edge9001

Thats a good question. I have a crowbar with one side of that same end broken off. I want to reshape the end so I can fix it, but I have the same concern.

ok guys what do you think?

why does lead work int the top(hammer end) but not the bottom Anvil end?

While I am not experienced with anything other than my hand hammer, this explaination makes sense to me...

lead added to te hammer or top side adds weight and weight on the hammer end is a good thing, it makes it more efficient. Lead added to the anvil side however will not create a solid anvil. and a tube filled with lead will eventually work loose and then it wlll act more like an cast iron anvil with the steel top plate working loose. energy will be lost as thing bounce around instead of rebounding to the project. Perhaps a way to get a better result would be fill the tube with angle iron, rebar or other long bars of steel, and then fill the remaining gaps with lead just to hold everything in place, before rewelding the plate on the top. MAYBE

Tim

http://cgi.ebay.com/Delta-Future-2-Blacksmith-Anvil-96-lbs-/320714043750?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4aac0bf166


I found this wierd one on ebay, an aluminum base on an anvil seems like a detriment instead of a positive feature...but who knows right?

what do you guys think

I have the same forge with the same design causeing the same problem. lol i guess between the two of us we can figure out the problem

thanks for the info guys. I have a call and an email in to the seller, he has yet to respond so it might be sold already. who knows. if i get a resonse back you guys will know because i will have it posted as a "followed me home" item

the tools look interesting enough, I am wanting them, but my eye is drifting towards the anvil. It is obviously cast as it has the raised lettering and th seam under the horn, but is it iron or steel. is this an anvil or an aso?

http://chattanooga.craigslist.org/atq/2393057033.html

I found this today. I am going to jump on it, I have already sent an email to the seller, but what do you guys think of the anvil in the picture? condition/maker/opinions

I have no idea how it would hold up. I do think it is an interesting idea though. please post some pics of it when your done.

How long you been without edge? Be nice when its done, eh?

Mmmmm, Hose water! Nut'in goes better with coffee...

Hose bib by the roll up and Its going in! I got the pressure pump yesturday and I'll be ordering the water heater next week :D

My shop is right next door to my house so water is available. but I am running a line into the shop to that i can eliminate my two 5 gallon buckets as the only source in the building. a neighboring mobile home is being torn down and I intend to reroute the water main into my shop as soon as the mess has been cleared away. so it will be a few weeks.

as for now I have to carry buckets of water into my shop as needed and all other activities(coffee pot, cleaning, ect, ect) have to be taken care of elswhere.

I'm working on mine as we speak(or type). I hope to have my water working in a few weeks. congrats with the h2o

very nice! I think I'll try one of those... not sure how it'll turn out, but i'll try

i dont let it get to me usually. this guys just caught me in a bad moment...and as for spelling Neither one looked right so i flipped a coin...i guess i lost...lol

the flea market is a way for me to get a few things sold and make a little money, as for the people, most of them are great, but a few of them...well just want hit i think

I find that people rarely abuse the man with all the weapons. At my table is also my forge, so I also have all the heavy and hot things with in arms reach besides all my blades.

I had several of my tomahawks and 3 or 4 knives at the table with several hooks and a coat rack. just to mention a few of my items. like i said this guy was begging me to throw something at him...lol

I have decided to tae my work from practice piece to public sales. In order to do this I have started taking a table at one of my local flea markets last week end. while I sold only about $10 so far, I have had several other customers show interest and most that did had no money on them(or atleast thas the story being given) I will be goig back over the next few weeks and see if i can sell anything.

on guy almost begged me to throw one of my wall hooks at him. he picked up a hook I made. just a simple nail flattened at the poin drilled with two mounting holes and the head end of the nail bent into a hook. he picked it up loked at it commented "hmph i can make these" dropped(dropped about 8 inches, not set down gently) the hook and walked away from my table. It was all I could do not to pick it up and throw it at him, yelling, get you own forge anvil and hammer and make them yourself then.

anyone else have similar things happen? yes I know people can be jerks but this guy just rubbed me the wrong way.

RUN!!!!! She's gonna blow!!!!

my wife came in to the shop once at the same time that noise started, she gave me a scared look and immediatly left...lol

ok my forge has been running fine for the last year. a few weeks ago my forge suddenly lost its orange/yellow glow, turning dark red. the thing made a terribly odd roaring sound. I have found that by playing with the air flow and propane levels i can fix it and get the thing back to it's ussualy performance and sound levels.

what I'm thinking is the flame is backing into the burner tube. by lowering the airflow slightly and raising the propane flow i can fix this issue, but then i have to re-adjust them both to get it back to normal heat levels. with in about 10-15 minutes it does it again.

now what i think is the burner tube and flame holder has oxidized with the heat and is scaling off inside the flame holder. near the forge body if this is true i have to build a new burner tube and flame holder. yeah sounds like fun!

what do you guys think of this scenario? all serious and not so serious comments welcome.lol (OMG what have i got myself into with that?)

IKwant one, My wife has even said I could buy it....Where can I find one of these!!

A knife that won't hold an edge is a spatula!

Any knife will hold me, if the person wielding it looks like they know what they are doing...lol

Once a blade leaves your hands, you have no control over what happens to it. What happens when the guy who buys it from the guy who bought it from the guy who bought

The way I see it, if a blade is bought and rebought and rebought.. the final owner only knows what is marked on the blade, who made. every owner of that item will only be able to know the maker and this will help or hinder the makers reputation. So if I can not have enough faith in my work to carry it my self, first I dont put my mark on it, second I throw it it the scrap pile for later use.

in otherwords it doesnt leave my shop and if it happened to be taken it can not be traced back to me.

while my reputation isn't much I already have 10-15 parents wanting to buy my tomahawks for thier kids once they graduate from cubscouts and are allowed to use axes and the like in boyscouts.

for scrap yard steel that can only be identified by using the spark test method, that sounds like your doing a good job. I make tomahawks from rr spikes and balpein hammer heads as well as knives fom similar materials and for a scrapyard steel knife, I hase done great for me so far. Of course I am limited to how I can manage the hardening and tempering process so I do things much the same way you do.

I would love to know if "our process" is a good process

the technique you describe, wrapping the mild core with HC, was used at one time to make katana in japan. it was used because it does act exactly as you have described. the only problem is as phil said, eventualoy you will sharpen through the highcarbon steel. the 3 layered method phil mentioned would allow the blade to be sharpened till it was worn away without this issue.

but yes you design would have its place in blades.

just my 2 cents

I am once again searching for the elusive london pattern anvil. I found this one on the dreaded list

http://nashville.craigslist.org/grd/2259752510.html

is it worth the price they are asking


how about this one

http://asheville.craigslist.org/for/2205964385.html

I dont follow what you mean about the unpunched tail being a rivet. Making special tongs is a good idea, Just a set of needle nosed hand tongs might be an idea. I could potentially groove them to take the rod like a swage. However, given the small metal I would have to preheat them or they would suck welding heat out of the chain. The part about the rivet I dont get though.

it sounds like one side of the link will be flattened and punched the other side would be bent at 90 degrees and then stuck through the hole that was punched and the upset it to rivet the connection closed

like this


then peen the post sticking up to set the rivet

of all of the places I found evidence of mice in my shop, before I moved I found a mouse nest in the tuyer of my solid fuel forge, right where the horizontal pipe connects just above the ash dump. My fan wasn't getting enough air into my fire so i thought maybe i had ashes blocking it, i took apart the pipes and found a mouse nest being built. since i moved to my new shop site i haven't seen anything. and i doubt i will. this building has been here for generations with no noticable rodent problems.

to fight mice... the cheapy traps work great. A scoped .22 rifle with the ratshot rounds work great too. Thats how i cleared my old house of rats when the exterminator with his poisons, traps and all of the advice he could give, failed...after 3 months of the exterminator's help doing nothing to eliminate the few rats I had. I started with 3-5 and it became 25-30. So I gave up, concelled my contract and then got the guns going. I shot the adults, about 15 of them, and then used mouse traps to contain the little ones...in about two weeks I was rat free. The gun and ammo combined with a set of toy night vision goggles from walmart(they actually work better that the gen 1 NVGs). These things were little more than a IR sensative black and white camera on the outside and a small video screen on the inside of a wierd looking helmet, but they worked great!! I was amazed at how well they worked.

traps poison and environment modification may work for some, but for me it failed miserably. Now the army's way of "throw enough lead at the problem and it will go away," worked very well. lol