Mainely,Bob

I have to laugh and relate a little story. I was called by someone just like this newbie who wanted to be a bowlturner and I told him to stop on by,no strings attached,and we`d talk and to bring his tools and I`d help show him how to sharpen them.He never showed and I asked the fellow who suggested I call him what the story was.He told me he decided to go with a "real instruction course" at a local art center.Guess who showed up in my class? Later that year during the summer he decides to take a week long course at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Rockport.He was once again surprised to see me there as a co-instructor(the other instructor is a good friend of mine and a big name in woodturning). He told me later that he wished he had taken me up on my first invite as he had gone to the computers at the center and looked me up to find I was both a past president and founding member of the Maine AAW chapter and chairman of the board of directors at the time. I smiled and said,"yep,coulda saved yourself a pile of cash.Now lets get to work". He joined the turning club after the class finished and at his first meeting met many of the big names he had read about,imagine that!

There`s an old Irish saying "There is no luck except where there is discipline".

Well Jake,not knowing your approach to the work I would say look at your time and see where you can cut that first. If you`re going thru the entire ceremony of firing up your forge to set a couple rivets and charging by the hour then unfurling the OA hose/torch and embracing Mr Victor just makes more sense.Likewise if you`re spending a ton of time on stock prep and other early on jobs that an apprentice could do then they make a whole lot of high tech apprentice replacers these days. Which would you really rather do,spend several thou a year on fueling the forge or spend several thou on an induction unit from Grant and cut both your fuel bills and your time waiting for the material to come up to heat? What you`re asking is basically the same thing any business struggles with,where do I spend my dollars to best improve productivity.The exception is that you want to "stay true to the craft".In the end the metal doesn`t know or care if it was heated in an induction forge or a coal forge.Neither can it tell if you cut it with a chisel or a plasma cutter.If the material doesn`t know or care then why do we think the customer does? What it comes down to is being able to separate how much of the work we are doing for the customer and how much we are doing strictly for ourselves.The best value for dollar and usually the most efficient way is to eliminate all of "your" work and do only what is needed,everything else is added on just to please or impress somebody.How much are you allowed to charge for impressing your friends and neighbors? An excellent analogy is one in woodworking as I am also an avid hand tool user in that too.We were rehashing the old "sanded vs hand planed" debate and tossing around words like "clarity of finish" and "chatoyance" when a high end production WWer stopped the show by saying he had been in the business for over 20 years and had never had a customer run their hand down a surface and say to their friends "that surface there was planed by a #7 Union plane from the early 1900s sharpened with both a slight camber and a 3 degree micro-bevel" before opening their wallet. Kind of took the wind out of our sails. It also put things in perspective,the best approach is whatever moves you thru the work at a steady pace and leaves you with an acceptable result that the customer is both happy with and willing to pay for.The rest is fantasy and indulgence.

One thing for sure,if you want to hold tight tolerances then you`ll want to take that jacobs chuck off and get you some real tool holders or collets.

Well,there it is! I guess we know where he`ll be spending most of his time.Once he lands in your shop he won`t want to leave. :)

From Frosty`s post I realized I may have worded things wrongly. What I meant to say was "why is it that those who least need to prove something are usually those most likely to explain themselves" In other words he was telling us we already knew the trade and had proven ourselves as craftsmen,why then did we continue to try and define the word craftsman?

I`m speechless,and that`s a rare thing! :)

I`m going to ask a rhetorical question here and see if anybody can answer it because I sure couldn`t; "Why are the people who have the least to prove always the ones so eager to explain themselves?" This came from a student hitchhiking on our conversation when a bunch of us were discussing much the same things we`re talking about here. This same student,after making us all speechless,went on to ask two simple questions; "Do you enjoy what you do?"To which we all agreed that we love what we do. "Then why should any of this other stuff matter?",again we were speechless. Very few of us get to do what we love doing.Most people don`t even have a clue how to find something they love doing so they settle for something they find the least offensive yet pays the bills. We are truly fortunate.Let`s enjoy our good fortune and do all we can to pass that good fortune on to others so they can experience it too rather than stand with our peers and split hairs.

One of the most important things to look for in a cold saw and really any saw is will it hold the piece being cut securely.Especially during making a cut at an angle the vice or other holding device is the only thing that keeps the work from creeping and side loading the blade and causing it to fracture and fail. The next thing to look at is when you move the blade away from a 90 degree cut does it lock down securely with no side play? If you can find a good deal on a Scotsman saw I would snap it up as long as it met the above requirements. They are robustly built and it takes a lot to kill them.

I think Jake hit on a very good point here.If you`re using one process to mimic or imitate another then you either don`t have the skills needed or may be attempting to pass yourself off as something you are not. The whole "Achieved forged texture with a grinder" thing made me cringe.To me this is the departure point,you don`t take something from the lathe and then hammer it to make it look forged or use a grinder to make something look like a hammer made it.You either invest the time to do what is really needed or hand it off to someone who can do it and give THEM the credit for being a blacksmith.To do otherwise is,well,FORGERY! The "ornamental ironwork" that has been cast is a fraud and deceives the customer because they feel they may be protecting their property or family just as people have sought to do since the dawn of blacksmithing when in reality any criminal with a steel bar or hammer has ready access to their home with a few swings of that object .I have also seen these same cast iron "safety rails" give way and fracture from the impact of a falling human body only to become more dangerous and inflict horrible cuts and puncture wounds instead of deflecting a fall that would have brought perhaps only bruises.Forged ironwork(more rightly forged steel)provides both more safety and better protection.You can drive a car into a well constructed forged gate and the car will come out the loser. A blacksmith should know the material better than any other tradesman because he works it on a more intimate and elemental level.Let the designers,engineers and architects talk costs,crunch numbers and shuffle paper.When it comes time to build to achieve the best possible end result the man standing at the forge is your best source for the widest spectrum of answers based on real world experience.

I would recommend trimming the length of the stem on those holders till the flange bears on the face of the ram. The full diameter of the flange is what should be transferring the force of impact not the stem.Using just the stem to push risks bending the stem if the force is not delivered directly in line with it. Put another way,if anything shifts,a scrap or other small object gets caught under the tooling or the work is not fed directly in line under the tooling then you run the risk of bending the stem,compounding the problem and ruining your tooling.Push from the largest bearing surface possible and when you encounter a problem the work absorbs the impact and rather than ruining your tooling you sacrifice the one piece of work. Power transfered thru the largest,strongest base possible is what you`re looking for if you want a rigid and stable set up. Look at punch press or iron worker tooling to see what I mean.

Very interesting,you really seem committed to this project and are putting a lot of work into it. It looks impressive and conforms to what most people may think of when you say the word "anvil" The real question is does it do what you want it to do and can you turn out the kind of work you want to by using it? If the answer is yes then it is a complete success,if not then I`m sure you will take what you have learned by building it and use your skills to improve or modify it to fit the direction you need to go. The really shining point to all this is that while others are sitting and waiting for a "real anvil" to come to them you went out and found the means to build your vision.That is priceless,thanks for sharing it with us.

Bryce,ya coming anywhere near Maine in your travels?

I would use heavy shrink tubing or a commercial splice on the electrode lead. The reason being the ground is what you want constantly connected to the work,Many times we have linked one bench to another or the work to the grounded bench by tacking bare steel across the gap and not created a life threatening hazard. The connection with the electrode you only want to happen when you want to strike an arc and weld,this is the lead that carries the amperage and heat.Electrical tape will unwind or unravel under numerous outside influences beyond your control and unless you use about a half roll of it is not meant to handle the type of stress or amperage we`re talking about here.Tape is a temporary fix,go with a long term answer to the problem on the hot lead.

Welcome! Please note that this is a 2 way street,new eyes see things a little differently(and some times much more clearly) than old.If you see something that may be of interest to everybody we`d love to hear about it. We love pics,think of them as signs of our passage, a way to help direct traffic and help others see the sights. BTW-If you discover an easy way to post pics that an old dinosaur such as myself can follow please post that too.Last time I tried it took 2 days and the pics required much mouse work. A PC whiz,I ain`t. Again,welcome to IFI.

As Avadon said there`s good and bad in each.If you get along with everybody,prefer a communal type approach where it`s easy to arrange for and get help and are surrounded by other community minded people then I can see where HOAs have their advantage. Things like pets at large and rabid animals as well as what land can be used for what purposes is handled by the town/county up here thru things like zoning and leash laws.Of course we all know how quickly government of any sort works up here so rather than calling the animal control officer we usually just catch the offending animal ourselves and bring it to her. If something bothers me I go and knock on the door and talk about it face to face.When I say talk I mean I start by saying something like "I don`t mean to be a bother but I was wondering if this would be a good time to talk to you about..." then after we come to resolution I ask"How can I help make this happen?"I also try to end the discussion with a handshake and a "thank you for taking the time to listen",no matter whether the results of the talk went my way or not. If I see trash I pick it up myself,regardless of where it came from.If there`s a pothole in the road I fix it rather than wait for my neighbor to do it.If one of them sees me working,unless they have an appointment or an emergency they will stop and help. After a storm we each clear our own problems and then before going back inside we see how we can be of help to the others.Many times I have gone out to shovel snow only to find my walk already cleared,that started about the time of my first surgery and I took care of my neighbor`s walk after he had his knee replacement. Rules and telling people what to do won`t make better neighbors.Showing up with a smile and ready to help with whatever needs to be done to smooth out the bumps in someone`s life will. I have found that when I say "I" or "We" in the context of an outside force directing someone to do something I am met with resistance.When I say we(notice the lower case) or use the word "us" as in;"we can do this together to help us all" ,then I have a much better chance of co-operation and a quick resolution. My friends/neighbors know that when I show up at their door with my sleeves rolled up it`s because I am there to help them any way I can and not to point my finger or fight about things.They know this because they`ve observed my actions,not because they read it somewhere or because they heard me or someone else say it. When they show up at my door I reach for my work gloves,grab my hat and follow.I know they will not bother me with something they can handle themselves.I understand that they have come because they feel they need my help.

Look at it this way,after you bring it home and get it working with this hammer you can quickly make the money to buy a smaller Iron Kiss and the compressor to power it and then you`ll be completely covered hammer wise. Course if you follow the lead of certain other members here only 2 hammers is no where near enough.I`m talkin to you Danger,Dave and Larry.The rest of you know who you are,don`t think for a minute that I don`t have my eye on you too. BTW-How about putting your location in your info. That way I`ll know where to put the next pin on my map and better be able to focus google-earth so I can make sure you`re not baggin` over your limit for hammers.You`re on my list now pierosoleil. :)

We were talking a while back about those videos you see from emerging countries where safety is non-existent. Someone(I forget who) was saying that it may be cheaper now to ignore safety but later on down the road someone will have to pay for those people`s health problems.Cheaper to prevent it now that to treat it further down the road. Such expensive hindsight is what bankrupts some countries and financially cripples others.

Look at lab ware and medical supply houses.

What you want for a shield is not leaf springs.They are both too hard(literally) to deal with and too heavy. I would look for either something like lightweight weight flat bar or something you could easily make flat on the ends so you could wrap them over. If this is one of your first projects I would concentrate on mechanical means of attachment at the cross such as rivets or wrap the cross. if you use round or square stock then punch/drift to let one pass thru the other. If you`ve never forge welded before then try just forge welding as a technique with mild steel scrap till you get it down before trying it on a project or more problematic steels. If you need to make this project right away then forge brazing is a less troublesome and historically correct technique which will allow you to make the project with a better chance of success. See how much easier that was with the proper info provided? BTW-From what I have read,most shields were made to be as light as would be practical so were made out of wood or other light materials such as reed,bamboo or heavy rawhide and had leather loops as a means of holding them to the arm or gripping them.What metal there was was usually thin material(think sheet metal) placed on the outside to keep edged weapons from cutting thru the wood/reed/bamboo. Metal was a costly material back then and most of it was used as armor strapped to body parts rather than used in a shield which could be more easily swept or knocked to the side to make an opening or stripped away all together.

Would that be the same as wanting to emulate the better qualities of the people around you? In today`s world it might also translate into "lead by example".

I`d like to invite you to bring a little more focus to what it really is that you want to do by telling us what it is you want to make or accomplish. Once we have a clear idea what you really want we can better help you.

The more of Beaudry`s machines I see the more impressed I am.They seem to be simple,robustly built machines made with the operator in mind. Access to the dies and freedom of movement of the material is several orders of magnitude better with just a simple 90 degree repositioning of the frame.The linkages all seem more user friendly and out of the way of the work and the operator and there`s very little flesh threatening parts moving up and down right in front of the operator`s face. I can see where these hammers would be favored by the folks working them. Thanks for sharing the pics.Got more?

If you carry it across the shop and put it to work then it`s "exactly the right tool for the job". If you throw it back in the drawer/box/bucket/truck then it`s more useless junk. With the properly applied modification techniques I find most anything from the second category can be magically transformed into something from the first. :)