ThomasPowers

In my experience the money for top brand abrasives is always saved several times over from using cheap ones. I remember getting some cheap ones once and watching the disks visibly decrease in size during a cut where a good brand did many cuts before getting noticeably smaller. (So I look for good brand abrasives at the fleamarket...)

Diver is that a "rice pilum"?

The welding temp of the files will be above the melting point of copper and copper alloys melt even lower. you might look up dambrascus for a mixed metal method. I've done pattern welding in a hole in the ground using charcoal sieved out of old bonfire ashes and using a claw hammer and a chunk of rr rail. it's the *skills* you need not fancy equipment!

May I suggest you ask this question over at armourarchive.org a set of forums that specialize in people making medieval and renaissance armor today. Sure there are a few of us that play in both places; but there are hundreds of folks some of which make armor professionally over there! The basic answer is that things are strapped and pointed save those that use sliding rivets, etc And you are correct it would not be attached to the underlying maille

CHARCOAL++ but real charcoal not briquettes. Real charcoal was what was used for the first 2000 years of blacksmithing with coal sneaking in in places in the high to late middle ages in Europe. Using wood means you are making charcoal as you go and enduring the smoke and heat it gives off. You can make your own charcoal separately if you want to, either ahead of time or by having a fire you can raid for glowing coals. (I built a shovel made from rock shaker screen so I can steal coals and leave the ash behind...)

Find the local ABANA affiliate!

Considering I'm at work with a copy of "Metal Techniques in Medieval India" sitting on my desk while I'm testing astrophysical software I don't know if that is a help....

Dang and now you have me all interested in Ligurian Weaponry and I'll have to look it up for my self...

a typical blow drier puts out way too much air for a wood fired forge and here in the USA can often be found for trivial amounts of money at yard sales. Where are you at?

OK every went to the city to celebrate and I was stuck home---have to work today so: "Metal Technology in Medieval India" says that they would pack castings in "pulverized iron ore and heating them to bright redness for many days"...."Lengthy heat-treatment in this temperature range slowly removed the carbon present as iron carbide in the metal as cast. This decarburization was partial to complete, according to the thickness of the casting and the temperature and time of heating. The metal thus produced was almost free from carbon and for the first time provided ferrous castings possessing some toughness and ductility." "The packing performed three functions: First, it supplied the oxygen for oxidizing the carbon, second, it supported the castings that otherwise would have softened and lost shape under the applied heat, third, it acted as a 'buffer', shielding the castings from direct contact with the furnace atmosphere---a contact which in the long period of heating would have caused undue oxidation of the iron as well as the carbon, creating a heavy scale on the castings and perhaps even destroying thin sections." Note that what you get from this process is not wrought iron as it does not have the definitive ferrous silicate spicules in it. Other indirect methods required the addition of silicates often from the bed of the furnace or as in the byers process adding slag to the iron and mixing. (This book has a description of how they refined zinc way before the Europeans figured it out that is pretty wild and is not nearly so jingoistic as most of the "China did it first" books I have read.)

Not my favorite straight peen; but I have one too. Had to buy it at a fleamarket as my Father and Uncle both spent their careers in the Bell System---I only got 15 years in Bell Labs myself.

Picked up a bottle or pipe wrench today at the fleamarket---like this one: About 4-5' long; US$5 I hope it will make taking the valves out of pressurized gas bottles easier as I can clamp the valve and then turn the bottle with it

Can we have a picture of the bottom of the anvil? If you are in the USA I know that several ABANA affiliates have had "anvil repair workshops" as I have had anvils repaired in Ohio and in New Mexico at such an event. Just the hardy and the horn would make for a decent deal depending on price as you can always use a "block" anvil for the hammering.

Rust can be quite crusty; I recently found a mooring cleat at a scrapyard out here in the desert and have been chipping off rust crud over 1/4" thick---I'm saving it to try it in my bloomery...

Power co. coal is usually low grade bituminous used in ground up form. There is some pressure to use lower sulfur coal in power plants but not anthracite here in the USA. (China does use anthracite for power generation IIRC) "Bituminous coal is mined in the Appalachian region, primarily for power generation" Wikipedia "anthracite coal is more expensive than other forms of coal due to its high quality. This is the primary reason that anthracite coal is not used in power plants" tech faq So try it if it works for you; good; if it doesn't you are not out much. What I used to hunt for along the tracks was industrial coke; had a bucket of it for special projects.

If one side closes before the other it's not a bent screw---if it was then the side that closed first would change as the screw rotated---right? So the moving leg of the vise has a slight twist in it---probably from someone putting a big piece right out on the edge of the jaws and hunkering down on the vise---maybe bending the handle to do it... You can take the vise apart and using a press *lightly* re-align it. I would not try just putting a big piece in the jaws and trying to re-do the damage the other way as total failure of the screw or screw box can happen. Folks this is why you need to make a set of vice spacers so you can drop one on the opposite side of the jaws to keep the vise from twisting. I take a set of say 2" long sq stock in ascending sizes and saw or split the top down a bit and heat and fold the tabs out to rest on top of the vise jaws. I also stamp the size on the top so students who can *see* what size works can figure it out. Keep a set of spacers near each postvise! Note don't try to cold straighten the vise handle as it is probably real wrought iron and so needs to be HOT to be worked without danger of cracking.

No way the heck is that a Mousehole---totally different shape! Note the absence of the small sharp ridged feet which would be indicative of an early Mousehole. It's so different from a Mousehole that if it was *stamped* Mousehole I'd do a real careful investigation of the stamping vs known examples to see if someone "retrofitted" the stamping. Note too that they are making anvils without pritchel holes at this very moment down in Mexico so the lack of a pritchel doesn't date it when it's not an old anvil style. (not to mention pritchels being retrofitted to earlier anvils was fairly common too) That looks like a cast anvil to me and I could only suggest trying the ring and the rebound *BEFORE* spending any money on it. If you get a good ring and an 80% or better rebound on the ball bearing test then It probably be a decent anvil to get. Definitely don't buy it before testing!

And I've seen Billy Merrit do welds at a temp I'd not consider hot enough to forge at---without that flux. My point was that I felt using the "fancy" terms might be a bit misleading for some smiths who may not know the technical terms for borax. There is no one temp for welding as the NM Tech campus demonstrates as they have a lot of examples of explosive welding Art on display and we all have probably galled a bolt in our time. ("Solid Phase Welding of Metals", Tylecote, has way more info on this topic than anyone is likely to want or need...and yes a copy is on my bookcase) I'm sure it's a fine flux; I think there are a lot of great fluxes out there. I generally mix my own for billet welding from 20 mule team and roach pruf and I have taken a billet I welded up and stood it vertically and forged it down to a disk with out weld failure (several heats!) and so that seems to do me fine. Oh yes my mixture would be: "Borax, also known as sodium borate, sodium tetraborate, or disodium tetraborate", Na2B4O7·10H2O and Boric acid, also called hydrogen borate, boracic acid, orthoboric acid and acidum boricum", H3BO3. Hmm I like that "acidum boricum" sounds much more scientific than roach pruf...

My 6" post vise is mounted to the utility pole that holds up the shop roof on that side of the shop---buried 5' and concreted in. For the center of the floor vise I plan to cement in a large square piece of tubing and mount the vise on a different piece that will nest in the buried one so I can remove the vise when I need to move something large into the shop.

I used a single soft firebrick and plumbing torch forge to make nails and hot forge silver as I could do it inside my drafty old (stone walled) basement in Ohio during the winters. I found that it was quite acceptable as long as you were not in a big hurry. Getting an adapter to run a small torch off a BBQ tank brings the fuel cost way down!

Wow, *sorted* nuts and bolts and in a cabinet---tis a find indeed. I was just happy to find the remains of somebody's bolt collection dumped in a bucket at the scrap yard---very handy to have some on hand when it would cost more in gas to get to town than buying the bolts on a project would...

Sorry didn't get a chance to dive into my library last night---my youngest Daughter is getting married today and things were at sixes and sevens round my place.

I remember a tale from the hills of an old smith with a "magic quenching fluid" that he had paid another smith famed for his blades for his recipe and would get it made up at a local pharmacy at some expense (where the pharmacist was in on the scam...) It was "an aqueous solution of sodium chloride"... OTOH if like Dumbo's magic feather if makes you *feel* like you can do it it may be just what some folks need!

I know a smith, (Hi Patrick!), that uses hot pink as his tool colour---says that most smiths won't even ask to *borrow* a tool so marked much less have them walk off.

You win some and you lose some---but you lose *ALL* that you don't try for. I was once taking a car for a test drive and spotted a postvise leaning against a tumble down shed---my wife wouldn't let me stop; but after we bought the car I returned and got the vise and a 125# PW that was hidden away in the shed. Fellow was in his late 80's and living fairly sparsely and was quite happy that not only did he get some money for it; it was going to be loved and used in the proper manner. (I ended up trading it in on a 400+# anvil that the owner was tired of moving as he traveled; but still wanted an anvil to keep his dreams alive...)