ThomasPowers

You can arrange for ore to blade classes on this side of the pond as well; I'd talk with Ric Furrer and perhaps start with Ric's European Steel Making class: "four ways of making steel" see http://www.doorcountyforgeworks.com/Class_Schedule.html Note that such classes will be a much better return for your money *IF* you already know basic blacksmithing! Note that such classes are not cheap either, consider the cost of a week long class for a small number of people with a leading expert in *any* field!

The "tradition" of starting with ore is about 25-30 years old. The tradition of buying your metal from folks who specialize in smelting is a bit over 3000 years old. The tradition of a bladesmith doing everything from forging to hilting as "sole Authorship" is a modern thing too. Historically the various steps were different guilds, (forging, polishing, hilting, scabbard making, etc) You didn't have the luxury of training for a decade or more in each different crafts and owning the tools of each craft and letting the expensive tools of one craft sit around non-productive while you were doing another craft. Look into "traditional" japanese swordmaking, all the steps are done by different experts in their craft. Also getting in the way of sole authorship was the fact that a blacksmith shop would have had a bunch of people working in it, apprentices, journeymen, shoot sometimes even day labour. The single smith shop was as accurate as going into a cardiac surgical suite and having only the surgeon there. My area of interest for a bit over 30 years now is in historical smithing especially Renaissance and earlier---I consider the 18th and 19th centuries *modern*----I'd be happy to suggest books to you if you want to delve into "tradition"---like when they added coal to the possible fuel list alongside of charcoal (High to late Middle Ages, "Cathedral Forge and Waterwheel, Gies & Gies) Or the early uses of more carbon in blades. "The Celtic Sword", Pleiner; great metallurgical info!) However PLEASE don't base your opinions on movies, fiction books or video games! PLEASE!

Easy to pick with a 6# hammer---just hard to put back in working order afterwards

Find a pretentious cabinet maker and trade them out of some smithing equipment they might have found...

You should be able to melt steel in your own back yard. It will end up costing 10 times or more what buying steel new would and not be nearly as good until you have several years of practice and some pricey equipment! And I hate to tell you this but even in the early iron age smiths would *BUY* their metal from the folks who smelted it or traders who did likewise---"currency bars" are a common find in iron age digs! (there were a couple of isolated norse farmsteads where the people both smelted and forged on-site; but this is the exception that proves the rule.) If you want to add carbon to a lower carbon steel I suggest you read: "The Cementation of Iron and Steel" for an exhaustive study of various processes. Also "Steelmaking before Bessemer, vol 1 Blister steel, vol 2 Crucible steel" And if you are going "traditional" study up on real wrought iron---the material the smiths used from the start of the iron age until it slowly tapered off after 1850's with the invention of the Bessemer process.

Feet ledge looks like PW too, Rebound should improve once you take the rust off the face...

I have one of those AZ mine anvils: 410# Trenton (I believe) Abused by mine maintenance (weldors, grrr); traded for it in central OH with the fellow who got it in AZ; (AZ isn't getting it back! unless I get a job there someday)

NM, USA: anvil poor; very low population and little industry back in the peak days of anvil usage and many of those anvils have seen a century of hard use since then. OH, USA: very anvil rich; lots of people, farms, industry during the peak of anvil usage.

The gas grill was suggested for a *Moveable* set up as was requested. Massive desks tend not to be save under Army definitions (If it doesn't take explosives and a duece and a half it's moveable!) The frames often need bracing which can be bolt on as well and replacing the wheels is a good idea too. I mentioned bolting as a weldor will instantly recognize that they can weld it whereas a non-weldor may not realize that bolting will work. Do NOT fit the firepot too tightly; leave room for different rates of thermal expansion. However my basic rules for projects: Design for the materials, tools and skills *you* have!

Hmm I could build a counter ballance system and store my 515# Fisher up near the ceiling when not in use; perhaps you wouldn't mind standing on this red X when you visit?

I feel that evey shop that's not consciously trying to portray a historical time before "modern" welding methods should include at least one form of modern welding. However in many cases I feel that stick would be a better choice than mig. Mig excels for fab work; but for the hobby shop the wide range of rod and ease of switching from one type to another and the ability to do welds on heavy sections really helps in building tooling. Used Lincoln Tombstones are fairly cheap (I've seen a dozen under US$150 advertised in the last year); they are fairly bullet proof---I'm using one that's probably older than I am and I'm in the latter pat of my 50's... My "training" was in shop class around 1971; I was not good at it at all. After I bought one decades later a weldor friend of mine went over the basics again and told me I needed to burn my weight in rods to get good. I bought a used copy of the massive Lincon book on welding and have been having a blast making tooling for my blacksmithing shop and armouring shop---now to find some super missle weld to attach the 9" cast iron balls to shafts....I don't do critical welds either (trailers, trucks, towers, etc...) For stuff I forge I generally forge weld or rivet or collar

Sure wish you had been around about a year ago last spring. My wife and I were in Brecon for a sheep and wool affair and I could sure have used a hot steel chaser!

We had friends with a goat dairy; fairly common for a couple to climb out of a 6' fence---they climb trees too and as browsers rather than grazers MUCH prefer any ornamentals or orchard trees to pasture. (Actually they are great for rennovating an old pasture going back to scrub---they will kill poison ivy by eating it to death too!)

Forklift tines generally make better anvils than RR track and can be found most places in the USA. You want to buy a damaged one---cheaper and tell them what you want it for as they worry about liability of it getting reused. Some places will even cut it for you to be sure it doesn't get reused...

There are dome headed trailer hitches out there; you just have to keep looking for them at the fleamarkets---I buy all I find at US$2 or less. Cannon balls are almost always really mill balls used in ball mills to crush stuff when they get too small they get scrapped for pennys a pound and folks sell them to idiots as cannon balls for way ntoo much money. (cannon sizes were STANDARDIZED pretty much several hundred years ago and so all the cannon balls that don't conform to such a size are BOGUS!) Recently at a local fleamarket I bought some mill balls for $1 a piece and 3 booths down a fellow was selling them as cannon balls for $30...) Most of my armour making stake materials come from my local scrap yard---they have sold me mill balls, headache balls, ball bearings and last saturday 6 9" cast iron balls for scrap rate! I also bought a pexto stake plate there for under US$10 ! Not to mention tanks to cut the bottoms off of for dishing forms, rings from ring and pintle tow setups, hammer heads to be reshaped for dishing hammers, etc and so on. I had to train them to not try to gouge me on prices; but a couple of times watching me cheerfully tossing stuff back on the pile and going off without spending any money with them or cheerfully paying in cash for items I thought were a fair (cheap) price has got them looking forward to my visits.

Not all types of good anvils ring---Fishers are blissfully quiet but are GREAT anvils. However anvils that *should* ring and *don't* are indicative that there is a hidden crack somewhere in it. OTOH there is also cast iron ASOs (Anvil *Shaped* Objects) that don't ring and are so soft the face will dent under hot metal!

Something to be said about a piece of equipment that you can't lose parts from...

Since the pattern welded viking swords and japanese swords were forged in charcoal fueled forges it's probably not the fuel; but more likely how you are using it.

"Weldable steel" as sold by the big box stores is LOW CARBON NOT 1040; almost certainly A-36. As such it will not hold a good edge and can't be heat treated to hold a good edge and will be prone to taking a set in use---something that the norse considered a trait of inferior weapons. (You may remember the Saga where they switch out a guy's good sword for an inferior one and he had to stop in battle to straighten it!) A section of leaf spring makes a quite good sword especially if you source it from a spring shop and get it straight and new. I must admit to sometimes making use of the taper in some springs to save effort; but I do straighten them HOT.

I thought of a newton's cradle but cast iron doesn't have the snap of hardened steel...

And yes please use the term "hardy stem" or variant as I was at first wondering why you would weld a hardy to the bottom of it... I've seen a mort of these made for use in the postvise by using a piece of angle iron for the base with the other leg going down. I made a swing arm fuller that is probably one of the most heavily used tools in my shop after the anvils and hammers

Looks like an old english pattern cabinet makers hammer to me to set small brads you held them between thumb and forefinger and let the crosspeen slip between your fingers till the brad was set.

Find a gas grill that is being discarded. Remove and scrap the grill section and bolt a sheet of steel across the opening where it went. Cut a hole in it for the firepot and mount that then go around the edges bolting angle iron to it for a fence....

Pretty proud of them too; how much was that broken one? (and BTW those are not stake anvils those are metal working stakes used to work sheet metal on and often pretty soft)

*6* of them!!!!!