ThomasPowers

That fellow sort of looks left over from the filming of Død snø You should feed him up his ribs are showing!

Blades are not poured into a mold. Most are not drop forged using dies. Sure you can heat up metal with a torch. It will cost more and not do as good a job as making a simple propane burner out of plumbing parts; but it can be done. (Sort of like asking "can I move 16 tons of gravel using my convertable? Yes but it's not a good idea...) I've made a 1 firebrick forge that used a simple plumber's torch to heat and was useful for small items. The forge tools and anvil all fit in a 5 gallon bucket for storage. Where in Arkansas? In the NW corner is Tom Maringer a pretty much retired swordmaker http://www.shirepost.com/Cutlery.html In the SW corner is the American Bladesmith Society school in Texarkana: http://www.americanbladesmith.com/index.php?section=pages&id=128 Note when I lived in AR there was still a law on the books forbidding the sale or bartering of swords; everybody ignored it as it was a reconstruction era law as I recall but it was still there. Swordcanes as concealed deadly weapons can put you in a world of hurt legally. I don't wonder you have taken some flack for it. Shame to see a blademaker go to prison! I've got 13 acres near Cedarville (about a dozen miles north of Van Buren/Fort Smith) so I may end up back there again too.

Everyone I know has pretty much stopped using the stone wheel grinders after getting a *good* belt grinder. Now putting wire wheels on the pedestal grinder can be a useful thing; just remember that a pedestal grinder with a wire wheel can really damage you if you don't watch out!

In a appx 12' sq building hot iron can go pretty much *anywhere*. I've had cut off pieces travel more than 20'---so much so that it's part of my teaching spiel to warn new smiths about that! The lined wall sounds like a sound idea as it will cut down on sound yet still be more fire resistant. Can you source steel panels that have been damaged by hail and replaced? My shop extension walls were a co-worker's roof that was hailed on and replaced. I got them for free and they cover about 50' long by 10' high. (My shop is on the "unused" side of the house---only 2 windows and one of them is in my study and so the 20'x30'shop is currently 4 shades of blue. The roofing is new overrun from repairs to school buildings after the massive hail storm---2 shades and then the walls are the aforementioned roof that was replaced and finally the roll up door is the fourth shade of blue it was from a storage complex that replaced their doors regularly and I got a used one cheap. So the covering for the shop extension, 20' wide by 30' long, 10' high wall and peaked roof cost me a total of US$100 and that was for the 2 doors a 10' wide roll up door and a 36" wide commercial exterior door (came from my church. We had to replace it when we fixed a foundation issue and I bought it for a donation) Now that doesn't count the cost of the self drilling self tapping sheetmetal screws or the purlins, but just the sheathing.

"Do you cut off the teeth or do you make them a feature somehow" Yes! Grinding the tips off some too; or mounting two bowls with the teeth interlacing, or having the bowl upside down mounted on a wooden base with the teeth in a slot they cut; or... Some saw blades have nice cut outs in the blade that make them a good choice for lamps with a night light in the base as they cast interesting shadows... or cut shuriken out of small circular blades... I tried out my new screwpress once making shield bosses from some circular sheet metal drops. Worked a treat save that One I played around with came out very mammiform and was snatched up by one re-enactor I knew.

May not be a coded date but a "in 19XX they changed the pattern board and the new pattern board was marked XYZ" sort of thing---or like knowing when the USA require point of origin markings on imported anvils.

I gave a talk about that at the SWABA meeting I hosted last Saturday, lets see: Ocotillo plant made from flattened wood auger bits set into a local rock. Farrier's rasps: hatchets bent around and forge welded, rasptlesnakes, lizards, knives, spurs Electric fence pole: (3/8" round with triangle sheet metal piece on the base) I made a dragon with the sheetmetal the wings saw blades: bowls round punchouts: cowboy hats I use the valve caps from welding bottles to make wind bells from using scrounged chain with a chile pepper forged from NON-galvanized steel pipe on the end. Part of the "demo" was a visit to my local scrapyard where one member loaded up on stuff to make large "flowers" from including the lobed insert for a tractor wheel. Four tined pitchforks 2 to make legs for a spider Garden rake mounted to the wall of the shop to hold files with golf ball handles

Note there are at least 10 copies of The Procedure Handbook Of Arc Welding available at abebooks.com for around US$10 including shipping. Note that they date from the 40's to the 1970's in that price range. Me I'd go for the one that was from the same time period of my welder, so I get an early version...

I'd recruit a chef to work with you since this seems to be a new area for you. Once you get a set he will brag about then you will have a feeling about what works and why and start thinking of variations.

Give some thought to using metal for the walls too; great peace of mind knowing that there is limited things that can burn in the shop---Perhaps a wood wall on the side facing the driveway/house and the rest metal? Also shared flues usually don't work as well as separate ones unless you have the capacity to totally shut one side off from the other. Otherwise when you are only using one side the flue is still pulling cold air off the other side decreasing the chimney's draw.

I'd guess somewhere in the 1930's as that construction gives me that vibe... Can anyone date that wheel? That would provide the "not earlier than" date.

Note that showing the dimensions pretty much tells us nothing while showing the anvil from other sides might tell us a lot. (like handling holes, markings on the feet, base clues----early HB's have a very thin wall around their hourglass indentation that often is worn almost flat.) What is the ring like? Was the pritchel punched or drilled? Is the underside of the heel smooth or ripply?

Last time I got a "USPS Flat Rate Box" all I got was the delivery slip and I had to come into town to pick it up. When they saw the slip they had *me* come behind the counter and down the hall to a room where the remnants of a box was overwhelmed by a *lot* of filament tape---so much that they told me the box was overweight! However I told them it weighed in at 2 pounds *under* at the post office it started from...68 pounds of the 70 pounds allowable. Chalk a big smile on that anvil!

Solid Phase Welding, there is a book about Solid Phase Welding by Tylecote and some of the variations of it: vacuum welding, galling, explosive welding and friction welding IIRC.

Did you mod the handle as well?

I once ran across a massive "railroad forge" at a place that was big in WWII surplus, never had a fire in it had the hood, coal and water troughs, etc. Too rich for my blood but I told a fellow looking for one that was willing to get it from 1000 miles away! Always a thrill to find them that way but I have a hard time using something like that and "messing it up!"

Swords are hard to "learn on" as they cycle slowly. As a gedanken experiment think of a task that takes 5 years from start to finish---will you remember all the pesky little things you learned the first go round compared to a task where you do the same sorts of thing but you do one every weekend? Why we suggest people do their learning on knives, then move on to large knives and only then go on to swords. And yes completing them is MANDATORY as the heat treat is the "soul" of a sword and you need to test how you are doing with it---and most folks are not willing to destroy their first 10 swords or so checking if the heat treat is correct for that alloy and design...

Stop looking at it and start SMITING!

If you work your iron *hot* the anvil face doesn't need to be excessively hard---early anvils were just wrought iron---however wrought iron is often worked at a welding heat and is very very soft at that temp! In general you don't want to have to re-heat treat your anvil and so make choices that will end up hard enough without re-doing the heat treat. (Now you can re-heat treat; but it's a pretty big project on it's own the the danger of the face delaminating is always present.)

Interesting to see the reverse spring and how it's attached looks like a fairly "modern" technique. Frank do the other etau ancien mount the spring the same way that you have seen?

The "hourglass" indentation on the bottom is quite indicative of a Hay Budden, a top american made brand. Check for a serial number on the front of the feet below the horn. If you can see one tell us what side it is on and if you can make it out Anvils in America will give you a manufacturing date for it.

Well I'd stroll down to the local ornamental iron supply store and pick up a couple of forged mild steel balls for a couple of bucks and then re-work them---how about drilling and tapping and mounting your wings on bolts?

If the bellows inflate it is sucking air in *somewhere*. You want that to be through the inlet holes and not through the exhaust pipe as that will draw in hot gases and/or small pieces of burning fuel causing a fire inside the bellows. Your bellows should have a check valve to prevent it from inhaling through the delivery pipe. Now to tell if the bellows is pushing air out: You should be able to see the fire react to the blast of air or even hear the fire react.

Why modify it---it came that way! I've had too many unplanned modifications to myself to modify something else "just for looks"!

They used cane as I recall---however splitting the shaft in use is considered a good thing in battle as then the enemy cannot glean your arrows and shoot them back at you. (Tricks with the knocks including a trap knock that would cut the bowstring if used by someone who didn't have a knock cup on their bowstring were another warfare mod.)