Jmercier

If you happen to be near vegas on aug 12-14th or so, send me a PM and we can get together, i'll be on vacation and in las vegas from the afternoon of the 11th till the morning of the 18th, with a conference thusrday night friday and saturday =P We could check the place out together, me with my camera too.

I voted the anvil #3, and here's my explaination why, Mostly i'd prefer #2, but I actually prefer a very slight nose to heel sway back (nothing major) which lets me straighten pieces easier. I think that any sway back would put me in category 3 not 2 >_

Phil, if you still need some spikes i'll bring some down to IGs if you want them there. I've got a sizeable pile in my garage that local kids dropped off at my place. I'll be seeing you in a few weeks down at George's =P

Aldo's a great guy and easy to deal with. I've known him for a while now and the steel he's getting is top quality. My favorite blade steel is the 1084 i've been getting from him.

From their website 360$ but it's on sale for 250$ .... I think i'll stick with my bandsaw >_

*sighs wistfully* My flypress is a small one =P It's still nice for slitting and stuff, but i need to make more tools for it. Of course, by small one, it weighs 600+lbs including the base still.. http://www.tharkis.com/images/shop/flypress.jpg

Very nice! Just because i dont have the info available off hand, what's the difference between shear steel and blister steel? Theyre' materials that i'd love to work with sometime.

Strangely enough if i buy a new anvil... I'm going to talk with Jymm Hoffman and try to get one of his colonial hornless pattern anvils. I want one, but don't have the money for one right now =)

spray it down with wd40 and put a shop towel ontop of it when not in use

*blink blink* Odds Bodkin is a story teller (and a wicked good one at that) I've heard him a few times... but i've never heard his name used as an exclamation =P

I wasn't going to re-up this year to abana, and instead just my local chapter that I do everything with, but they had that hammer's blow on cd deal so I re-upped just for that. ABANA has been historically a good organization, but as of late they seem to have lost their way a bit.

I've got a gorgeous little drill press like that which i paid 50$ for, but mine is outfitted with a vbelt wheel instead of a flywheel (it's the original wheel though, not a retrofit), so it's not got quite the momentum it needs to drill through tough stuff unpowered. 25$ is a good price if it's complete and in working order. http://www.tharkis.com/images/shop/handdrillpress.jpg I'm at the point where i'd pay the 25$ just for a decent hefty fly wheel =P

Half of a 2 car garage and it's too small for me, once i get my brother to sell his convertible that's parked in my garage i'll have the whole thing and should be enough room for now

Ugo's work is awsome, and if you can find it on the armor archives, the threat ugo's foly or whatever, his "first attempt at spring steel" is just awsome too. One of my favorite metalworking humor threads of all time.

I think you mean raising instead of dishing, dishing is stretching metal out into a dished form, which thins the metal, raising however is pushing the metal around, and will cause metal to remain the same thickness at the center and to thicken at the edges. You'll only need to temper the steel if you're using a carbon steel or spring steel and you harden it. Tempering is drawing back the hardness from a fully hardened state. When cold working metal you can work harden it, but this isn't the same thing. In fact usually you want to re-anneal a piece and then continue working it cold if you're not doing hot work, to keep it soft. Another great site for your questions regarding SCA questions and armor work is The Armour Archive Thomas Powers here on this forum frequents there as well and can answer more of your questions better than I can.

With the (very heavy) base made for it, I paid $350 for my #2-#3 (about mid way) fly press and that was a good deal all things considered. Now this isnt the best forging flypress because it's a bit undersized, but it still does a LOT of work that would be hard to do by myself in a timely manner in the shop by myself. This was also about the largest press that I could get into my shop by myself. It still took me a day and a lot of work with ramps and pulleys just to get the press back on top of the stand.

That's a cute little bugger, but you're missing a ball =P Your press is large enough it would use a ball on each end of the arm (thus the upturn with the tapered spike) Time to drill a hole in a dumbbell =P Going by the pallet, that looks to be around a 4 or 5 or so in size? I love the little (2.5 ish) fly press in my shop.

Glen just used % instead of times, 78 is 1.56 times bigger than 50, or 156% I have no idea what is being talked about with structural issues preventing side draft, because the chimey for both an overhead chimney and a side draft chimney is identical. Personally I like a good side draft forge, they seem much better for drawing off the smoke from a coal fire from what i've used.

The question I'd actually ask would be, do you have the equipment to move the extra weight of a 6 around the shop and get it set up safely? I've got a small fly press (somewhere between a large 2 and a small 3) and even that weighs well over 600lbs with the base. Most people say that a 6 is the largest size you can use by yourself, so if you think you'll need the force, a 6 may be the way to go based on the "Get as big a tool as you think you'll need, then go one size up" but I've seen a lot of work done with a substantially smaller one which looks like it'd work just as well for your purpose that you have stated here. My small one I use on 5/8ths to punch and drift for hatchet heads forged from railroad spikes. Btw, Mark, great to see such a well known and spectacular smith such as yourself here on iforgeiron ! I'm looking forward to seeing your demonstrations at the atlantic coast blacksmith conference this fall.

the best way i've seen for electric bellows, but which takes a bit of work, is to have the bellows treadle operated with a variable resistor, like a sewing machine pedal, so that you can control airflow with how far you push the treadle, and have it turn off altogether when you step off to work the metal. A box bellows is pretty simple to build and i'm thinking of putting one together myself this summer

The one with the horn is around 150lbs even without the tail, just as much as my main shop anvil, and quite old. The one with no horn is around 110lbs. Neither of the anvils has seen a whole lot of use really, and the faces are in quite good shape. The price was right on them so i bought them both, because there's a lot of use left in them yet. The block has a shovel shape on the other side that's wicked nice too. I fully intend to return the favor more than in kind for the swage block. That made my whole weekend, heck i'm still smiling !

This is my haul from this last weekends NEB Spring Meet tail gating, In addition a very generous member of NEB won this NEB swageblock in the raffle and then gave it to me <3

So yesterday I forged out a paper towel holder for my mother as a belated mother's day present (I"m seeing her this weekend when i'm up in New Hampshire for the New England Blacksmith's Spring Meet) but I'm not sure what the best finish for an interoir item is? here are links to a few quick pictures i snapped of it, and I'd like to retain the forge finish look. Would beeswax be the best finish? or what? I'm still a total beginner despite having been doing this for a year and a half now, and I know the 90 bend looks like xxxx and has a krink in it, but i couldnt for the life of me figure out how to bend 3/4x1/8 flat bar around a corner like that and have it still look nice without cutting it and forge welding it, which I didnt have time to do. http://www.tharkis.com/images/smith/papertowel3.jpg Sadly just that took me 2 hours to do. I need more shop time so i can get better at this stuff !

Very nice and congratulations. I'm just now starting to get some more time in my shop, and I'm a total n00b hobby smith for the most part, it would have taken me too long to forge all that stuff for certain. Heck, I made a simple paper towel holder yesterday with a rose on one end, a few simple bends, and a scroll on the other end and it took me over 2 hours !

from-the-track rails are already hardened and tempered. For train cars, the wheels are meant to wear on the track and not the other way around, because replacing the wheel on a car is cheaper than replacing a section of track. Most modern rails are ~1070 carbon steel and pretty hard faced.