ThomasPowers

Things like anchors take big anvils and for a professional smithy it may only need to be moved once a generation or so. It's us hobby folks gadding about the place that often tend to move stuff around... Remember that in a typical smithy you would expect to have 4 folks swinging a sledge on a big project.

Note that you can dissolve copper wire in molten Al that is *MUCH* lower temp than the melting point of copper.

Most of those will have to be "mined" for information: De Re Metallica is about mining and refining of metals and has a LARGE number of great woodcuts showing the technology of the period, Dover publishers has a nice reprint out in English. Pirotechnia is a slightly earlier work on smelting without the pictures. Dover publishers has a nice reprint out in English. Diderot's encyclopedia is one of the gems of the enlightenment where they wanted to document how stuff was done. Finding the *complete* work is a problem; a University library may have one. The excerpts never seem to have the part you are hunting for. Moxon's "Mechanic Exercises" has a section on how a smithy should be set up and equipped, what types of iron were good for what and instructions for several items including a spitjack. Was written in the latter 1600's and published in 1703 Astragal press did a nice version BEWARE as many copies being sold are only partial dealing with printing and not the whole thing! Sources for the History of the Science of Steel, has a bunch of excerpts all in English tracking how people were trying to figure out how steel differed from iron. The excerpt from the Boke of Natural Magick has a fun listing of quenchents that are supposed to improve the metal being quenched (radish juice and worm water anyone?) (ends in 1786 with a fellow slapping his forehead and saying "it's *CARBON*!") Divers Arts is a "how to" book from around 1120; written by a German monk trying to explain how to make everything for church ornamentation including how to make the glass for stained glass, cast bronze censors, make enamels, polish ivory, etc and so on. He is also where we get the "quenching the steel in uring of a red headed boy or a goat fed ferns for 3 days: or how to quench a graver in candle wax, hot to make and heat treat files, etc. Gotta go perhaps more later

Off the top of my head, (I'm not near my research library and am dealing with sinus issues). Note I'm generally involved in Medieval and Renaissance blacksmithing. Primary sources: (all in english translation) late 1800s "Practical Blacksmithing", Richardson late 1700's Diderot's Encyclopedia late 1600's Moxon's "Mechanics Exercises" 1500's De Re Metallica, Agricola 1500's Pirotechnia, Biringuccio "Sources for the History of the Science of Steel 1532-1786" C.S.Smith early 1100's Divers Arts, Theophilus Non-Primary sources: The Knight and the Blast Furnace, Williams (foremost book on the metallurgy or renaissance armour!) The Mastery and uses of Fire in Antiquity, Rehder (doctoral thesis) Archeological Metallurgy, Tylecote Prehistoric and Medieval Iron Smelting in Scandinavia and Europe: Aspects of Technology and Societyy, Norbach, Lars Christian The Celtic Sword, Radomir Pleiner The Sword in Anglo-Saxon England H.R.Ellis Davidson Crucible Steel in Central Asia, Fuerbach Egyptian Metalworking and tools, Scheel Steelmaking before Bessemer, vol 1 Blister Steel, Vol 2 Crucible steel Be alert to anything by R. Tylecote, P. Craddock, C.S.Smith and A. Williams all well known in the field. There is also an Archeological Metallurgy mailing list on the internet where it migh help to post your request. Also much of the groundbreaking work is found in the journals; eg: Nature 379, 60-63 (4 January 1996) | doi:10.1038/379060a0; Accepted 5 December 1995 An ancient wind-powered iron smelting technology in Sri Lanka Gill Juleff Some interesting articles in JOMS too! So speaking from experience: primary sources, journal articles, a doctoral thesis---the mix impresses a professor with your research. I assume you will have to narrow your topic

Well see if Pep Gomez (Jose) posted them here when he made it. No I am not in TX; I have to walk 1/2 a block to be in Texas! My first degree was in geology/geophysics; but I'm more into hard rock so the tin mines out here are more to my interest.

I always made them from used circular saw blades; of course back in those days it was dremel cutting disk or O-A...

my brother has a landscape/hauling business and he presented me with 6' of 1/2" sq stock and a 2x7.5x14.5" block they found cleaning out a garage. I told him I'd gladly pay a more than the scrapyard for stuff like that!

That's not sintering and for more information on that particular instance look up "depletion guilding". About 30 years ago I was talking with a metallurgist at the University of Arkansas who was casting steel around cast iron spheroids and investigating carbon migration in the resultant. Dr Schwestra (sp???)

Are you forging stainless for your bracelets? Strongly suggest it if you want people to wear it! As for "gold for iron" in germany I've run across a reference to it from the days of Napoleon I where quite intricate iron jewelry was made in iron to "trade" for gold jewelry. As mentioned some celtic jewelry even through the viking era translates well into steel.

most of the fossils around here are still posting and replying to threads! So what kind of smithing are you interested in? Pep; A friend who shows up here very infrequently, made a patternwelded rock hammer for a fellow once.

A lot depends on which pattern you make and if you plan to grind or forge to shape. For a first try I would strongly remember the old sheffield proverb "If a good blade you would win, you should forge thick and grind thin" As for exactly how much---take the knife you are trying to replicate and get several times as much steel as it weighs now and even then don't be surprised if your chef's knife ends up a boning knife.

At one time his business was up to 200 forges working simultaneously IIRC; that will put out a bunch of work!

#3 updated: Call in a son in law or grandson and have *them* force it!

However the law of diminishing returns holds true for this as well as other things in blacksmithing. After a certain point the increase in efficiency per increase in weight drops probably best shown on the graphs produced for weights of powerhammer anvils vs weight of the head---for them IIRC it was about 15 to 1. So going from a 50# anvil to a 150# anvil you will notice a great increase in efficiency; however going from 260# anvil to a 360# anvil the increase will be much less. As for weeping angels---just don't blink! Depending on the price that cash might better be put into a powerhammer.

Nope traditional apprenticeship your parents paid the smith and he took you for 7 years of instruction and free work, feeding you and providing clothing. At the end of which you were supposed to make your own set of tools and pass as a journeyman. Even in colonial America you could read of ads for escaped apprintices!

If you have to ask such questions it usually means you don't have a lot of experience doing things that way and getting a good weld without overheating the highC or underheating the WI for a piece as large as to make a good chef's knife will probably take a trial or two to get down cold (so to speak) so bet on needing several times more to make sure you end up with enough---horrible to get things just right only to find out you have to start over again as you ran out of alloy XYZ and it take weeks to get more due to the zombie apocalypse, or a hurricane, or an earthquake, etc... My favorite for juicing up billets is old black diamond files when they were 1.2%c I used to pick them up at the fleamarket whenever they turned up cheap---puzzled a lot of dealers that I would buy all they had under my price point but wouldn't buy *any* above it. They thought that if I wanted them so much I'd pay more---as I had 20 pounds of them already at home I wasn't hurting to get more...

You don't need flat and level for most smithing jobs, smooth is more to the point. For things like straightening blades a slight sway is preferred as it helps!

Yes you should get about 5 times more than you need as you will probably need to do it several times to get it right.

High carbon would not be what I would choose in that service---a nice chewy medium carbon steel would be what I expect---something like 4340.

Often when we talk about bearings Patrick will weigh in as he worked as a metallurgist for a major bearing company for several years..., the <deleted> <deleted> good friend is probably at Quad-State right now trying to brush off all the neat stuff that's sticking to him as he walks through tailgating...grrr....

Well I am a bit more mellow since my main shop anvil is 515# and the backup 410#; but as an example: I didn't move my main shop anvil down to my rental house 3 hours away as I couldn't move it to places where I could forge. I did move a 134# and a 163# anvil(s) that go on the road when I want to smith---been doing a regular smithing class at an SCA A&S weekly meeting lately---they are interested enough to help me load/unload/load/unload. Now I still get the "itch" everytime I see one of the 750# West anvils, (I know of two in NM!); but I won't start twitching until I see one for way too low a price! There is a class of person who believes that fancy tools will make them a better smith than just putting time in practicing with simpler tools. I like these folks as a good number of them will get discouraged when they discover that 100 hours working with a $5 hammer will do more for them than 5 hours working with a $100 hammer. Some of them will then sell out and allow me to buy fancier equipment at fire sale prices...

to just get started a london pattern in the 90-130# weight is a good way to go and it can morph into your travel anvil when a big one comes along. Remember time spent at an anvil counts towards getting good compared to time spent "looking for the perfect anvil" which doesn't

Customized to make a particular job some smith did a lot of easier. Shouldn't get in the way of general forge work.

note that large bearing races are often case hardened 9620, please test before spending the time!

Your first blade or your first pattern welded blade?