ThomasPowers

Dang those look useful and a lot easier to make than standard tongs. Might make a pair with a set of indents to hold round chisels and punches...

So how are you venting the toxic gasses formed? I know ozone and I'd wonder a lot about some nitrogen compounds. That is *one* good thing about burning coal---one look and you *KNOW* you shouldn't be breathing that crud! Unlike coke, propane, NG, arc where the fumes may be invisible but still can be deadly!

now figure out how to put screw holes in them and make a set of stocking hangers for a wooden mantel

Where do the local smiths get theirs? Seems a bit odd to ask folk in Australia, South Africa, England, etc such a location specific question. Does ABANA have a local affiliate or is the Central States group the closest?

Hey I made and eating set for camping that I designed to be dishwasher safe---or you can boil it if you wish---hand forge titanium, self hilted blade + spoon + 2 tine fork. Hand made means *you* can design it for the environment *you* expect to use it in!

Boy was I glad I do blacksmithing! Coming home yesterday from a Demo at Albuquerque NM, USA the winds were gusting terribly and having a small pickup loaded to the brim with my smithing stuff helped a lot to keep me on the highway! We had several brown outs due to blowing dust too. My wife's minivan would have never made it home.

Of the about 12 anvils I have on hand 1 of them came to me painted. Wire brushing is about as aggressive as I will go and only on items with loose rust. As I currently live in a desert I don't treat my anvils with anything---of course neither did I when I lived in Columbus OH, USA...

Ahh smiths were smithing for about 1000+ years before they ever used coal and it's a couple centuries less than that before propane forges came along. How old are your "old time ways"? (Charcoal kept in use through this day---I remember reading a reference to using it less than 100 years ago in your area in a FoxFire book IIRC) I met an author at my demo in Albuquerque who is writing a book about a boy apprenticed to a blacksmith around 1066AD. I have invited her to come by and spend a day using the Y1K forge: mud and fire safe stones, side blown, charcoal fueled and blown with two single action bellows. Just to make things interesting I'm going to have her use real wrought iron. (I picked up a 1" diameter 14' long rod of real WI on the way to the demo---US 20 cents a pound...)

"missing parts" I hunt for vises with missing parts as they are cheaper and making a mounting bracket and spring is just a couple of hours on a Saturday morning---look at how Columbians were mounted...

A well made box bellows is nicer to use than a bad hand crank; an excellent hand crank is nicer to use than a mediocre box bellows; an excellent double lunged bellows is nicer to use than either of them---but takes up a LOT of space. Not know the details of what you plan to do and how you plan to do it makes it VERY HARD to give specific advice!

My suggestion is to visit a spring shop and buy drops---unused steel of known type(s) in convenient sizes. Talk about smithing with them and you might have to flee before they can load you down with freebies---at worst I paid their scrap rate for it.

Sort of like me finding a straight peen sledge with the broad arrow on it at a Las Cruces NM USA fleamarket---and a 1980's date! The other one I have is from WWII and was found in Ohio.

Can you take the fan shroud off and look for wear on a vane and then file it slightly or take the risk of bending it slightly? I had one that would tick when I turned one way and not the other way.

I think the Druids are putting a hit out on him.... Me; I'm a big fan of Frosty as he does a lot of the heavy lifting answering the "typical" questions in a way I would so I don't feel the need to do a "me too". (cue bad joke about "Birched Byah"---ducking, running, serpentine! serpentine!, not opening any small heavy parcels, looking all 6 ways before crossing a street, etc...luckily I am out of the country---at least till 5 pm...)

Forged can be re-built pretty much forever. Don't know about DI.

"I do live a sheltered life" Frosty; that's the biggest laugh I've had this week! Particularly for a guy who played Irish stand down with a *tree*!

Leather bib apron! I know of at least 1 incident where a thrown wire penetrated a guy's abdomen.

Regular blacksmithing cones are generally hollow cast iron. I would not do anything but clean the outside and *use* it. Blacksmith cones often have a vertical slot in them to provide a place to use tongs on a ring being worked so slots are not a concern to me. As for a cone cap---I'd suggest making a hardy tool for small ring work, generally handier than working on the top of a cone.

Yup it's a site rule for this site; but a whole bunch of us have made that error over time so don't worry about it! (like no direct links to anvilfire.com due top a request to not do so from the owner of that site...) It's a good brand anvil and there is still a lot of use life in it. I just think it's rather high priced for the condition. I might think differently if I was *needing* an anvil...

Make up some blanks and then work on them when the weather is too hot, cold, "other" to work at the forge. Look at some of the file work done on knives, engraving, etc.

Use of a wire cup brush with an angle grinder. Much as I appreciate the wind blowing dust away from the work area it does provide other issues---like blowing dust into the work area!

The original link to the for sale site has been removed. That site had a lot more pictures including the one with the chip all the way through the face plate.

Even a spot to engrave the owners initials

When I visited a historic windmill in the Netherlands I asked how much power it actually had during a typical windy day near the North Sea---90 horse power! Not high speed but a lot of torque till something breaks and looked to be designed so that what would typically break would be easily replaced.

No the temperature shock of going from 450 degF to ambient is nowhere near as radical as the temperature shouck going from 1500 deg F to ambient. You quench so as to not overshoot the temp and to make it easier to handle. Now a subzero quench to help lower retained austinite is another kettle of quenchant...