ThomasPowers

Yup that would look a treat and do some heavy joinery work for the stretchers and then put a rough hewn barn oak top on it and then get several thousand dollars for your "work bench"... What I was getting at is that it would be a shame to cut it smaller---like having a big diamond; sure you could cut it into a hundred small diamonds; but---you can't put smaller diamonds back into a single big one and if you then needed a big one you would have to pay through your nose for what you once had to hand! If you have HC experience just take some automotive coil springs and make some light, tough tongs from them.

I found a PEXTO stake plate at the local scrapyard Saturday, 8" x 30", in *mint* condition---no damage whatsoever. Bought it and the rest of my finds for US$10 total! I'll have to see about getting a picture taken of it. Better deal than my last stake plate that did have a couple of damaged holes that I was happy to pay $25 for... Now to kick the big anvils out into the smithing shop and free up the *old* RR bridge timber baulk I pulled out of a flooding stream once---makes a nice stand as it's about 8' long and just the right height for my large anvils or stakes with some stem length---with two plates I'll mount one cut in flush with the top of the baulk and I'll mount the other about 6" higher with some heavy lumber I can cut and mount to the baulk---for the two level effect!

Fit's the definition as I know it: recuperative furnace, noun a furnace having its incoming air heated by exhaust gases, the passage of air and gases through the furnace being always in the same direction. Do you know a term better suited to this exact type?

Aww why not? Considering I just picked up a mint condition PEXTO stake plate for under $10 at the scrapyard (and for free if you consider that the other stuff that came in that $10 can be sold today for more than $10...) I think I can take a bit of gloating---or commiseration if you went the other way...

I take the tubing and hacksaw it at the corners about 1/2" or more down and then fold out the tabs. Makes it sit on the anvil nicely and as mentioned serves as a wear shield as well. For my 1.5" hardy holes I've had to double sleeve but luckily I've only had to tab the outer one as the inner sq tube one is a force fit.

Nice find! You can mount the edwards shear on a large baulk of lumber say 4 RR ties stacked two on two and bound together. Most folks use them on the f=ground for heavy shearing as they then don't have to do much in the way of supporting the stock. I know I don't need to warn you about the extreme danger of using old grinding wheels *especially* if the grinder is being run off a modern much higher rpm motor than the old ones were. Pity as large new grinding wheels are quite pricy---however when an ER visit or grave plot is factored in they end up quite cheap really!

Seasoned tree stump with a heat shrunk band around the top. Elm would have been nice...

Weird combination weapons were made. I've seen gun swords and gun axes before; but never one with the mortar as well. In general they are less useful than either of the separate items.

WAY too much work for tongs especially without a large powerhammer. Save it for a large ornamental iron commission like large crosses or major gates or in small lengths you can make quite ornate dragon door knockers. Handy thing to have on the steel rack; but you'd be better off in time and money mowing lawns and buying steel for tongs than re-working those! Once those are broken down you can't put them back and they would be *very* expensive to replace.

How good a scrounger are you? What are the "pickins" like where you are at? How fast do you need it? I'm about ready to build my treadle hammer as I have the anvil solid 5-6" round stock about 4' long, 4140---for free, base 1" 2'x3' for $40 and the upright I beam for $15. Arms and springs are free in my scrap pile already. (and I'm trying to talk a mechE student into taking on the project in return for forge time...) Never priced doing a tire hammer as I've bought two Champion powerhammers at US$750 and $600.

Tools for powerhammer use often profit by being quite short---less chance of them getting shot out if they are canted slightly and you can get more bang for the buck when you pay for the high alloy steels like H13 or S7. Hand hammered tooling is often taller to get the hand away from the hot piece or to get clearance to see the workpiece with the hand in the way. Making a tool holder to hold short tooling can help in this usage as well.

The front of the moving jaw on several of my vises have the weight stamped and on one the date was stamped (1899). I had a Columbian that the back of the fixed jaw had Columbian, Cleveland OH etc in fine raised letters. I've had Iron City with the 6 point start on the side of the fixed leg.

Not an afterburner but a recuperative system---well known in industry and in blacksmithing the Sandia Forge plans using a recuperative system have been out for decades. You may want to look at them as I think their method is easier/better.

Note that shipping is another $108 so factor that into the final price. Last year I paid US$150 for 112 pound Peter Wright anvil is superb shape in Albuquerque NM found on Craigslist. Zero shipping cost---my wife picked it up when she went to the city on other business. I got a steal of a deal---why I bought it. For that anvil note that the *starting* price of about $3 a pound is about max for what I'd suggest someone pay for one. Depends on how flush you are and how much you need an anvil; but I'd expect it will go up quite a bit before the end of the auction. E-bay is generally not a good place to buy anvils as the shipping is murder and is often a hidden cost.

Charcoal really goes well with a hand crank blower or bellows. Pretty much any electric blower puts out way too much air for most charcoal fueled forges and so you have to waste or meter it severely! I like how SOFA had their forges set up where the air is only on while you are standing on the foot switch---keeps new folks focused on the forge and burns up much less coal and *steel*! As to if coal is worth it---well some coal isn't worth it if they offer to pay you to haul it away! Other coal is the stuff you dream about when you have good dreams. A different fuel is a different learning situation though. Propane is probably the easiest fuel to learn on as it's more of a set it and forget it situation with a decent forge. Charcoal is next easier and coal the hardest as it often takes more "messing" with the fire as you forge.

It backs up the edge a bit more than a straight V, it's a common edge in knifemaking though.

Good to see you are hammering! Offer to trade a welder a bottle opener or two for putting the two pieces together strongly! They will help each other out if they are "one mass".

What are you slitting and what temperature do you do it at? My tooling is S1 and H13 with fairly short shafts. I dress as needed but don't notice it being worse than hand hammering the slitter through. I would say I have a more "appleseed edge" on my slitters smoothly transitioning to the drifter part on those that do. Have you tried one of the high tech punch lubes if you have a lot to do and so worth the extra effort?

Start saving your scale from forging---it's high grade magnetite ore you know...

The "fun" of old tooling is that you are never sure of what you've got! Some old tools were high carbon WI (blister steel), others were low carbon WI with high carbon ends welded on---and may have lost the ends through wear or poor welds. Local scrap stream made a difference too---Out here the mines provided a lot of broken rock drill shafting and so you see stuff that *shouldn't* be HC; but is as that's what's handy on the scrap pile. Old farm equipment may tend toward wagon tyre reuse even when HC would have been better. (nice in that random short chunks of reused WI wagon tyre are cheaper to buy than complete Antique Wagon Tyres!! My local scrap yard increases the price for "antiques"---at least till they figured out I didn't give a squat about stuff being antique I was buying *scrap* and would happily toss overpriced stuff back on the pile giving them *nothing* rather than a premium price on scrap they didn't have to truck 100+ miles to re-sell.) This is why it's always a good idea to do a spark test on old stuff you will be using and not just on an end! (I have a couple of 2' long bolts that sparked "old" HC unexpectedly.)

I generally have several anvils around the forge in different orientations so I don't have to move them around in use. That's one of my excuses for owning more than 1 anvil and I'm sticking to it---(when it's very cold...) Actually last weekend I was doing some specialty forging and what worked best for me was horn pointing at me with the work at 90 deg and me swinging straight down on the sweet spot---just the way one of the shop's diagrammed in "Practical Blacksmithing" had theirs back in the 1880's or 1890's! I used a squat english style anvil, (a Powell) so I had no encouragement to try to "straddle" a long horn to get in closer.

Now I have a big old school H frame screwpress and I use it to slit/start to drift in 1" high carbon steel---old rock drill shaft---in one heat and it works a treat. One thing nice is that you know when you have exceeded the working time and can stop before you start cracking/tearing your stock. It really helps to have high alloy tooling---H13, S7, etc. Making your "fence" to have a gap where the slitting/drifting is going on lets you flip the piece and still hit the same spot. if your stock is too short for this you can scribe or soapstone lines around the original piece cold when it's aligned and then do pretty well getting it spot on when you flip it when hot.

Now; can you tell us if you have forge welded before and just started having a glitch? Are you welding a billet. a basket, a drop the tongs weld? Are you welding WI, mild, HC, tool steel or a mix? I've been forge welding for over 25 years now and I have found some batches of steel just don't seem to like to weld. For them I go back to first principles: scarf, cleanliness, reducing clean fire, good flux, good timing and NOT HITTING TOO HARD and generally I can convince them to take a weld. (Some cold rolled seems to profit by having the faces ground, CR and Ni alloys need a more aggressive flux, etc)

So you slitting 1" long at a go or 6"? Mild steel, stainless steel, tool steels? I'd think about going with one where you can do the slitting at 1 heat or at most 2---1 per side.

Have you prepped for the trip by watching Escanaba in da Moonlight? Very important if you will be around Yoopers!