knots

Nice looking forge. Looks like it may be one with a rear blast water jacketed tweir. It should work unless there is a damper hidden up in the hood some where. Riche's suggestion of burning news papers to start the draft is standard proceedure for many forges. if the hood has an accessable smoke shelf that would be the ideal place to burn the news papers.

That anvil sounds like a good luggable size . You can expect to pay more for good anvils which can be easily moved around to use as a demonstration anvil. I had a Milwaukee (probably made by brooks) that I bought new in 1980 that sold for $350, with stand, and a couple of hardy tools after 22 years of sporatic use, mainly for demonstrations. That size anvil moves around a lot when forging so if you do not plan to use it for demonstrations I would buy a bigger one. Sounds like you are in a buyer friendly area. Then again you might just like to have a stack of anvils in a corner somewhere. It's hard to have to many.

Blow a lot less air into the fire when starting. Alternatively cut a piece of sheet metal into the shape of one half circle then curl into a cone. The cone base should be big enough to cover the charcoal being started. Cut out the top to give about a 1 1/2" diameter opening. This cone can be rivited closed but need not be. When you start your charcoal set the cone over the freshly started charcoal. It will act as a chimney and supply just the right amount of air to get things started. When I first started I used charcoal for a couple of years . It works well but the charcoal is consumed a lot faster than coal. Happy forging .

There is room for disagreement. If the charcoal is properly prepared, the resins would be converted to carbon along with the rest of the wood being converted. Commercially produced mesquite charcoal was not mentioned in my posting.

50%/on, 50%/off topic. Mesquite is resinous as well as dense. This makes it durable and is part of the reason it will take on, and maintain, a beautiful finish The old timers used to use it for fence posts because of it's resistance to rot. Another use was firewood. It burns well, hot because of the resin content. The off topic part is that since mesquite is dense and burns well it also is a good wood from which to make charcoal. It is plentiful in your neck of the woods since most people consider it a trash wood. Iron Striker, have you ever considered making charcoal for forging fuel ? Making quantities of charcoal in a pit is not all that hard if you have access to a back hoe. There is a lot of information discussing how to make smaller quantities on line.

I wonder if an old low pressure cooker could be used as a pressure vessel to treat small pieces of wood. They already have a pressure release valve built into the top. Easy to open and big enough for treating handle sized pieces of wood. All that would be needed is to drill and tap for a compressed air connection and a regulator provide a low pressure air, and of course an air compressor. I did a little research on pressure cookers. Indications are that they have a working pressure of 15 psi . That probably does't come close to commercial PT processing but should be a lot more effective than any pressure that could be reached using a vacuum cleaner exhaust. Treatment at plus one atmosphere might take a bit more time but could work.

Mesquite is a beautiful wood. It is slow growing and dense so the heart wood of larger trees would be a good source. Dry it .

Could "Anvil" in this context be some sort of reference to the blacksmith games ? A game code word ?

Adjustable vice mounted scrolling forks from monkey wrenches. Small Vice mounted Fork from rail clip. Fabricated fork for hardy hole.

Why not make your own ? It is really not that hard to do and if you fail to make one that suits your needs then go to one of the pro's. Basically here is how I would proceed: Find and forge the end of a piece of tool steel to a shape into which the mark will barely fit. Then anneal it. Use files to refine the mark profile perimeter. Use small drills to remove stock from areas in the interior areas. Make and use small chisels to rough cut out the remaining interior stock . ( Tiny chisles can be made from cut concrete nails or drill stock. ) Finish off with a dremil if needed. Harden and anneal as with a knife blade Also note that some of the interior detail can be punched in while at forging temperature before annealing. This is a fairly primative approach but perfectly acceptable results can be achieved if the touch mark is not complicated and is used to mark your work while at a red heat.

As much as I would like to think that it is S5, I would think it more likely to be 1095 because I do not believe that the primative annealing means that I used would have produced a machinable result with the S5. As McBruce suggests I need to find or trim off a sample to test. It will be a few days before I will be able to get to that task. When I found them, they were near the shear that had new matching blades freshly installed. An example of being the right place at the right time.

I found a set of large shear baldes at a junk yard a few years ago and have used it for power hammer dies, and various other tools. I annealed the material in a fire brick enclosure using charcoal as fuel. After annealing it cuts and machines well. When I heated and quenched the dies in oil they didn't get supper hard . Heat treated them in my wife's oven. Anybody know what the alloy might be.

Most Benzomatic torches have the asperation ports built into the torch tip, however this one seems different. My question is - Is that clip on the extension tube the air port. If so try rotating it, it might be combuston air volume adjustmment. If it got closed when you were cutting it down that might explain the problem. If indeed it is the air port ???

My hammer documentation says that a KB-1 uses a drip feed oiler. The KO, KB-1, and K23 are listed as drip feed all others are automatic pump oilers. Wish I could scan document this for you but I do not have a scanner.

It might be worth a try to harden and temper as is. Or try testing a piece of the original bar from which your spanner is made. If It is A36 no telling what the carbon content is . I like the super quench idea.

I have the same press, except it does not have the nice flywheel . The slower screw suits the way I work and provides a powerful stroke if needed or a light bump if desired. This press is a very old design . The catalogue says that it was a tool room press for making/testing dies. Look up Waterbury Farrell in Google books . This press is on page 39 of their catalogue. The press weighs 1700 pounds ( maybe more with your fly wheel) and is a beast to move because it is TOP HEAVY. But I guess that you know that. Be very cafeful In my recent move I dissassembled it because it had to be moved up14 steps out of my basement . The area was not accessable to a small motor crane so I had to winch it up and onto my trailer. Geting it back together is another story. A chain hoist comes in real handy for eassembly/reassembly. I keep angle rails bolted to the press legs to make it easier to move the press around on pipe rollers. So far the press has never moved in use with the rails installed so they just live there perminently. Based on my experience I believe that you will love your screw press .

The handle could be magnesium. Commonly used during WW2.

Many thanks to all.

My question refers to heat treatment after hardening. A toaster oven will reach achieve 400 Deg. F tempering temperature easily. The foil would only slow the heat transfer into the work piece. I doubt that this would be an advantage unless a temperature probe were wrapped in the foil along with the work piece to more accurately indicate the temperature of the work piece rather than the general temperature of the oven interior.

Yes the tempering part is what I meant to refer to. Although I have a small ceramic kiln hat would get plenty hot to harden, I don't use it for that purpose. The materials that I use are mostly common alloys . Do you just use the oven's temperature controls ?

Has anybody tried using a toaster oven using the convection setting for heat treating punches and chisels for use around the shop ? The cook wants a new one and it seems a shame to throw the old one out. One possible part of this plan might be wrapping the tools in foil for treatment to reduce the influence of radiant heat in the process, and use a low tempeature thermostatic probe to track temperature.

Here is my version of the COSIRA Leaf Veiner. This tool works well for leaves made from sheet metal. Can also be used for plandishing and texturing sheet metal. Mine is fitted with a plate and used in my leg vice rather than in the hardy hole as fitted for the original COSIRA tool.

Mine is a KO (27kb) so I doubt that my factory manual materials would be of much use. Centaur Forge was the US distributor for Kuhn back when I bought mine in the early 90's. I would try calling them and see if someone might be able to help or refer you to another owner of a CF-50. One thing that I would caution you about Kuhn hammers is that the piston wrist pin has very tight tollerances making it uncertain if adequate grease is getting to the the pin bearing surfaces. I finally bought a pneumatic grease gun to solve trhis problem.

Perform a spark test on that anvil to determine if it is steel or cast iron. The anvil form looks serviceable If it is steel I would use it unmodified or sell it to provide funds for a proper swage block. One possible means of toughening up mild steel is to use a super quench solution for hardening. That way you may be able to extend the life of your existing veining tool.

Whenever I find an old pick ax cheap I will usually pick it up. I have used the working ends for puches and chisles but the real reasion I pick them up is that the big eye offers a easy conversion for some pretty neat leaf stakes.