anything with it. Lots of big patterns and Lots of forging. 30 pairs of tongs (30-60" long) in the last few weeks and about 100 prybars and chisels.
  9. Very sorry to hear this. I always enjoyed reading his posts here.
  10. As a former rock climber I have to disagree on spectra having better heat resistance to nylon. It actually melts 100 degrees LOWER than nylon. http://rockandice.com/climb-safe/climb-safe-spectra-versus-nylon/ It also has some issues with not holding knots as well. I do agree a static line is better for rappelling unless you stop or slow down part way with a sketchy anchor (which you should never rappel from but seems to be what this conversation is about). A stop or slowing down on a static line will transmit all the load to your anchor which is much more likely to break it than on a dynamic line which is designed to stretch and absorb shock loads. There are static lines with a Kevlar sheath that are more heat resistant. This thread is discussing very dangerous practices. In rock climbing you always back up your anchors. A top belay, top rope or multi pitch belay is always a minimum of 2 solid anchors. A grapple over a tree branch is not even a single solid anchor. I would heat galvanized metal in my Forge all day long before hanging 50 feet in the air from a grapple hooked on a tree branch. Especially pine I have broken tree branches off hanging food packs with less load than a person.
  11. I would not try to shop heat treat a a spring in a situation where a failure is likely to cause injury. However in your case what I would do is just air quench the spring. A kitchen oven is not even close to being hot enough. The size of the spring you are talking about will cool quickly enough to harden in air. The residual heat will then temper it. You will not get as good a result as a commercialy heat treated spring. But it should be acceptable. If it turns out to not be a hard enough at least you don't have to start from scratch, you just need to heat treat again. If it turns out not to be hard enough the next time I would try using a fan to cool it until the colour disappears and then let it air cool. When heat treating it i would use a small wire to hold the spring an hang it from until it is cool. Tongs or anything cooler you set the spring on will cool the spring too quickly and unevenly
  12. Set up right it is a fair bit less than 5 minutes to re point a breaker bit. Grant, the person Thomas is referring to did have a number of employees as well.
  13. Curious who you bought it from? It must have been kept in a heated shop to have no rust. Or they kept it oiled.
  14. I have the plans for the stand as a pdf and I will send it to you next week when I am in the shop. If I don't get it to you by mid week send me an email to remind me
  15. Only in construction. As a manufacturer if I were a sole proprietor or as I am a corporate officer/owner I can't collect workers compensation. Construction premium rates are way higher than most other industries. One of my employees this change was one of the things that pushed him out of working as a sole proprietor contractor. His rates would have been 3 or 4 times what my shop is.