ThomasPowers

Tentstakes, However I will be building a header for them as my pastor wants to forge some LARGE nails

Some days are like that, spent US$2.40 one Saturday at the scrap yard and $133 there the next Saturday and was happy both times!

Learn the basics of smithing before worrying about forge welding! Case hardening of O-1 you are more likely to mess it up than improve it. I'd suggest that once you got the techniques of working hot steel down you start with making a set of mortising chisels---all steel out of auto/pickup coil spring

You should get a copy of the book!

when I graduated with my second degree I had a Wile Coyote that was crushed under an anvil doll on my motarboard. If you slapped it it would make the sound of the anvil falling, the impact and a few seconds later a Meep Meep.

what kind of steel was it. 2" HC is rather a bear to work by hand!

IIRC "Civil War Blacksmithing", written by a member of these forums!!! has a picture of one attached to a tongue of a wagon built to military specs. Or it was sort of like saying the 14" tires on my pickup can't be tires as they don't fit you 16" wheels...

yah, Sears jobbed out their anvil production and both companies had the contract at different times

Almost all of us hoard; learning to *selectively* hoard is the trick. A new smith's error is to want to save *everything* so we get tales of folks collecting more of an item than I've used in 32 years of smithing (and a *bunch* of moves including a 1500 mile one). Some stuff I am perfectly content to "store" at the scrapyard; never a shortage of leaf springs or coil spings there; or RR spikes for that matter. Having a couple on hand is all I need. Now real WI tends to accumulate at my place...

Well about twice as much here as where I used to live; the price in your country I can't guess.

Hole in the ground is pretty cheap.

WOW! A neanderthal tire hammer!

You can sometimes find used shot puts at used sports equipment stores (eg Play It Again Sports) some of the small hand weights have nice curved ends but like a lot of this stuff are cast iron and so need to be treated as such. You can really find this stuff everywhere---I was once in the mail room of where I used to work and saw a 3" ball bearing with a flat ground into it and etched---I was drooling over it and one of the mail room folks said they had found it there when they moved into that room and would I like to have it.... NOTE ball bearings are often 52100 steel and MUST have preheat slow cool when welding!!!

so build a charcoal forge for nothing and start making and selling stuff to pay for your foundry!

South African location would indicate that an English brand would be likely

What metal? Stainless steel, gold, platinum; don't leave any taste.

I'd suggest a local university with a geology program. Looks good but it only takes a couple of percent of iron to colour stuff quite red and you will need ore that is quite high in iron to get metal from a smelt---especially just starting out!

you can also stack dry firebrick around the tuyere to increase the height of the fire with out overwhelming the carrying capacity of the forge table.

Just remember; learning to blacksmith *before* you start learning to bladesmith will save you time money and grief! Though it generally takes trying to complete a poorly forged blade to show folks what we mean by that!

generally a bunch of us dating back to the old blacksmiths virtual junkyard get together and camp/eat together. Unfortunately since I moved 1700 miles away and have 1/3 as many vacation days I won't be attending this year. I hope to make it next year.

Are you sure that it's not just turned around? The screw and screwbox comes out and can often be inserted backwards; the mounting plate usually will fit on the other jaw too...otherwise Pics! Pics!

And you show signs of *learning* from your reading! Now do you know about ILL as a cheap method of getting books not generally found at your local public library---at your local public library? </start gollum> we likes it; yes we does when they can learns without the nasty nasty scarses we do my precious...< end gollum/> Funny thing molten metal is much more dangerous than glowing steel hundreds of degrees hotter than the molten stuff! Hot steel will drop towards the center of the earth and stay there, molten metal will chase you down the hall!

Can you piggyback your order with a local outfit that buys a lot of steel? I get my steel through a Windmill installation and repair company here---it's about 1/3 cheaper than the local lumberyard and will order different items for me too.

ASM Handbook(s)? "Alloying Elements in Steel", "Tool steel, its uses and treatment for the practical mechanic", Hrisoulas' blade forging books cover the common blade steels and how they are worked. ("The Complete Bladesmith, The Master Bladesmith, The Pattern Welded Blade")..."Steelmaking before Bessemer, vol 1 Blister steel, vol 2 Crucible steel" "Sources for the History of the Science of Steel, 1532-1786", "The Knight and the Blastfurnace".....

Start at the beginning of "Metalworking Techniques for Craftsmen" and work your way till you get to the end. Then open up a school! Making Penannular brooches from heavy copper grounding wire is if anything easier than making a rose and has a ready market, I've used treelimbs and baseball bats as forming tooling. The flattened ends can be done with pretty much any smooth faced hammer and using a sledge hammer for the "anvil", or RR track, or scrap steel. or forklift tines, or dozer steel, or.....