ThomasPowers

I have several small cones from the scrap yard and one of the ballistic missile nose cone cone mandrels but haven't seen anything suitable as a replacement for a large cone mandrel---and I'm a looking! When my renaissance Cooking friend started getting *large* (20 gallon) pots and wanting spiders for them my nose cone is NOT big enough. I almost could use a wagon tyre roller save that these are bent the hard way.

WARNING! Now all your neighbors and coworkers will want one!

Good point IronWolf, here in the desert rust is a slow process, on a coast it's a *fast* one! As to what to use; lots of the old paints were linseed oil based way back when...many of us have some around for doing hammer handles; how about clean off loose stuff with a wire brush, wipe down with paint thinner and wipe with linseed oil---boiled of course. Or go wild and prime it and then paint designs on it---perhaps "flames"?

You are assuming they need vitamin C or D. I'd make them rock eaters if they have a totally underground lifestyle...

GREAT price for a 6" vise *if* the screw is in good shape. Looks like a Columbian and if so I believe neither of those mounts is original to it... Neatest mod I've seen to one was to braze a cap on the back end of the screwbox and drill and tap it for a zerk and so lube the screw from the backend pushing any crud it picks up *out*. I generally end up buying vises without mounting setups as they often are a lot cheaper and making a mount is an easy Saturday morning project. I often make them like the newer columbians with a piece of angle iron and a Sq "U bolt" (or a strap hot bent to go around the leg and spring and drilled for bolts on the ends.)

Buying boric acid at the Chemist will cost $$$, buying it at the hardware store as roach killer is *much* cheaper and the stuff sold here is 97% boric acid 3% colouring agent to let you know it's not a food stuff. (The old stuff was 100% boric acid---I buy it when it shows up at the fleamarket cheap)

Anvils seem to lure other anvils. (I think it's that once you internalize the anvil search process you start noticing them everywhere---along with having one on "display" jogging the memory of folks that stop by...)

When I started making spiders for renaissance downhearth cooking I started using my cone mandrel a *lot* and wish I had a larger one as trying to true up a forge welded circle on the swage block was a pain.

I concur.

Did you put in a french drain and gravel on the backside? OH was much damper when I lived there than here in NM!

Very nice! When I had to make several dozen tenons for a renaissance cooking implement I used my screwpress with a stop block and then a monkey tool to dress the transition. That's the neat thing about blacksmithing---many ways to accomplish the same goal and you can use the process that makes best use of your tools and skills!

Most of my anvils have worked hard for over 100 years to get their patina; painting them would be like my Grandfather donning KISS makeup. I also dislike the smell of hot steel on paint and use *all* of my anvil's surfaces over time.

It gets weird indeed: Arkansas used to have a law that if your were traveling a certain number of miles outside your usual daily wont you were allowed to carry a large knife "against the dangers of the road". However a college physics text book carried in your backpack could qualify as a "concealed deadly weapon" as you could do serious injury to a person with one. (I researched weapons law in AR 35 years ago to give a talk to the local SCA group about it: my basic take on it---if the cops don't like you; you are in a heap of trouble!)

Tooling for shapers is generally easily made, especially cutters!

Several Ways you can go: Price it high on Thursday and drop it through the event. (say $3 a pound Friday, $2.50 Saturday; $2 Sunday) Look over the tailgating and then price it accordingly---remembering that as a small anvil there's a bonus on price. Put a price you are happy with and don't worry about someone re-selling it for more.

*Traditionally* a dagger is a large knife designed for fighting---can be single edged like many a scottish dirk or rondel dagger were or double edged. What it *isn't* is "small". There is quite a lot of confusion in case law about what constitutes a dagger as in many places "daggers" are banned from general carry as they are perceived as strictly "weapons". So where you might carry a "hunting knife" with impunity a "dagger" could land you in jail. (The double edge is considered a factor in the difference from a "using knife" and a "weapon knife") As such basically anyone can call most any knife a dagger and be correct somewhere/somewhen.

Squareish threads are pretty easy to find, look at acme threads, buttress threads are different more of a | thread form so they take a lot of pressure in one direction.

I was at an auction once and there were some 5' diameter 1/2" steel plate rounds that were dished. Picked them up to make fancy fire pits out of only to find that the top two were dished and the rest flat. Boy have they come in handy! First thing was a trashcan base where the local dogs can't knock them over---I forged two simple circles of steel on shafts that fit right below the handle area and have their bases welded to the plate. Made a welding table from another, used another for a gate, etc...

Spending time chatting with folks is still pretty common out here in the sticks. Some "city folks" seem to think that it's a waste of time and impairs productivity not realizing that it's an *investment* that can pay back big time in the future. For example when I was given two 40' utility poles, I called up a family friend who had a 20' trailer and he cheerfully came over and cut them to 20' lengths and hauled them to my shop extension building site and came back with a manipulator to lift and set them when I was ready for them. Then months later his brother in law showed up with a broken jackhammer bit on a weekend where he had rented a jackhammer to do some concrete work only to be stopped by the bit breaking. So I forged it back out and heat treated it and told him to come back if there was any problem---first time I had ever done a jackhammer bit; but I'd read about them here... No money changed hands either time save for I insisted to pay the gas for hauling my poles. Folks looking out for their neighbors and friends is still a country meme.

Definitely need a "split shop" set up as sawdust/shavings and grinding, welding and smithing do not play well together! Lovely tools, just lovely.

For more info on scythe anvils you can look under denglestock the german term for them. When I said they're "not very old" I did not mean they are worthless. I meant that they were "not very old" in the blacksmithing scale of time.

A36 often has an appreciable carbon content. Use of a "very fast quenchant indeed!" will give it *some* hardness. It will not be hard like a medium or high carbon steel will get but it will be harder than it was. The higher the carbon content of the A36 the harder it will get. I still have the chisel that Robb Gunter cut off a stick of A36 and forged and quenched in the old school version of SQ and then used to cut the original piece with out deforming the quenched edge of the chisel!

Looks more like a "Red Dawn" to me!

Mn and Si don't pose problems, CR can cause difficulties but that's like a 5160, a slightly more aggressive flux may help. I mix boric acid, (roach-pruf), in with my 20 muleteam borax (1:2) to make it a bit more "aggro"

With experience comes speed, the less time the piece is exposed to the air the less scale. Like the old joke that experienced smiths use a special steel that stays hotter longer---actually the rapidity of our hammer blows keeps the steel hotter and we get more accomplished in a given time. It's not "bang, look, bang, look, bang"; but "BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BACK IN THE FORGE"