ThomasPowers

One basic rule of the internet is to never post anything that you would not be willing to tell a policeman or DA that has a grudge against you. I commend you for your thoughtfulness though; as it's a gift that that person will probably be very happy to get. One of the tough parts of growing up is learning to deal with things you want to tell but shouldn't and things you don't want to tell but should! Think of how the replies might have differed if you merely stated you had obtained a larger sized RR spike and were going to make the knife for his mother to give to him...

That's not too far off the pattern you get slabbing a tree fork.

It comes down to how you want to spend your time: learning to smith or doing welding that you already know. I'd suggest trying to maximize the first and minimize the second and *forge* a lot of Christmas Presents!

So get a mold and make sinkers!

When there was a demo of this at SOFA they used a bicycle pump to inflate the piece staying hot in a gas forge---wanted to show that you could do it even without a compressor!

And if it's out in the general public expect it to disappear *fast*. If you want it go tonight!

YES! bet if you posted your location we could have someone interested in buying it quite quickly indeed!

Sell the lead and buy a large hunk of scrap steel---say a piece of an old bulldozer or the broken knuckle off a RR car. Far better to buy a single hunk than to try to cobble something together. Really if you have that much time and rod to burn you could probably do some welding for other people and BUY a great anvil in cash! Talk to your auto repair place and see if they would like a work bench welded up for them from your scrap on hand! What a large anvil does is put more of the force of the hammer blow into deforming your workpiece and not moving the anvil around---inertia. With the stuff you do a 150# anvil would probably be fine, a nice chunk of 6" shafting would make a great anvil. If we knew where you were we might be able to suggest a place to look for something. As it is we don't know if you are in South Boston, South America or South Africa!

Of course you can build your own positive pressure system that is BETTER than the NIOSH Standards which are *minimum* standards not best standards.

L-6 is only bainitic if it's heat treated to be bainitic! Regular heat treat of L-6 does not form bainite.

Or visit the Deutsches Klingen Museum in Solingen. Last time I was there they had a number of machined swages to use to pattern pattern welded steel. Add Manfred Sachse's Damascus Steel to the book list. One of the problems is that some designs are called different names by different people.

Note that anvil prices are *still* location specific. That price (2.29 $/#) might be a bit high for Ohio and not bad for New Mexico. If you edit your profile to show *your* general location on your posts we could address the price better. It looks in very good condition and of the type of anvil that should ring---not all do. It is a convenient size (and so often a bit higher in price than ones that are not a "one man carry"---however I suggest you start thinking of your back NOW and not after you've already trashed it like so many smiths have!) Would be a good anvil for knifemaking---clean face or smaller ornamental work---sledges and 1"+ sq stock would be a bit much on it. (note that it's a late american style so the sweet spot is smaller than on something with an old english style, but the enhanced horn and the heel are quite handy for decorative work.)

Welcome from the High and Dry, New Mexico. Hope you get another shop set up. One tip: please add your *general* location to your profile so it posts under your name so people can see where you are at without asking every time you post. I was lucky in that my last surgery was my *left* shoulder, or "tong arm", and I could get back in the shop pretty fast. I did take up yoga after that as I found the free yoga class my employer offered did 7 of the 9 exercises that the PT I had to pay $40 a week did and then a whole lot more. Probably has kept me out of the hands of the surgeons several times since then. I know that Frank Turley does Tai Chi as a form of stretching---lots of us start doing this kind of stuff as we get older so we can continue to do what we love!

Might be enough of that handle to do some dendrochronology on! Bog Iron forms quite rapidly in certain conditions---so much so that bogs could be "mined for ore" every 25 to 30 years in some places. Bogs also tend to preserve wood buried in them. (cf Bog Oak) I see no problem with that hammer having been encased in limonite bonded sediment in quite a short time geologically speaking. As pointed out the use of iron/steel is a fairly recent thing and the shape of the hammer does not appear to resemble the older know ones too. Going out on a limb I'd say sometime in the last couple of centuries.

Note that acetone may have negative effects on MANY handle materials and glues!

Tufa does work as does cuttlefish bone. Neither has as fine of a surface finish as a good oil sand. (and actually tufa is available in a number of places as it's derived from volcanic ash, not a rare item in the history of this planet...) One site showing them using it is http://users.frii.com/dnorris/stonecast.html Shoot I've cast silver in molds carved out of soft firebrick. (bad surface finish but it *cast* and clean up is part of the job anyway.)

There has been a history of people linking to his site to use his pictures for commercial content without attribution or for dubious purposes. Hence the blanket ban.

Setting copper harness rivets? Is there a patent number on it?

Since repousse is working from the back side of the piece while chasing is working from the front side I think the title should be Repousse/Chasing myself. (they are usually used together anyway...)

I could just see a variation of that used for door handles at a high end seafood restaurant

Ahhh that is an "actual anvil" of a type that has been in use about 10 times longer than a london pattern anvil. Don't sell it short! Even if it's mild steel and you mess up the face (and plannishing dents can help a heap of a lot) you can flip it over and use the other side. If both sides get trashed have it ground or milled clean and do it again. You probably won't live long enough to have it get appreciable smaller doing that! Just don't cut on it! A cutting plate is a good thing to have. One thing you might think of is welding a piece of structural sq tubing on the side for hardy tooling---or if you want to get fancy---drill a hole just big enough for your sq tubing to fit inside and weld it top and bottom.

Well it can be pretty fun wearing a flannel shirt and having the fuzz whoosh; but if you don't freak out it generally doesn't cause any harm and is probably good for your heart. An old trick was soaking your cloth apron in a borax solution making it fire resistant and helping it clean up in the wash better since borax is sold as a laundry additive!

NOTE: the TYPE of leather makes a difference! Some leathers you can't case as they don't stretch and tighten when wet. Veg Tan, (oak tanned, etc) leather is preferred for making sheaths do to it's wet/dry properties---it's also the type of leather you can tool. You probably know this already but I have run into several "new" people who can't understand whey the chrome tanned leather they are using won't work right---right up there with the folks who forge a knife out of mild steel and then get upset cause it won't harden!

I picked up a couple hundred pounds of petrobond at a school auction once for $25; been using the good stuff for silver casting and have accidentally transferred a finger print with it several times. Gave away my muller when I moved though.

In the early 90's there was some folks on the web even making powerhammers from large pneumatic jackhammers I remember reading of two different methods they used and over 8 years ago I saw a demo at SOFA of Mike Bendele using a hand air tooling to work a bowl--- http://sofablacksmiths.org/meetings/dec/bendele.htm I think that what holds most smiths back from using these tools is the amount of air necessary for the big boys.