ThomasPowers

I used to live in Holmdel NJ (exits 114 & 117 on the GSP); but I didn't pick up my Fisher timm 20+ years later when I was living in OH.

I'm generally cutting kindling at my forge with a bearded blade and none of them have a "wall hanger" polish to them. I like *using* blades! (Of course I remember digging an impromptu firepit with a pattern welded knife and seeing folks eyes bulge out a bit---I made it what could I do to it that I couldn't fix!)

I'd guess it would most likely be "tagged" with stainless, nickle or even brazed as commonly used alloys on cast iron equipment. Careful use of a cutting disk on an angle grinder is usually indicated. As is careful evaluation of "Do I really need to do this or can this particular bodged repair be left in place?"

Blanket liners tend to react to flux like cotton candy does to boiling water. What will the interior of the forge by coated with?

I've forged CP 1&2 Ti in coal, charcoal and propane forges. At temp it is far softer than steel to forge. It also absorbs gases and will become brittle upon cooling so it's a "Fast and Few" heat material. I have a student forging some knives from it---terrible alloy for a knife but it really impresses the Titanophiles which is what he's going for, (and not any worse than 304 stainless for table cutlery) Also it is a right royal pain to finish as it *laughs* at abrasives! (And while it's soft at forging temp it undergoes a change as it cools so it's thwap, thwap, thwap, *TING*---time to reheat!) Thomas; I've been saving your stuff up for job worthy of it. As I've been mainly doing historical stuff lately I haven't found a suitable person to use it for an ancient greek or viking Ti implement. How about this---I'll forge some of it at the NM State Fair next month!

Spotted owls like old growth forests; this beast chews up young growth stuff. What I don't like about them is that they leave the wood splintered, "beaten into submission"---very nasty to try to pass through and unusable for basic wood craft

Yes the direct method will work; though you will need experience to get a good burn/char ratio. The indirect method has the advantage is that you can burn up wood that won't make good charcoal to make the good charcoal and have a 100% conversion for the good stuff. Nowadays I tend to just build a fire in my raised firepit and transfer over the hot coals as needed to the forge. I alos sift the ashes from our wood stove to have a supply of pre-made stuff for special needs.

But Don; all my bearded "repros" are *users*! They used them then I use them now.

Wow; I just got a copy of this book yesterday and my wife didn't tell me about it till breakfast. Durn near made me late for work and first thing today is the conference call with my boss in Germany! I was highly impressed in how well this book was put together, great binding, printing, lots of pictures. The Civil War I'm generally interested was between Stephen and Matilda around 1139 but just after looking through this book I get an uncontrollable urge to build one of the ACW forge carts. The plans and instructions and pictures make it seem like even building the wheels could be done in a simple shop like mine. I also really like the section of common items wanted by re-enactors and how to forge them---very handy for a new smith wanting to break into the game! This is a great book and I'm really happy to have it in my bookcase of smithing books---it'l go an a middle shelf where it's easy to find and show to people! If you have been thinking of getting one; do it! If Dave has some copies to hand he'd probably be willing to sign it for you as well!

My swageblock came from a "Thrifty Nickle" add in a country paper. Said "anvil for sale" but when I talked to the guy he said it was funny shaped with a lot of cutouts on the sides. I said "That's a swageblock and I'll buy it!" Then called my boss and told him I would be in late that day. This was back in the early 1980's in OK.

1950 is just a baby! I sometimes work on a William Foster date stamped 1828. Age doesn't mean much to anvils till you start getting into the 1700's and earlier. Fisher's are great anvils particularly for people in suburbia or in the city as they are very quiet; I'm out in the country but a big Fisher is my pride and joy in my smithy.

Actually most of the old english anvils had feet like that and with over 200 different makers over there... Just mousehole was one of the bigger exporters to the US and se they look "mousehole" to us.

I was at Quad-State that year that a fellow showed up with a good sized flatbed filled with swageblocks full of concrete. Turns out that they were demolishing an old factory that used to make swageblocks and the "seconds" were used as fill when they cast a new concrete floor. When they started tearing up the floor up popped a bunch of swageblocks. Those "seconds" sure looked a lot better than some of the "firsts" nowadays! (What I love about Q-S, something weird always seems to show up---besides me I mean...Like those ballistic missile nose cones being sold as "cones"...)

So I'd guess that they were more like AR stuff used for grader blades to be tough and wear resistant and so would make great tooling as long as you don't have to cold cut or grind them!

I was able to download and save it on my system. Now to see if my Finnish office made knows any Norwegian...

Well you might want to read the instruction on hardening steel written in 1120 by Theophilus in "Divers Arts". Easy to find in a good english translation and it's the source for "quenching in the urine of a small red headed boy; or that of a goat fed ferns for 3 days" For other wild quenchants "Sources for the History of the Science of Steel", has a list of renaissance ones. Might check out the FoxFire books for any anecdotes they have too. If someone heckles I like to offer to hot shoe them---last set of shoes you'll ever need---they wear like iron! And if someone asks "won't it hurt?" I say "No I'll wear my hearing protectors!" Moxon's "Mechanics Exercises" has good info on smithing, published in 1703 "Practical Blacksmithing" a collection from a smithing journel from the 1880's and 1890's might give good background. Something that impresses the young'uns is to press the "cold" workpiece against the anvil stump---the smoke and fire makes their eyes get big. And you can explain how more smiths get burned by "cold" metal than by "hot" metal. I explain how my great grandfather dealt with the problem by chewing tobacco and just spitting on an unknown piece to see if it was hot. I like to know the basics of metallurgy as you always get someone....being able to talk about the solid phase transition from body centered cubic to face centered cubic when the steel gets heated and telling folks it's easy to remember as you go from body to face as the temp goes up and indicating it on your body and face. We always get some kid wanting to enthuse about swords and folded steel so I like to have a billet to hand and another one welded up and perhaps a display piece of what it finally looks like that is NOT a blade.

In general I have found auctions a poor use of my time. For every auction I bought something reasonable; there has been several with over priced items, or you have to wait all day long only to have the auctioneer lump everything in one big expensive pile or he combines the blacksmithing equipment with the left handed toad thwacking stuff and you have to pay extra and get stuff you don't need or want. Now every once in a while you do luck out---say the large screwpress for US$100 FOB; but usually it's the 147# PW with damaged face and the heel cracked at the hardy for US$2 a pound and the hardy tools that don't fit that anvil bought by the same guy for $35 a piece---back in 1990! I've had better luck talking with random people at a fleamarket.

WHAT COUNTRY ARE YOU IN? Or are you willing to buy a cheap vise and pay international shipping? I bought a 6" post vise for $50 last Quad-State Blacksmith's Round Up; if you are in driving distance of it I'd try there!

Pep Gomez in Las Cruces NM is the one I'd suggest. He teaches welding at the local Community College and is a great billet welder in his gas forge.

What type of forge welding (billets, drop the tongs, etc) and are you willing to pay for international flights?

So Saturday I took the trash to the "transfer station"---one of the joys of living in the country---and I brought along a billet, welded 2 folds and 320 layer knife progression to talk with the fellow stuck out there running the place. We talked a bit and then he told me I could scrounge the "metal" pile anytime I wanted! Came home with another WI hub band and a 2' piece of 3/4" WI with a sq bolt head on one end as well as some misc round stock. Then I went to the scrapyard next door and picked up a set of log tongs, some chainsaw blades and an old brake drum that was the correct diameter for a circle I wanted to bend. (Take a big stump and lag down the brake drum through the lug holes to the stump and then put in a hefty lag bolt as a stop and you have a bender! Of course I had to stake the stump down when I was working 2"x3/8" strap!) Last thing I got was a gas cylinder. My last visit I had listened while the scrapyard owner was complaining about gas cylinders not being scrappable without the valve stems removed. So this time I went looking for them and found a nice cylinder with a good dishing form base---he sold it to me for $5 and warned me it was an Acetylene cylinder and to take care trying to cut it up---Funny it said 20# CO2 on it and did not have left hand threads or the weight or shape of an Acetylene cylinder. (And cut very nicely with an angle grinder in my shop Saturday evening. Made a bell and a dishing form and my big postvise held it while I removed the valve stem after cutting.) Anybody know what alloy valve stems were made from? I'm a bit gun shy of the possibility of Be Bronze in scrap.

I try to refer to my rack as "Handled Tools" as the front row is hammers and the back row is swages, hot cuts, punches, etc. When I moved I had a grand counting of them and it turned out to be around a hundred "handled tools". Of course; I've bought more since then. It's nice to have the opposing swage for a top swage, why swage blocks were popular; however in my big anvil I have found that the 1.5" hardy holes are just about right for some of the top swages and so I've taken duplicates and forged the eye area of one of them down to fit the hardy hole and have sets that I can use on the anvil. (I also bought a bunch of battered damaged top tools just to have "starter" forms to forge into shapes I needed.)

How about some "gazintas" structural sq tubing that you can drop the next size down into and so you can have a lot of different things you can pick up and move around the shop that then have a solid no twisting base---postvises, benders, shears, buffers, etc.

Can you get smaller sections and have them welded together? Some plow discs are about that size and made of good steel in many cases.

Thanks; (I'm offline on weekends and out in the shop.)