ThomasPowers

Anthracite may have issues with a small hand crank blower, an electrical one is highly suggested!

Most gas regulators will work fine with propane---until the seals go and you have to trash them or do a through rebuild. Using regulators that are rated for propane or "all fuel gasses" avoids the "working now---leaking later".

Picture?

We m have folks posting a link to them using the sledgehammer heads for anvils at least once a year for the last decade...

Go stick a fish in your ear!

ET Phone Home---collect?

Christopher Thomson of Christopher Thomson Ironworks has an Erie converted to compressed air; you might chat with him about it.

I'm of the opinion that you should know at a whole lot higher level than you teach. So if you get a student---like I did Saturday---that's studying Metallurgy at the University you can answer their questions without looking like an idiot. BCC vs FCC, what's an easy test for the curie temp? (and why do we want to know when the steel goes over it!) Dislocation climb. How many points carbon does an alloy need to be hardenable by quenching...working high carbon alloys too cold or too hot, Annealing, Normalizing, Quench Hardening, Tempering I would have started them on a progression: tent stakes, tripod for campfire cooking, S hooks for the tripod(s) and move into higher carbon forging with steels for flint and steels---make them light the forge with their flint and steel each time. When they show both hammer control and stick-to-it-ness start just a couple on a simple single edged auto coil spring blade---and make them break the first one to check for issues and heat treat correctness. *Then* start them on a blade for real. Of course this gives them training in smithing and just not trying to guess at how to do an advanced skill. If they just want to spend *1* day forging well the tent stakes and maybe a tripod will work! I did an afternoon forging demo for cubscouts once. They each made a twisted 1/8+" steel wire toasting fork with 1:1 work with me for safety sake and then held a hot dog roast to "test them in". No burns and they all worked. Of course I had been smithing for about 20 years by then...

I thought it obvious that he didn't agree with the way you use your hammer when forging!

There are hundred if not thousands of pages written on this; stop by and I'll let you read my ASM handbooks. One of the pluses for O1 for beginner knifemaking is ease of heat treat, (pretty low cost and availability are two others). Now if you want to know how to map the names from one naming system to another; again thats a lot of pages, especially if you include the european naming systems. You generally have to get the elemental analysis and start comparing it to names in other systems. AISI / ASTM A681 O1 tool steel

Michael; it depends on how big of billets you will be making.

Check the base, if there is a sort of hourglass depression it could be a Trenton with flats too, (but I'd guess PW myself)

Turn left at Albuquerque! (if you are east of Albuquerque, right if you are west!)

Well it does depend on your dirt...if it has a very high vegetable matter content there can be issues. Subsoil should be great most places.

Ditto on the Crowning!!!!!