Sukellos

I have a Makita 7" that I've had for over 30 years and it still sings. It's a heavy baby though. I have a little Makita 4" that I've had for around 20 years. The problem is the arbor shaft is an odd size (1/2") and hard to find wheels for now. I think most all manufacturers have gone to a 5/8" arbor now. If budgets is a problem, buy a Ryobi. I have a 4-1/2" that I use for flap wheel sanding/polishing. They won't stand up as long as a Milwaukee or a Makita but they'll do you until you can get something better. That said, my Ryobi chop saw has served me well for about 10 years now. Personally, I've had really bad luck with any motor driven Craftsman tools I've bought. I won't buy them anymore.

Hey Rio! That bit about not having time to fab yourself a forge reminds me of a saying I heard when I lived in Central America:

En la casa del herrero, cuchara de palo.

Rough translation for those who want one: In the blacksmith's house, wooden spoons.

I finally gave up and bought one ready made. It ran me about $400.00 with shipping and all but it came ready to use, just add propane. It is small and won't do welds (at least, not for ME) but it is quick and easy to use. If I only have a few minutes of spare time, I can have the fire up to forge heat in a couple of minutes and be banging iron. When I need to quit, I just close the valve and go.

Wrong photo but it works! Okay, now my shop showing my unimpressive vise! Tadaaa!

Yet once again into the fray my valiants!

I give up.

One more try.

Looks like it DIDN'T WORK. Now what. When you say cut and paste you are using the "image" icon, right?

Thanks CurleyGeorge! I hope this works. Isn't much to look at but it works fine and won't buck about when I'm working on it.

Mark, you make me want to give up in despair. That rose is BEAUTIFUL!
I'm making a headboard for the bed of my granddaughter, Rose, that, of course, features forged iron and copper roses and her name done in scroll work. My work pales next to yours. :(

Actually, mine is at a bit of an angle. Not that I INTENDED that. I'm just a lousy welder.

In this video a couple of civil war re-enactors bend a rail just with a large bonfire. YouTube - Sherman's Neckties

After looking on the internet I found this site that sells track chisels. http://www.rrtoolsnsolutions.com/catalog/TrackTools14.asp#79

Would they be the same chisels that we are talking about?

Actually, the one I have looks more like the regular cold cutting tool shown above the track cutter except that it would take a regular full length double jack handle.

Hey BentIron! You and I live close. I'm in northeast Mesa.

I'd love to pattern weld. I'll need a hotter forge first. The little commercial, one burner atmospheric propane unit I bought won't reach weld heat. Either that or I just don't know what I'm doing. I'm open to any help. I was weaned on coal and when I moved from farm country to suburbs I switched to propane and smaller projects. If I need a weld, I just burn it with my wire feed or my buzz box.

I'd love to show you my vise but I can't get an image on my posts. I have the images as jpg files on my computer but the "Attachment" icon on these web pages is dead for me. It won't work. The "insert image" icon will only let me use images from the web. If any of you tech savvy's can help, I'd appreciate it.

Anyway, I don't have a leg vise. I use a swivel machinist's vise planted on the top of a wooden railroad rail set on end in the dirt floor of my shop.

I've got you all beat! I have an endless list of projects that I never seem to have time to get at. :-)

I own a small building with 4 one bedroom apartments in it in the old industrial part of town. Everytime a tenant moves out I inherit their trash.
Recently, one left a box springs (no mattress). I ripped it apart and threw the foam away and cut the coil springs free with a cutting wheel on my 4" grinder. That left me with about 40' of 1/4" rod for small projects.
Another left me an unused railroad tie. That's the wooden tie, not the rail. I cut a length of it and set it about two feet into the ground, belted the top with 2"x 6" pieces and my 200 lb. anvil just fits on top held in place by a couple of half-moon pieces of 2" stock fit into the indentures on the base and nailed to the tie. I used the rest for a vise stand. I've yet to afford a good leg-vise. Since I'm just a hobbyist, I have a hard time justifying big expenditures on the smithy. I wanted to attach a jpg file but the attachment icon above is dead. Anybody help me there?

Any time you're tempted to get too critical of your own hand-forged work just stop by the local hardware or home store and look at the ones on their rack!

Whatever you make, make it well. I have a niece that I adore that was born with a cleft palate and struggles to make herself understood. Thousands of dollars have been poured into surgery but the "fix" seems to elude the good doctors. An angel of a speech therapist works hours each day with her in school.
Perhaps you should forge this lady a golden halo and wings.

When I was young, a century ago or so it seems, a friend gave me the head of a tool that looked like a sledge hammer with a long, straight peen that was sharpened at an angle that was obviously for cold cutting steel. He said it came from a silver mine and was used by the guys who laid the track down into the mine. If one guy was to hold the handle and another to smack it with a double jack I GUESS they could cut a rail.
I rounded off the peen and use it as a straight peen forging hammer.

I wish I had happened upon this thread when it was fresh. I don't know if any of you all will see this now. Years back, I built up an anvil from plate steel. I topped it off with a piece of an old snow plow blade. I'm weak on alloy knowledge, but these blades are easily cut with a torch and can be welded but they air-cool harder than the back of my head. I used the anvil for 20 years and gave it to a friend who still uses it. It weighs about 80 lbs and has no horn but I cut a 1" hardie hole through all of the plates and then lined the hole with angle iron to make a 3/4" hardie hole. No law says an anvil must look like the ones in the Bugs Bunny cartoons.

There are few things that can't be improved with a few blows of a hammer!

Don't tell my WIFE that!
I use the magnet trick to keep my chuck key and center punch on top of my drill press. I never thought of using one to keep my files/rasps at the vise. THANKS JIMBOB!

I work for a major aerospace manufacturer. All of our compressed air lines are copper with soldered fittings. We use one huge Sullair compressor with a 4" line out to the hangars and from there it's run down to 3/4" or 1/2" lines at the point of use. We run at about 108 to 112 p.s.i.. There are drops with condensation release valves all over. I've never heard of using PVC for compressed air, but then, there are a lot of things I've never heard of.

We don't have that problem here in the Phoenix, AZ area neither.

A hundred or so years ago,(seems like) I lived just up the road from the old Buffalo Forge building on Broadway in Buffalo N.Y. Back then I was just a teen and couldn't afford to buy anything from them.

Some of these men are just mean spirited when they get a little power put at their disposal. I have been through it with one such fellow. He was totally ignorant of what he was supposed to be enforcing and it took intervention of others to get him to back down and give me my green tag.

There's nothing more annoying than a little man with a little authority. Back in the late 1700's the French came up with a neat cure for bossy, unresponsive government. A good smith could build one in a few afternoons.

I'm new to this site, Bentiron. I live down here in Mesa. AZ. I have a humble little hobby smithy with a propane forge. I put it under a "ramada" like Clinton's, only all wood. It works. I used 3" of clean fine sand, well, it was clean at one time, for the floor. It's easy on the feet, but makes it easy to lose small tools and parts. No complaining neighbors...yet.