Blacksmithing - How To Forge An Eye - Difficulty: Easy 

Awesome well done. It's great when it pays and is fast to produce. Hope you get more like it. Cheers J

Thank you Ken! All the very best. Cheers J

Jeff Sablich thank you it's good to hear different experiences. sounds like a good way around it. the job piece work and it payed well doing it fast. j

Still working well. Cheers J

Thanks buddy! A few more tweeks and I recon I could double the time again. If I used MAG for welding and outo feed (sloping rack) into the gas forge. I think it would be a good earner if I can get the contracts for large amounts.

Hey Dan! Interesting.. if you were to drop forge them though you would have to include the cost of milling the dies so you would need a large amount to cover the minimum cost. but with a 4 minute jig you can't go wrong. How are you doing anyway, hows that lovely massy?

Thank you Johnny. cheers J

Bless you and thank you Todd, yes thats roughly how I worked it out to be also just in £'s. I get what your saying about the PTFE and your right, however it was leaking very slightly and PTFE was what I had at hand and worked, its also cheaper than buying the paste. My camera has replacable lense protectors for just that reason, its a special go-pro like version that is dust proof and shock proof. otherwise you are right again also! Thank you Todd for your support and encouragement, It means alot to me, J

I was thinking the same thing when he was doing that I was like what is he thinking

Yes you are right scott. what ever was making it leak though it still did the job at stopping it.

When a conical seal fails, usually from over torque, you have one more chance to make the seal on the bearing surface behind the cone. Then you are left with sealing the threads to prevent leakage. Use of the alternate strategy is effective for getting you through the day and beats sending a gas bottle back to the supplier. That is the way I do it in the USA anyway.

@@joshuadelisle from my experience it's a different type of PTFE tape it typically comes in yellow packaging rather than the white it's for gas rather than water fittings it's a little thicker but you have to use what you have to get the job done

Thank you. I've got plenty to come just never enough free time to do it. Thank you for your patience. Cheers J

It would be the same but with a 3.33cm thick rod. May have to cut a 10° angle on the end so it closes up fully. Cheers J

Thank you....this video helpful for mi

Evan Penny thank you. Yes I've since submerged a bottle in a large tub of water and eventually froze the water and needed to chip the ice off. Having if flow would work well as you suggested. Cheers j

I have used this method many years as a commercial potter with complete success.

Hey John, forming eyes are usefull for many things, these specifically will be used as ground ankers for hop farms.

Anchors?

I like it! Rory may is awesome... I would say thats about the right price what I would take home but I would add a bit more to cover costs running of the workshop etc, Its been very intersting hearing others pricing on facebook also. Thank you for commenting!

You're right! Make it 50 bob each for labour, starting price. Who's old enough to remember what that means? Of course you would have to add the steel cost and the consumables also (gas, welding rods) and you charge those at 'retail' price (a modest profit then). I tend to include the running costs of the shop as part of the labour cost and only charge for material and consumables where they are specifically part of the job.

I beleive its to do with the slag covering of the weld that insulates the weld cooling it slower making the weld less brittle and increasing its toughness.

I don't think stick welding is easyer but rather learning to stick weld makes you a better welder because generally a good looking stick weld has also good root fusion while a mig weld can look good but have no fusion.

I agree with you though that genrally for production a mig/mag welder would be my first choice for that reason. in most cases for blacksmithing were a only little beads are needed infrequently I would always suggest a stick welder for simplicity and cost effectiveness because you wont have the cost of renting bottled gass and they store neatly away when not in use.

Im talking about time served welders who know what they are doing,not someone who buys a toy welder from machine mart and thinks he is a welder

yes for production welding yes a Mig Mag would be suitable, when I worked for Exmac automation and McConnells I used Kempi and Miller 3phase top of the range MAG welders and often welded 1" plate doing runs that were longer than a meter. perfect tool for that job. but keeping it in context we're talking about blacksmiths, and as a blacksmith welding isn't used to such an extent otherwise its a fabricators job, in this case I was asked to weld the eyes, at that moment I didn't have mixed gas for my small MAG welder which would have been expensive to buy just for that project, but my 220amp oxford was fine to go with just a single pack of 3.2 6013 electrodes stored in my (dry)cuboard. I beleive this to be the norm for blacksmiths to not be welding continuously and so I would suggest that a stick welder is a more appropriote welder to be familiar with. do you agree?...

your right. I think it was more just working hard than the heat that was making me sweat. that is an idea though I'm thinking of doing in the new place just to make room more than anything.

Hey Terence! I find if used right a stick welder is just as quick and makes a better weld. I use the main 3 welders, stick, mig and tig at work for different projects because they are better than the other at different tasks. in my workshop though I do favour a stick welder for its simplicity and no need for gas bottle rental. Thanks j

Joshua, you are absolutely right, in this application the stick welder is easier and better than using MIg/Mag. MIg/Mag is what everyone uses now a days and while it is a great flexible process there are still many applications where Stick, Tig and even gas welding still have excellent benefits. PS on the PTFE tape I'm with you, I have sealed many water and gas leaks over the years just using this tape, no problem, a great product.

+David Richards I agree thank you. I think a lot of new Smiths use a mig because it seems easyer to them. I believe I got good at welding because of using stick. I did gas pipe welding for an engineer using stick because the British standard states that it was the best for the application and that mig/mag should not be used.

I think the big difference is the direction you come from the weld process side - if you start as a stIck welder, do a bit of Tig then go into Mig you have a different attitude to mixing the processes. Guys who start with MIg don't see the need to try something different and think it's the answer to the maidens prayer - In the "old days" the MIG/Mag process was not allowed for welding any type of pressure vessel or pipes, in fact you were not even allowed to pre tack any vessel parts using Mig. Although today this has changed and Mig is now used extensively in many pressure vessel applications there is still an acceptance that from an overall weld quality point MIg is below that of Sub Arc, Tig and Stick, more especially in non ferrous metals. Although I have had a long career building and supplying Automated/robotic Mig systems to major manufacturers, for my own personal welding I have a Mig machine, 2 x stick welders, a Tig welder - I often use the Mig for ease of tacking but if I want a nice neat controlled weld I will often use Tig or stick weld.

My point exactly well said David!