Glenn

Ok it is a little old, tired and was found in a junk yard. Would you bring it home?

Rest of the story?
French anvil dated 1723. A French rohset on the side, an "MN" Monarchy Napoleon on the other side. Found in a junk yard in the old town of Jaffa.

Most folks have an anvil of sorts. Show me what you use and how it is set up. That way we can er-borrow ideas to use.

Ok, it is a post vise without the post, or a leg vise without the leg. Any suggestions on what it really is and why it has no leg?

And if it has no post, how can it be a post vise?

No, sadly it did not follow me home, but I did find a nest of anvils. The one bottom front is 372 pounds. Ahhhh, to choose just one and offer it a new home. Decisions, Decisions.

Show me your vise and how it is set up.

Leaping Lizzards !!

Do an internet search on that critter and find out more about him. Do a web search on herpetology, Reptile, Amphibian, Lizards, or Identification. Chances are you may want to reconsider and keep them around. If nothing else, capture one and take it to the county extension agent for identification. Those folks can most likely identify it, and provide a wealth of information on the subject.

Be thankful they are not little baby skunks :)

Duck is having problems annealing files. He heats to red and then put the hot file in ashes to cool slowly. When the file is cool, it is still to hard to drill etc. Any suggestions on how to soften this file ?

Thanks, Duck.

We have started rebuilding and posting the Blueprints 200-300 series. The Blueprint BP0205 may be of interest to the knife folks.

BP0205 Knife Making 101- or how to cook a cat - Richard Hanson

Hofi has some ideas that may help in his BP1009 Post Vise. He has about the same idea as cheftjcook for leveling things.

Show us what you can do with angle iron. By forging it that is.

Woody finished these skinners over the weekend

It has come to my attention that I omitted the name of Jr. Strasil from the list of contributors to the Leaves for Paw Paw. My apologies to Jr. Strasil for this error. Please add his name to the list.

Leaves for Paw Paw
Sheri posted the following on the Anvilfire Hanner in and ask that I also post it on IForgeIron. I see no reason not to post it here as well, as many of you contributed your efforts to the Leaves for Paw Paw project.
-----------





Trubute to Paw Paw Wilson: There is no way I can properly thank all who contributed leaves and made the beautiful planter as a trubute to Paw Paw Wilson. I am in awe of this gift and appreciate each one of you. Also a special thank you to Glenn Conner for coordinating the project. I have pasted in the list of names at the end of this message. Thank you each one and know that I will often think of the great effort of the blacksmith community to make such an wonderful gift. I have put a large Christmas Cactus in the planter and know it will be especially lovely from Thanksgiving through Chrismas.
My Thoughts are with each one of you.
Sheri Wilson
Bob Harasim
Rich Waugh
SGesh
Tom C.
Ptree
Frank Turley
AlanB
Kayne and Son
Richard Hanson
Jerry Carroll
Bob Harusim
Darren Thomes
Leah Fuller
W. Cooper UK
Robert Hall
Melanie Bennett
Jens Butler
Brian Cornish
Paul Wells
T-Gold
Sutton Terock Memorial Blacksmith Shop, Rochester Ind.
Art Morgan
Charles Azbell
Sonny Powell
Rob Fetterling
Tim Pearson
Fred Oden
Add these two names for design and assembly of the project.
Peyton Anderson
Mike Tanner
Butterfly - Saturday, 06/03/06 16:11:14 EDT

I have used a tumbler to clean things. Tumble media was nails, 1" sections of 1/4" round stock and small drops from the shop. Did a good job and leaves a matt surface or hammered look to the metal.

Noise is an understatment - it is LOUD and continious. Usual run time was 1-2 hrs minimum per load, and can go 4 hrs. "Dirt" was simply scooped out when it got ojectionable.

Dennis with your permission I can use what is there for a BP. Let me know.

You may want to look at the following

BP0152 Hinge Eye Bender - Wayne Lewis aka Coalforge

Thanks for the update Ralph. Your family is on the list as they all are invilved in one way or another.

JPH email them to me and I will post them for you. Just write the text and I will insert the photos.

Don't have much to show other than some failures and a few knives.

Those are not failures, those are the ways you figured out how NOT to do it.
The forum is a place to ask questions, show us what you have now and tell us where you want to go with it. You can usually get a the answer, or a referral to information on solving the problem.

As Dale suggested, find a local blacksmithing group. First hand information and someone "showing" you how to do something one-to-one is worth the trip. Besides you get to see tools you never new existed, see the work of other blacksmiths, and meet blacksmiths with a variety of skills and expertise. Oh yes, take the truck as there is usually something metal that you want to bring home.

Anyang
Welcome to the forum,

Your post was moved from another location to "Introduce Yourself" as it would seem to fit better here.

Your profile lists your name Anyang, occupation sales, and your home page as

Anyang Forging Press Machinery Industry Co., Ltd is the special manufacturer of forging press equipments, metal recycling equipments, riveting machines. It was appointed to produce the forging press equipments and metal recycling and riveting machines by original ministry of machine building of China. Now our company have 1200 staffs, among of them there are 210 technicians.

This is confusing as to whether your promoting Anyang Forging Press Machinery Industry Co, or are an individual requesting blacksmithing information. If you are promoting Anyang Machine Industry, please contact the forum administrator for advertising rates etc. If you are an individual requesting blacksmithing information, ask your questions concerning blacksmithing, and we will try to assist you.

Please post the following:

Please let DocsMachine know to check out http://www.metalwebnews.com/bs.html and click on "Picture instructions for making a 275lb. anvil".

Hillbillysmith

There is another thread on welding flux that you way want to visit.

Someone else will have to help with using a gasser and welding as I use coal for fuel. And we need several long winded explainations of forge welding so we can develop this into a blueprint on the subject.

In a coal forge, you need to first clean the metal. No use shooting your self in the foot before you start to walk. How clean, well how much do you want to weld to succeed?

Then most folks will tell you to clean the clinker out of the fire and get a fairly good size fire going, and place the metal into the neutral area of the fire, about 1/2 way up the fireball or a little more. You want the heat but not the extra oxygen, so let the fire consume the oxygen and put the metal into the heat zone of the fire where there is no free oxygen.

Let it get up to high red or orange and remove the metal, wire bursh any scale off and apply a bit of flux. This should be done quickly and placed back into the fire while at low orange or high red in color.

Bring the whole piece of metal up to yellow and watch for it to throw a spark or two. The second spark is the key. The metal should look like butter that has been sitting in the sun, still in a stick form, but just about to slump, with the outside looking like it coated with liquid. It is also about the color of a lemon only intense.

While everything is getting up to heat, do the forge welding dance, practice getting from the forge to the anvil, grabbing the hammer and being ready to start. Do it again, do it one more time and then move the anvil and place it NEXT to the forge. Practive the dance again and again till there is no extra steps and no lost effort.

You want ALL the metal at the same temperature both the outside AND the inside. When you see the second spark you are at the welding heat,
grab the metal, over to the anvil, grab the hammer and BUMP the two pieces of metal. You just want to mix the liquid on the surface of the metal. Whacking the metal real good with a hammer is spectacular when you squirt the hot liquid all over the shop, but it leaves little liquid to mix and actually form the weld. Just bump it. Billy Marritt uses a wooden hammer handle - no hammer head, just the handle - that was soaking in the slack tub water to forge welding billets. Just grabs the wet wooden handle and bumps the billet much like you would bump the heel of your hand on a desk top to make the weld.

After the first bump or two, then apply the hammer, and back into the fire before it cools below high orange/yellow heat. Back to welding temp and do it again. Look for any dark likes in the weld which means the weld did not take in that area.

A faggot weld is the easiest make, just fold a piece of metal back onto itself like when making the end for a poker. From there move on to two pieces of metal. 1/2" square is a good size to play with as it holds heat well.

There is also the "test" of welding heat of touching the two pieces of metal at high yellow temp together in the fire. IF they stick to each other, your in the welding temperature zone.

But the real key to all this is to practice with MILD STEEL until you get it right. After that you can work with other steels and other methods. Just keep the first "good" weld so you can remember where you started.

S-002 Making you First Forge Weld will explain a lot of the mystry of forge welding.

BP0093 Forge Welding - Ralph Douglas is a blueprint on forge welding

BP0071 Poker 01 - Beacher Alan (Possum) is the blueprint on the faggot weld in making a poker

She's on the list. Will add the rest of the family also as it affects everyone.

Strine, not my choice of numbers, but you must get past that to get to the next number, and move on.

If you have ever gas welded, you use heat to make a puddle from one metal, a puddle from the other metal, and blend or mix the puddles to form the weld. Welding rod is used to fill and make the metal surface level when it cools.

Forge welding is much the same, you heat and liquify the surface of the metal and then blend or mix the liquids. As suggested above, bumping the metals to mix the liquid is all that is needed. Giving it a good whack will result in a spectactular spray of sparks, the liquid being squirted across the shop and leaving no liquid to mix together and form a weld.

To mix dirt, scale, and other junk and impurities in the liquid metal will make the weld weaker, or not to weld at all. You have to start with the cleanest metals you can in order to have the best welds you can. To see just how good the weld is, you have to destroy it, bend it till failure, cut it in half. and look at the weld line, and the entrie weld section.

To make good welds, make a LOT of welds, destroy a lot of welds, and make a lot more welds. But keep the first forge weld that "took" so you can see where it all started and you can show others that is not magic, but working till you get it right.