Small basic arc welder $50-$100 used about anywhere. Scrap material to practice on and some welding rods $25. A valuable skill you can use for life, priceless.
Your banjo playing really lifted my spirit. I was kind of down , it's just too hot in my shop to forge and I have a desire to manufacture some tongs and tooling. I came across you playing with confidence and control. Causing me to stop and really hear the melody. It's a very joyful sound. Thank you John S. You probably heard many times that your a very good man. I pray you never get tired of hearing accolades. But at that risk John S. Your a very good man to me and my sons. I often watched and tried to forge things you have shown. Now my oldest son will sit down as ask Dad are we going to watch Black Beat Forge. It most often a joyful yes.
I think you sell yourself short, you're pritty good with that banjo! The anvil tools without modern welding would also be a good thing to look into for future videos 👍
Awesome sounds great thanks Anthony kent HAWK woodlore knives UK if the do a time lapse condensed version please put your playing the Banjo on in the background 🎶🎶🎶🎶
Hey John, for those who don’t have an arc welder yet I picked up a DC inverter stick welder on Amazon for just under $300. Best part is it’s a 120volt machine (can also run on 240v) that strikes an arc very nicely with 6013 rod. Great tool for the beginner that is very small and weighs less than 15 pounds! FYI..
Thanks as usual John! I always like your videos. Thanks for being so informative with your demonstrations. I thought it was great that you played for us!❤️👍🏼👏🏼
Awesome video as usual and thanks for sharing them. On another note, maybe you could do your banjo picking for video intro/outro. Yeah that would be pretty cool.
Liked the banjo section and and can't wait for the giveaway, usually your videos pop out about 4 -6 am in Poland but as soon as I wake up i watch it, so i can't wait until the random hour giveaway video is up. Keep up the good work.
That was a good and straightforward demonstration of simple tooling that will do the job. Very well done! Looking forward to the "tool to be especially proud of" edition!
Hey, guess what. I kinda play the banjo a little, just when no one is around to listen. I wish I could play good, fooling around with it is somewhat relaxing. You did a really good job. Thanks for sharing with us. Terry from South Georgia.
John, I do like the banjo pickin. Have an idea for attaching the tool steel dies to the mild steel springs. Punch a hole down in the end of the dies so the mild steel will slip in, punch a cross hole thru both and rivet. Just a thought.
My musical skills go no further than hammering so to me the banjo is great! Keep producing your videos, you are a very talented tradesman and i learn a lot from you!
Wow I been watching your vids for 3 years now and needed to make a spring tool. I look this up and it helped a lot. But seriously you play a bango? This was a big plus. THANK YOU
Another video to add to the much enjoyed list. Then you did some banjo playing! I heard that learning to play the banjo really good is hard to do, but luckily no one knows what good banjo playing sounds like. Fantastic job on on accounts!
Master Craftsman, Master Video maker. So few would recognize WE can't see the job. I was thankful you moved 90° out of your way to show US The work on the pipe bender. Bravo sir. 👏 and Thank You!
Loved hearing you play the banjo! Love your talent !! In all you do sir! So talented in so many things! I’m jelly! Keep it up and appreciate all your videos
That was very good play better than what I tried to when I was a kid... my aunt played the piano and sang at the Grapevine Opera Grapevine Texas all kinds of entertainers in when I went I would hang around the back saw the entertainers that was on Hee Haw she was friends with Lulu Roman and the church my Grandad then my dad pastured she would sing and play there we had our singing group called The New Man singers it was lots of fun. Sounds great I wish I'd kept it but my parents wanted to sell it so okay I probably tortured too many people with it.
little late any you might have seen this suggestion but make a slightly triangular piece that can fit through the gap in the hardy hole section and that should help with the bounce.
I think for these tools just having a longer better fitting hardy shank would help tremendously. But I have made tools that use a wedge to lock them in solidly.
Thank you for this video/tutorial/inspiration, and gratitude to "one of you troublemakers..." Two heads are better than one, and It's neat how the community helps each other with ideas. :)
Thanks Much! I am learning tons from your videos and I greatly appreciate it! I am a guitar player and also dabble on the banjo as well. You do just fine. The important thing is to have fun in doing so. If your having fun then your a banjo player for ser! Thanks Again! DaveyJO in Pa.
Enjoyed the banjo playing, my wife plays & teaches 3 finger style. I play the upright bass. I thought I heard a fiddle in the background in one of your videos, was that your wife?
LMAO! I knew the second you said "I'm not gonna make you watch this." about the drawing out that you had just realized what you'd gotten yourself into and you were heading to the power hammer. (I know from your video on hammer technique that you don't LIKE using that 4 lb. hammer a lot.) The fact that you came back on a few seconds later and admitted to it just made me laugh! I could actually tell right away anyway, because the power hammered section looked so much more finished than the rest.
I like the banjo. I plan to customize a tenor banjo that I have had for about 45 years. The tuners have always irritated me. I think guitar style machines would be b
Hi John Happy New Year . just wondering why you wouldn't use a small wedge to drive in beside the hardy tool to tighten it up. Lots of guys do it. i use railway spikes for the bottom of hardy tools and i have to use a wedge to tighten it up. Wedges are an old way of doing it. Just wondering.
Wedges work well and if this was a tool I was using I would do several things differently. But since this is just a test of concept it didn't really warrant worrying about it to much
You sir are a great smith, featured your channel in my video. it's odd but even with 30 years + as a smith sometimes watching you I feel like an armature, but sometimes I wonder why you work so hard, but that is few and far. as far as project ideas I always have things on my mind. like, what did smiths do for rasps and or files when they weren't so easy to just buy. I've never made a file, tap, or die. I have those factory, but I wonder how it was done when you had to make it yourself. Hammer on John Hammer on.
I just watched a video yesterday on how files were made back then. they would use wrought iron to start with, then make chisel marks to form teeth. The next step is then to case harden the wrought iron by slathering a slurry of some form of carbon and flour was used as a binding agent (In the video they heated leather in a container to make coal). It was allowed to dry and put in a clay container then put in a furnace for a while for the surface of the wrought iron to absorb the carbon in the high heat low oxygen atmosphere. you now have a case hardened file! i thought it was really neat. As long as John doesn't mined i will link the video in the comment.
I have never made a file. Peter Ross who was the master blacksmith at Colonial Williams burg for many years says that there is no record of the shop there ever making files, but they did recut old ones. File making is a very specialised skill.
When you said I'm not going to boar you watch me draw this out, I thought I bet he's going to use the power hammer. Made me respect you more that you fessed up, good man!! Billy
Regarding the challenge of opening the spring swage...I found that by forging or grinding a smooth radius on the end of the fuller, top and bottom...then I could place my hot work against the radius ends of the fuller and use my hammer to tap the piece to where I wanted it. No need to put your hammer down, the time for which would increases heat loss. This part strays from "tool from one piece" preference* but I also cut the top 2" of a rail road spike and welded it to the top of the top fuller for striking with the hammer. it absorbs most of the abuse rather than the top side. When I tap in the piece to be forged through the radiused ends I do so directly under the spike head so the energy is transferred straight to the work. Alternatively the head of the spike could also be use in the way that Bryan suggests below, to pull up on to get the work into the fuller. The addition of the spike doesn't have to be 2"...it could be shorter to keep the tool bulk to a minimum. Just some thoughts. Oh and did I mention that your youtube additions to our blacksmithing community are outstanding! Thanks for all of your effort!
I just re-watched this video, and enjoyed it again. I had a thought which might make this type of hardie tool more useful. On the loop that goes into the hardie hole, if you make it long enough, it'll sick out the bottom of the anvil, and you can drive a wedge into it to lock it onto the anvil. It wouldn't flop around so much then.
Your banjo playing was good enough to make my old legs keep time. I have been experimenting making one piece spring swages form round 1040, 1045 and 5160 med. carbon steel, thinking that it is good for the spring and can take a beating better than mild. Also, I want to try putting a cold mild or med. carbon tenon into hot 4140 dies, and maybe put a cross rivet in??? These hardy tool making videos are just the kinds of videos that I like, and I thank you for posting them! Jerry
I'm making everything from nothing to pursue my passion for smithing. I built my own forge and anvil, still have a long way to go. I'm working on my first hammer. My current hammer is a small claw hammer lol. You should add the banjo music to all your episodes!
When you said another 10 to 15 inches my right arm and shoulder went on strike! After the power hammer news I relaxed, not that I have one but hope that maybe one day.
Good Banjo, I have been a blacksmith for years and have only in the last year gotten serious about this craft. I play the Violin, actually Viola. Strung as a Viola C G D A. I cannot sing and accompany myself with a Violin. I have a Mandolin...maybe that is the answer. But yesterday I was looking at the old fashioned 1800's Banjos, five string Banjos...the model you have. And you also play it without a pick... I Am into this . Wonderful how it just happens to come up in a video by a Blacksmith I am watching today. Thanks for sharing
Liked the banjo, I am a musician, been playing bass guitar for 55 years. I've been in traveling bands house bands and weekend bands. I build instruments and repair them. I also play piano , fiddle but sometimes I think I'm the only one that knows what song I;m playing. I also play rhythm guitar. I am a master carpenter, graduated a welding course at our local community college. I am presently going to college as a music education major. hope to teach beginer thru high school band. I'm 65 and have been blacksmithing for 4 years. I love steel and making things. Plans are in the works for a gas forge I will build so I can do some demos at some fall festivals this winter. I love your vids, very informative.
⭕️been watching your videos for a few years now... haven't seen all of them, but this should be an intro to your videos or at a minimum an outro ... hopefully you will consider it. possibly do a landscape scene with this overlaying. many talents brother... thanks for sharing
