Jmercier

That's a nice upside down hornless anvil of the style typical of the 1600s possibly earlier

There's a big difference between rare in the US and rare in general. Some of the rarest in my experience are the artistically decorated armorer's anvils and the LARGE stake anvils as were used in the 15th and 16th centuries

Sam actually finishing anything is always a shocker =)

Glenn, not sure where the right place to mention this is, but I notice that maine NH VT and MA all dont list any association, CT only lists the CT guild, and the New England Blacksmiths is only listed under RI, but in fact the NEB is the whole region, and quite a large group with a great membership. If it could be added to those other states, that would help make the list more accurate.

You'd need a service upgrade of your gas lines to provide enough volume and pressure to run a forge off of your house service. Standard house service is a low pressure service that wont fire a forge. Unless your gas company provides the upgrade service free or very cheap, you're probably better off buying propane.

Yeow, at that price, I'd stick with propane and use charcoal when I needed to work something too big for a propane forge.

From his other posts, yes CBL4823 is a collector =P (with a very nice collection too) If I had the money to buy up the anvils that I know about, I could probably come away with 6 or 7 in two weeks time up here in new england, without even hitting any auctions or the like. That said, iv'e got one anvil, 2 partial anvils (one no horn, one no heel) and 2 stake anvils (large stake anvils, 55lb and 125lb) so i dont really need another anvil >_< THat said I want one of the hornless colonials that Jymm Hoffman is having made anyways =P

Jymm, are you still / are you able to if you want to, producing a hornless colonial style? I'm thinking about getting my first (and hopefully last) new anvil next year around income tax return time, and I'd love to get a hornless colonial like the one I saw that you had cast a year or two ago. JosephPrivott, my recommendation is to save up any extra money you need and get exactly what you're looking for and the quality you're looking for and do it right the first time. An anvil should last you more than a lifetime, so you should only ever really have to buy just one. As they say, only a rich man can afford cheap tools. Buy the best you can the first time and then save money in the long run.

Yup that's a Hay Budden, looks pretty good, you should get a lot of use out of that =)

30 gallon galvanized trash can http://www.tharkis.com/images/shop/coal.jpg

I'e got a 40lb tank and a 20lb tank of propane, and 250lbs of coal

Actually here's a question that perhaps someone who does re-enacting might be able to help with. I'm trying to determine if the style of this old horned anvil I have could possibly be early enough to have been period around the battle of Culloden (1745) I can tell by the manufacture, with the pointy feet, the short and wide body (12" long if you include the length that would be there with the missing heel, and 6" wide) and the lack of a shelf at the end of the horn that the anvil is 1700s or very very early 1800s (I'd be able to date it even more accurately if the heel were still there so I could tell if it had a pritchel hole or not, though I suspect it did not) I'm just not sure if that may be too late period for a fairly strict living history group, or if I should be looking for a hornless anvil (not that I'd use an actual early colonial hornless, but I will [and do] use the above pictured colonial anvil with no heel) I've got other anvils and anvil-like objects that are certainly period for even far older times but they're not ones that i'd want to use for any work for fear of damaging them this 55lb bickern is mid to late 17th century http://www.tharkis.com/images/shop/bickern.jpg and this massive 125lb stake anvil, to the best my research has been able to determine is likely late 15th century to early 16th century http://www.tharkis.com/images/shop/stumpanvil.jpg It used to have carvings on the side faces but they're mostly worn off, and not visible at all in this picture except for, if you look carefully, part of the line outlining the edge

Those remind me of all the armoring tools that Halberd over on the armor archive makes =P and if they're for armoring, that's why they're so polished, doing sheet metal work you want your tools polished.

This thread is great! Just this last weekend I got talking with some folks at the New Hampshire Highland games who were with the Historical Highlander's living history / reenacting group, and they're without a blacksmith currently. I've let myself be talked into looking into becomming their blacksmith for all the local events in the new england area. What I dont have currently is a re-enactment setup for forging, and though I've got some authentic late 1600s early 1700s jacobite period tools, I'm not sure if they're things that I'd want to use on a regular basis =P In the last few days I've been doing a lot of research into period (1680s to 1740s) setups, trying to figure out what I'll need to build, etc, and this thread is perfect timing for me =) Looking forward to seeing more !

Normalizing after grinding and just prior to hardening is usually a good step. Normalizing is a stress reliever, and grinding steel actually does impart a good amount of stress. a cycle of normalizing after grinding and before hardening can help to reduce failures during the quench (as can many other factors, but I'll avoid talking about pearlite, austenite, martensite, bainite, and the science of heat treating here)

I know this doesn't answer your question but just for something to chew on as to whether you actually need a 'tomahawk' drift. Some good advice that I've used was given by Joe Szilaski at the 07 ABS hammer-in in Vermont, that if you're making a tomahawk for use and not for the art of it, drift the hole square or circular and not tear drop shaped like the 'typical' tomahawk drift, because it makes re-handling it in the field easy when it's very hard to shape a branch to a tear drop when in the woods

Never heard of them called russian roses, I've always just called them blacksmith roses =)

One thing to keep in mind if you do a solid mild steel / 1018 core, is that carbon lowers the welding piont of steel, so you will need to get the billet hotter to weld to the 1018 without delamination than you would if it was a plain solid core cable, other than that, it should work just fine. I've been looking for a good source for steel cable myself, but havent been able to find any as of yet up in Rhode Island

That's jesus hernandez's webpage. I'm not sure that I've seen him posting over on this forum, but he does frequent Don Fogg's forum.

Your 1/4 inch cold rolled is probably sheared from plate, which results in the sharp corners. A lot of smaller size cold rolled stock is rolled as a plate and then put through massive shears.

Oh, i like the old 5 legged one. I love old anvils =)

I wear prescription safety glasses, and I've taken to wearing a bandanna when I'm forging because of the sweat problem. There really is no "good" solution, but a bandanna seems to work well enough... Now the problem is that most bandannas are too small to get a good knot in the back of them after wrapping them around my head!

Tharkis' workshop ! there's my virtual shop tour with pictures and whatnot, too many pics to post here

Calling the grizzly similar to the coote is like calling a yugo simliar to a porche, they're both cars made overseas, just like the coote and grizzly are both belt grinders with a contact drive wheel. I've got a 10 inch wheel coote belt grinder, with the disk attachment, (on the 10" wheel you can leave the disk attached and still do hollow grinds) and I love it. Sure, it's not a KMG, but it's also half the cost, and still built well enough to last a life time. The coote grinder is, in my opinion, the hands down best belt grinder you can get at that price point.

I figure i've probably put between 5 and 6 grand into my shop, but it'd probably take 10 grand to get me to part with it, because there was a lot of time and effort and traveling etc into obtaining what's in my shop. That and a lot of rock bottom bargain deals. It'd probably cost 10 grand just to get back to thep oint i am.... and i'm someone who only gets out into my shop one or two days a month currently with all the other things going on >_< I'm at the point however that i can only really think of 2 more things that my shop needs... A hydrolic forging press and a digitally controlled electric heat treating oven. That and I might convert one of my horizontal forges into a vertical one to be a better welding propane forge.