ThomasPowers

Well it's been set up a bit odd. Usually the spring is fitted between the mounting bracket and the fixed leg and held tight by wedges crisscrossing in a slot in the mounting bracketjust behind the fixed leg. In your case it looks like someone made a mounting bracket to hold the fixed leg against the bench and so didn't have it set up to hold the spring in place and flipped the spring and used another bracket. If you want it back the way it originally was you need to make another mounting bracket which can be as simple as a piece of angle iron and a U bolt (UNPLATED!) forged to fit around the fixed leg and spring---Columbian Vises used this method commercially. Or as fancy as curlicue mounting brackets and the traditional wedge system.

I've know people to use almost any "soft" metal: mild steel, copper, Al, (with Cu and Al mainly for cold work)

So part of the system on a foundation and part on no foundation? 1 wet year and you can have trouble! I think you are trying to spend too much money on this over time rather than electing to do it right the first time...

Yup the Albuquerque RR Shop back in the 1940's IIRC. Note the keeper on the tongs and the frame to give you more side leverage to rotate the workpiece

So what did SOFA say when you asked them?

To quote "Big Trouble in Little China" "Marry them Both!" You should be able to find a used AC lincoln Tombstone welder for around US$150 in these parts and it's a great welder for many items where you wouldn't want to buy a full spool of special alloy wire. The Mig is a great addition to the shop's welding capacity but will probably be more expensive and used ones are a bit more prone to problems as it involves moving parts.

They said it was found cleaning out old barns; but they are Murphy's Marine company and it's very rusty---Anchor anyone?

Kendrick---WHAT CONTINENT ARE YOU ON? (Makes a difference unless you are happy to pay international shipping for rocks!)

Colleen has it nailed! If they are similar in weight and both have the same rebound go for the one in better shape!

I spent 15 years in a rough neighborhood in Columbus OH; My shop was in a falling down detached garage on the back end of the lot along the alleyway. I kept all tools that weighed less than 200# in the basement of the house---including an anvil I used to have to carry up and out and back down every time I wanted to forge on it. One day the leader of the local trainer gang (young teens) stopped by and got interested and so I talked with his parents and had him over to forge a knife. I don't know if he ever finished filing it; but from that day forward my shop was never tagged and very seldom broken into!

So how many of you gave your Mother a hand forged gift? I gave mine a chunk of vesicular basalt that was a bit heart shaped (out of the local arroyo with 3 "clumps" of old wood auger bits---rusted past recovery---forged into a semblance of a local desert plants and mounted in holes I drilled into the rock. The younger siblings---about 30+ years younger---have a big dog that's tearing up her plants so I gave her one that will either not notice the dog or teach it NOT to mess with it! My Father said that the local Dr he goes to might want one like that too.

When you are tapering pipe you are upsetting the side walls---so they should be hot!. If you are just bending the ends in then the rest can be cold...

Well lets see, there was about 100' of 1/2" WI rod in the remains of a wooden RR car rotting in the desert---as in a low mound of snakes and rotted wood you could pull the Wi out of. Then there has been quite a bit at the scrap yard around here---old mine and farm metal including some wagon tyres at much better than antique price! Then next to the scrapyard is the trash transfer station where the guy running it lets me scrounge the scrapmetal pile---he gave me a couple of wagon tyres! My best scores were: the mending "bolts" for a 1880's cistern that was cracked in the 1906 quakes in Socorro. They were going to bulldoze the place down and so I got permission to extract the "bolts"---116' of 1" wrought iron! And then there was the old water tank at the Ohio State Penitentiary they tore down. They were selling the bars off as decorative pieces---expensive but I bout the old water tower at scrap rate by the ton. 3/16" and 5/16" WI plate bi directionally rolled. Funny thing: knife makers often want the really nasty WI for fittings as it has a lot more "character" than the good stuff---I once sent a friend a box of the best stuff I had and he complained; so I replaced it with a nasty old wagon tyre and he was happy!

Might put in a couple of supports at the front that are Decorative---show off your talents and are easily removed, (wing nuts?), as they are not really needed but might help sag in the cantilever over time.

As I've just accrued the last major chunk of steel I need for a treadle hammer I was thinking of going over to the Mechanical Engineering department at the University next door and seeing if any of their students needed a project.

Usually temperature rating is correlated with price so we are happy to use the lowest rating that will work.

489.888 pounds per cubic foot of steel not 750! Wrought Iron and Cast iron will be a bit lighter.

Well I'd walk over to my Champion RR forge and say---just like that! Previous owner burnt a chunk of RR rail in two in it once...

You can taper sq tubing by hammering it just like one can taper pipe by squaring it and then hammering it. A "bevel" is just a short taper! Still have to weld in an end piece to get a "hammer"

It has the lines of an older english anvil of which Mousehole is only the best known in the USA of several hundred manufacturers in England who's anvil look a lot alike. My main shop anvil has 2 1.5" sq hardy holes and I have done two separate things for tooling: 1: I found a piece of sq steel tubing that fits the hardy and sawed it on the end on the diagonals and bent back the flaps so it will drop in the hardy hole and stay---the flaps resting on the anvil face. Actually I did that twice with nesting tubing to get to the size of my common hardy tooling. 2: I have picked up mushroomed/beaten up top tools and removed the handles and forged the eye section to fit in the hardy hole---my screwpress is great for truing up parallel sides. Every time I go to Quad-State I pick up a tool or two with either the thick shank or a top tool for only a couple of bucks apiece---top tools with wrecked tops or messed up eyes are cheap! So with 2 hardy holes I leave one sleeved for 1" shanks and the other open for 1.5" tooling.

You might check the set up in "Step by Step Knifemaking" as he used a bench grinder. NOTE working on the side of a grinding wheel designed for use on the edge IS NOT SUGGESTED! Failure modes are quite nasty!.

I have a Buda Liberty hand crank grinder with built in dressing tool. Lovely item and works much better than my cheap little hand crank grinder I take to camping demo's.

I pick out any good pieces of coke (from a a coal fire that is out)then shovel out the stuff in the firepot into a metal bucket and soak it in water and then toss it on the gravel driveway. Fines left over get swept down the tuyere to the ash dump and dumped into a metal bucket and likewise. Coal on the forge pan but not in the firepot get extinguished and left for next time. If the stuff is cold cold you can just throw it in a plastic bag and add it to the garbage where I am at.

I've been to the anechoic chamber at Bell Labs Murray Hill; spooky! You can hear your blood running in your veins and arteries it's so quiet!