Mainely,Bob

There`s a reason there is a particular mode of dress for pouring molten metal and you saw why when they held up the cotton lab coat to the camera.Synthetics are like napalm when hit with hot stuff. Leather is a big help as it stops the metal rather than burning through.Spats will help keep your boot from filling with molten metal,that`s why most pro foundrymen who have burned their feet in the past wear them.Lace up shoes are not such a good idea in these situations either. I have always been amazed by folks who protect only their eyes with goggles rather than their whole face with a shield.Those plastic shields are not such a good idea unless they are rated for foundry work rather than impact resistance.The impact shields can melt to your face just like synthetic cloth can.The ones we wore were made of fine metal screen. I have to wonder what two novices were doing conducting experiments without direct supervision.I`m willing to bet the instructor will be watching the students more closely from now on. I worked a Ferguson Propeller in Hoboken NJ for a while during the late 1970`s where they poured some of the largest bronze ship`s props in the US.Later I worked at VAW aluminum where they cast their own billets that ran to 20+ foot long.Saw some really horrible accidents involving molten metal that could have easily been avoided. Some of my friends/co-workers in the oilfield who migrated from the steel mills in places like Youngstown and Pittsburgh told similar stories.

Two ways to go here,The first is to buy as you need them and buy high quality new. If you`re buying the set to get the wrenches then that`s false economy and I can fix that for you.E-mail me if that`s the case. The second approach is to buy a used set.The problem with this is all the worn and missing ones are the ones you`ll use most often so where`s the savings after you replace them? Two of the things I find work well is go to sharpening services(most medium to large cities have at least one) and ask what they have that nobody has come back to pick up and go to auctions and flea markets. As manufacturing in this country is moving off shore many companies are auctioning off their inventory and you can buy new gear for pennies on the dollar.Look for items in their original packages.You can usually pick up packages of 3-6 new taps(HSS) for less than a single Chinese tap(HCS) at the hardware store this way. A tap and die set is just a start point.You need a complete drill index in order to use all those taps.By that I mean an index that contains number and letter drills as well as fractional drill sizes.You`ll need a chart to tell you what size drill goes with what tap and gauges to enable you to match nuts and bolts to taps and dies. You will need taps in both National Fine(NF) as well as National Coarse (NC) for SAE bolts and nuts and if you have imported tools in the shop you`ll need Metric taps,dies and MM tap drill sizes to go with them. Bolt dies and pipe dies are completely different animals too as bolt threads are straight threads and pipe threads are tapered so they seal. Are you getting the picture? If you need help getting up and running post it here and we can help you out.I`d offer to loan you stuff but at the prices I get it for it`d be cheaper to just send it one way and let you keep it. Let us know what you need there Dave.I`m sure I`m not the only one who`s over run and would be glad to help us both out by clearing some shelf space. :)

Best advice,find where the local blacksmith club meets and join it,then tell them about your project.I`m betting you`ll get all the help you can stand and learn a ton to boot.

Bob is the name my mother gave me,I like it cause it`s both short and spelled the same coming or going. There are many guys named Bob out there in the digital world and everyone would ask "Which Bob is this?" or "Where are you from?". So I just made it Mainely,Bob. I also go by Daedalus but that`s another story. Bob Hackett, from Boothbay Maine.

Just a quick story. I bought an all original`58 Harley for $1200 when I lived in Texas.It ran but needed a top end rebuild. For 3 years this guy from California kept coming thru about every four months and buying old bikes from me(at what I thought was a pretty good profit) and every time he bought a bike he tried to talk me out of that `58. Came time to leave Texas after the bottom fell of of the oilfield and I sold it to Dave for $3500 with the condition he be honest about what it sold for when he got back to the coast.He loaded it on the back of his truck and trailer along with about a dozen + old bikes he had bought at different places between the coast and me that time around. He called me a couple of days before we left and told me he had it sold for $10,000 before he even pulled into his driveway. The only difference between Dave and the guys on fleabay is he was into bikes and saw the opportunities long before the internet came along. I understand Dave has quite a nice personal collection of old bikes that he may sell off one day.If not whoever is named in the will is one lucky individual.

I`d spark test them one by one to see if they all are near the same type of steel,they may not be. The spark test will also give you a good indication of where to start as far as heat treating goes.

Coyote is one of my totem animals. When I go to my fortune teller instead looking at my palm she prefers to tell my future by reading the bumps on my head. She is such a pessimist,she`s always telling me things like "there are tough times ahead,I see birdies and stars in your future,Beware of gifts from above,Shield your crown chakra" and stuff like that. She keeps reminding me to be sure my life insurance is paid up.I think her husband may be an agent.

Brian,you could play the odds and just make your first forging a replica of Ned Kelly`s helmet then anyone who runs the hammer could wear that. Just hang it on a hook next to the machine. You don`t want to ruin that nice new paint by drilling and tapping holes in it now do you? :rolleyes:

Those cartoons are really old and were originally produced as silent movies in black and white before being remastered. W E Coyote was actually one of the founders of the mechanical engineering movement,he had a PHD in Cause and Effect. Stone carvings on ancient temples throughout the world have what was originally thought to be carvings of offerings made on stone altars to the canine gods of the underworld who waited below.We now know these actually depicted coyote receiving the gift of the first anvil from the sky gods(collectively known as the ACME) after the gods of thunder and lightning forged it in the heavens. According to learned scholars they dropped it on him.

Ask it what year it was born? Pics and any info as to numbers and markings would help.

Looks like someone felt guilty enough to go back and erase his post. Let`s hope he felt guilty enough to return the property he obtained by less than honest means. His Karma will thank him if he did.

Now Grant,you mentioned celestial masses yet completely failed to take into account the gravitational pull of the moon as it orbits the earth upon the dropped anvil during the different repetitions needed to verify the experiment.Those forces need to be properly factored into the equation. Feet? Did someone mention feet?Wind velocity,variances in rotational aerodynamics and drag now need to be factored into the experiment. We need updated pics to include close ups of the added feet so we can do computer generated wind tunnel flow tests. Quickly Laoich23,you`re hindering progress here.We need those pics man!!

OK.let me run something by you as long as I have someone who understands and is willing to articulate theory on the line. One of the standard tests we have for anvils is rebound right?It`s my understanding that rebound is a function of localized deformation and the material`s ability to "push back" like a spring does only on a far more limited scale.We harden the face of anvils in order to take maximum advantage of this quality of the steel.If this resistance to deformation yet ability to "spring back" or rebound is a primary consideration in anvil construction then it seems to me that,within certain limits,an optimum configuration for a built up anvil would be a rather rigid body(we all know this and agree that it`s so) yet wouldn`t the face of the anvil made with material like a fork lift tine better serve these conditions by having a slight crown meeting that body only on the ends and having a body that contains the ends yet allows the face to deform somewhat and then use that energy to "push back" and help move the metal? I think we talked about the mechanics of this in an old thread on drop forges or presses where rather than having your anvil serve in a static state if you made it work in a dynamic fashion you could accomplish far more work per cycle of the machine. As long as we are talking about optimizing a blacksmith`s anvil why not talk about making it dynamic instead of static? You have no idea how pleased I am to have someone take the time to present this in detail like you have but to also be able to track it as well as I have.I attribute that to your presentation rather than my mental capacity because I struggled to graduate high school(it was the 60`s/70`s after all). Your presentation also turned on the light that illuminated the dynamic anvil post and got me thinking in a different direction.I have yet to decide if that`s a good thing. Perhaps I should visit the bathroom,look in the mirror and see for myself how much smoke is pouring out of my ears. You can count on me to grab onto something and run off the end of the earth with it. :rolleyes:

I`m picturing 3 guys on the end of a pair of 6 foot tongs and a chainfall w/overhead track in your future there Laoich23. Look at some of the old silent movies on here dealing with wrought iron anchors and such to see what I mean. That would just be the high point of the year to be part of a project like that! Closest thing I`ve seen in the present day is Phil`s and James` videos of big stuff being handled by fork lift powered hydraulically rotated tongs under mega hammers. That sort of stuff will make any blacksmith smile. :)

That is some news/advice that we should all keep in mind.I get some of my best ideas during "play time". :)

Spray the bottoms with Pam and the snow won`t stick,seriously.You can wipe them down with olive oil and that works too but it`s not as quick or near as much fun. You know from from my user name where I live.Trust me,we know snow.

Got the same message when I tried to PM you.That`s why I left the message on your profile.More bugs I suppose,guess we`ll have to just bat the breeze here,we`re all ready off track so drag up a chair. Just wonderin` if you`re OK,after your one post we didn`t hear from you at all. Hope I didn`t say anything to set you off.I can be long winded I know. Maybe Glenn will be around here in a minute to tell us he fixed the glitch and our mailboxes will start workin` again. How do you like the coffee?

Funny part about it is once you change your eating habits and then try to go back to your old ways your body will let you know just how bad that stuff is.If I tried to eat a Big Mac now and wash it down with a Coke I`d be feeling bad in less than 15 minutes. Glad to hear things are going well for you.I think you`ll find nothing but improvement in your health and general well being as long as you continue to eat healthy foods and lose weight. Happy New Year brother!

I still haven`t heard any convincing arguments or verifiable facts to prove that vertical is superior to horizontal in a laminated anvil yet so I`m still in favor of wandering further afield if it`ll get us there. ;)

We used to use H13 for the aluminum extrusion dies in a plant I once worked at and they had problems with wear and breakage of some of the dies as they extruded 900+ degree aluminum billets thru them. The solution we came up with was to clad the sections that wore till they broke and also build up the chokes with stellite weld.We used TIG for the process as it provided more controlled application. Don`t know if this would help in this case but thought I`d mention it.If you already have tooling that`s failing on you due to wear at less than red heat and are looking for a way to possibly save it I thought it might be an option.

I was thinking about this after I posted and remembered an application where they do just that.The trucks that used to collect the scrap from some of the yards I worked at had loaders like the ones some garbage trucks use to lift dumpsters from the front of the truck and raise it overhead to dump behind the cab.Those loaders do much the same work as a fork lift and have the tines in a vertical position. I can understand where a fork lift is designed to fit the most common denominator,the shipping pallet.Just wondering why if there is such a difference in strength how come industry hasn`t adapted to the stronger(and supposedly safer) application. After all we went from kegs to boxes to strapped and wrapped pallets didn`t we? The glue-lam is an excellent example to illustrate my point Grant.Thanks for bringing that up.

Just a question Pat.You`re talking about floor joists which are something working over an unsupported distance.I understand the theory and that goes along with the idea of bending a flat bar "the easy way or the hard way". When the work is fully supported along it`s length like this anvil is on a stump does this still hold true? I can`t help but wonder why the fork lift tines we`re cutting up aren`t being used in a vertically oriented mode rather than on the flat if there`s a real advantage to having them that way.

I can tell you(from personal experience) that mating the plates as closely as possible(I used bluing to test the fit) then pressing the laminations together and welding while holding them under pressure has direct influence on the action of a laminated or fabbed tool. Planning a balanced welding sequence so the welding distorts the mating of those surfaces as little as possible helps too as does running short stringers and peening the weld while it`s still hot.If it won`t effect the heat treatment then normalizing can help too. There`s some real world info that I learned from some very experienced hands that has helped me produce superior items in the past.When I say superior I mean superior to the way I was doing it before I sought out the advice of people with several decades of experience doing just what I was trying to do. Those men saw what I was doing and only offered advice after I came to them and respectfully asked their opinion.Once the ice was broken they were always available and very helpful in offering their expertise by way of saying things like "Last time I did that I found.." or "If it were me doing it I`d..." Never once did one of those gentlemen tell me I was doing something wrong.It was always "You might find you`ll have more success if..." or something to that effect. Now this happened in places like boatyards,factories and the oilfield and I`m not saying humor didn`t come into play.I once asked after running a particularly fine weld bead "What do you think of that weld?" .The reply was"How far back were you standing when you threw it at the work?". Those men taught me that when you come from a place of respect you get listened to and treated with respect.They also reinforced the fact that respect is a two way street.