Picked up a dozen hiking the railroad tracks yesterday. Seems I ought to be able to do something creative with them. I usually don’t create purely for art’s sake, I want it to be practical.
I can wire wheel the rust off but can’t heat it enough to work that way.
You can make a forge shell from the bottom third of a steel bucket or a galvanized feed trough. (Zinc vapor can kill so stay upwind on the first firing.) Line the forge with a mixture of fire clay and vermiculate. There are lots of recipes for forge and foundry lining. Don’t use a brake drum, too much thermal mass in the cast iron.
Actual coal is nice but I’ve used the hardwood lump charcoal a lot because it’s easy to get, it’s what was used before coal was common.
My bellows is a squirrel cage blower from a microwave. Light switch and plug wired in. PVC elbow and pipe to a piece of exhaust pipe that slides into the forge. Piece of bean can and close hanger wire to control airflow like the flap in a carburator inside the PVC.
Basically made it out of junk 20 years ago, works fine for my needs. Lot of fun and comes in handy.
Make some knives. I forget the codes, but some spikes are made of a medium carbon steel and will harden a little on a quench. I quenched in salted ice water with no temper to get them as hard as the medium steel was capable.
Hit me up if you want pics or advice.
You could use them to secure some steel rails to large wooden sleepers, and then transport goods and people on carriages that roll upon the rails.
Seems someone already tried that and left a bunch laying around. Must have been a failed experiment.
It will never catch on.
These silly kids with their new fads. They should do something productive instead, like leash two large beasts of labour to a wheeled cart and transport goods and raw materials that way instead.
Back in the good old days, we used to carry things with our hands.
Railroad spike that shoots guns
Spikes that fire a gun, or a gun that fires spikes?
F.E.A.R:
The Armacham 10mm High Velocity Penetrator is a weapons-grade nail gun, firing 10mm steel stakes at lethal speeds. It can pin opponents to walls if the target is near a wall when they are hit with a fatal shot.
I can make black powder, sound like a reasonable starting point?
