Ugh- paint...

The other night I started in on a new project- a fireplace poker like the one I made at Jerry Culberson's in 2007. The trick to this project is hot chiseling a tail onto the end of a bar and then forging it into a hook. Anyway, I noticed a smell that I thought was paint, but couldn't figure out where it was coming from. I haven't used the big forge since I relined it and thought the sairset mortar might have had some zinc in it so I chalked it up to the first firing burning off the zinc.

Imagine my surprise tonight when the smell came back. Well, I assume the sairset does not use zinc (because that would be stupid, seeing as how it's designed to be used in kilns). It took me a little while, but I finally figured out that it was the new shelf I added to the front of the forge so I can rearrange the bricks. Here's the lesson: if you're going to use something that has been painted, either make sure the paint is going to be burned off (as opposed to just offgassing repeatedly when it gets really warm) or grind that crap off.

Better photos are coming...

I just felt like updating the blog, and I think the most exciting news right now is that a friend and I built a diffuser box for taking photos. I'll post pictures of it, but basically it's 1/2" PVC pipe with some elbows and "t" connectors to make two squares that are connected at the top to form an open bottomed box (yes, pictures would -really- help). We tried it on a few simple items, comparing regular flash photogrpahy in ambient light, to forcing the camera to use the light diffused into the box and then allowing the camera to fill-flash the box. Both pictures with the box were vastly superior to the "regular" photos.

I also purchased a hot-shoe flash for my camera to help control the flash even more. I took some pictures at the Washington State Convention Center over labor day weekend and the onboard flash was just strong enough to give people red eye, but not really improve the photo. This flash should be strong enough to take pictures at 40 feet using ISO 100 eqivalent. I've seen some test examples that people have done and they look great. the unit reads the info from the camera and adjusts the power of the flash AND the distance of the flash bulb from the opening of the housing to give the perfect lighting for the situation (in theory).

So, hopefully no more flashy pictures that don't really show the detail I'm looking at. Which is more aesthetically pleasing for readers and more informative for potential customers.

EDIT to add picture:

New video- flint and steel firemaking

Two days, two videos. If I hadn't had tech problems, I might have been able to do even one more about primitive fire making.

First Video! One Brick Forge

My first published video. hooray!

A few updates

Greetings all,
I just wanted to let folks know that I have updated my beginner's page. It's new words for similar ideas. If you read through it and have questions, please let me know. If you know someone who's thinking about getting started, please spread the word.

The twin seaxes are in my flickr stream and should be on the website this week.

I still have part of my garage to rearrange/tidy up before I start on any projects, but I hope to be back doing work by the end of the week. It's amazing how much I'm able to get done in an evening- finishing that BA really made me see how much time there is in the 6-or-so hours I'm awake after I get home from work.
I have several pieces that were just sitting around half finished. At least one of them will be a fail, but I'm going to give it a try anyway. A couple of them are victims of my "must do everything by hand" mentality. They'll be on the belt sander and finished in short order- including a snake themed camp knife that should be awesome.