John McPherson

The ....BUDDEN and MANUFACTURING are plain enough, even without adding the Brooklyn.

ASO. Always been a boat anchor. I can see no sign of a steel face plate, even on the heel. No wrought iron/steel face anvil like a Mousehole or Peter Wright was every that graceless and chunky, plus it has a plain casting line at the waist, rough sand finish (much worse than a Vulcan or Fisher) and raised numbers.

Our county would prosecute you for taking things out of the bins at the collection points. I watched folks dump whole rolling mechanics tool boxes and piles of yard tools when they cleaned out Dad's garage, because they lived in a condo, and could not be bothered to have a yard sale. I asked them why not just put in the front yard with a "FREE" sign, and they said they didn't want "those kind" of people sorting through it and making a mess in the yard. They just wanted to get the house sold.

Statistically, the average human has one testicle and one ovary....

Sure it could. How big is your boat?

I have seen vests that plug into air compressor lines, pretty good if you are in a fixed location like a warehouse loading dock desk, or welding booth. Battery powered filtered air PAPR sets for welders and grinders hoods have been around for a few years, similar to the HAZMAT suit sets. Going from NiCad to Li-ion made them light enough to wear all day. A vest with air flow would be worth having with standardized interchangeable batteries. I get tired of changing shirts 6 times a day in the summer.

"Figures do not lie, but liars sure can figure." This is where the love of abstracts blinds people to reality. If you stopped 100 people on the street, I doubt that 10 could tell you the difference between the mean, median and mode. But they are all averages. You can take a mountain of data and simplify it to a quad chart or graph to make it easier to wrap your head around, but all you have done is glossed over the individual truths. The plural of anecdote is data. The map is not the terrain, it is a gross oversimplification of the terrain that your tiny pea-brain can fix on and relate to, but only one small piece at a time. You can't see the forest for the trees. And vice versa. We humans like to label things. If we have a handle on something, we like to think that we know everything about it, and so don't have to think about it anymore. Finally, George Carlin: "Think about how stupid the average person is, and then remember; half of them are dumber that that!" Why would anyone want to settle for average?

More like Jordan B. Peterson, actually. First time I had heard of Joel Peterson, had to look him up.

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A feedback loop can be positive or negative, stop and really look at all of the external input in your life, and decide how each input affects your mental state. Someone far wiser than me once said that life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it. Turn off any source of negative news in your life, like social media and the main stream media, listen to good music, eat healthy food, and do something, anything as long as it makes your environment a little better every day. My local county dump site is seeing twice its usual volume because everyone is doing spring cleaning at once. There is a home reorganization guru, Marie Kondo , who has a minimalist school of thought that you should dump anything in your house that does not give you joy. That may be extreme for most of us, but we can turn down the volume of the stressors in our lives if we work at it. The sight of clutter and trash acts as an irritant to the psyche, and nags at us constantly. Yammering sales pitches, internet idiots and political pundits just serve to increase your blood pressure. Sitting still with no outlet for nervous energy wrecks your sleep cycle. I have been weedeating, mowing, gardening, sorting the new shop space, and generally getting the new homeplace looking more presentable in the evenings since I am working from home the last few weeks. I was commuting 100 miles a day, leaving in the dark, getting home in the dark, and having little energy left for yardwork on the weekends. The only TV we watch now is old movies and TV serials on Netflix, etc. and I filled the CD carousel with upbeat music. My wife has made washable masks for everyone in the family, and now is sewing masks for nurses and other public workers we know. It makes a change in how you feel when you have an accomplishment to look at, even if it is only important to you and your immediate family. We all feel better with a sense of purpose. We are all here for you and each other. The rest is, as they say, non-essential.

Truly, I have become the crotchety old geezer who knows all the tricks the saintly and benevolent, aged yet venerable fount of wisdom tempered with sarcasm, the village idiot elder, the Subject Matter Expert, and dare I say it - Institutional Memory. But only to my students and coworkers, to the admins I am that guy with probing questions. And occasional rebuttal. I have the right to remain silent, just not the ability. I have a moral streak which makes me call out transgressions and applaud real progress over churn. Which destroys my chances for internal recognition and advancement. Also, the guy who owns all the tools, and knows how to use them, and even lends them out to a few trustworthy souls. Anime has the trope of the TFTOG. Two foot tall old geezer. Think Yoda in Star Wars, or the Turtle Shell Hermit in Dragonball. I am starting a new trope, TFWOG, three foot wide old geezer.

Progress is never made by those who are satisfied by the status quo. There is a huge attitude difference between temporary acceptance of a situation beyond your control, and general complacency. I have heard it described as the difference between a pacifist and a passivist: a pacifist does not want to go to war, a passivist does not want to go to the kitchen to make a sandwich. Many companies have a policy of just firing the unhappy workers, but someone can be unhappy and productive at the same time. They can also be pleasant companions to work with, but absolutely useless by comparison. As far as fixing problems and course corrections go, many administrators see older, experienced workers as a drain on their payroll instead of institutional memory. "If I can get rid of this crotchety old coot who wants to argue about everything, I can get two trainees who won't question me." It then takes four people twice as long, because they have to reinvent the wheel, where the old hand had old the nuances of the process honed to a fine edge. There were no problems on his shift only because he made corrections before they became rejectable defects. In any organization, 10% of the people are doing 90% of the productive work. They know who they are, even if the front office does not, and are the first to leave when they see that the company is in a downward spiral, because they have options. The worst workers will ride that bus to the end of the line, because they don't.

I am going to introduce you to the concept of three little words that you do not want to hear: "Voids Your Warranty". If you knowingly change anything at all, the responsibility is now yours. Up to and including voiding your health and homeowners insurance coverage. Grinder accidents are always near the top of US OSHA violations causing death or injury. Mostly hand held units, but some bench mounts as well. The guards are not there to keep the grinder from catching stuff and throwing it, as much as they are to keep you from trying to use the sides of the wheels and weaken them, and keep chunks of broken wheel out of your cranium. And a pound of stone moving at 200 mph WILL bust you up, and you may get to take the Room Temperature Challenge and Darwin Award. Board backers for knives and other small parts give you more control while grinding, as well as keeping the part from being sucked into the machine. Possibly damaging the machine and/or operator. Taking the guards off and using bigger wheels, which may or may not be rated for the speed generated by a smaller motor is double trouble. The bearings in the motor are probably not rated for heavier loads, and may fail sooner. If the shaft starts to wobble, it becomes a positive feedback loop, spiraling out of control in seconds. Mounting the grinder on a stand, or a projection from a table, allows you to work in various positions around the stand on long and complex items without catching on obstructions. Same idea as blacksmith's leg vises. Cloth and leather gloves are always a no-go around rotating tools like grinders, lathes, mills and drills. Nitrile or latex is OK to keep your hands clean. 3.5 amps is a wimpy little motor, even on 240V power outside the US, and you may stall it if you press items into the wheel. That developed bad habit may come back to haunt you if you try that with an industrial duty machine. Adequate ventilation is never a bad idea. Sometimes having a small fan blowing across the work is enough with large particles, but fine mists and light particles like fibers demand some sort of filtration PPE, or extraction at the source.

How many heats did that take? You should be able to do that in just a handful of heats, if not that is your problem. Basic beginner issue with no one to show you technique. You have to have a plan before you take it out of the fire. If you spend more than one second looking at it sitting on the anvil, drawing out the heat, you have lost a goodly percentage of your working interval before you even strike. It also helps if you lift the work off the anvil face slightly between blows. Get a magnet and hang it on a wire near the anvil. AS SOON as the steel is attracted to the magnet, back in the fire it goes. Soon you will learn to read the colors to recognize the forging range. If you are colorblind*, that is the only way to go. If you keep on working ineffectually at a lower heat, it then takes too long to get it back up to a forging temp, and you need to get it out as soon as it comes back up. More time in an oxidizing environment will degrade the surface. If you keep the work directly under the gas flame, it is worse. You can make what is called a 'muffle' out of a short section of pipe of box tube, and place your item inside that sacrificial shell. Knifemakers do that all the time, high carbon steels not moving as easily as low carbon ornamental grades, it takes more heats to move the steel. *Red/green color blindness is actually not that uncommon (about 6%) in European males, so much so that gas torch hoses are red and blue outside the US.

Are you using a propane forge? Looks like excess scale from an oxidizing flame mix. Best practice is to wire brush if with a butcher block brush every time you take it out of the fire. If a shiny finish is important for the final product, an overnight vinegar soak, baking soda rinse and a powered fine wire brushing get it ready for a quick fire bluing and waxing. And you thought being a blacksmith was just hitting things with hammers, hah!

Fisher anvil bodies were cast from what was called 'gun iron' which is very different than low grade iron in cheap ASO's. IIRC, it was also called 'semi-steel' by companies that made cast stake tools for tinsmiths and jewelers.

Leaded or resulphurized steels are easy on tooling when machined, but do not weld or forge well. The welds tear out in the HAZ, and it cracks and crumbles when forged too hot or too cold, particularly prone to cracking when quenched in water. You will need to do a quench test on a small forged section to see what you have. That being said, those hex bars would still make great monkey tools, and flintlock barrels.

What it looks like is a casting made by someone who has never used, or even seen in person, a London pattern anvil. Might be made from decent metal and properly hardened, but that is not the way to bet. You would need to have someone who knows anvils check it out.

Some of the late 50's/early 60's welders with the first High Frequency TIG capabilities were so powerful that they messed up overhead air traffic communications. Amazing what a 3 phase input - 350 amp output power supply is capable of.

Kanca in Turkey makes a 44lb anvil with a 3.15" x 11" face. I have a friend with a larger Kanca, and it has held up well for years. Maybe someone imports them to the UK? You may also want to look for a bickern or stake anvil if narrow is a requirement.

Jonnytait, the NC Tool Knifemakers anvil is 65 pounds with a 3.25" wide face. A reputable brand sold thru many dealers of blacksmith and farrier supplies in the US. A little too heavy to take to the Shetlands in luggage, though.

Car hoods make great log skids, just punch two holes, add chain and attach to vehicle. Keeps the butt of the log from turning into a plow. Just my suggestion: get a cheap paint sprayer and some cheap white paint, and do the whole inside. You will not believe what a difference it makes on the light level.

Cold rolled just means cleaner starting material, normally only used for projects where the finish matters. If you are going to forge it, you ruin the cold rolled finish as soon as you stick it in the forge and get it hot. If you are going to arc weld hot rolled, cleaning the mill scale from the 1/2" or so that you are actually going to weld should only take a few minutes at most.

Here is a life lesson for you. Crafts people and trades people who rely on their tools to make a living do not buy major tools at big box stores and flea markets. They go out of their way to shop at specialty suppliers who sell professional grade tools. They stand behind their products, because they have to. If you know exactly what you want, and don't need expert advise, shop online and save some money. But if the advise and the product support are valuable to you, shop local. You are going to need your gas bottles refilled somewhere anyway. As a hobbyist, you are only out the lost time when a cheap tool fails you. But if your shop rate is $50-100 dollars an hour, how much is that cheap tool costing in the long run?

Lucky dog. Just before the virus hit, SWMBO dragged me to an alpaca show, with a side order of fiber processing tool sales. Of course, we will need a guard donkey b/c of coyotes. And she wants angora goats, angora rabbits...