John McPherson

On the safer end of the spectrum, you can put a few drops of water on the anvil, then put your forging hot flat stock just above it, then whack it with the hammer. When the steel comes in contact with the anvil, you get a steam pocket and resulting bang. A single matchhead struck on the anvil will go Pop. A whole book of matches will go Boom. Melting coffee can sized lots of scrounged range brass for casting can get exciting if even one .22 case still has live priming in the rim. A couple of twenty minute railroad flares, found along the track behind the campsite, cut open, contents powdered, wrapped up in layers of foil like a baked potato, and placed it the Boy Scout Camporee bonfire pile hours before it is lit....$0.00. The million candlepower retina-searing 3 second roaring Supernova that appears, sucks up all the oxygen in the fire, and derails the Council Executive's corny ghost story in midstream.....Priceless. Ah, memories.

"I hope to make a set in 1/4" intervals down to 3/4" and up to 2 inch then in 1/8" intervals to 1/4", for a grand total of about 10 chisels. a pretty good set, for me at least." Good looking chisels. When log cabins were big business years ago, there was a pretty good niche market for custom tools like this. Roy Underhill mentioned in one of his shows that he bought a new complete set in one of his visits to England. When he got home, he realized that they were metric widths, and useless to him. :P

Dang! Want to try that in Wisconsin? 20 seconds = three Craigslist hits on searchtempest.com. You anywhere near Little Chute?

It is a cast steel Vaughan/Brooks, and should be a fine user. You got a deal! New, they go for 400 British pounds, about US $650 today. http://anvils.co.uk/catalogue/ Edited: fat fingers type too slow, looking up currency exchange. Anyway, what he said!

Look up "Stupid Spectator Tricks" in the back of this section, 'bout page 175. If you think people are clueless, rude and dangerous on the highway, you ain't seen nuthin' yet until you do public demos. :blink:

Well, there are oil lamps, which go from kerosene all the way back to pre-biblical examples, and then there are fire baskets for solid fuels. The latter are known as cressets or torchieres, and Google image search will turn up plenty of examples. Fire baskets burned resinous wood similar to pine knots or fatwood, (often rancid) grease soaked rushes, or split dry wood and sticks. They were smoky, sooty, and dangerous (the small burnt-out bits are supposed to fall thru the cracks), commonly used outdoors, or in large drafty halls. Hollywood loves them in the background. IIRC, at least one Viking chieftain raided an Irish monastery just to get the beeswax candles for his daughter's wedding, to avoid all that other stuff. There are several books on lighting devices, ranging from mere pamphlets to weighty tomes. Try inter-library loan if you are serious.

Think of the HF apron as a starter kit. It has too many pockets, and in the wrong place, that will just fill up with scale. Get one and cut the low pocket threads and rivets. If it's really hot, fold it over and just wear it around your waist. You don't normally need chest coverage unless forge welding, or doing work with large stock, which are both no-no's at a family friendly venue. Have some progress pieces, showing the steps. Do really short demos, that are easily within your skill level. Experiment in private. Have some patter and facts that are planned, but not canned. Maybe some outlines on 3x5 cards, but don't try to memorize a speech. Unfortunately, the RR blacksmith shop, and all the neat tools and scrap, has been gone for decades. But the old guys that rebuild and maintain the locomotives in the roundhouse repair shop are great to talk to. They have forgotten more about metalwork than most of us will ever know.

Having done this for a summer at our local camp, here are my thoughts: Scale it down, and make it personal. While you may get a few 16 year old jocks who can handle man-sized tools, you are more likely to need to accommodate smaller guys. Look for (or make) lighter weight tongs, I find farrier tongs ideal for most projects. Smaller hammers (HF sells graduated sets of ball peens), lower anvils, lower tables, lower vises. Standing on a crate or pallet is going to lead to trouble, as will working hot metal at chest height. Safety glasses: you can find shooting glasses in women and youth models to fit small faces. Same goes for work gloves for filing, etc. Compound leverage aviation shears rather than old style tin snips. Let them choose a project from a range of samples that you have done. (That makes sure that you know all the steps, and have all the stuff on hand to complete the project.) Demo on a piece of half inch stock so they can see it, and have them work with 3/8" or 1/4". Don't succumb to pressure to take on more students than you can watch safely (and keep busy), and don't let the dads take over.

I live in fear that my widow will sell all my stuff at the estate sale for what I told her I paid for it. :rolleyes:

"John, you're a brave man, indeed, just making that last comment." Nah, just an olde phart, Curly, and it was driven home yesterday. The first time pottery vendor that had a booth set up directly in front of me and doing well was a cute, cute, cute redhead in tight clothes. After all, what draws a crowd, a fat, bald guy with hairy ears sweating in a leather apron, or a perky redhead in distressed jeans and tank top? Turns out she was the daughter of old friends that I knew when they got married. I knew her when she was just a bump. She just graduated from college. (We need an emoticon with a long gray beard, for one foot in the grave.) PS: I knew that the economy was getting better when 'booth babes' started showing back up at the tool trade shows last year. Yesterday the museum ran out of wrist bands, and had to use balloon ribbon instead. Better attendance than in years.

Since I only do local(non-profit) museum events with limited turn-out, and not craft shows, I have never asked for or paid a fee or commission. If I did this as a job, and not a hobby, or had to buy insurance to demonstrate, then my choices become simple. Quit, show up with *lots* of product to sell and someone to run the till****, or charge to demo. Amusing note: yesterday a potter said he thought he had a hard life, then he saw me unloading my hundred pound 'travel' anvil, forge, bucket o' tongs, etc. ****Hmmm, I wonder what my wife would say if I hired a young, shapely sales assistant in tight clothes? Just kidding honey, put down that knife!

At $75, my wallet would be out so fast you would hear the sonic boom 3 counties over. (And I'm cheap. Certified Tartan genes.) Jump on it, son! It looks like a mid 1800's English anvil, Mousehole or equivalent. The edges could be repaired at a later date, but it is plenty usable as is.

Half inch thick pipe is massive overkill. Thinner is better. Old propane tanks, freon bottles, ammo cans, even metal 5 gallon paint cans and expanded metal mesh have been used. All the shell does is contain the insulation, and give you mounting points for the hardware. Here, do your own homework. http://www.forgemonkeys.com/ http://zoellerforge.com/coffee.html http://zoellerforge.com/customers.html http://ronreil.abana.org/Forge1.shtml

One of the NC smiths just put his whole tinsmith outfit on fleabay, look for museumsmith in Wilson, NC for the set. Bentiron, I have not seen anything as low as $75 for a single stake in a decade. That was a great deal.

I use one of the older models weekly as a common forge for the metal arts club. It has held up well for 4 years of student abuse, just needs to be relined 'coz the little darlings keep poking holes in the insulation. The floor bricks have some cracks in them directly under the burners. Other than that, it has been a no maintenance unit, plug and play. (Or in this case, gas line and play.) I highly suggest intake baffles to tune the fuel/air mix to prevent scaling.

Acetylene is in short supply nationally, so the price has skyrocketed, and most outlets are rationing their existing customers, and not accepting new accounts. You get more bang for your buck by insulating your forge better, using a heat reflective coating over the insulation, tuning your fuel/air mix, and adding pure oxygen to your burner air supply.

The ringing sound of London pattern anvils is a by-product of the extended "T" shape. The narrower the waist and longer the pike and heel, the more they ring, pound for pound. The few old (Colonial) wrought hornless anvils that I have had a chance to examine had very little ring when stuck. A tool steel drop, or even mild steel block of that size, would be a respectable anvil, and far cheaper than a used specialty pattern anvil. Get out the Yellow pages and make some calls, or get involved with your local blacksmith group, and you will be amazed at the things that will turn up. If building up quality anvils out of junk and filling them up with lead worked, it would have become standard practice centuries ago. But you are welcome to try it, and let us know how it works.

Great score! I acquired a similar sized coachmaker's anvil with a rough face missing heel, now I have a profile to replace it authentically. Spotted at an auction in a pallet of junk, not listed, or even noticed by many others. I let a student outbid me, it came along with a pallet of chain hoists for $40. Later he decided he didn't want to mess with it, and traded it to me for a bench vise. Maybe the 8 is an R? Junr = Junior?

Interesting stuff, however: it needs to be Photoshopped to trim down the backgrounds and reduce the overall size. I found myself panning down a wall looking at screw heads, or a screen full of wood grain with no iron in sight. I know that I am guilty of this myself; it looks fine in my preview window with automatic shrink-to-fit, but the attached photo is HUGE. And cameras keep adding more megapixels every year, so the newer the camera, the worse the problem. Not meaning to sound harsh, but some of us are still on dial-up, or shared wireless routers. :(

Yeah, it's a rough world. PC has taken over. I tell the kids (20-somethings) that I was born under a flag with 48 stars and grew up in a free America. We could smoke in High School and carry pocket knives. Now, we can't even do that in the College I work at. Anyway. Meeekyk, burning peg holes in wood is very traditional in pre-1860 America, especially on the frontier. It is about as fast and easy as that rarity, brace and bits, and cheaper too. Remember, a fully outfitted toolbox was the mark of a Master of a craft, and generally a settled life.

Glad to see the paint holding up. That is not black, by the way, it is "Charleston Green". You see more and more of the green as it fades. I took a group of students down to do some service-learning projects for Alternative Spring Break in 2007. Some before and in progress pics. I'm the fat guy in the denim shirt.

Thomas, I think he meant they were re-rolling scrap rail into smaller sections, not using it as-is. I have seen mills buy worn out rail by the hundreds of miles for quality products. It is very uniform, high quality scrap.

Bodkin points, Egad! Here, they confiscate the nails before they get back on the bus, because someone will get poked. A leaf keychain for the teacher or parents/chaperons goes over well. Tying an overhand knot in a 1/4" rod is always good, as is branding a piece of softwood at a black heat after it is too cold to forge. Shows the difference between too hot to touch and hot enough to work. Having a suspended magnet to show the phase change in heated metal is a good Mr. Wizard science moment, too.

Face it, if that dude can't lift it, this Pillsbury Doughboy body doesn't stand a chance. In theaters 6-16-2011.