From Gold to coal.

My, how the once mighty have fallen. Going from setting diamonds in gold to making repairs in iron. And before this sparks off the whole all work is good and needed, or working with one is just as good as the other, etc., etc., etc., it’s just a joke. I know the value of hand-work is not in the value of the materials, But today’s adventures involve the forge and working mild steel.

Mistress Lorelei, who loves outdoor cooking more than anything, has a fire-pit cooking set, that she loaned out to someone, When it was returned, it was missing a leg and one of the others was bent. She brought the bent leg to me to see if i could fix it and would make her another one. This was a pretty straight forward cooking spit set-up, so i gladly took on this task. I have yet to see how it works, but I figured that if I made it to the same specs as the bent one, it would do as a replacement. At this point, in hindsight, i really hope the missing piece was not a mirror of the bent one. Having not fired up the forge in over a month, I was super glad for the excuse to get back to it.

 

So, the actual making of the leg is pretty mundane, so here is a photo montage of the work:

While I was at it, I did some more work on the hinged I am making for Lord Christof LeStrange. These are for a viking chest he is making for A&S.

And last but not least, we had a full house at Grimmsfield Monday night, arrow making, leather working and some of the fiber arts.. Just a wonderful artsy/crafty day from sun up to past sundown.

If you have made it this far and would like to receive a e-mail when new postings come out, please send me a note at grimm@grimmsfield.com. And on a final note, I got a kiss on the cheek from the Queen: WOOT!!!!!!!

If you can, please comment below on things you liked, things you did not or just to let me know you looked. Thanks, Grimm

Secret Project Done!!!

As you may have noticed, there has not been much going on with this page. That is for 2 reasons, 1 is that real life had been kicking my butt and the 2nd (the one you care about) is that I was working on a super secret project.

Mistress Martelle von Charlottenburg was to receive her Pelican at 12th night and I was given the honor of making her medallion. That is why i could not post progress pictures. I have 2 much to work on right now to do a full write up. But here is a gallery of work in progress pictures. Included are pictures of my written notes for the project. They contain the thoughts on the work in progress

Some Mundane Forge Work

Well, I seem to be slipping more and more. Almost a month between postings. I have been spending a lot of time on household chores and getting the store ready for Xmas. Re-built the forge area in the garage and tried to make more work room in the garage and basement for A&S. A lot more room in the basement now, years of clutter collecting in the corners has finally been taken care of. On the fun side, my wife picked out som new cabinets for the kitchen at Ikea. This meant I got to assemble them. YEA! I also decided to make them a bit better and forge my own handles.

 
 

There was a total of 6 needed for the unit. I decided to forge a test piece first and then see how it turned out. I am glad I did, the test piece was much to large. this led to a re-design and a working prototype was produced. This was then duplicated 5 more times. Notes for the prototype:

Here is the result of the first plans:

This led to a re-design and more calculations. This was way too large and stuck out way too far. Thus a new planning sheet for the cutting and shaping:

 
 

The handles are held on with machine screws and bolts. I bought myself a tap and die set, but was afraid to use them on this set with how much work i had put in them. The bolts came zinc coated and I used white vinegar to remove that in order to blacken them in the forge. the process is described below (I hope it is legible):