ThomasPowers

Once something has scaled up inside a crack it can be hard to get a weld to take.

Ahh that ax design is a couple of centuries past when everyone was Christian; don't think that Woden symbology would be appropriate

Patrick; you dog! Will this be a far move---like when I went from OH to NM, or an across town move? If it's an across town move lots of 5 gallon buckets for tools so they stay sorted by location and move the racks and shelves and work benches *first* so they can go directly back into place. If it's a long move then palletize everything possible! Then shrink wrap it so the tools can stay outside and be moved in and put in place after the big stuff gets situated. Remember if it can rain IT WILL!

You *can* forge stainless, even the 440 grades. However it is more difficult and the heat treatments is A LOT MORE DIFFICULT and not suggested for a person starting out as getting it wrong can result in injury to your self or friends. Also blades don't get reforged in general as they already are to size and any more forging makes them *under* sized. The old legends speak of taking broken blades and welding them up into a billet and then forging that billet back into a blade---that will be smaller and lighter unless the material lost in the welding and forging is made up by adding more. (Pay no attention on how Hollywood shows it in the movies as it's about as accurate as their super hero movies are to real life...) Now welding up piece of a broken sword *may* improve it if it broke due to inhomogeneity or too high of carbon content. However modern alloys don't suffer that---except that you may introduce it trying to follow what worked for steels 1000+ years ago.

Just like you can straighten a knifeblade after it curves doing the bevel you can also curve a blade as well. However it's a lot easier to make a rather tight curve the way you want it and then open it up by hammering in the bevel. using a hammer with a rounded face helps as you can concentrate the blows just along the edge to do so.

"crisper edges" The old blacksmith books tell folks that when they get a new anvil the first thing they should do is to round the edges. So I guess you can weld up the edge and grind it crisp and then grind it back rounder to get it like it should be... Fishers can be fixed; don't know what you have been reading. There is more of a problem with them if the repairs have to bridge the steel/cast iron interface but it can be done. I would be much more afraid of problems trying to reharden a Fisher, but NOTHING that anvil needs would ever require that---unless it had been through a shop fire. As to previous repairs: if they were done right no problem, if they were done wrong, problem---how they were done---Who Knows? Which is why repaired anvils generally go for substantially less---you just don't know how they were done.

When you worry more about wear than production it may be time to review your equipment and usage. Will the dies save you more time and effort than even having to maintain the guides?

When I lived in Columbus the best coal around was sold by SOFA. I still try to pick up a bag or two anytime I'm out that way, about 1500 miles each way now...

Well we're guessing that they are co-located. Generally a safe assumption; though I remember one summer when I posted from Germany all summer but my location still said Columbus, OH as my account was though OSU.

Cut them off a 1/4" from the bottom! (for real---not a joke.) A lot of the ones I've seen in European medieval history were lapped and forge welded (easier with real wrought iron) the ones that were not looked like they were lower grade and so they didn't care about the seam so much.

Surface area and energy states come into play as well when you get into small stuff

I have a friend who was a metallurgist for a large bearing company over here and he said that small bearings generally had races of stuff like 52100, excellent material for blades but that large bearings were often case hardened 9620 (IIRC) and so not very good material. I wish I could remember the size cut off... So spark test the *interior* of a large race before using!

"The old that is strong does not whither; Deep roots are not reached by the frost" Nicely done example of "the old ways"!

For large chunks in smallish shops welding a "handle" to it works pretty well. When I forged my stake anvil shafts from 2.5" sq stock we welded some 1" sq stock to them so we didn't have to mess with tongs.

I tried that once and found every time I tried to forge weld I was overheating the fan. In my new shop I just have a 10" diameter flue going up at about a 75 deg angle for 10' no constructions, toppers or turns and you can hear the "whoosh" as the fire gets going good. Helps to live where rain isn't much of an issue---in the last 6 months we are still under 1" *total*!

And they are often medium carbon to boot (or higher)

Well the blacksmith of old wouldn't have HC spikes around as they date to "modern" times and the use of spike driving machines---he'd have used an old file or horse shoeing rasp... But the HC spikes compare fairly well with many early medieval blades in carbon content---though the medieval ones tended to have those higher carbon edges forge welded to a wrought iron body. Now the rail clips generally have about twice the carbon content of an HC spike and "occur in the same general areas" so to speak...

Well generally I'm forging *inside* a metal building and using propane during open fire bans as the propane forge counts the same as our propane kitchen stove. I try not to evade restrictions as they really are there for a reason out here. Now it kinda huts to be restricted to propane forges at "medieval events" but if it's that or no forge I grit my teeth and hide the forge as much as possible. Supposed to hit 40 degC next week; I may be spending more time with the books than with the forge.

As most of the professional pattern welders use only propane forges even at mile high+ altitudes I didn't realize this was an issue. I thing the thing is pretty much any solid fuel forge can weld; but you do have to use a propane forge optimized for it.

Montana7; why yes there is a whole group of knifemakers that make *using* knives and do get upset if their work is not used. And there are makers whose knives are not meant to be used and they might get upset if they were... I think the issue is that old anvils are a limited resource and so you get folks that have over 600 of them nicely set in rows in a building; but who do not do any blacksmithing and will only sell for US$6 a pound---rather hurts if you are in an anvil poor region. So you get the "tools are made to be used" folks "squaring off against the "old things should not be used" and a lot of folks who are in between often depending on exact circumstance. Think of it as being thirsty out in the desert and running across a guy "collecting" all the available drinks. A lot of folks who "collect" are NOT folks dedicated to expanding the knowledge of anvils they just like owning them---the folks with lines of them rusting along the driveway, folks with them as garden ornaments. True collectors who specialize and preserve don't bother me too much as they tend to leave most anvils for the folks wanting to use them. (Only thing: they affect the price of anvils as they pay collectors prices for specific ones that tends to drive up prices for others that they wouldn't pay #10 bucks for!) Just today at the fleamarket I was offered a Keen Cutter hewing hatchet in quite decent shape for a great price---I turned it down saying that it would much be better placed with a tool collector. I already had several using ones of not so desirable brand... Now if folks would realize they don't *NEED* a london pattern anvil to do great smithing things might lighten up a bit.

Usually when I start applying beer cans to my finger's and their contents to my stomach it's time to quit for the day before worse happens. I come from the Ozarks in the USA which is home to generations of "Hold my beer and watch this!" type of folks---many of them related to me... One thing you might think of for the mismatched lengths is to lengthen the *long* one a bit more and then curl it over to hang a tong ring through to make that set "self holding" and then you tell folks you *planned* it that way!

My first forge was a porcelain "dry sink" from an old farm scrap pile in OK. It was rectangular and not very deep. I drilled a ring of holes in the end opposite the drain and popped out the inside and ran a piece of blackpipe down the middle and out the drain and drilled a lot of holes in it to act as a tuyere. Then I filled it creek clay and sand to make a v shaped trough in it. I don't recall the sink ever getting hot enough to spall the coating. I used a ramrod in the pipe to control how long a fire I got and burned home made charcoal in it. I do know that some of the old porcelain coated items were high lead due to reading up on lead poisoning when we moved into a house with our young children and found the previous owner ran a shooting range in the basement and had not disclosed this. State Health department came out and did a study on it (they had to recalibrate for one sample where their machine was set up for milligrams of lead and the sample was in *grams*!). Anyway one of the cases I read was of a commune where *1* member came down with lead poisoning, the others showed exposure but his was acute. After an extensive testing they found that the commune had made wine in old cast iron porcelain covered bathtubs where the acidic liquid had etched lead from the coating. The one fellow used to sneak off and go on binges on their homemade wine and so ended up getting too much lead. Lead oxide was a common pigment at one time, now generally replaced with Titanium dioxide.

Saw this over at armourarchive and thought I should share it (sorry about the long url...) http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/12/12190697-fifth-generation-blacksmith-brothers-forge-swiss-guard-harnesses#.T9fcPn7mqmE.email

Well the tools are probably not that useful for you starting out---save for the hot cut; so I would not ascribe them much value---perhaps $5 a piece leaving the anvil at $2.40 a pound. Not a jumping up and down price; but HB is one of the top american brands. 75 pounds is a bit light for a shop anvil though a convenient size for a travel/demo anvil. Don't forget to add in the cost of fetching it---if it's close it's a lot better deal than if you spend over a tank of gas to get it! If you don't have *any* anvils and you do have the cash and the need then go for it. If you already have an anvil or two I'd try to get the price down a bit. (Though the smaller ones generally go for more a pound than some of the larger ones---lots more people can carry around a 75# anvil than a 200# anvil) Most likely gone before the weekend. Anvils that are not over priced go FAST!

I haven't had that problem with my 515# Fisher, of course I don't hit the edges much---save for when there is hot steel between the hammer and them and I *want* to hit there.