ThomasPowers

www.swordforum.com go to the Ni-honto forum and ask there; they have experts on tap!

The old chipping vises were massive and designed for heavy working on them. Looks to be in excellent condition!

And I'm teaching a couple of classes a semester as well as at demos and re-enactments so I have little control over the hammer control of the person who may be using the hardy. I tend to like students using a bit softer hammers as it helps preserve my anvils and tools. (and have a dead soft french crosspeen for particularly egregious ones that can't hammer like lightening as lightening *often* hits the same place twice! If any of them read this they'll know what it meant when I handed them "frenchie" and said "here try this one!" actually it's a good size for a new person anyway...)

OK puddling is a method of making wrought iron from pig iron, (cf Henry Cort) I'd expect most translation programs and *people* to have issues with the internal jargon of a different field. I once had to evaluate the earthquake bracing being proposed for our equipment in Japan from blueprints only marked in Japanese. Luckily we had access to a native speaker; however she had no background in mechanical engineering. She did bring a technical dictionary with her. I remember her saying that "a brace was like a place where a ship travels" Which I figured out was a channel and so a piece of steel channel which she could give me the dimensions of. (For several years afterward I could recognize the kanji for "insulating bushing" as every fastener had at least 1.) As might be expected their earthquake bracing was superb!

"forged pig iron": pig iron is crudely cast cast iron which is not forgeable. Do they mean forged bloomery iron---real wrought iron as many anvils used at that time? I have a William Foster English anvil marked 1828 that is real wrought iron with a forge welded face on it.

one other thing to mention good archeological drawings are often easier to use to replicate stuff than photographs. (yes the second picture is of the "prune People viking book"; we could post the list of books with similar titles. As I recall the National Geographic book on "The Vikings" has a picture of the soapstone oil lamp I've copied.)

Timothy will it scar a hammer face at the heat treat you are using it at? (And yes I use H13, S7 and S1 for many of my cutting/slitting and punching tools)

I assume you are blacksmithing by the Braille method now?

I'm near Socorro and often have open forge days on the weekends; so if you are down this way let me know.

I think you would do better talking with German smiths about that one as most of use are pretty limited to the US, UK and some Swedish brands that were imported into America. I would also assume that pricing is VERY location specific. BTW When did the metric system get used in Germany, was it solidly in place in 1824? (google: The North German Confederation adopted the metric system in 1868 and the remaining states in 1875 (after unification). In some of the German states the metric and pre-metric systems were both in use before 1868 - and after 1875) So that date with kg is most unlikely to be German; was that style of anvil produced in France back then?

Have you read "The Complete Modern Blacksmith"? There is a lot of info in it on making wood carving tools as the author was a sculptor as well as a smith.

Hey I'd be willing to be president again if I knew I didn't have to pack up and move in a couple of months! New job often requires new location...I've been hinting to one of my students that he should get me hired on where he has an offer when he graduates in December---then we could share a place and he'd be able to use my equipment, especially as I would be commuting home on weekends...(SW NM)

I demonstrate to my students that if your tongs don't fit properly you may have a fulcrum and the piece can rotate around it---not so bad when it drops down towards the floor but most annoying when it flips up and over and lays the hot part on the back of your tong hand! When working sq stock the tongs hold best when flat bits are parallel. I tell them this, show them this and even go though a bunch of tongs showing them how to judge what they may be good for. I still get folks trying to hold 1/4" stock in tongs designed for 1/2"---and remember this is at a top engineering school---these folks will be designing *our* future!

It's hard to get even engineering students to internalize the DFX process: Design For Use, Design for Maintenance, Design for Manufacturing, etc. I get a lot of "why did you do it that way?" questions where the answer is: I designed it to use materials and equipment I already have rather than need to job it out or purchase a 20' stick of steel when all I need is 8" A corollary is the cautionary tale of the new engineer that was tasked to design a simple bracket; but when he took it to the shop they told him that each one would cost $500. he went back and complained to his coworkers about them gouging him and one said "let me see the design". He looked over it made an annotation to it and said "try it again!". This time the price was $5 per unit---the difference? He had annotated that all dimensions had a quite liberal tolerance to them and so instead of each one taking hours of set up time to be extremely precise and with a high number of scrapped pieces do to quality failures, it was a simple job that could be done by anyone in the shop between other set ups.

Yes it will work fine. Pretty much *everything* in the craft of blacksmithing is a consumable---including the Blacksmith! I built a firepot from an axle cover of a banjo rear end about 25 years ago---it's in it's 3rd or fourth forge and about due to be replaced with it's mate and the forge re-done as well---bought them as a pair of home made jackstands for $3 as I recall. Think of it as a chance to *improve* your set up with the ideas you have come up with using it.

The curve is not that much on any hardy I have seen and a curve works great to get a cut started and then walk it down the length of a large item without starting multiple mis strikes. I like my hardy tough not hard as it's a lot easier to zip it sharp on the angle grinder than to regrind and perhaps even re-heat treat a hammer that some student has slammed onto a hard hardy edge. I also like my cutting edge pretty thin, easier to cut and less deformation when used. Mine was made from the broken off chisel end of a pavement breaker. All I really did was to forge the shaft end to fit a 1" hardy hole and thin the worn cutting edge a bit, got over 25 years of use in it and it's still going strong.

And just a cautionary note: If you feel that you have something in the eye do go to the Dr in a timely manner! Steel has a nasty tendency to rust and having the rust ring ground off your eyeball can be avoided if they remove the splinter before it gets a chance to rust!

*yes*! Actually the soft hammer hits the mandrel and the nail, the hits to the swage are over/under strikes

Don't think the Prune people viking book was part of that exhibit as it predates it by a decade or two. I have two copies of it as my original is getting quite loose in the binding through use. The first was marked "The Viking" Crescent Books and so is probably the early 1970's issue. The second is marked "The Viking", Tre Tryckare and is a more recent re-issue. abebooks.com has all of them and even another re-issue I believe. Were you thinking of "Vikings : The North Atlantic Saga" Fitzhugh, William W. (I got to see that exhibit in Washington DC due to a business trip to McLean VA!) More books: Early Finnish Art: From Prehistory to the Middle Ages" Istvan Racz; (unfortunately my copy wandered off) Another great museum exhibit based book is "Die Welt von Byzanz" (The Byzantine world; or the World of Byzantium) I was able to attend that exhibit and picked up a copy of the quite heavy hard bound catalog in Munich Germany due to another business trip. Lots of goodies to reproduce in it! You may note that when it comes down to "physical culture", items they used that you can reproduce, museum exhibits and catalogs and Auction catalogs start becoming important. Most books only show one or two items, a good catalog may show and describe dozens! Also many books only show the "famous" items; very annoying to buy 5 books only to find they all show the exact same museum pieces! Auction catalogs are nice in that they show items that are not the museum showpieces, often times simpler ones to make too!

"Early Finnish Art: From Prehistory to the Middle Ages" Istvan Racz; as several examples of firesteels IIRC and I definitely remember them in "The Viking", Tre Tryckare, Crescent Books, 1972. As mentioned many common styled were used for over 1000 years---the ones in "The Viking" were identical to some of the ones used during the early 1800's in America. (and I have seen several examples of the pouch with a firesteel built into it from strictly european contexts too)

There are certain blacksmiths who you might say that their vices are vises!

I'll be at the SWABA meeting; but will NOT run for President, (or any other club office until my job situation solidifies)

Are we narrowing this down to *anything before the year WXYZ* and are you interested in any of the metallurgy and history as well: "The Celtic Sword", Radomir Pleiner "The Sword in Anglo-Saxon England" H.R.Ellis Davidson "Sources for the History of the Science of Steel" C.S.Smith "The Metallography of Early Ferrous Edge Tools and Edged Weapons" Tylecote and Gilmour (the Renaissance and earlier is sort of my playground...)

you can also drag it into the house and set it on/near the woodstove and so it's nice and warm when brought outside... When I was smithing in inner city Columbus OH, I used to have to keep all my tools safe in the basement and carry them into the back yard as needed. I got very used to climbing a rickety set of stairs carrying a 93# anvil and then across the Kitchen and out the back door. Not so hard before you do any smithing but at the end of a long productive day that anvil sure did seem heavier!

Great but don't get hooked on a certain style and pass up lots of great anviloid scrap because it's not exactly like the piece someone else used---(Jock mentions that after he built the junkyard hammer he would get calls form people wanting to know "exactly what engine block he used" when the whole idea was to use whatever you could scrounge on the cheap locally!) The bywords are: steel, heavy, compact Lots of dozer and oilfield equipment has chunks that fit the bill, check the bone yards of implement dealers too!