ThomasPowers

I too forged my hardy (cut off hardy is redundant!---the "hardy" is a tool for cutting off, other tools that use the hardy hole are just that) from a broken jackhammer bit. I found one with the chisel end broken off and just forged the stub of the shaft that was left to fit my anvil's hardy hole. Don't know how good it is---only been using it about 20+ years so far and doubt it's 1/8" shorter from sharpening it. You might ask around at a local tool rental place and see if they get broken jackhammer bits in---offer to pay scrap rate or make them a hand forged trinket or to for them! (and do remember that as a new smith you don't need 400 pounds of them, just a few will probably last you a long time *ESPECIALLY* if you don't have access to a powerhammer...) A flatter is a flat surface of a good steel with a shaft the provide both a place to put a handle and a place to strike it. It is generally used with a *smooth* anvil face underneath it to smooth both sides at once. Dress the ends of it so it doesn't leave lines!

Old school Farmer! (of course we had a friend who also was a sheep shearer and he said no matter how bad his hands were at the start of the shearing season by the end they were "baby soft" and he had to then regain his hard won callouses all over again!)

The roof of the forge is often an arch so that the kaowool will support itself and not need to be fastened in some way. As the easy way to get an arched roof is to use a section of pipe or other round cross sectioned material propane forges are often round. As kaowool is quite soft, the floor of the forge is very often armored with a section of half thickness hard firebrick on top of the insulating kaowool. You don't need to heat more of the blade than you can forge at one time. Heating more than that just leads to scale losses, decarburization and grain growth. So even swords can be forged in a 12" long gas forge! The exception to this rule is when you heat treat and want the entire blade to be equally hot at the same time. Many knifemakers have a separate forge just for heat treat as the cost of building a forge is much less than the cost of paying for propane to heat a larger forge when working smaller items on a regular basis. A door system is a good idea and as mentioned some people use a stack of fire bricks for one that is easily made and easily configured for different jobs. I have a set of tongs that are sized to fit firebricks which is a useful tool to be able to move them around when hot.

Perhaps if you are loading the anvil and stump as one unit. Since I have to carry them out of the shop to the truck (loose sand floor---no dolly!) I greatly prefer to move the pieces individually. So the anvils that travel when I teach a class at the local University all have easy on/off mounts and big handles to make loading the stumps easier. When I get my extension secure I hope to move the big anvil out to it and I have a massive chunk of treated lumber to go into the ground to mount it on---something like 1x2x4, all dimensions being in *feet* of course, and I will fasten that one in tightly so it doesn't go walkabout.

Funny my stapes were forged from 3/8" stock and they didn't seem to bend badly Do you find that 3/8" bends worse than 5/16" in general? If so you can forge your staples from 1/2" (smile). (now for real fun my largest anvil is held in place with regular commercial fence wire staples---but not over the legs; just a few pounded in along the side curve and the front and back edge---it's a 515# Fisher and so doesn't jump around and just a little hint is enough to keep it in place. Of course without them it did slowly drift a bit over the course of a year.)

Of course hammered iron pots were in use for over 1000 years before cast iron pots were "invented". Also look at the viking era roasting implement that is basically some flat stock bent in a spiral and of one piece with the handle One of the basic flaws of medieval re-enactment is that many people are using cast iron to cook with instead of hammered wrought iron (or cast bronze). I think it's the flat top stove that causes the trouble as then the WI or steel pot will bow as the uneven heating is done. Systems that don't require a flat surface on a flat surface seem to work fine and of course no stove for *cooking* is used at temps that would be bad for WI or steel. Steel/wrought iron spoons were quite common at times, the rich of course used other metals but in between wood and horn there were wi spoons used. Shoot my great grandmother had and used some steel ones up in the hills of AR! I've been doing a lot of research on the intersection of smithing and cookery---been trading kitchen smithing for being fed at 5 day+ long camp outs from a lady *using* the stuff I forge to cook with---so open fire. (we had a lot of duck and even peacock last campout---as well as bread from scratch baked on site in a mud oven!) Just last night I noticed that the spit holder in the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie (#4) was quite close to that shown in The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi (1570) that we used two weekends ago at a long campout. Perhaps we should spawn a smithing for the kitchen historical through modern thread? I'd love to do a booklist with everyone contributing so I can find new sources!

Of those listed H-13 and S-7 are commonly used by smiths for applications where the tool will be buried into hot metal. However as Phil mentioned you may want to work with auto coil spring a bit until you figure out what you want in a tool *BEFORE* you shell out $$$$ for a pricey tool steel. (After all punching was done with quite simple steels for 1000 years before we had the fancy ones!)

If you want to get rid of the ring you need something that holds it tightly to the stump chain and threaded eyes with angle iron bolted to the side of the stump may be better for you---so you can take up any slop as the system wears into place. Hard to keep a staple from being microscopically backed off a bit in use.

A lot of the steels that smiths use will crack or shatter if quenched in water. Water is only safe for water hardening steels and even some of them will profit from oil quenching if they are being used in thin section!

also choose an alloy that is not too fussy on the heat treat to start off with. (You may want a Formula One race car as your first car but learning to drive first really helps!) This is why you see smiths liking: O1, W1, W2, H13 and S7 as they do OK with a blacksmith heat treat. Something like D-2 would just be throwing money away as you can't get the best out of that alloy with simple blacksmithing processes.

Kitty litter or kiln shelf is required if you are forge welding in your forge. I don't recall you mentioning that possibility and if you want to you may need to engineer for it from the start wrt burners, volume, etc.

Make sure you tell the Dr you are more interested in functionality than looks! Last time I crushed a finger the Dr gave me two choices: Looking great but stiff and "unusable" or they would splint it one day and then I'd come back in and they would break open the joint and I would then have to keep it moving to keep the joint working as it healed. (Luckily it was a pinky finger!) It was most amusing having them flex the joint that first time with no pain meds... It's slightly crooked and looks a bit off but still grabs a hammer handle---save for very cold days... Weapons weight Gränsfors Bruks http://www.gransfors.com/htm_eng/index.html has a pamphlet on ancient axes that mentions that the battle ones generally weighed about 1/2 the weight of the fell trees ones. I sure would love it if I had to battle a number of folks with archaic weapons if they had to use the WAY TOO HEAVY modern "reproductions" and I could use the light FAST originals!

Welcome! Any possibility of skewing your return so you can attend Quad-State this year? It's the end of September (last full weekend) and in Troy Ohio. A lot of the old Keen-Junk, Blacksmiths virtual junkyard, crew camp together there for a good time! (some rent hotel rooms too, we try not to judge them...) I should be driving out from New Mexico USA. It's GREAT place to get everything your smithy needs!

Fred; that home made anvil looks lovely and will be so handy as a tooling plate when you move onto a different anvil---but probably already have a slew of tools that fit your plate! Is that a tong groove on the horn? If so it was probably the top of a 2 piece cone or one of the hardy cones.

It has always amazed me the number of new folk that post asking how to weld up their anvil to have sharp edges when the old smithing books (100+ years ago) tell folks that the first thing they do to a new anvil is to round the edges! If you have a process that needs a sharp edge---or a very even radiused edge then it's rather trivial to make a hardy tool that has *4* edges you can engineer to suit your self.

It's a Fisher so you don't need a noise canceling method of affixing it. Will you be moving it a lot? If so what I do for my portable anvil is to set the anvil on a scrap piece of 2x6 and trace out the curved sections on the sides between the feet and cut those out and place the anvil on the stump and nail the cutouts to the anvil so they fit snug but not tight. This makes it easy to lift it on and off for moving. I also put good handles onto the stump to make it easier to move. For a more sit in one place anvil I would forge large staples that would fit over the feet of the anvil and hold it fast.

Yup sounds like they have a demo shop and would be just as pleased to have someone making S hooks and leaf key fobs as doing major difficult forgings. Perhaps work out a deal where you would work Saturday and Sunday Afternoons in return for feeding the family...

Is this hard firebrick or soft firebrick? Hard firebrick takes a lot longer to heat up and cool down and so "saps" the heat of the system. Soft is quite insulative and so fast heating. I had a friend who build a gas forge out of soft firebrick and managed to accidentally melt a billet when he was showing it off to the group---Hi Patrick!

In general you want an insulating firebrick for a gas forge except for perhaps the bottom one that will see a lot of abrasive wear. Check with a local company that deals with pottery kiln supplies.

Easy enough to just add a jaw cover made from a piece of angle iron to "true up" that vise---good price too! With care your grandkids will be using it when they turn 14!

I used a scythe to cut the weeds on our lot---no grass out here in the desert and ended up messing up my shoulders and having to get a cortisone shot in each one. I of course wear my hearing protectors when using any powered equipment.

When hitting it on the edge of the Anvil 1/2 of the hammer face will be off and below the edge---you are trying to pinch the blade edge between the hammer and the anvil face. So look at it with out the stock in place do you see how you have to hit with the hammer to get the pinching action? NB if the stock goes past the edge of the anvil bad things happen as you are then using the edge to fuller or cut the stock. NB make sure your hammer face is well dressed. with a slightly rounded face you can also pinch the blade edge just on the face of the anvil by hitting at the very blade edge or even slightly off. Much more control is needed for this technique and perhaps a hard anvil face and soft hammer face when learning it.

A lot of folks size them to take common leaf spring sized material as it's a cheap easily worked and abundant steel The need for it over mild depends a lot on how much and how heavy you use it.

First check the motor speed if it's the faster of the common speeds then going to the slower 1725 will make a big difference. I don't think you can go to much of a smaller pulley on the motor side and going to larger pulleys on the drill side might be a problem too. Can you find a treadmill motor and use it with it's speed control? (common mod for old metal lathes to get a speed controlled motor).

If you need a place to sleep for a night in central NM, I'm just outside Soccoro (right on I25) You might want to get a burn phone---one with prepaid minutes from someplace like walmart so you can contact folks easier.