ThomasPowers

It's the end of the day on Friday; I have a mace story too. Close to 40 years ago I once made a mace using a gear from a car that I thought was "appropriate". Came out fairly usable and I called a friend over to see it. He liked it too. As he was leaving I asked him for a favor---I had been having some trouble with a downstairs neighbor who was playing a music not to my taste very loud in the middle of the night when I was trying to study. They tended to leave their door open as well and I had noticed this to be the case when I met my friend at the main door. So I asked my friend if I could chase him down the stairs and out the front door with the mace. "No Problem" So we went thundering down the stairs past their open door and my friend "escaped" through the front door of the apartment building. I strolled back past their open door, (which now had a number of spooked faces looking out of it), twirling the mace on it's lanyard. Ever after that when I politely asked them to turn it down, It Went Down! And they started keeping their door closed a lot more. Better living through Medieval Weaponry! (actually another mace story too: Fast forward a couple of decades: I had forged another flanged mace and had taken it over to show it off at a friend's house. Well you really can't "show it off" without trying it out right? Turns out that his landlord was remodeling part of the place and had asked my friend to do some wall demolition for him---so we spent a happy hour bashing old plaster and lath walls with a mace instead of a sledgehammer. It does build up a powerful thirst though...)

Reducing is characterized by a plume of unburnt and partially burnt propane coming out the exhaust: this is good for knife making or tool making where you want to refrain from decarburizing the surface of the metal you are working. One way to dial it in is to dial the air to the forge to the loudest burn/brightest flame impingement and then back the air off some and/or turn up the fuel some. Note this is "wasting" some of the heat in the fuel *and* produces the most CO of the three. Neutral: best flame for most forge work as you are getting the most heat out of your fuel---total burn; but you are not adding in more O2/Nitrogen than can be used thus cooling down the system some. Dial it in by adjusting gas/air till you get the loudest burn and the brightest flame impingement. If you need more heat in the forge add more gas and then dial the air up till you get back to the loudest burn and the brightest flame impingement. Oxidizing: I try to stay away from this one as I came into forging though bladesmithing. *However* I have used it on purpose to create a rough heavily scaled surface on a dragon I forged---when I hammered the scale off it left a pebbled surface instead of the smooth "as rolled/as hammered" surfaces. Dial to neutral and add more air you will see the flame impingement cool down a bit.

You did mention beer did you not? I've had friend misplace cars, houses and spouses when beer was involved. Sorry about the scale of the piece mixup. I'm generally making my bottle openers to fit on a belt or in a pocket or even on a king ring as the "fob"

Sure it would have---you were just too chicken to remove the trunk lid and leave it on the side of the road! Went to the fleamarket this morning, got a small old adjustable wrench with wooden scale grips, a 4" "Adjustable" C clamp, a moderate sized Trimo adjustable wrench and a Vaughan & Bushnell 36 oz linesman's hammer. Total cost US$8 though I will be putting a new handle on the hammer so add in another dollar.

Bellows have been shaped in MANY MANY forms over the centuries: Agricola shows coffin shaped bellows in De Re Metallica from the 1500's. Round bellows have been used in the UK and Spanish Colonial USA. The commercial double lunged blacksmithing bellows once sold in the USA were "teardrop" shaped. I would say that triangular bellows are not a common shape historically as sharp angles lead to the leathers wearing out faster.

Lovely---hope it doesn't disappear at the festival! You might think of putting a lanyard hole in the handle in and getting one of the keyring belt retractors like this for your next one---and as pretty as that one is you will probably get a bunch of requests for more of them! http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/KEYBAK-Key-Reel-6YLN9

36.75 according to the link you posted. I picked up a Vaughan & Bushnell"Linesman's Hammer" at the fleamarket today for $2; but I'll have to replace the handle so it will cost another $1 and the time to switch them. Not the straight peen, already got one of those) but the double faced one shown here: http://www.vaughanmfg.com/shopping/Products/36-OZ-Supersteel-Linemans-Hammer__L36.aspx I could make it into a turning hammer but I have a couple of those already. Probably just make it another choice for my students. I've run out of space on my hammer rack but still pick up styles and weights I don't have when I can find them cheap. I have one oddball that sat on the rack for over a decade and a half unused but when I needed it it made a tricky job *fast* and *easy*! Time to build a bigger rack! (Actually to build another rack and split them between the forging area and the armouring area, the non-ferrous area already has their own rack...)

Do you have access to a lathe that could grab the other end and spin it while you grind it? Strongly suggest you put a box around it with a shop vac sucking up the grinding dust even if you are using a wood lathe! Problem with turning hammer is that they are generally *quite* expensive even on their own. Have you though of forging the face to close to shape and then grinding and re-heat treating?

Please remember to take extra special care of yourselves during this period. Out parents are our roots and loss of them will affect you in ways you may not even be aware of. Double think any major decisions for a long while. Take extra care when driving. Make sure you take care of your own health, etc.

Well war effort included farming and mining. What we usually see for wartime made items is a lower job of "finishing" like not grinding a weld bead...like your example for example

I tend to expect an anvil to be +/- 10% of the stamped weight; especially for the earlier ones that have seen more use and perhaps less stringent weighmasters in the old days... Note that for early anvils a retrofitted pritchel will remove an observable amount of weight.

It is a soft steel and NOT a tool steel or a steel to be used for tooling. If you cannot get a hot work steel like S-7 or H-13; even an automobile spring will make much better tools than 316 stainless

IDEAL FOR WHAT????????????? Ideal for knifemaking is NOT ideal for heavy work in mild steel! You adjust your flame for what you are doing not to some "Ideal" and just leave it. It's like driving "What's the Ideal speed to drive at?" depends a lot on the details. The basics are the flame should heat the interior of the forge while not wasting too much coming out the door. The flame should be reducing, neutral or oxidizing depending on what you want. The forge should reach the heat you need for what you are doing---different for forge welding vs heating and beating high alloy steels that will "cottage cheese" at too high a heat; or working real wrought iron which loves and often requires high heats..

You will need to make a door that can be left partially open to alloy stock to protrude from it. Many ways to accomplish that from a flip down door with hinges on the top many times with a mousehole along the bottom always open. To twin side doors with hinges on the side allowing you to leave one open---think about making them un-symetrical with a wide side and a narrow side to allow you to choose the one that's best for your project. If that's not a blown forge you may need to make sure there is always a gap to deal with back pressure issues. Most doors will require some sort of attachments to the face of the forge.

Any thought of making the ferro rod nest in the hilt of the knife?

Seems to be *a* way; the english mace right above that one seems to have the heavy flanges forge welded to a base that was then wrapped around and copper braised to the iron neck according to the description. "showing the seam where the thin plate which the flanges are welded to does not fully meet as it wraps around the neck. This plate was copper braised to the iron neck" Others do show evidence that they were fullered out of a stout piece of stock, Like many blacksmithing tasks there may be multiple ways to skin the cat. Now what we need is enough examples to figure out what was common vs uncommon methods.

I just don't recall seeing any evidence of it on the originals I have viewed

Hot, Rainy, Rough Use: I would suggest a micarta handle as to not worry about wood getting wet or cracking. It can even be the old canvas electrical board stuff for a camp knife.

Perhaps we need a sticky with the various brands of anvils listed and opinions on each one so newbies won't get misled into paying HB prices for a Vulcan...

If you are focused on Pattern Welding perhaps the classes at the American Bladesmiths Society school in Texarkana AR would suit you.

I was wondering about fold forming real wrought iron sheet and forge welding the folds before hot cutting the impact shapes and overlapping the sheet ends and welding it into a tube and drifting to fit the handle. One thing to remember---they were lighter than you would think! Speed makes a greater contribution to impact than weight does.

It's a very low function of time at temp and a high function of cycles as the cycling can help "knock" structures that didn't temper the first time into tempering the second or third time. Or that's what they told me in my Mat Sci classes at Cornell...

I love my Ohio made anvils---Trenton and Arm and Hammer and my Ohio made Post vises---Columbians Just wish I had a Columbian anvil to round out the OH collection. OTOH I'm pretty down on Vulcans and would be happy to show you why if you ever stop by my smithy for a tour of my "wall of shame" collection.

As the person who coined the term "Anvil Envy" I can say that most smiths will want a bigger/better/XYZ anvil even when they have a perfectly usable one to hand. Also a highly skilled smith can do more and better work using a chunk of rock as an anvil than a low skilled smith with the bestest anvil out there. Most of us are constrained by what we can find and what we can afford and we may dream about the rare pristine 1000 pound anvil; but do our work pretty durn well on the 150# one we found. When I teach I bring along my 25# Roman style stake anvil to show students that they don't need to wait till they can find/afford a london (or continental) pattern anvil; basically a cube of steel will do to get started. (OTOH it's sure nice to get back to the 515# Fisher when I need to do some heavy work!)

OK everybody interested in the history of the postvise that has done even minimal research on it or has listened to Frank talk about them here in the USA. (And Frank Turley is a noted demonstrator as well as running a blacksmithing school since the 1970's...) BTW are you familiar with James Watt's postvise in his workshop in the Science Museum in London, UK? Piddly little thing yet he changed the world using it. I have such a plethora of larger ones and accomplish much less...