ThomasPowers

I'd suggest posting this on the SWABA web page. Of course I used to be president of SWABA---South West Artist Blacksmith Association the ABANA affiliate for NM.

Almost too pretty to use!

Forge welding is a process where it *REALLY* *REALLY* helps to have someone walk you through it a couple of times. If you post your general location you might get an offer from a local smith to work you through a couple of welds. BTW Is the refractory in your forge flux resistant?

Stoody may be too hard for the face; have your read up on Rob Gunter's anvil repair methods? With all your welding so far I know I don't need to remind you about pre/post heating of any welding on the high carbon face! (But for others reading this....)

And they are noted for driving a hard bargain with "the english"

US$1 a pound is the "old baseline" for anvil prices. Even on spec you might want to go a touch higher to get past anyone else bidding the old baseline. *IFF* it's not an ASO of course

That's a brake drum not a rotor BTW How big a wood fire did you build before adding coal? Did you try using real chunk charcoal and getting a good fire going and adding the coal? (Is it coal and not coke?---coke can be a pain to light!) How are you moderating the air? A blowdrier puts out too much air generally And you will need to build a fence around the drum to allow you to pile stuff up without it falling off the edges. 20 gauge black steel sheet will work and you should be able to bend tabs and Bolt or pop rivet them to the filing cabinet top. Best way would be to use two pieces and leave a gap where they meet at both ends so you can slip long pieces into the hot spot. Forge looks good. I think I could have it ready for forge welding in about 15 minutes with my coal here in NM.

Is it running across the face of the anvil or horn to heel? The old style anvils like Mousehole welded up the faces from multiple sections of High C steel laid side to side and I'd bet they had a slanted edge to make for a better weld. Just guessing I'd say that one of the weld seams has let go. I'd ignore it if you can while waiting for an ABANA affiliate to have an "anvil repair day" and get it welded up properly (I like the Gunter method myself---had a 410# anvil repaired that way after a hard life in the nasty clutches of a copper mine maintenance department...) at the clinic. If it is a weld failure of a section of the face plate you may want to see if the section shows signs of cracking along the edges and if it has any ring left that will indicate it's not delaminating. If it's good I would not be too upset but get it fixed and get on with using it.

OTOH I never advise a new person with no background in the craft to sink large amounts of money into spiffy tools *before* they know if they will be sticking with it. As I tell my students: "This is what I do for FUN; if it's not FUN for *you* there is nothing wrong in stopping!" I've had a lot of folks that *thought* they wanted to be smiths; but after trying it a while decided that it wasn't for them. My loaner equipment has come back more times from folks bowing out than from folks finding their own to continue with. I sure went through a lot of different stuff during my teenage years before zeroing in on smithing for the last 30+ years.

Frosty; I think it was a paid hit myself---probably the bears taking exception to what you were doing in the woods...

Depends on what you want to make and old Ag piles can have real wrought iron in them too! In general anything that's not too large or too small or too chewed up or PLATED, (galvanized, chrome, nickle, cadmium, etc). I like to look for items that are already 1/2 way to something I want to make---eg have an upset area with tapered down areas that I can use, good length, etc. How much storage do you have? Many new smiths overdo it and have a large scrap pile that sits around for years until the neighbors show up with pitchforks and torches and code enforcement. (one new smith exulted over all the RR spikes he had collected, *many* *times* the number I have used in over 30 years of smithing!) If your sister is willing to "save the pile for you" I'd only take the best stuff (as scrappers can come along and steal it) Things to look out for: old wagon tyres---often WI, Hay rake tines or potato digger bars---Hich C in useful shapes for small knives and firesteels; coil and leaf springs, good got blades and tooling, old files---high C again, old tools in general, some of my favorite tools have come out of scrap piles and tools are often a good start towards forging other things---I'm making a desert shrub out of rusted out wood auger bits right now for example. Useful shapes I have a set of shelves filled with bits that are solely used to hammer metal against---cones, tubes, squares, parts of old heavy equipment, dishing forms, etc. Finally plan to go back and revisit the pile; I go back to the scrap yard at least once a month and find stuff I missed the first time or didn't know I needed. PS You might even scrap some of it for $$ yourself and use that to buy stuff you wanted but can't find as scrap. I buy old welding gas tanks cheap and turn them into bells and dishing forms; last visit to the scrapyard I brought a bucket of tank valvestems and sold them as brass and paid for a typical visit.

The big stamping plant out back of where I used to work used a woodblock floor to good effect for over 50 years as well---factory had 5000 employees at it's height. Western Electric, Columbus Ohio

The biggest HT problem most of us have is that we often really *don't* know what the metal is. we know what someone *told* us it is or *sold* us as a specific alloy; but we all know how things can slip up down the line. If you follow a well defined process for what an alloy should use to get a specific result and don't get that result; suspect the alloy!

Ouch; that is expensive on a per foot basis compared to buying a 20' stick at a steel dealer! You may be surprised to find where you can buy steel cheap---my best local source is a Windmill Sales, Repair and Installation place they sell metal by the stick as they get a better price the more they buy from the big dealers. Their price is about 1/3rd off that of the local lumber yard. The closest "real" steel dealer is about 50 miles away---the joys of living in the country! I usually search the scrap yard first and if I can't find something I can use hit the Windmill place on the way home.

Since you are already restricting yourself so much---why ask us? Personally I would probably get the little one and then keep an eye out for a good used anvil at a good price later---but I'm cheap---my most expensive *good* anvil was about US$1.50 a pound---last year. It sounds like the little one will suit your needs but we have no idea what will happen in the future. Or the state of your finances now. Frankly I have a lot more hours on my 93# anvil than on my 515#; but that is a lot due to it being my travel anvil where I get to spend all day at demo's using it. The larger one is a JOY to use when I get to use it. "Go not to the Elves for Advice for they shall say both Yea and Nay"

So no changes from normal attire? Even though we are a Radio Astronomy Observatory we had the proper filters and optical telescopes to see the transit here at work out on the patio. Neat but not as impressive as the annular eclipse...

That's a KEEPER and a great deal to boot! Mouse holes have a squat "industrial" look to them and a much bigger sweet spot (Face area where there is solid metal all the way to the base where you can do heavy hammering without fear of damage to horn or heel) than many other types of anvils. I'm still looking for one myself and would have JUMPED on that deal if it was near local to me!

Ahh I was thinking viking---my bad!

It's the largest annual blacksmiths conference in the United states; held in western Ohio usually the last full weekend in September. *Anyone* who signs up for the conference can tailgate for no added fee so a lot of folks put out a table or a tarp or a tailgate and "clean the shop" making for often great deals---and with searching some *very* *great* deals* Whenever I can I drive from NM with a 22 year old PU with no cruise control or airconditioning. Over the last few years I have gotten a 6" post vise for $50 in good shape, a set of Ti tongs for $10, a 200+ year old postvise for $20, Ti, 1095, H13, 4 different types of refractory, books, lynch collection hammers---$5 a head!!!!, old hardy tooling including top tools that I forge down the striking end to fit my 1.5" hardys for a couple of bucks a pop, great coal, etc, etc, *etc*! It's held on a county fairgrounds so you can camp out with the other smiths and spend the hotel money of *stuff*! A bunch of us old junkyard folks camp together there

Less wear on your fingers having a rounded area to bear against---whatever shape or material it is! Notice how different folks make use of what is handy to them? Corn cobs, golf balls, antler, pine branches,...

Anvil prices also vary by location, just here in the United States an anvil I bought where I used to live could be sold for almost double where I live now. In whatever country you live I have no idea!

When you knock it over and spill burning coals and redhot metal on yourself and the ground---will that be a problem? Can you trap the rotor between two flanges with a nipple? (and yes that is the correct plumbing term for what I am talking about)

I'm about 2 hours interstate drive closer to the fire than Frank. We've had the valley so full of smoke you couldn't see a mile in it and had to close up the house and run off internal fans to try to breathe overnight. It's better now but it all depends on the wind direction. My problem is that when I wake up in the middle of the night and smell wood fire smoke I tend to want to get up and check out the house to make sure *we're* not burning.

That's a good one---everyone knows that for dark items like weapons you need to work in the dark of the moon!

McMaster-Carr is the "wish book"---I have a copy of the big catalog; but golf balls are free, don't see how paying for something is cheaper than free? As I have mentioned the building I work in is next to a golf course; we get golf balls in the parking lot on a regular basis. I like how the golf ball fits my hand too. Ergonomics comes into play when you spend hours filing! Never had a golf ball burn around my forge so the toxics of them burning are not a concern. Save for the hot rasp all my files are a distance away from the forges. The hot rasp usually is stored farther away from the forge than *I* am. Do you burn up your file handles on a regular basis? I figure you must if that's a materials consideration. My shoes have plastic/rubber/? soles and I wear them around the forge too and have stepped on hot bits (Students!!!!!), what do you use to not have such issues with them? I use the smell to tell me to *move*! Does wood have a longer life around a metal shop? I've been smithing for over 30 years now and can't recall a golf ball "wearing out" but I have had wooden items split on me over time, Ohio had a bad winter/summer humidity swing and out here in NM single digit humidities are common---though today it's a swampy 23% RH. Now if you prefer wooden handles Great!---De gustibus non disputandum est--- and you've shared a great source for them. I must admit I picked up one of the old cast iron file holders at the fleamarket last week. Mainly so I will not be using a flaming yellow golf ball handle at historical demos...