bruce wilcock

hearths were set a little higher than the anvil ,so as you drew the job out of the fire it slipped on to the anvil gravity assisted, to shoe make all day with a hearth lower than the anvil is no joke lifting 16-18 ins 1 1/4 x1/2 carthorse iron adds up .chain makers hearths had a sloping sill facing down to the anvil and the men working were a masterclass in time and motion morn till night week after week for years the work knocked them to bits so they found the easyest set up dads hearth was 3 ins or so higher than the anvil and mine was around the same.

this is a photo of bricks in a coke forge the top was cast out of fire cement on a plywood former bent in and then burnt out ,it can easily be dismantled ,it makes good use of the coke, this fire has half of a anvil in it and it brought it up to heat easily

up to retiring i use mainly coal small bitumin coal ,and coke during the summer when i made smaler fires less tool smithing and running hammers , and more shoing and souveneer stuff ,i dont know if the smell of coal smoke ,is a turn on for some .my wife prefered the coke as she had my clothes to wash,

when we went to the old shops picking through the bones ,after the sales and all the big stuff had gone, the anvil blocks were usualy left , and they were at all sorts of hights some had packing nailed on and others were burnt to the shape of the anvil base and nearly on the floor , cast iron stands were let in the floor ,or packed up with shaped blocks some a thick as railway sleepers, my boss was not that tall but if he used a anvil that was set up for heavy work he used to get us to shove a swage block under it we spoke about anvil hights often and he told us when new men moved to there own fire the anvil was fiddled about for a while to get it to suit if the work was mainly single handed , if the same strikers were used the anvil was left as was and the smith had to live with it,unless the strikers agreed,i bet there was plenty of moaning he told us there was no set hight apart from knuckle hight and that was if a striker was often used, they just fiddled with the hight ,taking a mesurement from the anvil you are working on ,and using it to set a difrent type of anvil is only a rough help you will find it dosnt feel right ,,we entered shoing and blacksmithing competitions often as young men, and the ones that learnt to work with diffrent anvils some very poor and at all hights and just get on with the job usualy won, the the groaners were still at it when the prizes were handed out ,so in short there is a hight that we feel to get the best out of our body, and another we feel comfortable so some where in between is bang on.

hi i got some from Wagner Milwaukee a while back and it forged well Arcitectural Bronze ,the phone no at the time was 1-888-243-6914 .hope this helps Bruce.

the anvils in the smithy were ether given me when i started , or were my fathers and uncles,so i cant help . I have 3 anvils outside in the yard and they were paid for 2 in the late 60s around 19 67 they are both from the kirkstall forge 5cwt where they were forged and they cost 20 pounds sterling each ,a quarry labourers wage was around 12 pound sterling ar the time. the other one is a p wright 1 1/4 cwt in very good as new order at the time my father got it for me from a ironmongers and it still had tar paper stuck on it new old stock, though living outside hasnt help it ,that cost 15 pound sterling in 19 70 as i wanted a small anvil to travel out shoing ,the shop accounts for that year we were charging 2 pound 10 shillings to shoe a farm horse. so it wasnt a cheap anvil

they are thick at the hanging end ,not good for clevises and forked work the hevier ones are so thick you cant pull a shoe heel out ,we have had a few i think they are clumsy numb lumps ,untill you get to the 4 cwt pluss size then they are better thought out and are a better pattern.

made them by the bucket ,for the farmers ,nearly cut the pin off the bar ,get a welding heat on the bar you are making the spike from about where the eye will be ,and a welding heat on the pin ,weld the pin on the bar a couple of taps will do to stick it on ,wring the pin of and wrap the bar around the stuck on pin all in the one heat ,back in the fire take a weld heat and over the edge of the anvil close the eye flip it over and shut the other side if the eye with working around the eye you will close the joint, then back in the fire take a weld heat a little further down the shank of the spike and shut it up ,cut of turn it round and hold the eye with a pr of bolt tongs dont hold the pin ,it isnt in line to draw the point ,then back in the fire a full welding heat and weld up and draw out the point , the first blacksmiths competition i won ,that was the job 2 welded gate pins and welded straps time allowed 1 hour ,with a striker, the pins were 3/4 ins and the eye was 1x 1/2 shoe iron .i was 17 year old .it was a open class so i was working with men ,my boss pushed me in and told me just think you are back at the smithy ,dont look at the crowd just get on with it , at the time we were making them at chance between shoing and shoemaking. i still have that prize card ,the judge was G Ransom the Ransoms were great plough makers ,so it means a lot to me ,learn to make them well and smartly you will never forget and it is a good usefull thing to make as a demonsration peice.

coke is no problem just shut of the fan . Coal can re light if the wind gets up during the night ,i same as Glenn dump in water ,the contaner is sq and i have made a weld mesh basket to fit inside that reaches to the bottom with a lifting handle .

Thomas has about got it in one, my father carried all his tools he needed as a quarry blacksmith ,in a leather bag with the straps tyed on his striking hammer , in the bag were the tools to shoe horses ,dress tools and make hammers and wedges,they made the tongs and shop tools as they needed them and left them behind when they moved to another place and then set up again.

as to anvils on ebay ,late last year i gave a lad a small pw anvil it was in near unused condition ,he wanted a anvil to get going ,the anvil was on ebay within the month, i asked him if he got enough to get a bigger anvil , no he got tyres ,he was a little sheepish when i asked him ,he thought blacksmithing wasnt for him. Sad as there were others that would have used it ,my fault i have been getting shut of tackle without thinking its not as easy to sort the sheep from wolves.

yes i still have some it was used for steeling tools it is like a fine wire mesh in a borax type flux the sheets are like toffe and you cut of a pice and place it between the joint at red heat then bring the heat up untill it melts and little sparks just show out of the joint well below a full welding heat ,then give it a light tap .

using a seperate pice to weld without a scaph is used when welding heavy sections ,bring the job to a welding heat in one fire or use two fires if the job is to big to get in one ,then in another fire get a couple of say 1 ins sq bar to a welding heat at the same time to make a fillet , then get the two parts of the job on the anvil ends touching strike the tong end to jump them to gether and then drop the sq fillet on the diamond across the joint and weld it down cut the and off then roll the job over and set the other fillet in and drive it down cut it of and dress the weld over ,the weld will hold its heat as you are adding heat with the fillets , thats the way we welded anchor crowns .

a small foundry near by a forge i worked at had a roots type blower driven by a water turbine attached direct , the setup worked untill the place closed down around 1964-5 . i have over the years thought of making a similar setup on a smaller scale say run with with a hose pipe .If you could get one plumbed into the mains water pipe take the water through the turbine and then feed back into the main as long as water moved through the pipe ,free power ,

yes ,the slot is to take them out.

yes all the best if you take it easy ,drink slowly ,your birthday should last all weekend, and you will be able to remember more of it. Bruce,

this is a photo of the tweer

there is around 40 lb of casenite case hardning powder in coroding tins around the smithy and i havnt used aney for years ,rather than dump it , i have thought of setting up a fire outside stand a old anvil with the face down get it red then dump the casenite in the fire cover it over with coke blow it up and leave it i think i could keep it hot for a day or so ,.Now the 50.000.000 $ question do you think it would take up the case hardning .

if it was a very small anvil you might be able to dump a thermit furnace onto the top with it in a sand mould ,the cleaning up would be another story,it would take some setting up and be big, the rail setup only melts a small amount ,and isnt cheap to use ,

i have a new cast iron tue iron liying under a bench the only use it has had is as a mandrill to tydiy up some mooring rings .you can have it ,for the cost of carrage ,i will not use it.

after working in the forge all my working life , the work has been my job and a way of feeding the kids i have enjoyed my work, but it has not been my hobby i have done other things as to relax ,only now that i have reached retirment ,i play in the smithy .and youngsters come to play too, the shortage of pick sharpening for the coal mines ,tool dressing for the quarries ,that i started on at 15years old ,makes things harder for the young ones ,the advise i would give is to dont try complex things with complex steels ,keep it simple practice on mild steel ,making round into sq ,and sq into round ,then make your hooks out of your own round , and twisted fire irons out of your own made sq, sorry it sounds boring ,but so was sharpening truck loads of coal cutters picks.

thie isle is 300 ft high and the wave has come across the pond ,thanks dont send eneymore for a while ,and glueing a anchor up in the yard.

water ,well i am on a island.

has enyone made a pumping engine, i did some tongmaking for a small foundry and they had a old pumping engine out of use ,it was two cylinders worked with a dip crank, run of line shaft ,it pumped direct no air recever,i thought of making one with wood cylinders made up of staves as a cooper would.