ThomasPowers

Out here a metal roof is a big plus as it resists cinders and hot embers from wild fires---putting one on usually gets you a decrease in your insurance premiums!

With a large anvil it's basic inertia overwhelms the little thunks a typical hammer gives to it. A small anvil definitely has more "bouncing around" issues where a stand designed to hold it firmly helps. BoAPW: Start at bedrock and work your way up with a monolithic structure. I was amused to find my 469# Fisher anvil creeping under heavy sledging on it's wooden stand. OTOH all I needed was a few U fence staples to nail around it's base and so "corral" it in place. It was heavy enough that it couldn't jump over the staple even if it was protruding only a quarter of an inch from the "stump".

I was carded as well, the lock back knife I was given as part of my Daughter's wedding party worked sufficiently well to effect entrance. (The handle says Thomas Father of the Bride".) The reception is supposed to be tomorrow but covid may keep us from visiting up there just now. (We are OK; but my Daughter's BiL and the father of the BiL appear to be active cases...)

Hay Budden was an anvil manufacturer in Brooklyn NY, check the front foot (under the horn) for numbers and their location as weight and serial number were often stamped there and location and number can sometimes indicate source.

Most bladesmithing does not need a flat face on the anvil. For that which does---have you looked for a large chunk of steel with at least one flat surface?

I have a JET drillpress I bought around 1981 used and it was made in Taiwan IIRC. Chuck goes to 3/4" and then taper bits can be used, 2 HP Dayton motor; currently wired for 220 VAC

Had a single digit (age) smith over yesterday and he made his second project a camp cooking tripod. (That he can use his first project---an S hook with.) He and his Mother also went to the scrapyard with me. In the afternoon a friend came over with a new to the craft smith and he did his S hook. For toasting forks I use steel wire, about 1/8" diameter and fold it and twist it to make it stout enough. I get the wire after elections where signs are left on the public right-away; often by the hundreds! I have also found a box of them at the scrapyard, unused.

Note LOCATION plays a part too. If you are looking at used cars in the USA, you might give more thought to the large American Automakers. If you are looking in Russia; concentrate on Russian and East German auto brands...

To draw out---make longer but not wider---I like to use the horn of my large anvil and the straight peen with a very fat peen =)(= and hammer so the peen marks are 90 deg to the axis I want to make larger. To make wider I generally use a crosspeen, again with a fat peen and make the peen marks parallel to the long axis of the piece and clean it up with a nicely dressed "rocker" faced hammer.

Definitely look into using an Oxy-Propane rose bud!

I keep finding parts drawers at the scrapyard along with a set of metal shelves on wheels that they can fit in. Almost got it filled!

I wondered about tool crib tags too; any pasteboard disks that would fit in them around their finding location?

Want to make a small wager that that doesn't end up a "one time wonder"?

John, what about using hand forged nails to fasten on?

My forge and a friend's forge have both melted steel accidentally. His because it was insulated so well; mine, well the lining was do to be replaced; but students tended to be very very hard on the kaowool. So I was putting the reline off and just cranking up the propane regulator to keep the interior hot enough to forge. Well I finally broke down and did a total reline; but forgot to turn the gas regulator back to it's "normal" position...I put a billet in and got to talking with someone and lost track of time and when I went back to check on the billet it was a nice puddle of molten steel. You fitting may have been cast iron which melts way lower than steel!

My first anvil was stolen----in Oklahoma too.... When I got back from my Daughter's wedding today I had a 43# package from the New Little Giant company full of TREASURE! Now to go out to the shop and hide it on the oily 25# LG that I have waiting for it...

Last time I lived in NJ we were in a place with 1 acre zoning; each house had to have a 1 acre lot and that was expensive even back in 1972; especially since you could see the Twin Towers from the hilltop next to ours... I don't rightly think the scouts owned any of the land we camped on; but we were "light on the land" and so hard to find/track and folks were happy to let us once we got the reputation of leaving a place cleaner than when we arrived! I remember flipping abandoned cars for practice in team work; not to hard to roll them but end for end takes a lot of 13 year-olds working together!

Thanks for clarification; "Traditional" is one of my hot buttons as smithing has been around about 3000 years over most of the world; so "traditional" is very much a when? & where? type of thing.

Have you tried the Pine Barrans in NJ? Back in the early 1970's in Boy Scouts we were still drinking the water out of the streams down there without treatment...

I hope my incident a couple of decades ago where I came screaming down the stairs in the middle of the night, stark naked, holding a spear to repel a home invasion, (Worked!), has been a good example of how crazy can work in such situations. Or as Dorthey Sayers once put it "A bullet can go almost anywhere; but steel is bound to end up somewhere."

I've seen a number of such helve hammers in medieval/renaissance illustrations and in original set ups; but none with that hammer head shape...

There is an old SF con tale that predates CD by a decade or two where the line goes "I'll see your six and raise you thirty!" (Involving a sword of course.) Now has she started keeping it under her pillow at night and do you wear a chainmail cravat to bed????? I once spotted a nicely done hand sewn sheath on the table of "blades of little distinction" at a fleamarket. Peaking my interest I checked out the blade in the sheath and it was definitely a custom made pattern welded blade with decent hilting and priced WAY TOO LOW! So I bought it and next time I was home I asked my wife who we should gift it too...Luckily I have a chain mail tie already...

I have a steeled WI adz where the steel part is 100% lap weld. (And the steel is very thin compared to the WI body.) I wonder about the use of the term "traditional" for a split bit weld. "Knives and Scabbards, Medieval finds from excavations in London" lists 7 different methods of combining Iron and Steel in tools: all iron, all steel, spine weld, lap weld, split bit, >> chevron bit, piled. IIRC the Chevron bit was used in a film about axe making in a "traditional factory" in the USA that was posted on IFI years ago.

I've seen forge welds "set" with a wooden hammer handle. With good technique you need VERY little force! (In fact hitting too hard tends to bounce the weld apart making it a failure!) I've seen quite heavy sledges used to break rocks and flatten large steel plates; however they did not have the "drilling hammer" shape to them. Lots of impact with a fairly small face on that one.

Red Pete; wrought iron came in a range of coarseness: bloom, muck bar, merchant bar, singly refined WI, Doubly refined WI, triply refined WI, USW.... In the day the finer grades were more expensive and preferred for ornamental work. Today we mainly want the grain pattern and so the coarser grades show it better.