ThomasPowers

You should be able to pick up coil and leaf spring for free or even axle steel if you are in the United States of America. I can't say about other countries. They would make a better cutting hardy tool than 304 which is usually described as "gooey"

Tig! You can weld razor blades together with a tig. As for tenons I did a bunch of sq tenons with my screw press by placing a block on the bottom even with the edge of the top ram and just setting a stop block on it the thickness I wanted the tenon. Scribe the length wanted, heat and wham wham wham wham turning the piece as to get the tenon in the middle. Then reheat and use a monkey tool to dress the shoulder---I used a socket as the monkey tool. This of course presupposes that the tenon is the size of a socket driver but 1/4", 3/8" and 1/2" gives some flexibility and old sockets are cheap at the fleamarket.

Hi I need a new vehicle should I buy a car, a dumptruck, or a boat? Kind of hard to answer without know what you plan to do with it right? So what kind of stuff do you generally do with it, how much, how large of stock, how heavy a hammer do you swing?

A coachmaker's anvil will have a shelf too only projecting from the side of the body of the anvil to make clips with.

So basically you were pounding a cold shut into it just like regular run of the mill smithing. Really rounding the billet can help prevent this as there are no ridges. Twisting and then grinding smooth can help this as there are no ridges to be pounded into cold shuts.

wrist for knives; knuckles for sledging, wherever it makes my back feel good even after hours of work.

Of course it's not exactly re-inventing the wheel as I have bought several bit/socket drivers at fleamarkets that are quite old; it might be that the "speedy" was the re-invention...

So how much do you pack in when you go camping? I like having tools even when I'm away from the shop. I was happy to introduce my nephew to a brace and bit when he was going to be building some benches on the side of a mountain trail for an eagle project. Less weight than battery packs and they don't run out until you do! While there are many times "modern labor saving devices" are just that there are also many times that they are not! When I was called in to consult on a metallurgy issue on a viking boat build I noticed they were using a belt sander to taper strakes: noisy, dusty, slow. Next visit I brought a nice sharp drawknife and showed that it did the job faster quieter and with less muss---didn't have to wear a dust mask either! I got me a cole drill too for when I need to drill steel miles away from an outlet.

First thought on the big one is to put in another layer of insulation to snug it down a bit. You could always remove the layer if you needed a bigger forge later.

1906 according to AinA

It's a beauty alright and so very young to boot!

Give some thought to going back to Ohio in late September for Quad-State Blacksmiths Round Up. I know a New Mexico fellow who went to his first Q-S and came home with 30 anvils---had to go and buy a trailer to haul them home. There were several times that left too.

SS tray of cheap clay kitty litter

Robert it might encourage you to note that there is a european smithing tradition where they sit down to work at the powerhammer---you're not wimping out----you are just being all pretentious and "international jet setter" As I recall there are some pictures showing this in Manfred Sachse's Damascus Steel book. I have a chronic disease myself and have done some experimenting on how to modify my set up to deal with possible complications in the future including how to forge sitting down---a good thick leather apron was a big help!

It does sound like a regulator issue. (and it is possible to get a bad one right out of the box; but 2 is much less likely) Does the forge heat change with this? You've mentioned that the guage changes not that the heat output changes---two different facts.

Back in Ohio when folks at the fleamarket kept harping that something was *old* and so worth a lot I would bend over and pick up a rock with a fossil in it and tell them that it was a *Million* *TIMES* older than their item; but I was willing to trade it even for their item. Or to the "But it's an antique!" "Yes Yes I already took off it's age from the price as I'm buying tools to use not collect" Not being in a hurry to get stuff really helped and after a while certain dealers would actively hunt stuff for me as they knew that if the price was decent I would not try to haggle them down and I always paid cash. (My basic method would be to look at an item and decide what I would be willing to pay for it. Then ask the price. If the asking price was below my set point I'd buy it. If it was above my set point I would offer my set point as the most I would pay. (and had many conversations about what "the most I would pay" meant.) In a good fleamarket the time speant in a long haggle could be better spent finding another item. If it was something I really liked I would sometimes stop by on my way to the truck to see if they re-considered as sometimes when they start thinking of loading up and having to deal with the stuff till the next fleamarket it became cheaper---my best fleamarket was a drive in movie theater that was still active! So they had to load and unload every time---drove the prices way down!

So perhaps a related question: what kinds of blacksmithing things should she bring because they are difficult to find there?

From wiki of course In Australia, technical and further education or TAFE /ˈteɪf/ institutions provide a wide range of predominantly vocational tertiary education courses, mostly qualifying courses under the National Training System/Australian Qualifications Framework/Australian Quality Training Framework. Fields covered include business, finance, hospitality, tourism, construction, engineering, visual arts, information technology and community work.

learned that back when smithing on the internet was rec.crafts.metalworking!

Many people wire wheel to remove loose rust. The best thing to get the face pretty is beating red hot iron on it IMNSHO! (I have an anvil that was left in an unheated shed near a swamping creek in OH for 50 years and so has fine face pitting from condensation. Rather than remove any face thickness to clean it up I just forge on it---the sweet spot is just about polished out---scale is an abrasive.) You can round the edges if you want; but noticing how many old ones come that way I guess it generally wasn't considered necessary or i would have seen at least one of them that way in the "wild". What you don't want to do is to sharpen the edges!

over here in the states http://www.rotometals.com/Babbit-Bearing-Alloys-s/2.htm will sell babbit in per ingot amounts (ingots weight between 1 and 5 pounds as I recall. They had excellent customer service when I bought tin and flux from them for re-tinning cook pots.

maybe $200 edge damage is a bit more than expected; I'd certainly want to test the rebound on it That size and location it may have been used for shoeing and even cold shoeing .(which counts as abuse). I've seen extra edge damage on anvils used for a lot of shoeing The "good price" in the ad means it's a good price for the seller!

On the other hand I know that sometimes my posts are misinterpreted or I have misworded them and sometimes folks just don't like my manner; so I posted anyway to point that out. I remember what Heinlein said " Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few."

Lovely; how many leads does the screw have? (And a really really good price! I thought y H frame screwpress was an unbelieveable steal at US$100! different manufacturer though.) I know that mine was bought new in 1959 as a retired fellow who was working in the shop at that time they bought it attended the sell off in the 2000's and I spent some time talking with him about it---NEVER a waste of time talking with folks; sometimes just a long term investment...

One aspect I've learned is keep cooling the burn for at least 15 minutes. It does make a difference to how it propagates. Getting it cooling *fast* and keeping cooling it really seems to downgrade the final rating of a burn for 1st and second. Third is Dr time!