Loadingā¦
10
Watched a guy at the Ohio show go from ugly scale to clean iron in 20 minutes with one trick
At the Tri State conference in Cambridge last fall I watched a smith named Dale pull a rusty rail spike out of his bucket and run it over a slack belt for about 20 minutes, and the difference from the start to the finish was night and day. Turns out he was using a 120 grit belt at low speed to strip scale before ever touching his anvil, which is way less work than the wire wheel and vinegar soak I had been doing at home for two years. Does anyone else here strip stock on a belt before forging, or am I late to this party?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
seana142d ago
Man, I wish I had known this two years ago. I was doing the same thing you were, wire wheel in one hand and a vinegar bucket stinking up my shop, and it took forever plus the wheel kept loading up with gunk. I grabbed a cheap 1x30 belt sander off a yard sale table and started hitting my stock with a 120 belt before it ever sees the fire, and it cut my prep time way down. The key for me was going slow so I don't burn the steel or dish out the belt, light passes and let the grit do the work. Now my forge stays cleaner too since there's way less scale flaking off and floating around. Dale figured out something good and I'm glad you passed it along.
0