ThomasPowers

What do you have? Naphtha, WD40, diesel, mineral spirits, lacquer thinner, any non-polar solvent should work; some will take longer than others and some are MUCH MORE DANGEROUS than others (why I do not suggest gasoline! NO! NO! Don't use it, BAD DOG!) Picking up a gallon of diesel at the service station and soaking the screw and screw box in it for a week or so should work fine, especially if you can run a bottle brush through the screwbox a couple of times over that week to get the goo off the crud. I've even used used motor oil as I had a bunch of it as a quench tank---before I wised up and switched to vegetable oil for quenching. Do you have a *good* friend with a parts cleaner?

After I learned that one of the anvil manufacturers in Columbus OH had a row of completed anvils along side the steep river bank when they shut down I tracked down the location---just in case. None visible and the "river bed" was about 40% old steel bits. I did find a dozen or so old grindstones used to surface the anvil faces and rolled down into the river when they got too small (say 3' to 4' in diameter and 1' wide)

Well I used a metal pulley fastened to a piece of round stock---seemed to have worked well for the decade or so I had that forge...Got mine at the scrap yard

I have a 25# roman/medieval/renaissance/early modern anvil that I forge on using quite heavy hammers. As a simple cube with a pointed stake on the bottom of it it's hard to break off a piece. On the other hand I have a Vulcan where a student broke off the horn riveting on it. Luckily not one of my students! Light duty is fine for them---usually. Watch out for students with big hammers though!

I use swages like that to make my rasptlesnakes---of course I have forged the eye ends down to fit my 1.5" hardy holes. Heat the rasp, place atop the swage and use the crosspeen to start the roll by turning the flat rasp into a trough; then still in the swage start curling the edges in with the flat of the hammer. Instead of 2" tenons---how about 2" bearings for large machinery shafts? Rough the shafts out on the forge, clean them up in a big lathe---2" are rather small in that case---think Locomotive, ore crusher, *big* machinery!

If I can get someone out to the forge with a camera.

Much of my smithing equipment is over 100 years old and some over 200 years old and still gets used. To me it seems not right to let it sit around *un*used!

Just remember the thickness of that Vulcan's face plate is not the "false cast line" seen in the pics but more like 1/8" thick as seen in the chipping towards the horn.

One thing to check is to see if it "walked out in a lunch pail" if so it may not have been heat treated yet; so try the ball bearing test. If it's go and the price is appropriate go for it! My "wall of shame" has an anvil base, (Probably a PW according to Postman), missing the entire top section---but it's weight stamped so it once was a complete anvil. As stamping anvils was usually done towards the end of their forging an unstamped one might not have got that far...

Yah, none of use will live long enough to make all over again the mistakes our forebearers did. Mush faster to lean from them and go on to make new and improved mistakes! The big problem with slitting and drifting is to keep the eye centered, working from both sides helps as does keeping the area evenly heated---of course you can correct slight errors by heating one side more than the other so the drift will tend to drift that way... Or the *easiest* method: go buy a battered old hammerhead for a buck at a fleamarket and forge that into your design with the hard part already done and the alloy being suitable for hammers from the git go.

Right pretty! You may want to make the next one a tad stouter on the hitting end as flatters spread the energy out you generally whomp them fairly hard with big hammers in my experience and the smaller striking end will mushroom fast.

MacBruce has a good point: even I would happily sell an anvil to a collector if it resulted in a bigger and better using anvil for myself. And remember that Museums are no guarantee of preservation! When the historical society decided to shut down their "Street of Yesteryear" exhibit I asked about purchasing their smithing equipment and was told "no it was going to another museum". Subsequently I ended up buying a number of tools from that exhibit at the local fleamarket for *less* than I would have paid the museum---still with the museum cataloging numbers on them! The other museum sold off what they didn't have a use for...

Note that they type of tank he is asking about is NOT the high pressure tanks used for welding; but the relatively low pressure tank used for balloon inflation. High pressure tanks have much thicker walls and a greater danger of possible extremely high pressure gas still in it. For the balloon inflation tanks I check to see if it's empty and then chop with a cutting disk on my angle grinder---using the safety precautions needed when using that set up

I'm on the side mount/swirl side of the question for these reasons: Burners inserted vertically have more of a chimney effect issue when you shut down the forge. They can also have more problems re-cycling exhaust back though increasing CO production. Burners inserted from the bottom tend to have more problems with junk falling into them---scale, flux, bits of refractory, etc. Generally I want a less localized heat on an item in the gas forge, If I want a localized heat I can just use a torch and skip the forge...(or use a solid fuel forge...)

IIRC it was a scrap of parchment inserted in his mouth with the appropriate inscription...

"it is not possible to identify unknown samples of alloy with a spark test" Well excluding spark spectroscopy.....it's a fairly good test for identifying alloys.

How did it stand up when you flexed the piece? Thick enamel bonded on a rigid substrate can be a lot tougher than a thin layer on something that flexes.

I'd suggest a wooden box inside a cardboard one---say 2x4 on the pointed end and 1x4 on the blunt end and 1/4" plywood on the sides

In general you don't want to put more HP into a gear reducer than it's rated for as it can be bad for the reducer. Putting less horsepower in may be rougher on the motor. However if you have more HP than you need for the tumbler then having a bit less than the gear reducer is rated for should be fine. My advice: try it for a while and then check the temperature of the reducer and of the motor---if one is running hot find out why!

Mine came that way from the factory, save the motor mount is a large cast iron piece that pivots on a bolt on the rear of the hammer near the floor.

I assume that you contacted Centaur Forge to see if they had an old one sitting back in the warehouse all lonely like? Some companies will have old stock that doesn't get added into new catalogs as there isn't enough of them to advertise.

Could even be a shop made one. I don't think that stamping dates to manufacturing though.

I get the "trash" wax from cappings or hive clean up and am happy to melt it in a pot of water a couple of times to clean it up for forge use. Smells nice too!

You want to be able to work the bellows with one hand while messing with your piece with the other hand. I prefer the tong hand to be messing with the piece and the hammer hand to be working the bellows as you then don't need to switch anything on the tong hand and it's easy to let go of the bellows and grab a hammer. I'd look real hard at a lively set up---you may be a bit deep; but for charcoal that may not be a bad thing! Mound up the sides with clay/adobe so they funnel the charcoal towards the tuyere and it's possible to make an expanding fire forge by having the tuyere pipe go all the way out the opposite end and then putting in a "ram rod" to control how much is getting air from the bellows. One thing DO NOT GET HOOKED ON IT BEING THE PERFECT FORGE; expect to rework it to suit yourself and your changing projects!

Yup, Fee for primitive camping was about US$10 a night last time I attended---compared to even a "cheap motel" it's a great deal IMNSHO! Costs for RV hook ups was a bit more. (Just avoid camping by the dog pound if you don't like dogs barking all night...)