ThomasPowers

Is the motor a 110 or 220? Mine was 220 but the previous owner hacksawed off the back bearing, put a pulley on the shaft and ran it from a 110 motor, He also burnt a section of RR rail in two in it damaging the firepot. I've done a frankenstein on the blower; finally finding a 110 blower that shares most of the same castings but not the mounting bolts to the forge so I have 1/2 the blower shell from the old one and the new motor and 1/2 the shell on the new one Not as nice as yours but it was only US$80 back in the 1980's in OKC. I lined it with creek clay and it was great for large billets!

I just tried out my latest hammer on Saturday, a Bell System linesman's hammer, 36 oz, double, round flat faces. Too flat for my general taste so it goes on the rack for those special jobs where it would be just *perfect*.

My gravestone is going to be a garden path stone according to my wife. Of course it is, sandstone, large and was carved with the Heylstadt carving of the smith Regin and the text of my laurel award in the SCA. Just the thing to stub your toe on in the dark... The carver got a high priority request and went out and yanked it out of their garden path. *His* wife was not too happy about that I understood... Thanks for hunting down the information; *always* ready to learn more!

I quickly burnt out on auctions myself. Bad waste of time, often very mislabeled items or condition. I could do better going door to door I think. (There are exceptions; bought my first HB at an auction of a HVAC company going out of business as the owner, quite elderly, didn't have anyone to run the family business. They moved into their "new building" in the 1930's... So a commercial auction held on a holiday weekend; nothing for the antique-rs and modern businesses tend not to be interested in old tech---as well as not liking to be there on a holiday weekend)

Can you share that research with us! Just provide the cite and I most likely have the book or can access it through the university library next door. (My research indicated the 1400's with it's use with the gold smiths gradually leaking over to the iron smiths. Theophilus in the 1120's still showed single action bellows and the ones shown in De Re Metallica were also single action---though being water driven are a special case.) As for twin systems many medieval illuminations show them being worked by one person with a single handle set up to alternate with a sort of rocker system. "Cathedral Forge and Waterwheel", Gies and Gies, has a couple such. (and people wonder why laurels get such a persnickety reputation...) Now the early systems like shown on the Heylstadt stave church panels do require a bellows thrall to be effective and wives are notoriously resistant to the suggestion... I've been sourcing soapstone from old laboratory benchtops and sinks that make good bellows stone and easily carved if you want to duplicate the norse examples...

Ferric chloride; fairly safe on flesh compared to the strong mineral acids; but eats almost every metal (save Ti as I recall)

You size your billets for the size of the forge. That one is quite small for the purpose; more suited for demo's and displays.

Seems like I've posted this a dozen times this year already: to get inexpensive anvils you DON'T want to find the ones on Craigslist or E-bay. You want to find one of the thousands lurking in garages and basements, (few are found in attics for some reason...), that the people have no real use or attachment for. They will often go cheap---or not go at ridiculously high prices...it's a toss up.

Did a brief scan last night in my library: Moxon, "Mechanics Exercises" pub 1703, substantially written last half of the 17th century, English: no hardy hole shown on the anvil pictured or mentioned in the description that does go into some detail on the horn. Métiers disparus - Encyclopédie Diderot A subset of various crafts shown in Diderot's encyclopedia, French late 18th century, no hardy holes shown but the anvils were definitely not general smithing anvils. Inconclusive.

I have an old french crosspeen where the face is dead soft. It's a favorite of mine for students who have trouble with hammer control as they CAN'T damage the anvil or other tooling with it. They seem to like it too; perhaps because I don't growl and scowl when they mis-strike with it. Most of my knifemaking hammers are pretty hard as I want to leave as fine a surface as I can and the knife steels can be downright obdurate under the hammer, (D2 for example...) It is far easier to refinish or even replace a hammer head than an anvil!

We have a tailgating section on this website or you could contact the local Artist Blacksmith Association of North America affiliate and see if any of them want to buy it. http://www.abana-chapter.com/ has a list.

It's so easy to forge weld steel wire to make a basket that would be the first thing I would try especially as forge welding was a lot more common in earlier "real wrought iron" times. Of course we are in the middle of an election over here and they are putting signs all over the place using steel wire bent into a one side open rectangle. After the election such signs are often abandoned on the public right-away causing much damage to the mowing machines when they find them next spring buried in the grass. So public spirited blacksmiths go gleaning after the elections are over giving such smiths a ready supply of steel wire to play with....

Use of mild steel for the frame allows for easy welding as a means of putting it together. If you design it for an easily sourced size of leaf spring it makes for tough and inexpensive dies.

Did you dust the stump hole with Borax before inserting the stump? I was working on building a set of shelves yesterday and noticed that the scrap lumber was attracting termites so I dusted the area with borax as a fairly non-toxic remedy that I had to hand already. The shelf uprights are also mounted on track plates on my dirt floor. (my shop is a pole barn made from telephone poles, steel purlins and propanel so nothing for the critters to eat in the structure)

Align so that the top die would align perfectly on the indent that is the distinctive mark of blacker hammer anvils. The side to side traverse allowed the system to be used with either the top die's edge aligned exactly with the edge of the indent or the top die could be moved over and hit inside of the edge area. btaim I STRONGLY recommend Fishers for hobby smiths *especially* where neighbors are a concern! I wish I had a half dozen 100#'rs to use in teaching.

It can be a "signature style" for ornamental work you do!

About twice as much where I live now as where I used to live. Where you live?????

Gates take room, axes could be done in a 10'x10' shop!

Definitely a bush hammer, way to heavy as a meat tenderizer unless you wanted pink slime... Lovely vise! Check carefully on the front of the moving jaw on one of my 6"'s there was a date right over the ski-jump part 1899; on another the weight---100#

I don't recall a 1600's anvil with a hardy; but that's a lot later than my area of interest. Have to research it. The spanish colonial anvil at the Camino Real Center is more like my "roman" cube anvil; but was a travel anvil. BTW while reading on the precursors to Coronado's trek I ran across an interesting tidbit: Friar Marcos had made a trip up this way to Zuni from Mexico around 1539 and it's reported that he told his barber that the Indians around here had "iron forges". At least that is what the barber spread around along with other information that raised a lot of interest in further expeditions...(and does not seem to have been accurate, like much gossip heard at the barber's...)

An odd thought: perhaps someone took a lighter anvil and decided to "bulk it up" by forge welding on chunks?

And the Romans could have made Levis---but they didn't. Forge welding a handle on is simpler than wedging a bar into a punched blind hole and as you are already forge welding a bunch of chunks together... It would be interesting to see just when handling holes came into use. I would *guess* that they are associated with a certain size of manufacturing of anvils making it easier to shift the tooling from one to another and spread back into the craft from that. As I recall my 1828 William Foster has handling holes. I'll check tonight. Anyone else have a solid date earlier? Anyone have a full copy of Diderot's Encyclopedia and can check to see if they show handing of anvils in it?

That was what I was thinking; but the base could always have "alignment depressions"---I don't recall checking for them on that blacker that went through a fire.

Leave it as a texturing surface? Use the Gunter method and build it up True the base to the face and then grind/mill the face as little as possible?

Mild steel for the frame and leaf spring for the dies is my suggestion (or A-36 and 5160 or 9260)