Jeff Seelye

Been there! I would find a suitable object to set my plate on with enough room to tack my legs on underneath. This allows me to adjust my height to what I desire. If using a mig, then I would position my leg beneath the plate and tack it on, repeat on all 4 corners. They should all hit the table and you will only be off by the amount of warp you put in the plate when you weld it. OR you can do the same thing by finding a suitable object and weld the legs together and then attach the plate to the finished legs. I think this is what ianinsa is doing to stabilize the plate so it stays in place while you weld the legs on.

Dan, by now I think you get the idea that there are quite a few people on this site with a lot of different opinions. Some are from the same camp while others have different opinions. You are free to pick any one of them. You appear to be a worker of metal,and yes philosophy does play it's games with some of us. Some of us have great anvils, with historic value and some have RR iron or forks from fork trucks or large blocks of steel. Do what you wish but as to your original question... No, I have never welded on an anvil.

I was fortunate enough to have a torch, and had been given a piece of railroad rail to beat on. The next year, I bid on a a forge at an auction. Then I found others (SOFA, MABA, & Tillers) that had the same interest.

[quote So is this just a particularly hard chunk of steel, or are crowbars always this hard to work?

I agree, getting to see someone else do something is inspiring and time saving. This site is great, but, you gotta see it done and pound it for yourself. Hopefully you are in an area that has a blacksmith group. Welcome!

Welcome, This is a great site to go beat something, brag about it, get frustrated with it, ponder it and then post something about it. It won't take long before you figure out who is interested in doing the same things you do. Everyone seems to like pictures. Have fun here!

Welcome! Start simple, that includes your forge, your steel and your whole smithy. Before you work with springs, learn about carbon content and it's effect on steel. Stick with mild/low carbon until then. You will appreciate the learning curve and make a lot less mistakes. You will begin to see what tools you need as you work. If their is a local group where you live, join it, get involved and watch closely. This forum is great but their is nothing that beats watching and pounding on steel to teach you.

This tool is used for a different purpose, but the principle is the same and could be adapted.You can probably make something that fits your lathe.

How do you run a propane fork truck inside?

I have only had this problem in an unheated shop. When I only heated it part time I would lift my 20# up in the air when I started my heater(because hot air rises). The gas evaporates at at lower level when the tank is cold. Sweany, propane and acetylene are two different animals. Propane is a liquid in a tank that evaporates as a gas from the top, acetylene tanks are filled with a porous material that is filled with acetone and the acetylene gas is absorbed into the acetone and can only come out at a certain rate. The liquid you had was acetone NOT acetylene, and yes it burns. Overall this is a neat post, has anyone noticed that ambient temp. plays a huge factor in this as well as humidity?

This is the finished box. I gave it an acid wash (plum brown) and waxed it. I used guilders paste on the hinges, lock loop, handle and rivets.

OK, how about this. The hanging hook idea is good because it takes up less space, It's bad because you can't see which fuller it is. What if you made the tip of the hook out of what it fullers. That way you could see what fuller it is by looking at the hook. You can also tell which one you didn't hang back up. I'm starting to get the same problem myself.

Looks like you had a fun day at the forge. Those bottle openers look fun. They are great Christmas presents too.

Thanks John B, I took some more pictures. It still needs some color but here is the box.

Yes,but right now I am making a box and I have 2 of these straps going around it. After the box is done, I will try some stuff, fciron had a good idea about the shoe polish.

I will try to resize the next picture, when I finish the chest.

Tried to make some belts this last weekend

Thanks! That's a great idea. I bet I can even polyurethane it. Last night I tapered the end of some 1/4 flat (like my belt) ground a chisel real thin and put rounded marks in the end (with my 4 1/2" grinder) heated it, stamped it around the edges, and it looked like stitching. Thanks for the tip!

That is some cool work on the harnesses. I did think about using real leather. My idea is to use a 6" pipe split in half about 8" long, make a box for the bottom make "leather" straps around it. i think I can make a tool to look like stitching, maybe also use it for the hinges. Still gotta figure out a buckle.The rest is handles and latch.

I am trying to make some hardware for a chest. I would like to make straps around the chest that look like leather belts. Does anyone have any suggestions /tooling /pictures /ideas that would put some details in this. Right now I am looking at some belts in my closet and trying to get a perspective on this. Thanks

A few years ago, I got a flyer in the mail about a blacksmith auction. I went and found out that only members of our association were invited. The guy belonged to it when he was alive, and when he died, his kids, having no interest in it, decided to have two auctions. One for blacksmithing and one for the other stuff. Now, just maybe the family thought that they would get more money by doing it this way. But when I got there, the family was all there and plainly said that they didn't want to open this up for resellers and dealers but they knew their dad would have wanted the stuff to go to people who would use the stuff like their dad had. I bought a cool hammer rack and a hardy, and am thankful that the family thought to do it that way.

RUN Jonathan! This is only the start! You can get help now if you're quick. You don't realize how big the bug is. Pretty soon it will take bigger fixes, more tools, bigger anvils, always looking for better coal, more scrap steel, there is never enough... I am assuming that didn't work, you've got a great start!

Cool Stuff! I took a Tillers class years ago, North of K-zoo at a Nature Center.

Sparks are very interesting indeed. It is cool to check out the different sparks from different metals. Always looking for the 1. color of the spark 2. The length of the streamer and the burst at the end. For instance,Titanium has a white spark, short bursts. Niobium has a white spark. Cast Iron has very dark red sparks best seen in very dim light and medium length streamers. If you want to compare different metals it is good to have an assortment of alloy steels to compare them to. The longer the length,and fewer bursts, the lower the carbon content . It takes years of practice to identify alloy steels.It is an art all in itself The above explanation was awesome.

I'm not sure which was worse, doing it or posting it! Those two would be scary to work around.