Don A

Have you tried boiling it in white vinegar? I was just etching some wrought and it was going nowhere at room temperature. I put the vinegar and the iron in an old Pyrex coffee pot and brought it to a low boil on the Coleman stove. This increase the aggressivness ten-fold. Also, I found some new "cleaning strength" white vinegar at the grocery store. It is 6% strength as opposed to 5% in the regular. Oh, and that was Jim Hrisoulas on the other forum that suggested 4.5" masonry wheels for scale removal. I have not tried it yet, but a lot of the folks were giving it good reviews.

You might try looking / posting in this forum: http://www.iforgeiron.com/forum/53-blacksmith-guild-uk/ Good luck.

As an ignorant newbie, I bought one of those at a flea market to be my first bona-fide anvil. The guy said it had real good rebound. <_< I later figured out that the odd 1" strip of steel on the top was actually all that was left of the face. I ended up selling it to an antique dealer to use as a door-stop (I was honest about the missing face). The face on that one looks pretty good. Still some use in it, for sure.

Outstanding work!

Pay attention at about 00:55

Be sure to bring some Inswool and something to coat it with.

I just use a pair of scrolling pliers with a deep-well socket slipped over one end. Couple differnet sized sockets for different sized fingers. I get the nail hot, grap it with the tongs (flat side against the socket), light tap with the hammer to get the head of the nail following the curve, then just lay it on the anvil and roll it up into a ring. I usually have to nip a little off the point end for size. I do this to several before hand. You can re-heat it and brass brush it for a little gold tone.

circa 590 BC

I'm looking forward to it. You gonna have any supplies with you Wayne?

You might want to try a san-mai type construction... basically just a 3 layer weld. This one is a big old file between 2 layers of wrought wagon wheel rim. The pattern you see is the teeth of the file coming through the grind. If I was using virgin steel for the edge layer, I'd probably go for 1084 Aldo Bruno (New Jersey Steel Baron) can hook you up on the steel.

Check out this guy's work: http://www.jloose.com/

Linking to other sites Please use caution when linking "off site" to other web sites, you-tube, etc. Any site link to from IForgeIron WILL be expected to follow the IForgeIron guide lines. Please review the material you are linking to, and be sure it is blacksmithing or metalworking related, and in accordance with the IFI site guide lines. ???

I have been an active member of this forum since it began. I have always tried to be as helpful to the community as possible. I have looked though hundreds of posts recommending vendors and supplies; by name and by link... craigslist, ebay, etc., etc. I would certainly apprecite it if one of my posts is taken to offensive it would simply be deleted instead of being "XXXXXX'd" and then put on "moderator queue" like I'm some kind of cyber criminal. A simple deletion and a private note would have been sufficient. I suppose public humiliation is more effective. No one knew about your moderation untill you posted this just now. We do not allow CL or Ebay links, and we remove them when found. Anyone may contact Admin directly for information. Simply we edit and not PM to avoid personal attacks on moderators, The X's are because of another thread where people complained about Mod's editing and "changing their content" so we leave that to show the post has been edited to avoid those issues, One can not have it both ways. We will continue to remove anything that does not comply with the terms of service. '?do=embed' frameborder='0' data-embedContent>> There will be no free promotion of other websites, your link was cleatly free advertising, and you even pointed out his price list was there. that causes a problem for those that are paying for ad space on IFI. If you wish to purchase an add for this company please contact Admin directly for rates.

A friend of mine met this guy at a reenactment event and spoke highly of him: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX I know nothing about his products and have no vested interest in his sales, but I thought this might be helpful to anyone who is looking for a starter anvil. He has a price list link at top.

Agreeing with Jim, if you use heat, like a propane or Mapp torch, try to concentrate the flame on the collar of the fan and keep it off the shaft as much as possible. Any little bit of expansion you can get will help break it loose.

Might be on to something... http://www.antiquesnavigator.com/d-578983/nice-antique-vtg-old-rusty-iron-jiffy-knife-sharpener.html http://pinterest.com/pin/235735361718041465/

Any idea what this thing is for? I'm not even sure it's a tool. The guy that showed me this said the white material looks & feels like wax. It looks old, like a lot of the Iforge members do, so I thought this would be a good place to ask B)

Beautiful work. I have several of my granddad's old Bokers (circa 1925), but have never used one. I'm still afraid I would filet myself. Again, that is a very nice piece. Don

After several heats on an 18" bar, the heat was creeping into my handle end (long enough to not use tongs). I decide to drop the piece handle-first into the water bucket (hot end up). Got distracted then went to grab the bar and continue. Didn't take long to put it back down (grabbed the end sticking up). I love palm burns on my hammer hand. I was using a zip wheel on my angle grinder and let it get away from me. Now I have a nice scar on the top of my foot that matches the cut on my boot. Good to have reminders for stuff like that. I have mentioned this before, but I had been wire brushing an antique sledge head. Turned the bench grinder off, took my glasses off, then noticed I'd missed one small spot. Thought I'd just hit it a quick lick and be done, so I wouldn't need my glasses for 10 seconds work. Two days later when the eye doctor was grinding and sucking the rust ring out of the white part of my eyeball, I realize what a stupid idea that was. You should know better than to bring up scars in the company of a bunch of blacksmiths... ;)

You can go here and get a pretty good idea what year it was made: http://www.wrcase.com/case_college/tang_stamps/

I'm getting ready to need something like this myself, to heat-treat a short sword... just to get a complete normalization and then get it hardened. You do not need a forge like this for forging. You can only work a few inches at a time, so this would definitely be overkill. Thanks for the link to that picture. I plan to use charcoal with a 2" pipe drilled with two staggered rows of 1/2" holes over about a 2' length. I've got a crank blower, but also a couple higher powered back-ups should I need more air than it can produce. Still got a lot of grinding and finishing to do, but I'm getting closer.

Eddie, First, I don't see any advantage of annealing before forging. I am willing to be corrected, but I don't see what good it would be. Also, I use a lot of 1084 and 1075 and find that it is plenty soft after normalization for filing and drilling, so I rarely take the time to anneal. Besides, what we back-yard bladesmiths call "annealing" (vermiculite, wood ash, etc.) can be very hit-n-miss depending on the alloy. I say that if a file and drill will cut it after normalizing, just go with it. I have found great merit in 3X normalization. Don

Very nice axe. I assume that handle is just a quicky test handle. If not... man, that axe deserves some fine wood in its eye. Good work.

Very nicely done. Is there a handle and perhaps some leather in store?

I noticed an increase is static shocks from my grinder after adding the ceramic platten. Never a bad shock... just small zaps. I'll try an additional ground.