Steve Shimanek

The 120 or 125 would be fine for a starter anvil (and cheaper probably.) If you are going to be doing general blacksmithing, the round horn model would be better than the farrier style which have a flatter top on the horn. Be aware that the anvil face can be marked if you mis -strike which will probably happen a lot when you are learning hammer control. For that reason, you might consider a used anvil so you don't feel bad about the dents in something you paid a lot of money for. Good luck!

The JHM anvil line is excellent; they are cast steel, machined, and checked to ensure the castings have integrity (no voids) then heat treated to about 56 Rockwell. I have the 120 Journeyman Round Horn model and I love it. It was recommended by my mentor and i have not regretted the purchase.

Howdy, I was talking story with a co worker today about pounding metal and he mentioned he had a big heavy anvil he wanted to get rid of as it was too big. I had a 110lb cast steel Russian pattern anvil I was looking to get rid of, so we traded. We were both happy with the deal; the anvil he had turned out a bit smaller than he described however. It is a cast steel anvil stamped Made In Sweden, pretty old looking, and it has a 5 point star logo above the Made In Sweden stamp. It weighs 157.5 lbs on my scale and has a good ring, though the edges are pretty heavily spalled and it has been generally dinged up. It is still pretty usable, has nice rebound, and i cleaned it up a bit already. Sorry no photo available. This anvil will be a good companion for my JHM Journeyman 120. Anybody know what brand used the 5 pointed star logo? Thanks, Steve

That is cool, welcome to the forum.......Steve

Well at least you started with a thicker container than I did; I had a dilute solution of muriatic in a tin foil pan with an old rusty hunk of steel I was cleaning for a project. It started fizzing a bit so i thought it was working; pretty soon it started fizzing a lot and I just got it out of the garage when it ate completely though the pan......close one!

Grainger catalog, they are online as well.

I am no expert but i have made 4 working venturi burners from plumbing parts using info from the Net such as Reil and Zoeller info plus other various folk's comments. I beleive you need to increase the size of your "T" to minimum 1 1/2 inches, and you need a flame holder that is adjustable on the end of your 3/4 burner tube. A 1" pipe that is sanded out to let it fit over the 3/4 pipe will work; a 1/12 taper is recommended but not required. Burner tube length also has an effect; 8 to 9 inches seems to work. Also, a smaller orifice in the mig tip may help according to some info i have seen; the theory being that this helps increase the injection velocity. Mine work acceptably well using an .035 tip but at some point i will experiment with a smaller orifice. Make sure that there is a good seal so gas does not leak past the tip orifice. See Reil's info on tuning the burners and troubleshooting. Hope this helps.

that is cool.....

beautiful work!

Looks like nice work; your pictures are huge though.

nice flowers and cool anvil....looks very useful.

It makes good traditional bows, no reason i can think of for it not to be good handle wood. Most of what i have seen is relatively plain, so i have not used it yet.

Mild steel is sufficient for spring fullers, so an actual spring is overkill and may complicate your life unnecessarily at this point.

Nicely visualized and executed!

Hope you get a chance to update us, have a great adventure!

Thanks Mark, i did some research off site and found that the Carbon V knives had been made for Cold Steel by Camillus, who had some labor issues and quit domestic operations. Carbon V is supposed to be the same thing as 50100B steel, so hopefully i can research the heat treat based on that. It is a back burner project, lol. I like the template of the Cold Steel Kukri; down the road i will try some brush hog blades and adapt the shape and see how it comes out.

I ran across a guy at a swap meet today who was selling stock removal knives from what he said were Cold Steel kukri blanks; the tm was ground off and he had a couple blanks for sale. I liked the template so i picked one up; does anyone know what the likely alloy and heat treat for "CarbonV" is? Did Cold Steel really go out of business? Thanks, Steve

Cool grinder....I do have one observation though....your grinding debris is going to get sucked right into your motor leading to early failure. Maybe you could make a shroud to protect the motor, or use a TEFC type motor (totally enclosed fan cooled).

The jaws look great, I need to make some like that. My preference would have been to draw out and round up the reins a bit more than you did, but they look very functional and that is what counts! Good job!

Lyman, you still alive after your first hammering? Give us a report on how it went.

Thanks Thomas, that is helpful info; what is the best etchant/strength to get the pattern to show?

I had my first power hammer experience a couple of weeks ago on a Little Giant 100 pounder, emphasis on the pounder.....that thing squashed metal! I had some trouble keeping the speed from getting out of hand, eventually i found a slow groove that was controllable. Last weekend I had a go again with a little better results. I also got a few hits in on a Bull air hammer, that was easier to control. I have many miles to go on my journey, but dang I love it.

Nice work, how did you make the ducks?