Long hiatus

  I must apologize for not doing regular updates recently.  Work has been very busy and is finally tapering off.  I was taking some professional certification tests for work and I was spending a lot of my free time studying.

  What little time I've had free has been put to some good use.  I helped a co-worker clean out his father in law's garage.  Part of my reward for doing that was that I got some tools cheap.  In all honesty, I have not had a chance to go through them all yet but this is a partial list.

  * Wood joiner (about the last major piece of woodworking equipment that I did not have)
  * Drill press.  Nice one.  It is pretty much a duplicate of the one I own but I will be able to setup one of them as a full time mortising machine for woodworking.
  * Craftsman tool cabinet with tools inside.  This is one of those big rolling tool cabinets and it still has quite a few tools in it.  I still have not had a chance to take an inventory.

  As a result of the new influx of stuff, the shop is currently a mess.

  I am taking two weeks off for the Christmas season.  I hope to get some shop time and hopefully get back to the clock soon.  I have not made nearly enough progress this year.  Hopefully next year will be better.

Been pretty busy...

Greetings all,

  I have not been able to work much on the clock recently.  Between work and going to a blacksmithing convention last weekend and doing a boy scout blacksmithing demo this weekend, not much progress.  I'm hoping to get some work in this week.

Just a quick post...

Unfortunately, due to work and Halo 3 (mostly Halo 3) I have not gotten as much done as I would have liked to over the past week.  However, I am thinking of taking a few days off next week just to get some smithing time in. I have about 1/2 of the teeth cut at this point.

On a note related to that, I am expecting that I will have remake the gear.  I, in many ways, was fully expecting that before I even started.  My experience has shown that when creating a more complex part for the first time, it takes several attempts to get it right and there are a few things about this gear that may not work.

So why am I proceeding?  Quite simple, gear cutting practice.  If I screw up this gear, no problem.  It gives me a chance to really perfect my gear cutting.

First tooth!

  I got a bit of time in with the clock today.  I started by doing some completion work on the chisel that I will use for cutting waste between the teeth.

  This is the method that I am using to cut the teeth.  It starts by cutting the sides of the teeth.  These cuts are about 1/2" deep to give an idea of the size.



This is followed by gently heating the area. I have to be very careful because it would be very easy to burn the teeth away.  After heating, I use the chisel to knock out the waste.  This picture shows what it looks like unheated.  It is hard to tell from the photo but the backside of the chisel is flat so that the bottom of the gap between the teeth will be flatter and need less cleanup filing.



After cutting the first tooth, I went ahead and started cutting the remainder of the teeth.  So far, I have about 10 teeth cuts made.  I hope that by the end of this week, all the cuts will be made and I can pop out the waste.  This is followed up by cleanup filing.  Also notice to the right of the photo is a spot where I popped out the waste material.  It really worked like a charm.



On a final note, as I was marking out the teeth, I did notice a few small problems.  Hopefully it will not cause me problems but even if it is unusable, I am planing on cutting all of the teeth just for the practice.

Gear cutting has started

Today (betwen the many rainstorms) I was able to finish centering up the gear.  I am hoping that everything will be okay.  It looks pretty good but I will not know for sure until it has to rotate against another gear.

After getting everything centered and cleaning up the outer diameter, I decided to start cutting the gear.  I did not have the camera with me due to all of the rain but I will take some pictures during the next session.  This particular gear is going to have 100 teeth.  The start of the process was to use a divider to create 10 equal arcs on the gear.  From there, those were divided in half.  Each of those arcs should contain 5 teeth.  I am able to use the divider to evenly divide this into 5 pieces.

So, after placing a small mark, I use a small wooden pattern to mark the cutout for the teeth.  After scribing a small line, I then took the hacksaw and cut the sides of the tooth.  The waste material is still in place.  If the rain stops and I can get the forge going, I will then heat the gear up a bit and use a chisel to knock the waste material out of the way.

In all honesty, if not for the rain, I probably could have gotten a lot done on the gear today.  Oh well...

On a final note, I did make a minor mistake.  The clock that I am reproducing only had 96 teeth on the main wheel, not 100.  The 96 is probably because it was easily evenly divided to very small numbers which makes it easy to mark for cutting.  I just made a little goof as I was thinking of my original wooden clock.  It really is not that big of a deal.  Extra teeth on this wheel will not hurt me.

Finally setup my new toy...

  Well, last Christmas season I had gotten a new Grizzly belt grinder/buffer.  For those not familiar with them, they are essentially a large vertical belt grinder/sander with a buffing wheel off to the side.  It is used by a lot of people for making knives but it reality it is just a good, all around grinder.  Well, because of some bad stuff and being busy, I never set it up.



  To give an idea of size, the belt is a 72" loop.

  Today I finally got around to putting it together.  Other than some poorly written directions combined with bad illustrations, I soon had it up and running.  The first thing I tried it out on was my gear from last week.

  For the gear, I need to smooth the outside down before I can gut the gear's teeth.  I will also need to true the gear up to be a perfect circle (at least on the outside) when rotating around the arbor.  Up until now, I was planning on doing it with a lot of filing and some work on the old bench grinder.

  I cannot say enough how surprised I was by the efficiency of the Grizzly.  It really smoothed the outside down fast.  It is not trued up to a circle yet, I was just removing some of the bumps.  But this will really be a labor saver.

  For those few that have been following my blog for more than a few months, you know that it is very important to me that I make this clock using mostly traditional techniques.  In the middle ages, the work of the Grizzly would have been done my a traditional grinding wheel.  Although I have one being held by a friend for me, I will still need to make an assembly to hold the wheel and allow me to power it using a foot pedal.  That is a way's off.

  I hope that before the clock is complete, I get a chance to finish one of the gears using the traditional grinding wheel.  But until then, the Grizzly sure is fun...  :)

Things getting a bit hairy...

  I forgot to mention that I did get about 15 strands of horse hair for the clock.  A friend gave them to me last Friday.  These will be used to suspend a portion of the clock that needs to swing freely.

  Anyone know how much weight a single horse hair can hold?  Maybe I will have to google it....  :)

Gear mounted

  On Friday, I managed to get some more work in.  I decided that since I did not have dividers that were big enough to verify the wheel was centered, I put small extensions on the end of the divider and I was able to use this to verify everything was nice and centered.

  I started with bending the tabs over to secure the hub,spokes and wheel together.



This turned out to be a nice tight fit.  Next came the arbor.  Since the arbor is square where the gear attaches, I need to use a square punch.  To line it up, I drew lines down the center of the spokes.  Then the corners of the punch were placed on the lines to properly center it.  This picture shows the placement of the punch.



After placing the punch, I then used that as a guide to tap 4 divots in the hub.  This would allow me to properly place the punch after heating.  The divots marked the corners and I used that to start punching the hole.  A bit more of "beauty shot" is shown here.  This is after the first 2 or 3 punches.  Coal dust has gathered in the punched area.  Look for the darker square in the middle of the fire.



When I had punched the arbor about 25% through the hub, I placed the hub over a bolster plate (flat piece of metal with a hole in it that matches what you are trying to punch) and I was able to easily push the remaining material out.

Finally, after punching the arbor hole, I put the new gear on the arbor to try it out in the clock frame.



If you look carefully, there is a square washer on both sides of the gear on the arbor.  This helps to keep it perpendicular to the arbor.

It looks pretty good.  I need to tilt the gear a bit.  However, the gear does seem to be a lot more centered then my first attempt.  The variance seems to be at a maximum of 1/4" with the average being under 1/8".  That is about the best I can really hope for.

After doing just a bit more cleanup, the next step will be the grinding of the outside to get it nice and round.  After that, maybe I can finally start cutting the gear.

As an added note, in future gears, I will punch the arbor prior to mounting the hub and spokes in the wheel.  I had to constantly restraighten the spokes while I was doing the punching.

More spoke work

  Another good day at the forge...

  Today's goal was to prepare the spokes for placing them into the wheel.  The first step is to split the ends of the spokes.  This starts with cutting a slit using a hacksaw.

    

After the slit is made with the saw, the end is heated and the split open using a chisel followed a wedge then hammered open.

     

After splitting all four ends, I did some filing on the inside of the wheel and with a bit of hammer tapping, the wheel has a new set of spokes.



The tabs on the end of the spokes will be heated and bent over to grab the wheel.  This will create a very firm connection.

I decided to hold off on bending the tabs over.  I want to make sure everything is nice and centered.  I measured with a ruler and from the center, the variance is no more than 1/8" from what I measured.  This means a minimal amount of filing to get the circle trued up.  However, using a ruler to do this is not the best check.  I need a large pair of dividers to confirm that everything is okay.  I thought I had a larger pair but could not find them so I am going to hold off securing the spokes until I can buy a new divider.

Very good session

  I was able to get out to the forge for a few hours today before the rain moved in.  I have not been putting as many photos on here as I have in the past.  I will try to correct that starting today.

  So, my agenda today was to prep the hub and spokes for placement within the outer ring.  For starters, in working with the spokes, I needed to make two marks.  The first mark would indicate where the spoke would meet the outer ring.  The second line was about 3/4" beyond that.  That last 3/4" is split and bent around the outer ring to hold onto it.

  The first step was to find the center of the hub.  The way I approached this was to draw a line down the middle of the spokes and find the intersection point.  After finding the center, I tapped a very small mark at the center for all future reference.



  Next, using a divider I marked two lengths on each spoke for where it will connect to the outer gear.



This picture shows the spokes laying on the outer gear with the mark on the spokes.  I later moved the line a little closer to the center.



This shows the end of the spokes cut but not yet cleaned up.  The white line is an old line and can be ignored.



I noticed something about the wheel at this point.  It was that from the first attempt I had marked a few little divots where the spokes should connect to the wheel.  They had been bothering me so I decided to make a pattern on a piece of steel and compare it to what I had on the wheel.  Notice that at the cardinal points of the wheel there are two hash marks.  Those marks should line up with the lines on the steel.  If you look at the area marked "B" you will notice a problem.



Apparently when I laid the wheel out before, I had improperly placed this point.  This was probably responsible for some of the issues I had with the first attempt.

After notice this problem and correcting it, I also did a little work on the wheel to take out a few little bumps that I had noticed when I mounted the first gear attempt on the clock.  It looks much, much better now.

Finally, the tips of each spoke were heated and hot filed to smooth them and prepare them for some future work.  Part of this filing included rounding over the tips slightly.



I am very, very happy with this effort.  Everything is looking much better than the previous attempt.  I have decided that with the level of caution I am taking, it will be better to punch the arbor hole in the hub prior to mounting it on the wheel.  I will just make it slightly undersized to give me some wiggle room if it is not perfectly centered.

Here is a picture of the wooden pattern I used in the previous session.  This let me much more precisely lay out the spokes then before.  The little "V"s are to let me more easily see where the line is if it is covered up by metal.  The brown area is where the metal was a little warm when held next to the wood.



Finally, I should get a financial kick back for this but a nice little investment...  It is a little rubber lasso that goes around a can of WD40 and keeps the little straw...



 

Deja vu...

  Worked some more on the replacement hub and spokes.  I am really liking the improvement in quality with this one.  To make it easier to have it come out right, I drew the spokes on a piece of wood.  This allowed me to compare my piece to the pattern to make sure it was coming out with nice 90 degree angles.  It also me to make sure all of the spokes were close to the same thickness.

  At this point, the hub and spokes are close to being done.  I need to trim the spokes to length and then put the assembly into the circle of the gear.  Finally, the hub needs to be punched for the clock's arbor.

  Finally today I also removed the first hub and spokes.  It was fairly easy to pop out.  I double checked the outer circle of the gear and it does appear that I can reuse it with the new spokes.

  Here is a photo of the new crossbar.  You may notice at the hub that it appears slightly misshapen.  It is wider across one axis compared to the other.  This is from the forging process.  Once the arbor hole is punched, I may do a bit of filing to even them up.  However, it will have no functional difference on the clock, only aesthetic value.

  Also in this photo you may notice a white tracing line on one side of the circle.  That shows how much material I potentially would have had to file if I had kept the original hub and spokes.

  The bulge on the left side of the circle is the left over from the forge weld of joining the circle together.  Once all filing is done, it should basically be undetectable.

Some more gear work

  Today, I took a look at the hub and spokes I made last weekend and I had used too small stock for the hub so I decided to work on remaking the hub and spokes again.

  So I spent today remaking the hub and spokes using 2" x 1/2" stock.  In some ways, I'm glad to be remaking this a few times.  Each time I am getting better and better at making the hub and spokes.  I am contemplating remaking the outer wheel of the gear but I do not think that will be necessary.

  This week, I am expecting to get much more work in.  My work schedule is such that I should have the afternoons free to do some work.  The only problem is that this time of the year in Florida usually means afternoon rain storms.  If it rains, I cannot work.

Weekend work...

  This weekend was a demo weekend at a boyscout camp.

  I decided to play around with making a new hub and spokes.  Things went pretty well but still a little unhappy with the results so I will probably try again.  Basically, the mistake this time was that I did not leave enough mass for the hub.  I probably could have made it work but decided it was better to just start from scratch.

  On another note, I am not going to take the clock to anymore demos.  I have mentioned quite a while back that I tend to rush a bit when people are watching me and the clock parts are going to get more complicated.  I cannot work on it with people watching.  When I do demos in the future, I will work on smaller, simpler projects.

  Also I did receive some good news from a gentleman that helped me get my original equipment.  I often let him know what things I am looking for and he in turn has a gentleman in Pennsylvania that looks for the equipment.  Well, he managed to secure a large round sharpening stone for me.  It is about 2' diameter.  I will have to make the stand for it but that is not a big deal.

  One of my goals has always been to have a more authentic setup.  The sharpening wheel will be a good addition...  I pick it up on Tuesday.

I knew I would be redoing the part...

For starters, I had fun on my vacation.  I had a chance to visit a pioneer village in Ohio with a blacksmith.  The blacksmith was a younger, self-taught blacksmith.  We traded a few tips with each other before I headed out.

Today I finally got back to the forge.  What I wanted to work on was the gear for the main wheel.  A long time back I made both the outer wheel portion of the gear and I also made the hub and spokes.  Although I have taken a few pictures of the two parts together, I had never gotten around to joining them together.

I had made an attempt to join the two parts a while back but it was a rushed job just before sunset and I messed it up some.  I originally was not going to use the current hub and spokes (it has a few problems with quality) but I decided that it would be good practice.  I am glad that I did.  The parts where joined together and I was finally able to have something that looked a little like a gear on the clock.  Here is a picture.




The wheel and spokes are firmly connected.  In fact, I was a little surprised that I did not have to play with it too much to get a nice firm connection.  The gear spins very easily and overall I am fairly happy with this first attempt.  But there are problems.

The biggest problem is that it is the outer circle is not properly centered.  This means that as it rotates, it is a bit lopsided.  It is not by a great deal (about 1/4" in the center) but it means that the total difference when the wheel is spun is about 1/2".  That would mean that if I kept it as is, I would have to file almost 1/2" worth of metal from one side.  Not going to happen...

I tried to be careful when I placed the hub and spokes in the wheel but just the minor amount really threw things off.  While thinking about it, I realized the better way to do it.  The hub and spokes should be placed into the wheel first, then the hole for the axle would be punched.  The advantage of that is that I could more easily make sure the punched hole is in the exact center.  Especially if I punch the hole is a little smaller, I could then file the sides to make sure that it is properly centered.

Next time on the forge, I will pop out the existing hub and spokes.  I will double check but the outer wheel seems to be workable.  Then I will remake the hub and spokes and put the new hub and spokes back into the wheel.

So, even though this part will not be used, I learned a valuable lesson about the center of the axle.  Hopefully when I remake the gear, I will get it nice and centered.

Additionally, I did do some cleanup on the wheel to get rid of some of the bulge from the weld.

No work for a little bit...

  Because of vacation, I will be away from the forge.  Believe me, I was tempted to bring the forge with me...  :)

Almanus Manuscript

  Well my copy of the Almanus Manuscript just arrived and it is a major boost to my documentation of medieval clocks.  This document was written in the latter half of the 15th century by an otherwise unknown monk.  Apparently, he was an assistant that helped repair clocks.  As part of that job, he would frequently document the clocks with sketches and comments.

  I am very, very happy with the purchase so far.  The only downside is that the clocks are mantle clocks which are much smaller than the turret clock that I am creating.  However, all the basic mechanisms are either the same or very similar.

  Anyway, back to the book...

Verge and Foliot Suspension complete

  I was able to get out to the forge today and finish up the verge and foliot suspension.  Once again, the verge and foliot are basically a "T" shaped vertical bar that rotates back and forth.  This serves the same purpose as a pendulum on more recent clocks.  I still have to do some cleanup, final shaping but the hard work is done.

  The piece was made of 3 pieces of metal.  The first piece is the upright piece that attaches to the clock frame.  The next piece is riveted to the first.  It also bent to make sure that it is directly over the area where the verge and foliot will be placed.  Finally a third piece was forge welded to the second piece.  This piece was bent and includes some small indents where the verge and foliot will hang from.  This is a picture of the piece on the clock frame.

This photo has been altered to show how the suspension will work.  The yellow line will be a thread (probably horse tail hair) and the red line will be the verge and foliot.  Once again it will rotate back and forth.  It may not be obvious, but there is a hole for the verge and foliot to pass through on the new piece.

Short entry

  Because of the demise of my fiber optics router (blazing fast), I am forced to use dial up until the new router arrives.  So this entry will be short.

  I continued work on the suspension mechanism for the verge and foliot today.  I was making excellant progress until there was an unexpected problem.  The sun went down.  Anyway, I hope to have the entire suspension mechanism done tomorrow so that I can move on to beginning the verge and foliot.

Clock progress

  Finally got to work on the clock today.  The clock has fared pretty well after 6 months in garage and barely being touched.  Sometimes the humidity in Florida can be hard on the steel but it only had a bit of surface rust.

  At the beginning of the year, I had been working on the main gear on the going train (time keeping side of the clock.)  After thinking about it, I have decide to shift to make another area of the clock first.  The reason is that it will affect the placement of the main gear on its arbor.  So the part I decided to work on was the verge and foliot.  The verge and foliot is that name of the part of the clock responsible for actually regulating the running of the clock.  It is the medieval version of the pendulum.  Essentially it is a "T" shaped piece of metal that has weights placed on the ends of the arms of the "T".  This assembly rotates back and forth giving the clock its ticking.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verge_and_foliot

  This mechanism hangs from an arm that in turn is attached to the frame.  So today, I started on this arm assembly.  I started by taking a 1" piece of stock.  The bottom of the piece was reduced to about 3/4" by 1/4" tenon to fit into the clock frame.  The top is about 5/8" square.  In the middle is a flared section.  This flared section rests against the clock frame and serves to make sure the arm doesn't wobble.  This flared section presented the biggest challenge.  After I formed the top and bottom, I used punches not as punches but to help spread the metal.  This gave me enough metal to switch to a ball pein to increase the width.

  This is a picture from the Cassiobury clock.  The circled area is what I was working on today.



  If you look carefully, the arm goes across the top of clock, then up and back again.  It is the assembly that the verge and foliot are hanging from.

  This is the picture of the piece I was working on.



  The piece is still rough and I will be making a slit in the lower portion that will allow it to be held in place with a pin.  There is still some shaping to do.  It may not look like much but getting that flare in the center was a $^#@!.  The rest of the arm assembly should be easy.

  Also as a final note, my verge and foliot assembly will not be an exact match to the Cassiobury.  I am basing the assembly on the Dover clock which is the only clock from this maker which still has its original assembly.  The assembly on the Cassiobury is a replacement and probably was made without access to the original.

Getting back in the groove

  Spent some time on the forge today and I have no real plans for the weekend.  I am looking forward to getting back in the swing of things.

  I worked on the kitchen accesory again today (I promise pictures soon...).  However, tomorrow I think I will work on the clock.  I have been idle on that too long...

Researching...

  Well, I have to say the break from the blacksmithing is definitely over.  I'm finding myself anxious to get on the forge.  Probably more than I have in some time.  However, summer in Florida means lots of rain and lighting and it has made it difficult to get out.  I should be able to get a fair amount in this weekend.

  This week I did find a potential bit of major information.  There is a medieval book called "The Almanus Manuscript" which was written in the 15th century and contains over 30 sketches by a clock maker of some of the clocks he worked on.  It is very rare to find documents of this nature.  What surprises me is that in all of my searches over the past few years I never stumbled across this book.  So yesterday I ordered it from Amazon and hopefully should get it soon.

  On another note on the clock, I hope to get back to it within the next few days.

3 little firends

So today I was minding my own business working on the forge when I hear a rustling noise behind me.  I turn and see 3 fully grown armadillos about 2 feet from me.  It startled me a bit having wild animals that close.  After gettting a little distance I started to attempt to scare them away.  The problem is that armadillos are as dumb as a box of rocks, have basically no sight and they don't hear very well.  But after a few nudges with some metal stock, I got them to move on.

Otherwise, I was able to make a lot of good progress.  Unfortunately, lightning chased me inside.  The idea of holding a piece of metal with lightning hitting around me did not seem like a good idea.

Fire in the forge...

  Well, today was the first day I've had the forge fired up in months.  I won't go into the reasons for all the delays but it felt good to be working again.

  Anyway, to get me back into the groove I started working on a medieval kitchen accessory.  Essentially it gives a place where pots, pans, utensils can be hanged.  It looks somewhat like a chandelier with hooks hanging from it.  I will try to post work pictures soon and if things go well, I hope to be posting on a regular basis again.

Long Hiatus

Okay, work has been busy, life's been busy, haven't had much time to do blacksmithing, blah, blah blah...

Well, one of the major holdups to working on the forge is out of the way.  I was finally able to finish the new Kingdom thrones for Trimaris (SCA).  Here are some pictures of the new thrones.

 

This is a picture without the cushions just after I delivered them.  Several people helped me with them and I am glad that they are done.  It seems that everyone is happy with them.

Also, a major probject for work has been postponed.  Between that and getting the thrones done, I should have some time to finally get back to the clock.

A good day out...

  Today, the local blacksmithing group was meeting at a gentleman's shop over on the Gulf Coast.  Before I go any further, a bit of history on the area.

  The town I went to is Tarpon Springs, Florida.  This area was mostly populated by Greek immigrants around 1900.  The brought much of their culture with them as well as one of their occupations, sponge diving.  Sponge harvesting is still one of the big businesses in the area.

  The gentleman's shop we went to makes traditional sponge diving helmets.  These are the large helmets often associated with underwater salvage or other heavy work.  For examples, visit this site.  http://www.divingheritage.com/lerioskern.htm  This is the shop that we went to.

  He gave a great presentation.  Very friendly individual and very open the sharing his knowledge.  And his shop was full of many great antique tools.

  As the day was winding down, he was talking about dredging part of the ocean out next to his shop.  Part of the dredging brought up a large amount of rusty metal bars.  When I finally got a closer look, I had a surprise.  It was real wrought iron and a lot of it.  Some of asked if he would mind if we took it.  He had no problem and I ended up with the lion's share of it.  I probably have about 50' of 1 1/2" by 1/2" wrought iron.  A few spots are heavily rusted but since it is wrought iron it will be easy to fold it back on itself and weld it together to thicken it back up...

  Anyway, a few good day.  Lot of neat things and some free wrought iron.

  On another note, over the past few weeks I have been thinking about the problems I have been having in making any real progress on the clock over the past few months.  I think the real problem is that I have been working on the clock at demos.  I tend to rush things and mess them up.  So, for the foreseeable future, I am only going to work on the clock at home when no one is watching.

Still working on first gear...

  I finally got out to the forge to work on some stuff just for myself.  Primarily, I worked on forging another outer ring for the gear.  As I mentioned in a prevous post, this was a heavier stock.  I'm pretty happy with how this one came out.  I started to work on getting the spokes attached to the outer ring, but I wasn't real happy with how that was coming out so I stopped for the night.

  I haven't been able to do much smithing for about 2 months now but I should be able to get back to it on a regular basis so hope to make some real progress soon.

 

Long time, no entry...

So, just realized that I haven't put up an entry in a little while so thought I would drop in some notes.

Two weekends ago, I did a demo for a local town.  On Saturday, I made a trivet which is a three legged platform placed over a campfire that is used to hold frying pans.  I also made a shovel for moving my coal.  And finally, I decided to make a new circle for my main clock gear.

The first circle I made was a bit two small and also I had made it at another demo and my welding wasn't pretty.  I had overheated the metal and had some burn damage..  So I decided to work on a new ring.  This one came out pretty well as well but I did make a somewhat significant mistake on the weld as well.  I had not allowed for enough overlap and the area of the weld was a bit on the thin side.  I also noticed after I got it done that I had used 1/4" stock instead of 3/8" stock.  Don't know how that happend but oh well...

Sunday of the event was a no-go for me.  The winds got too high for me to start up my fire.  So I packed up on Sunday to head home.

I made a surprise visit back to Ohio a week ago for my parent's 45th anniversary so a lot of last week was non-productive.

This past weekend I did another demo for a railroad festival.  It was a bit of a drive for me but I was doing it for a friend.  On the way to the event, I came across an accident where a vehicle had struck a power line and started a fire.  I used up my fire extinguisher before the fire department arrived so I need to get that recharged.  No one was hurt.

I set up at the festival on Saturday and had a lot of fun.  I did another trivet (this one had twists).  After that, I had a gentleman who was involved with civil war reenactment and he requested a specific style of S-hook for his coffee pot.  Essentially, the design of the coffee pot did not allow for it to hang easily from a basic S-hook.  I came up with a design that looked like an upside down "Y".  It had two hooks on the bottom for the coffee pot.  I tried to give it to him for free but he insisted on giving me some money for it.

Finally, I started another ring for the clock's main gear.  This is larger than the first ring by about 1" on the radius.  I think when I made the frame, I made it a touch larger that I should have so I am bumping up the gear size.  Also, I made sure to use 3/8" stock this time.  I got that circle about 75% done before the end of the day.  That was fine, I had already decided I would not weld another ring closed in front of the public.  I tend to rush it and it ends up not as nice as I would like.

If things go well, I should be doing some more smithing this week...

Woo hoo!

  I hope to get a lot done this weekend.  I am doing a demo for a local Shakespere festival.  Essentially, they want me to come out an do blacksmithing from early morning to early evening.  Blacksmithing all weekend?  Gosh, if you really need me to....

A bit of a milestone...

  Well, today I got out to the forge and I decided that before I did too much more on the arbor, it needed to be mounted in the frame.  In order to mount it to the frame, I needed a 1/2" hole in one portion of the frame and a 1" hole in another part of the frame.  Before I could do this, I needed to make a few drifts.  I already had a 1/2" drift.  I went ahead and made a 3/4" and 1" drift.

  Here is a picture of the frame with the arbor in place.



  The end of the arbor sticking out of the end of the frame will be squared up.  The squared up part will be later connected the the clock face to actually show the time. 

  So why is this a minor milestone?  For the first time there is a moving part on the clock.

Arbor work

  I was able to get back to forge some today.  I decided to continue to work on the arbor.  The first thing I needed to do was make a second washer.  This picture shows the arbor before I started working today.



  I needed to make a second washer for the other side of the gear.  This washer would be a bit smaller.  So cut a square piece about 1 1/2" by 1 1/2" and 1/4" thick.  I punched a square hole in it to fit the arbor.  Next, I punched a slot in the arbor that will allow me to secure the gear onto the arbor.  Finally, I shaped the end putting the 1/2" round that will actual connect the arbor to the frame.  Here is how it looks now.



  The end will be timmed to be only about 1/2" long on the round portion.  This will make it long enough to go through the frame.  I also need to extend the slot just a bit so that when I make the wedge, it will hold the washer and gear tight.  I can do that with a file.

  On a final note, I expect to be able to do a lot more smithing in the near future.  A lot of projects that have been keeping me busy are clearing up.

Nothing to do with the clock but...

This is what has been keeping me from smithing.  These are the new thrones for the SCA.  My part is mostly done.  The thrones now go out to the artists for painting and carving.  It comes back to me for glue up, sanding and finishing.

   

Finally, some progress...

  I had to get in some forge time so I decided to spend part of the day on the forge.  I decided to start work on the arbor.  The arbor for most of its length is 1" diameter circle.  On the end I am working on, it goes to 3/4" square then to 1/2" round.  I started with a piece of 1" round stock.  Then I forged the 3/4" square on the end.  The 1/2" round will wait until I get some other work done.

  After completing that portion of the arbor, I next made a washer.  The washer fits against the gear and from my experience with the wooden clock, the washer helps to keep the gear from wobbling.  The washer is really a piece of 1/2" stock, 2" x 2" with rounded corners.  I then punched a 3/4" square in the center of the washer so that it would fit on the arbor.

  Next, I took the spokes I made a few weeks back.  I did a little more straightening on the spokes.  I then punched a 3/4" square in this as well.  These pictures show where things are at at the moment.  The circle part of the gear is just resting on the spokes to give an idea of what it will look like.





  The previous photo shows the washer.  There will be another washer on the other side of the gear then a small wedge to hold them in place.  Finally, the end of the arbor will be rounded to connect to the frame.

  Finally, here are some new toys.  Three monkey tools and a top swage.  The monkey tools are used to square up shoulders when making round ends.  The top swage will be used to help me make the rounded end of the arbor.



BTW: the small hole about halfway down the monkey tool is a vent hole to keep air from getting trapped inside.  Also, I got a little tip for making monkey tools cheaply.  Pick up a 2# sledge from Harbor Frieght.  Remove the handle and anneal the hammer.  Drill one end with the size of hole you need for the monkey tool.  Drill this hole to the eye of the ex-hammer.

About forge time...

  Well, the eye has healed up nicely and my vision is back to normal.  However, the passing of a good friend had kept me from having the spirit to work for the past week.  She lost her battle to cancer and I just was not in the mood to do any work.

  Things are settling back down and I'm looking to get back to the forge.  In the meantime, I did receive several new blacksmithing books from Amazon and I just placed an order for some tools from www.blacksmithdepot.com.  I am ready to get back to the forge but it must wait on the finishing the thrones for the SCA.  I did get a fair amount of work done on them tonight.  If things go well, I might get some time in this week.

One more delay

Well, while doing woodworking yesterday, I suffered a fairly bad eye injury.  I had removed my safety glasses and was wiping sweat from my face and suffered a fairly bad cornea abrasion.  I either had a wood chip on my shirt or it was somewhere on my face and it contacted my eye when I was wiping sweat.  Nothing permenant but it will take a few days to heal.  Anyway, don't expect any updates for at least a few days.

New toy but can't play with it yet.

  I just received one of my Christmas presents a little late.  It is a belt grinder from Grizzly.  http://www.grizzly.com/products/G1015  Although most own them for knives and swords, mine will be more for tool making and touchups.  I may try swords after the clock and it will prove useful then.  In case you do not know how big these are, the unit is almost 3 foot tall and wide.

  Anyway, I hope to get back to the clock after this weekend.