ThomasPowers

Well, I've bought around 20 postvises in the 1990's for US$20-25 apiece in Central Ohio; most 4-5". Then prices began to climb. I bought a couple larger ones for $45 at Quad-State in the 2000-2010 years and a couple of 6" ones in New Mexico for $75 each. (And an outlier: 6.5"---no spring or mounting brackets for $50 at Q-S where they were generally going for $300+, also bought a 3.5" vise that Q-S for $20 as it was *old*, Frank Turley told me he thought it dated before 1800! I still use it from time to time so it doesn't feel abandoned as old and useless.) Last Quad-State I went too I bought almost nothing as "bubble pricing" seems to be taking hold there too. Using TPAAAT I usually avoid such prices and as I tooled up in cheaper years can coast. A big help now that I will be unemployed after Friday June 28. As usual the "No Time, but Money; or Time but No Money" is holding true.

If during the move I run across the small horseshoe with my name stamped on it that they used to sell at Williamsburg in the early 1960's I'll measure it.

The cost of re-heat treating an anvil is generally more than getting another one and there is a danger of the face weld failing for the older ones. They are hard to quench too due to the leidenfrost effect. (Dumping one into the pond will result in a softer face than you want...)

Clgill57; this is the solid fuel forge section. Solid fuel forges generally do NOT use fibrous refractories as they are not needed; so what you should have been told is "Don't use fibrous refractories when building a solid fuel forge! They have been building them just fine for around 3000 years without them."

What it's worth where I am at will not be the same as where you are at. Have you asked folks at the ABANA affiliate(s) for your state what the going rate is there?

Thanks! I wonder if a previous owner was trying to make the jaw faces meet flat? On postvises they usually only meet at the very top and as the jaw travels on an arc they will be parallel to each other at some distance when they are open. Changing the pivot point would change that distance. I'd take it apart, gently wire wheel it and then follow with a light coating of boiled linseed oil except for the bearing sections and those I would lubricate. Does the square nut fit the new bolt?

Geology ROCKS! My first BS was in Geology.

Can we see the pivot foot? I would fix it and clean it up and ask top dollar for it. I generally buy them without the spring/mounting bracket and get a substantial discount that way. I once had one where the top of the jaws were badly offset vertically so I heat shrunk and bradded in a plug in the original wallered out hole and redrilled it so the jaws properly met.

NO holding steel at high temperatures for long periods of time is NOT good for it's structure! If you do not have an inert atmosphere furnace then you also get scaling and decarburization! Did you have to stick it in the forge for an hour or two to get it up to forging heat?

Sun Glasses? As in the things rated to cut the intensity of ultraviolet and not infrared which is what a forge puts out?

Very few anvils are Date stamped; some American anvils have a serial number that can be correlates to a date. What you are working with is configuration---does it have an original pritchel hole? And what is stamped into it. Date has very little to do with how good an anvil it is or the value of the anvil; but if you must know, buy a copy of Anvils in America and try to match the stampings to what is recorded in it. (I have a 1828 William Foster which I paid US$15 for as it was in terrible state---WF are one of the few date stamped english anvils)

It is quite easy to become overwhelmed with free scrap only to later find you don't really need it as it's not an alloy or shape that you use much of. If you have room and no local ordinances banning it your scrap pile can grow. However when it comes time to move or when the City comes knocking at your door you may find the excess to be an annoyance. After 15 years in my last location I moved 1500 miles and had to give on a lot of stuff. Now my scrap pile leans heavily to real wrought iron and a bunch of coil springs and scrapped oxy/N2/Ar/CO2/... tanks and only 1 leaf spring pack as it's easy to source leaf springs... I did recently end up picking up another pickup coil spring as I noticed it was brand new and still had the paper tag on it! (I often give students a coil spring when they say they want to start making knives...)

Well; I've offered to hot shoe a heckler or two at demos. I tell them it will be the last set of shoes they'll ever need as they "wear like iron!" If they ask if it will hurt I say "Oh no, I'll wear hearing protectors!" (Or have my apprentice stick his fingers in my ears as I do it...)

You have to figure out what you are trying to accomplish with a video: is it self promotion or is it instruction? Once you figure that out you can work on making it suit the task!

The Gunter process was not designed for all the way through cracks, but rather face work. Most anvil repair clinics I know of wouldn't handle an all the way through issue either even though they did work with MASSIVE face issues---like building back the entire face after someone milled most of the original one off to get sharp edges! (Which are a bad thing in smithing!!! If you need a sharp edge make a hardy tool with it!)