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Over the weekend three of our members forged out of steel some great hooks to organize some of our metal casting supplies. Dan, Matt W. and Steve used the blacksmith forge and anvil to create the metal hooks shown here. The hooks were then mounted to a board which was mounted to the wall. Now our metal casting safety clothing along with our lifting tongs and pouring tongs have a neat place to reside!
Recently, I’ve started playing around a bit with metal-working. Pretty low-tech stuff – heat it and beat it.
My DIY coal forge isn’t much to look at, just a couple pieces of steel pipe with the shop-vac on a dimmer switch, and an old brake disc welded on top, but it’s enough to do some basic blacksmithing.
Last night after work, I fired up the mini-forge and worked on a pair of old iron nails. I heated them, and then applied a blacksmith twist, a bend to make a hook, and even hot-punched (NOT drilled) mounting holes.
Once done, I hit them with a wire wheel to give it that shiny silver-and-black finish I like.
The result is a pair of decorative, yet very functional, iron hooks for hanging decorations, photos, and the like. Maybe I can make a few more to mount next to my wood stove to hold my fire poker and kindling hatchet.
A time lapse video complied from the Milwaukee Makerspace CCTV system. 7 hours of video compressed into 4 minutes. All events took place between 4:30 and 11:30 PM Thursday, September 29, 2011.
Activities include:
– Rich welding
– Chris and Rich working on their electric cars
– Chris driving his electric car in and out of the shop
– Tom, Adam, and Royce working in Diptrace
– Bret, Rich, Royce, and Adam blacksmithing items with the forge
– Various people working on misc. projects and chatting
– Royce, Brant, and Adam etching and tin-plating circuit boards
– Pete working on his Makerbot 3D printer