ThomasPowers

Lets see if I can get a picture of them. They are appx 9" in diameter Anyone up for a swim?

So I stopped by my favorite local scrapyard Saturday and the boss strolls out and says "I was just thinking of you...." sending my wallet into preemptive convulsions... Staggered out with 6 100# cast iron balls to make armouring stakes

I have a massive Fisher anvil that I love dearly as my main shop anvil; but I still find times when my lightest travel anvil is just perfect for a certain task. My wife calls my collection of using anvils "a Harem of Anvils"

I've sure drifted a lot of holes using old bull pins

Dang; smiths are so thick on the ground in Ohio that you can drop a piece of scrap metal and someone will snatch it afore the third bounce! As I recall there are three or 4 ABANA chapters as well as some ad hoc groups in OH Keep looking you will find them!

You might think of adding a leather strap handle to it to keep you from messing up your shoulder with applying force with a raised arm

I have an 1828 WF that was so beat up I only got it as a possible body donor for a face transplant in the traditional way: 90% of the face is missing and the heel was broken off---but it was only $5.... Postman told me that they used a fairly low grade Wrought Iron for them and suggested I weld the new face plate to a slab of WI and then do a WI to Wi weld to get it on there. Haven't found enough folks willing to help to try that out yet---but now I'm down south in NM perhaps I can see if the local smiths want to give it a go...

Thanks, face plates were generally sectioned from horn to heel rather than across the face. Sometimes wear will show the weld lines. I'm sure that cleaning it up is going to show you the body was welded up from a number of pieces of wrought iron. When I lived in inner city Columbus OH I used to have to haul my anvil up a set of rickety stairs, across the kitchen out the back door across the enclosed back porch to use it. I feel your pain! (I used a 93# A&H)

Excellent Point! Not to mention that I know a number of smiths who started out in blades and have migrated to ornamental work over the years. Experiencing a wide range of stuff might help you find a different path than you thought you wanted.

I once made a brake drum forge that was my favorite billet welding forge for a number of years. What really helped it for that use was installing a sheet steel fence inside it to raise the effective depth of the firepot and to leave a gap between the end of the sheetmetal so i could stick billets in the middle of the fire easily. (It also had a mouse hole opposite the opening to allow for long pieces exiting out the back.) No welding required to add it; just bent it in a circle and slipped it in against the inner walls.

I have a similar sized one, also a 2 lead screw. I found mine by wandering into the factory behind our research building when they were having an Auction. I decided I wanted to bid on things in the tool room section and went back front and told my boss I was taking the day off. Funny nobody bidding on circuit pack building equipment bid on the screw press. I was the only bid and got it for US$50 + 15% buyers reaming + $35 to have a rigger load it on my small pickup (reinforced the floor of it!) I'd suggest talking with used machinery dealers as it's the sort of stuff they would get in a "whole lot of stuff" deal and then have stuck back in a corner of a warehouse for years.

There is a lot of great old ironwork in Spain ranging from ornate grillwork in Cathedrals to beautiful swords; you are very lucky to have such items to inspire you. Thomas Powers

Oxblood was a traditional method....how much clay is in your soil?

Personally I wear clothes when welding---even with a powerhammer!

50 years isn't any age at all for an anvil and Sears was selling ASO's 100 years ago so it doesn't put it pre-ASO. The shape and how it's put together is what indicates age. BTW can you tell if the face plate is made from more than 1 piece?

Did you check their schedule? Most are shorter classes and several just on handles and guards. http://www.americanbladesmith.com/uploads/file/Texarkana%20College/2013%20Texarkana%20Schedule.pdf April 1-12,2013 Introduction to Bladesmithing Wk #1- Jim Crowell, MS Wk #2- Tim Potier, MS $850. April 15-19, 2013 Damascus JW Randall,MS $700. April 20-21, 2013 Spring Hammer-In Cook, Williams, Randall, Hughes, Massey, and Fisk $60. April 22-26, 2013 Handles and Guards Rodger Massey, MS $700. September 9–20, 2013 Introduction to Bladesmithing Wk #1- JR Cook, MS Wk #2- Mike Williams, MS $850. September 14–15, 2013 Fall Hammer-In Keeslar, Williams, Cook, Vandeventer, and Hughes $60. September 23-27, 2013 Damascus Steve Dunn, MS $700. Sept 30- Oct 4, 2013 Handles and Guards Jimmy Walker, MS $700.

1018 with ver little carbon is a machining steel as is D2 with absolutely silly amounts of carbon and carbide formers in it. Probably more 1018 gets machined as D2. Now you do have a point as we all have a tendency to use what we have to hand in our scrap pile and I've run across incidences where high carbon steel has been used for a task that needed only low carbon---usually an unpleasant surprise with the dreaded "plink"

OK take a deep breath in and sigh it out and repeat after me "layer counts and folds are BOGUS"; but they are what we have to base discussions on. A couple of gedanken experiments can show this: one: you are comparing a pocket knife blade that is less than 1/8" thick and was forged from a nominally 500 layer billet and a katana blade that is 1/2" thick and was forged from a nominally 1000 layer billet. Which has the most layers? If your normalize to 1" you find the pocket knife comes in at 4000 layers an inch and the katana at 2000. But who is bragging more about their layer count? Two: folds, my standard billet starts out with 25 layers of BSB and Pallet strapping. If I fold it 5 times I am at 800 nominal layers. A friend starts out his billets with 3 layers, folded 5 times he gets 96 layers but we both folded 5 times! I have run into people claiming outrageous numbers of layers and folds not realizing that what you then get is homogeneous steel---I usually ask if the smith died of radiation poisoning when they start claiming layer counts that would put them below the radius of an iron atom! The basic truth is when the Damascus Research Group (University of Southern IL at Carbondale IIRC) did the in depth studies they found that with thin layers and no blocking elements (like pure Ni) the carbon content has equalized after about the 4th time to welding temp. If it worries you starting referring to "nominal layer count" of your billets and use the phrase" this knife was made from a billet with a nominal layer count of XYZ"

English, fairly but not extremely old---probably before 1900 and after 1820's. Wrought iron body and steel face.

When I was working 2.5" sq stock we welded a 1" bar on the end as a handle for working

It didn't exist when I was young and living in AR; sigh.

Many times the "Proper Tool" *is* a hand tool! I was once called in as a smithing consultant on a small viking boat build; I fixed the problem they were having rivetting the strakes together and noticed they were tapering them with a cheap belt sander---noisy, dusty, a pain to use. I showed them that a drawknife was *faster*, cleaner and less noisy. They had automatically assumed that the power tool was the way to go. I once also beat my old college romemate assembling a structure held together with lagbolts. He was using a battery powered drill and I was using a Brace with a bit that held sockets. Where the real payoff was was the fact I could snug them all the way down hard while the drill's torque started to flag as the bolt sank deep into the holes. Now I wouldn't trade my massive angle grinder for a hacksaw; but I do use a 30" hacksaw at the scrapyard on a regular basis---and carry a hammer and chisel as a rusted bolt remover

Anymore out there? (north side of the street right?) I'm headed to Albq this weekend and the following weekend too! (Fly out to Austin from there)

Note that Melting and Smelting are TOTALLY DIFFERENT THINGS! Smelting is starting with ore and reducing it to metal. Melting is starting with metal and making liquid metal from it. Smelting of Al is usually done with an electric process requiring things like the TVA to produce massive amounts of cheap electricity. Melting Al is fairly trivial and is often the gateway metal for getting into foundry work being easy to source and melting at a lower temperature than brass/bronze, copper silver, gold, platinum, steel, etc. Note that liquid metal can be much more hazardous than steel 500 degF hotter! Hot steel tends to drop toward the center of the earth, molten metal can and will come back at you with the least excuse of moisture---a drop of sweat falling into a mold or crucible can put you in the hospital and solve all your halloween options for the rest of your life. If you have not worked with molten metal I strongly suggest taking a class, (I took and Out of Hours class in brass casting at a local University 30 years ago), or finding a local person doing casting IN A SAFE MANNER and learn from them.

One would file in the screwthread in the tapered projection that you forge