ThomasPowers

Sorry not an "attempt" that's a forge! May not be what you most need/like but it is a forge. If you are using charcoal you won't need much in the way of a blower; if you are using coal you will need more air than charcoal. Is it possible to sling the brake drum under the table? It would make it a lot easier to rake fuel in/out of the firepot.

A few random answers: Small commercial forges are often built in the most rugged way not the most efficient as downtime costs mount up fast, and as you noticed firebrick and refractory board are easiest used in flat surfaces.. Stainless? IF the shell's ir reflectivity makes a difference in the inside of your shell you have lined it wrong! Don't forget a back door even if it's just a 1" hole with a kaowool plug. At some point you are very likely to want to heat the center of a long bar...

Well the first thing you can do to straighten the leg is to find a blacksmith! They can heat the metal till it's soft---I'd go a high orange and hammer it straight. Might require digging a trench forge in the yard if they don't have an appropriately sized forge to hand.

one thing I have learned over time is that even free steel can be expensive if it takes a lot of effort to get it into a usable form. I gladly pay a premium to get 1/4" sq stock rather than making it from free 1" round... The real trick is to start designing items that make use of it in it's current configuration.

I generally round up the pennies to the next dollar when buying scrap. That way we both don't have to deal with change and I'm very happy to keep them happy to have me prowl the piles. Also when they want a "special price" on an individual item,I don't try to beat them down on price. I either pay it or toss the item back on the pile with a smile. (After doing this a while they generally just let me have everything at scrap price...)

Most stainless alloys do not make good blade alloys; fine for spreading butter but not for cutting. How about using the blades as dragon fly wings and doing little sculptures.

Postman said he's documented over 200 different english anvil makers so far (IIRC) many of them making anvils very similar in appearance. Without better markings you may have to settle for "Old, English, Usable" and get to work on it!

Well at least you didn't drop it on *someone*! Check out the replacement part prices and also check around as sometimes "basket case" hammers can be found cheaper than parts!

Find a junked gas grill and replace the center section with a flat metal plate. You now have a place to build your brick pile that's movable and will carry the propane tank to boot. Or you can leave the center section in---removing the old burners of course and build your brick pile inside it and it can be stored outside with the lid down for protection

Hot cut, angle grinder with cut off blade, repurpose an old table saw with a cut off blade---clean out all sawdust first!!!!!!!!!!!

I think there is something in the old "Earth, Air, Fire and Water" that resonates in our subconscious when we forge. BTW I rang the anvil last night for St Dunstan's day!

Every time I visit that scrapyard I end up with something I didn't plan on---one time is was a bunch of small bearing races to use for knives, one time it was 6 100# CI balls, last time was a score of large nails.

"_Gas Burners for Forges, Furnaces, & Kilns_, Michael Porter, is a do-it-yourselfers dream book, showing beginners how to make highly efficient gas burners inexpensively. These burners use simple gas accelerators as their central operating principle. All that is needed is a $2 MIG tip and some plumbing parts. This eliminates the need for a blower to supply combustion air, allowing the burners to be built in any size. " In case you didn't find this by now...

Problem with a "good" scrapyard is you want to keep rescuing stuff until *you* are out of room. I have a 6 volt old timey wincharger for charging up glass radio batteries that I have nothing to do with but couldn't bear to see it crushed and exported. I just have it hanging from the ceiling out of the way...

I just picked up a bunch of those nails nicely rusted at the scrapyard for 20 cents a pound. I was thinking of twisting two together for a ways and flattening that part with my screwpress before bending the "hooks" ends to make a double hook.

Molten metal makes for a particularly painful clue-by-four And they never closed the furnace....

Plumbing pipe and electrical wire will be no-lead no matter where you buy them in the USA. One of my great finds was 3 spools of grounding wire I bought at the local Re-Store for US$5 a piece---paid for a lot of time not finding anything at a good price there!

Generally they are worth less per pound than the original material is, add in the cost of melting them and you are throwing money away. Scrapyards like to know what alloy they are getting/selling. As for advice: backyardmetalcasting.com a site dedicated to this sort of thing. Cast alloys that are good for casting---were used for casting in their previous life. and finally PAY ATTENTION TO SAFETY molten metal is much more dangerous that steel even hundreds of degrees hotter!

Out here I'd guess weights for agricultural equipment

In my shop I would just set it down in the dirt floor a bit---make a handy upsetting plate too. As for vise stability the size may be more important than the weight. If you can stand on it while working then the vise usually won't try to skitter off on you. OTOH I can tip 600# fairly easily when working large stock and not near the fulcrum point. Do you have an outdoor set up where you could mount a vise profitably? When you need to work a 20' stick of steel sometimes the great outdoors excels in the elbow room category.

Well perhaps it doesn't help that I tell students that hot iron has the right-away and if you are between it and the anvil they can brand you with it---never had a case of it's happening *but* it sure does make them stay aware of where the hot iron is in relation to themselves...that and the giggling...

Post vise looks like a Columbian. Is there any marking on the top of the mounting plate? Don't know if they were made under license out there or if that one swam over on it's own.

Well when I removed a tine from a forklift that had been run off a bluff edge and onto a spoil pile, (site clean up was different in the old days...) I took a 30" hack saw and sawed through the large round stock it was mounted on. Tedious but far away from any power. The rod was rusted in place and I left it a bit proud to use as a "horn". My tine weighed around 180# according to friends who got the other one after I gave up the locations of all my favorite scrounge places when I moved. 1500 miles away. At the scrapyard they should have O-A or O-P cutting torch. I have negotiated getting strategic cuts made for a suitable sixpack delivered on a hot Friday afternoon...

Where was it broken? Trentons were welded at the waist at the factory and the latter production years they used a large arc welder to do it! So an arc weld at the waist may be factory. I know that a lot of the old time tilt and steam hammer welded up anvils are often a bit off too which is why I keep pounding on the "if you absolutely must mill the face be sure to flip it over and true the bottom to the face *FIRST*!" As I have seen two anvils where they milled *through* the steel face and into the wrought iron truing the face to the base.

Oh yes forging is great for what my wife calls "constipation of the soul". As another CIS person I can attest that after a hard day of chasing misbehaving 1's and 0's hitting *something* with a hammer repeatedly is very very therapeutic---it's the giggling as I take orange hot steel from the forge that makes everyone *step* *back*...