UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL WITH AN AMAZING GATE

As a student of Blacksmithing, to come across such an amazing piece of work, and actually be able to talk with the maker proved to be a highlight of last years Forge In at PCAD. The gate was designed and made by Joff Hopper who runs Metal pig Forgehttp://www.metalpigforge.co.uk/ a nice guy to talk with who also happens to be quite Humble when given compliments about his work. This gate actually won Joff Hopper the award of National Champion Blacksmith

 2007. The detail and craftmanship has to be seen to be believed.

I love the door latch, the free flowing forged uprights providing the gate with structure and enough tension for the forged latch to operate.

THE REAL OXY POST : OXY- ACETYLENE

Previously i wrote one line describing my frustration with Oxy - Acetylene, if any body actually reads this crap they must have, in all probability, more than a passing interest in Smithing.
So the question remains why do i manage to frustrate myself with two cylinders and a bloody torch!

Well believe it or not the answer really is quite simple - I CAN NEVER REMEMBER HOW TO TURN THE DAMN THINGS ON.
Now before you start believing the author of this post to be completely stupid, which in part is true, i can do most things, i can cook bloody well, gut a house and re build it, make furniture and produce functional items out scrap material, but i can't for the want of trying ever remember how to light the damn torch.

Now like most folks at Plymouth college of Art, i have a sketch pad. In the front of my pad secured with multiple staples lies a set of instructions on operating Oxy equipment and lighting a forge with above mentioned. Now i will admit to being shown once or twice but most visits to the college workshop result in at least one forge blowing and normally two sometimes three. Seeing as most of our work at present is achieved using a forge, i have found Oxy amnesia wholly unsatisfying, until last week when i had to admit it wasn't just Oxy amnesia that i was suffering, it was fear as well. Not fear of an explosion , but fear of someone, anyone finding out they had an Oxy fraud in the workshop. So i swallowed my pride, i didn't have a choice to be honest, Mr Wood had kindly let me come in on a Thursday to catch up, as that damn inconvenience that goes by the name of JOB had managed to rear sharp claws and mess up a perfectly good Tuesday college session. After listening in on a first year Degree talk which was very interesting Mr Wood gave me the nod to light a forge. Now here was the problem, with  two options. Light the forge with sticks and paper or light with Oxy. If i was to try and light with sticks and paper i would probably fail to light a cigarette, let alone a forge, or should i fumble around with the Oxy and hope that someone i know comes to my rescue? Second option !!
In walks Second year Ryan, (who is actually holding the torch in the above photo, i decided to chop him out just in case he didn't want to be seen or associated with a blog post about Oxy incompetence)   A quick call for help, and a little memory jog and we are up and running. Later that day i re- lit the forge after lunch, confidence was that high i even lit a forge a passing lady, now that was confidence.

What is the point of this post, well after the half term break i needed the oxy again this time for some wrap work on a since binned door knocker, could i light it NO. This time the problem was not how to turn it on but the fact that the last user had probably not closed all the valves and i could not figure out for the want of trying where to start from!!

                                                                                                                       

OXY-ACETYLENE

Who would think that two bloody cylinders could cause one man such a headache!

FIRE WELDING - LOSING MY VIRGINITY

 Previously i posted about my first day back and how nothing is quite as it seems in the forge. As luck would have it i was an hour early for our second session.With the forges still blowing and the workshop still being supervised(believe me it needs to be supervised when I'm there), i was able to crack on and get 45 minutes extra forge time.

But the same as last week, simple tasks were still failing me. I thought as a warm up i would make a couple of hooks, then a snail in prep for November. The hooks were swiftly abandoned, the snail was slow.
I think at this point i was seriously demoralised, not to the point of wanting to go home, but seriously pissed off, then the magic happened!

At the start of the class, Richard asked if we would like to do a taught session on Fire Welding. Everybody was well into the idea of a taught session and having some of the myths demystified.

Absolutely brilliant session, with Richard explaining in depth about managing the fire, and the importance of a clean managed fire when Fire Welding.

After our session it was time for us to step up. As a class we all were successful after a couple of attempts, i managed a scarfed Fire Weld of two pieces of 12mm sq. First attempt was a nightmare the second i managed the join with a little help of some Borax.

We made some attempts at bending the material back on itself and Fire Welding to form a thick end., which resulted in one of the class then making a spoon. After a couple of attempts with varying degrees of success i attempted an animal head of unknown species!! As we are learning, the look of the head was unimportant that will come later.

By the end of the session, i think we were all happy, especially myself as my confidence had been restored to pre- christmas levels.

Picture of animal head and scarf Fire Weld - click on picture for larger image.