Jmercier

That blower looks like MORE than enough blower for you, you really dont need that much air. Lets put it this way, a hair dryer will put out too much air if you dont have an air grate to cut down the flow, that blower would be enough for a forge twice that size. Dont replace the blower.

My recommendation with the anvil would be to find someone who knows how to weld , and use 21018 or 7018 welding rod to rebuild up the corners, and then grind them back flat with the surface. That anvil looks like it's got a lot of potential life left in it. There are quite a few people up in my area who repair anvils like that and make them look better than new.

To me, that sounds like a good deal as long as the anvil has a 2 by 3 inch or so good section on the face with a useable corner , that's all the space you really need in an anvil. For the most part these days, decent useable used anvils are going for around 2$ / lb, so 175 for both the forge and an anvil sounds like it'd be great tog et you started and off the ground.

John N speaks the truth. I'm a software engineer, and iv'e got a pretty nice shop now. If I had to make money doing it, I'd have hardly any shop and I certainly wouldnt own a house to have the shop in my backyard in the first place.

It's great to see that you're enthusiastic, but temper that enthusiasm with some realism. Take it slow, take your time, only get what you absolutely need for now and no more, and make what you can as you go along, that's half the fun of smithing.

http://www.tharkis.com/images/4140anvil1.jpg

This is to show that you dont need anything fancy for an anvil. This thing works great. It's a little bit softer than wanted, due to problems with trying to quench the end of a piece of steel this large with a home forge setup, but it's quite tough, and more than adequate for almost any forging you could want to do. I went and sold my smaller shop anvil (125lb peter wright, kept the 150lb peter wright) after I got this, because this was more portable and, if anything, has better rebound.

This is a 75lb cutoff from a piece of 4140, heat treated at home, and with feet welded onto it so it can be lab bolted down.

Ok, here are pictures of my aquisitions from the last two weekends. Also to show that you can get started in blacksmithing for quite a low cost overall.

I picked up this firepot / standalone forge made from a brake drum and welded up with a clinker breaker and ash dump, and the gorgeous handcrank blower at the new england blacksmith's spring meet. This blower is in imaculate shape. You know you have a really good blower when you crank it and let go and it keeps turning around for a while after you stop. I paid $200 for the forge and blower.

http://www.tharkis.com/images/coalforge.jpg

I then hit the hardware store near me which i found out actually will get bituminous smithing coal and bought 250lbs for ~50 bucks

http://www.tharkis.com/images/coal.jpg

Then this last weekend I picked up this huge shear and this small leg vise (with excelent threads) for 50$ together

http://www.tharkis.com/images/shear.jpg

http://www.tharkis.com/images/smallvise.jpg

I'm going to build a portable mount for the vise, because my large shop vise is attached to my bench, and weighs over 110 lbs without the bench, so it's not very portable.

Lastly I purchased this 125lb stake anvil (yes 125lbs, aka monstrous for a stake anvil, largest I've seen myself) for 105$

http://www.tharkis.com/images/stakeanvil.jpg

True, Iv'e spent a lot of money in the last 2 weeks on more smithing equipment for my shop, but when you look at it, for 405$ plus some gas, Iv'e in the last 2 weeks obtained a complete forging setup, including vise, anvil, and fuel for a LOT of forging. Yet relativly that's a very very small amount of money I've spent by being patient and doing a decent bit of driving to get to the right places >_<

Venturi burners also work differnetly based on the forge they're put in. Different forges produce different back pressures and air currents. In general when making your own forge it tends to be much easier to make a blown propane forge and not a venturi one. You can tune a blown propane forge much easier, and there's a lot more leeway for error.

Another note about both fisher and vulcan anvils. While they had a cast iron base and a tool steel face, there are many types of cast iron. The cast iron used for these anvils was a ductile cast iron which was (relativly) maleable. Most 'modern' cast iron anvils not only lack the tool steel face, but are made of grey cast iron which is not maleable and chips / shatters.

Made 3 scores over the weekend, got myself a nice condition 4" post vise missing the spring and mounting hardware and a huge 3 foot long pair of bench/hardy shears for 50 bucks, and my other aquisition was actually via ebay, a 125lb stake anvil (monstrous for anyone who knows stake anvils / bickerns) for 105 bucks + ~85 in shipping since it would have cost about 85-100$ in gas to pick it up + 12 hours of driving.

Will get pictures when I'm able.

I love the recurve in the bowie, and i've always liked the look of roping on the spine of a blade.

Very nice knives, hopefully I'll be able to make them like that by the time I'm up to that many made.

for small work I use an NC Tool Co Whisper Baby single burner venturi forge, and it's about the most frugal propane forge i've ever seen. After getting it up to temp, I can turn it down to ~4 to 5lbs pressure and I can get around 20 hours of forging from a 20lb tank.

My welding propane forge (single burner, blown forge) however freezes a 20lb tank right up after 10 to 15 minutes.

As for holding tools... I'm using a mid 1800s blacksmithing bench I picked up for 40$ this spring. the whole top, and the bottom shelf are each one massive 2 foot wide by 2.5 feet long boards. You just dont see boards that size anymore.

http://www.tharkis.com/images/toolbench.jpg

Another thought, have you tried Admiral Steel?

They claim to be able to get hot rolled 1050 in thicknesses between .075" - .500" in sheets, anealed or as rolled, and can shear it to desired dimensions. I have never talked with them to see what they charge for the shearing / etc.

C .47/.55 Mn .60/.90 P .020 max S .025 Max Si .15/.30 is what htey list as the 'typical' chemical analysis of their 1050 which would seem to be closer to what you're looking for than 1060

their catelog at http://www.admiralsteel.com/pdf/catalog.pdf page 16 lists the specs for their 1050, the hot rolled on page 17 which comes in the thicknesses you'd need incorrectly lists the specs for their 1035 on page 18 instead of the 1050 specs, but iv'e been told that's a typo and the above listed specs are the same for both of their hotrolled and cold rolled 1050 steels

I'll have to try them out then for 1084, i know everyone says they're great for getting 5160, but i've avoided them for 1084 mostly because of the one experience that had been recounted to me. They are however one of the only places i know that claims to carry 1084 bar. 1" x .25" is one of my favorite sizes, they carry 1.25x.25 which is pretty close.

I checked the fastenall near me and the only 1045 they have left in stock is round bar, and the only they can get in their catelog is square bar (up to 1.25x1.25)

If that's the place i think it is JPH someone else I spoke with purchased their 1084 and it analyzed as only just over 77 points carbon, and should really have been labled 1075. 'real' 1084 is great because the steel is almost exactly at the eutectoid point, meaning that you dont need any soak time, dont really have to worry about grain boundries, and that the point it becomes non-magnetic is the point you want to quench it, making it very easy to heat treat.

It's becomming increasingly hard to find many different formerly 'common' alloys of steel (even simple steels) which are supurb for blade smithing. This is unfortunate really, as it's forcing smiths to either use another material, or get a custom melt. I know that I really like 1084 for blades, but the only source for 1084 currently is Aldo Bruno & Mace Vitale who went together to purchase a large amount at once tagging along with another corporation's custom melt, and it's a very limited suply... once it's gone, it's gone.

I'll check, but I believe the fastenal in my town had some flatbar 1045 in around 2" x 1/4" x 5' but that was a while ago, and I dont see 1045 on the fastenal catelog anymore except as square bar. if you've got a press or a mill or a power hammer, you could pick up a large amount of 1045 from fastenal in square stock for not too expensive and draw it out in a relativly short time. A short piece of 1" square will go a long ways drawn to 1.25x.25 and I've seen Derrik Wulf up in vermont draw down a 1" square of W2 12 inches long to close to that dimensions in a single heat with his Bull power hammer.

The best part about a lincoln buzz box is that they're indestructable. There's nothing to them except a huge transformer. The buzz box which Iv'e got in my shop is older than I was, the fellow I got it from said he bought it new in 1980 (admitadly I've only used it twice since I got it but to my experience it works fine. I dont do a lot of welding yet, and I can only "gorilla weld" its big and ugly but it holds)

I would recomend a good name brand Baldor, Leeson or Dayton single phase 1.5 horse TEFC motor. It's worth the extra money to get a good name brand motor which will last a long time.

I'm driving my 2x72 belt grinder on a 1HP Baldor, and while I can bog it down if I try, mostly it's pefectly fine for everything I'm doing. I dont tend to do a lot of reall hard push hogging on a belt, I'd rather use a stone bench grinder or an angle grinder for that.

I used a whole lot of borax

I forged down this piece of cable

photo 1

into a billet and then forged out (and sanded for days) this damascus blade a while ago, but I only just now put a handle on the knife

Now I'll have a proper sgian dubh for when I go to the highland games in a few weeks up in NH. Deerbone handle, with rosewood endcap

front side (as seen facing out from the leg when worn in the top of a sock)

photo 2

Back side

photo 3

and a large size image of the first

http://www.tharkis.com/images/sgiandubhlarge.jpg

I tend to tap it when i get in the shop, and then intermittantly while hammering as it keeps my rhythm

Mmm, scotch eggs are sooooo goooodd.... that said i only have them like once a year for good reason =) If i had a lot of money, i'd probably turn into an anvil hoarder, but since i dont, whenever I upgrade my anvil, I try to sell the old one to defray the costs =) (anyone want a nice 126lb peter wright in the new england area? 2$ a pound!)

i bet if i picked it up and run off with it no one would stop me!

Having watched just about every anvil that's sold in my area on ebay, craigslist, and in the papers for a little over a year now, decent used anvils even in the 'anvil rich' area of new england are going for 2-3$ per pound.

I've bought exactly one anvil for 1$ a pound and it was a great great bargain. Even in bad shape an anvil at 1$ per pound is probably a good deal these days, particularly if you know an experienced welder who can repair/reface it with a good rod like 21018 (think that's the high tensile str rod i'm thinking of)

The NEB is a great bunch of folks, and their shop in Brentwood is great. Their spring meet in Lincoln RI this year was the first NEB meet that I had made it to, and I learned more in a few days there than I had ever thought possible.

The fall meet is going to be in CT this year, but I would greatly recommend driving down from NH to attend if your'e able to.

In addition if you're ever down by Rhode Island, my shop is small (and all propane fired), and Im still a beginner myself, but I'd be happy to have someone pounding metal in my shop with me some weekend. (I'm what I'd term experienced beginner, but a beginner none the less, since i'm for the most part self taught in my free time, and dont really know how to do a lot of stuff =P)

Good to see i'm not the only preson who likes short stocky handles on my hammers =)

Hey Mike, you found IFI!

When you do get any info, let me know and I can head down and help you get it up and running. I've got a lot of tools, and can forge replacement hardware and parts if they're not made of stock big enough that they need a power hammer in the first place. I know most old bradley hammers were in two styles an upright helve style, with a heafty wooden helve arm driven by a wheel with a wide belt + idler tension wheel, and a compact style which is much like the little giant in construction. I believe from your talking this last weekend that yours is the helve style correct?

On the other hand if you cant find more info on fixing it... I've got a truck, and Derrick Wulf has a 50lb dewpy on a trailer already, I'm sure he wont miss it since he's got that nice air hammer already in his shop !! >_