ThomasPowers

Yes I have done it that way successfully before. (And I have also run into steel that doesn't like to weld to itself; sometimes grinding off the "bark" will help)

I don't have charcoal outside the firepot. If I have to use charcoal in my coal forge I add firebricks alongside the firepot to make morte of a "trench forge"

I guess you are not aware of the farming cycle back then expecially for high dollar crops like tobacco that would exhaust the soil rapidly. With so much land avaiable using up the soil and moving on was a common thing. Now selling off worthless land was not so easy and much was abandoned along with structures on it. Your "sense" man not be their "sense". Note that the law was in 1645; quite early in the english colonial period; so later times might make a difference too. The presence of bloomeries, blast furnaces and fineries in America went up markedly in the 1700's and boomed in the 1800's. (For an interesting take on a 19th century iron furnace in VA "Bond of Iron" explores one such and the use of slaves in iron production.)

what do they spark like when you turn them over and touch a grinder to the bottom?

Soaking has always increased the sparking in my forge as the steam blows out bits. To save on charcoal I build the firepot to hold the needed charcoal---a deeper fire without being wider than necessary so only charcoal contributing to heating the metal is in use. Sounds to me like someone was trying to use coal forge techniques on charcoal rather than using charcoal forge techniques on charcoal.

Even as recently as the American Civil War the cost of high carbon steel could be up to 6 *times* the cost of low carbon wrought iron. For commercially made items "The cheapest that will work" is usually a higher lure than "the best for the job". And by the ACW a *lot* of stuff was made by blacksmiths working in a factory! As for WI and welding I've seen a lot of crazy welds that we would really really try to avoid these days with mild steel that were common with wrought iron--like some cooking grates with almost paper thin WI ornamentation welded to the WI bars. Steeled axes out performed WI: rather a tautology and gets into "The cheapest that will work" and save for the "trade axes" that were sometimes WI I know of no examples where a plain WI age was produced and sold in the latter 19th century.

Perhaps there is a "meta" answer: enough heats to get the job done with your skills, experience, tools, etc.

A nicely made bellows would be a lot easier to use than a brace turned squirrel cage.

Real Wrought Iron? The stuff that hasn't been commercially made in the USA for close to 100 years? You are at the mercy of the scrap stream and people demolishing large *old* structures. Now the Real Wrought Iron Co, LTD in the UK recycles the stuff and can provide it to spec but it's very pricy getting it here, http://www.realwroughtiron.com What are you trying to accomplish?

We used to live in the inner city but had very little stolen until we got ready to move and then someone stole: my bicycle---the one I bought for US$15 at the fleamarket to ride around the campus when I was getting my second degree and my lawnmower that actually was a frankenstein monster and often took longer to start than it did to mow the tiny 100 year old neighborhood lawn. I would have cheerfully given them away if they had asked. Wait I did once buy a drawknife twice; but both times it was very cheap so I didn't make a fuss the second time when it showed up at the fleamarket with my tool marking on it...still way below the going rate even paying for it twice.

Hmm US$750K! Two thoughts: 1: well worth a GPS system in the case going forward. 2: the thief knew the approximate worth of the blades according to the story in Blade and was *still* trying to steal more items

Well, nails were not usually done by general blacksmiths but by nailsmiths and as a by job for farmers during the winter as the fire for warmth also produced enough coals to heat nail rods (One of the products of the Saugus Ironworks were nail rods). During the winter in New England farmers were not out in the fields much and *liked* a job where they had to stay close to the fire! (Caveat: new apprentices may have been set to forge nails whenever there were not any more profitable work they could be doing...) For an interesting viewpoint on making nails Thomas Jefferson did a business case for opening a nail making business at Monticello and it still exists in his collected writings: Costs, production estimates, sales points and profit.

I've see a mother barely 5' tall with 4 sons all over 6'4" standing all hangdog around her getting a haranguing and hopping she didn't reach for the wooden spoon!

I have one of those mini horse shoes stamped Tommy!

Well here in the USA they are used in a wide range of places both rural and city and they do wear out. Finding out where the old ones go is the fun part. I once found a 180# tine still mounted on a forklift that had been pushed over a bluff face onto a spoil pile when they were using the area for a steel casting company and never cleaned up the "junk"when they left. (probably happened 40 years ago the fork lift was dated in the 1950's as I recall)

Why use a back yard when there are hundreds of sq miles of desert crying out for shallow graves and the coyote feedings! Here we can shoot if they are in the house, yard not so much.

OK, more UK anvils and fewer USA anvils in your area. Peter Wright and Mousehole are the two heavy hitters for the UK anvils though Postman has identified over 200 anvil makers in the UK over time. Note that the Mousehole anvils tend to be squatter looking with fat waists---a good thing for heavy work! Bigger sweet spot. Smallish anvils with short horns and small hardy holes and no pritchel may date from colonial times (sometimes a pritchel may be retrofitted using a drill) Same rebound tests apply. You may also see some Brooks cast *STEEL* anvils; good anvils, loud ring. In fact most of the anvils you see up there should ring when not mounted hard to a stump/base.

Frank Turley does Tai Chi, I was involved in regular Yoga classes for years. Not necessarily strength but keeping the tendons and joints working as smithing tends to use *some* of them in *certain* ways and you need to keep all of them working in all ways. I have bone spurs in my shoulders---had one removed laproscopically the other is just waiting till it causes more problems. What fired the one off was scything my yard---different motion and different stresses than what I was üsed to" luckily my rotor cuff looked in very good shape!

Back in the days when I would attend the Knifemakers Guild show (KC and Dallas) I have been known to wear a maille shirt as the waving around of blades was a bit much at times...

Bookend anvils---and you even have the proper book!

Remember any "traps" should be mearly jumbles of stuff accidentally arranged to immure an intruder and never never admit to doing it on purpose *anywhere*. You never saw this!

Just a little off the top!

I'm glad it will feel the comfort of glowing steel on it's face again.

Film; sigh, don't we all suffer from what Hollywood (and other places) teach people about smithing?

No problem and I recognize this sort of thing to be a personal flaw brought out even worse on the internet were we can't see the hand waving describing stuff. And sometimes you find a person doing somthing in a different way that is *neat* and can be co-opted...And may I say that I like the style of the tools you make.