ThomasPowers

Picked up an old pistol in pieces at the local fleamarket for under US$5 (and was recently give a section of .243 barrel---who shortens a varmit gun???? Pistol went to my SiL who was a LEO and wanted to make a shadow box for his study. Loss of historic items has happened with swords as well in some of the UK "turn-ins".

Only needs one sucker---say a wife wanting to buy something special for her husband and not realizing that she could buy over a dozen of them at Quad-State for that amount! (My wife and I have a pact that we don't buy things that cost over $20 for each other unless we vet it with the other first----we made this after a friend's tool budget was blown for a *year* when his wife bought him something *special*; he cried quietly every time a good deal came by for the rest of the year and he couldn't buy it as all the money for tools was *gone*)

I'm cheap! So when I want to use charcoal I generally build a scrap wood fire in a raised firepit and then transfer out the coals with a shovel I made of gravel screen so that I can give it a shake and all the ash drops out leaving only the hot coals to transfer to the forge. Remember that charcoal was the only fuel used for the first thousand years or so, coal only starting to be used by smiths in the late high middle ages (Gies & Gies, "Cathedral Forge and Waterwheel") Propane is a clean fuel easily found but the forge is more expensive to build and most are not designed to weld in---those that are are welding hogs and will easily do massive amounts of welding. Coal is what most folks consider the "classical forge fuel". It varies HUGELY in quality and ease of use and I have had a student come over to forge who spent his entire time just trying to get a good fire going. (of course if he would listen to what I told him it would have been much faster and easier...!)

Note that most information on heat treating is given for items at least 1" in thickness---what works for a chunk of machinery can be pretty bad on something less than 1/8" thick! (I too have the ASM Handbook(s).) General issues are: Scaling, Decarburization and Grain Growth of those only Grain Growth is usually correctable *afterwards* Re Colours: remember that most old smithing books are referring to red-orange *pie* cherries when saying "cherry red" and not the modern Bing Cherry which are a red-black. I've met many a modern smith who has never seen old fashioned pie cherries on the tree---they get dyed red in the can!

Fighting axes were generally a LOT lighter than people expect. The double edged fighting axe was not generally used in Europe; though the Greek legends of the Amazons said that they used the labrys in battle and is now often used as a symbol of radical feminist movements. (I met a smith who was making these for them back around 1983---she did excellent work!) So as a using sword was generally around 2.5 pounds an axe for battle should not be excessively more. The type of use will drive how the thickness is arranged, e.g. armour impact would make the edge thicker and then tapering toward the eye. (As axes were forged they could taper in all dimensions---making something from a flat sheet screams that it is a modern effort.)

I didn't think they were casting iron in that time/place. A cast iron sword would be quite inferior---to a wooden one!

Check the sides for markings---a wire brush is often needed. Check the bottom of the anvil as any indentation can be quite a help in identifying it. Does it ring when struck? Pictures are a massive help too!

I yell at my students when they want to do a bad lift single. Sure when you are young you can do crazy things---but your back NEVER forgets! My 500#+ Fisher we used an engine hoist (cherry picker) to load it into my truck and then 4 burly smiths to get it in the shop---2 hardy holes, one at either end so we strung pipe through them so everyone got a good grip. I lolly columned a truss that was over the site and used a come along to get it from the ground into place.

There are fleamarkets and there are fleamarkets. The cheap new chinese imports sure do speed up your walking though! I live in a small NM town and the local Fleamarket is generally not of much account---takes 15 minutes to do it! However there is a fellow who cleans out garages and sheds and sells regularly at a good price---he doesn't want to haul it and store it! More important is that when dealers get to know you and find you a solid regular buyer they will often pick up items they think you would like. I really miss the fleamarket in southern Columbus Ohio that was done in a still working drive in theater---the dealers had to set out and load up *EVERYTHING* every day so the theater could show movies that night. Helped moderate prices for heavy old rusty stuff...

The cost of such work is often tied to the reputation of the artist. I know in knifemaking 50% of the cost may be due to the reputation of the maker. Also the venue it is sold in. An interior decorator might sell such items *high*---many times the price you might get in a small out of the way store.

Flux makes it easier and can be right handy when you are trying to weld different steels together that have different welding temps---especially for knifemaking as most of the no flux forge welders I have seen demo with mild steel and work quite hot---where high carbon would be taking damage. When you get to a point where you want to try welding again take a sq bar and bend the end back on itself and try welding that---easier than using loose pieces. Forge welding in Charcoal is quite possible---all the migration era and viking era swords were forge welded in charcoal fueled forges and the traditionally made japanese swords are forgewelded with charcoal to this day. It does tale a lot of charcoal and a quite deep pile of it---having a forge designed for charcoal and not for coal helps.

"Traditional" means that every one was different! Depends a lot on what you want to do, how much of it and what equipment you have. All the old blacksmithing books will have suggestions: "Practical Blacksmithing" from the late 1880's early 1890's; Diderots Encyclopedia has a lot of info from the late 18th century, "Mechanics Exercises" has a suggested layout from 1703, The "Hausbuchs" have engravings/woodcuts from the renaissance; "Cathedral Forge and Waterwheel" has some illuminations from medieval times. And there are a number of examples from the ancients: Roman, Greek and Egyptian. What date is "traditional"? Ah yes don't forget Foxfire for frontier/pioneer/hill folk suggestions.

Propane! buying coal out here is a 2 hour drive each way with prior arrangements being made. I can buy propane in the local small town at 9 pm on a Sunday from 3 different places! Cleaning the smithy, building racks, tooling, etc or even just handling a new hammer is how I deal with "want to work but can't fire up the forge time"

Welllllll---"Sources for the History of the Science of Steel" has an entire chapter dedicated to renaissance quenchants that included such weird stuff as "worm water" and "radish juice" all claiming that they work *better* than plain water. My take on it is that at best they are going for a sort of brine quench---much like Theophilus wrote about in "Divers Arts" in 1120 C.E. when he suggested quenching in the "urine of a small red headed boy" or the "urine of a goat fed ferns for three days" either one is rather a smelly way of getting a weak brine quench. (It works BTW, but there is such an amusing smell when the hot steel hits the "quenchant"!)

There are a bunch of "New" anvils that may not be of the same quality level; but there are a bunch of new ones that are very good indeed. Most of us know how the old ones stack up by brand but can be unsure of the new ones. If you have the time to search out a good old one or to research a good new one and you have the cash on hand you are ahead of the game either way!

Wow SR I have never been by a car repair place that wouldn't *give* you an old brake drum; though when I did a brake drum forge in Columbus OH I just used one I found on the side of the road... As for shipping in many places it's quite expensive to get things shipped in and not everyone can pay several times the amount for the material to have it shipped. Here in NM the smithing coal dealer is a 2 hour each way, make arrangements in advance, deal while I can buy lump charcoal at the local store and save enough in gas/time to pay the cost differential. That forge may also be choked with ash after a run and the air not strong enough to blow it clean. I know that a typical blow drier puts out way too much air for charcoal, but with a diversion set up would be a fast cheap way to get more air through the fire.

Lederhosen and a hawaii shirt!

Gee my charcoal spits and sparks when it's damp and is quite polite when it's bone dry. (Of course the mesquite is quite "pitchy" which cause trouble too but is not water soluble.) What do you think the rain is doing for you? BTW We haven't had any rain this year---well 0.1" since Jan 1st and that was snow...

First picture: note that the top section of the side seems to have deeper pitting/weathering. My guess is the "line" folks are seeing is the transition line from where that anvil laid on it's side for a long time with the top part sunk into the muck and the bottom part propped up on the feet and so not as much in contact with the pitting agents! How about that for a WAG!

I generally advise new people to make their blades about twice as thick as I do---allows them to grind below all the "learning experiences" Twice as long too as nearly everyone has burnt up the end and so having extra means they can cut it off and continue. (I warn them 3 times and then let them go ahead and burn it up)

Obviously: that anvil dates to the morning after that annual Christmas party!

Grant would you buy a 1.2 million dollar CNC mill and then let it stand idle most of the time cause you were working on a wooden scabbard? Water driven hammers and grindstones are very much like that in early times. Tools were expensive. Specialization meant that the tools were being used all the time by people that were *good* at what they were doing. I believe that specialization of work has been noted as early as the late stone age and flourished with the invention of agriculture and the creation of food surpluses. "Single Authorship" is much more a modern mindset as even in a famed smith's shop the apprentices and journeymen would be doing a lot of the work on something that got the master's stamp. Specialized people were expensive too. You don't make swords in small rural communities---you make spears and axes. Swords were done in larger communities that could support the specialization---at least as early as the 500's that I know of. Remember that *most* soldiers didn't have a sword, they had spears and axes until late medieval/renaissance times when the levies were often pikemen or bowmen. (crossbows were again prestige weapons and most crossbowmen were from middle class backgrounds that could *afford* their weapon). Marksberg in Germany has a smithy built into the castle wall and they were very careful to point out that swords and armour would come from the pro's in Nuremberg and only fast and dirty repair of such items would be done locally---much like today if you owned a Lamborghini you would have the dealer work on it except for fast repairs in the field to get it to the dealer and if it needed more you would even have it towed to the dealer than allow some local mechanic to work on it. I know as far as iron making; that iron was a trade commodity even in the early iron age---currency bars---and a typical smith would not smelt their own iron but buy/trade for it. There are a few examples of very isolated norse farms where they evidently ran a bloomery to get their own iron to forge into farm items---but it seems to be the exception that proves the rule in Western Europe. We are so spoiled in that we commonly have the tools of many trades to hand. OTOH most of us are more "Jack of All Trades and Master of None"

Besides raising a sharp burr or two to bite in the softer metal, the old books also suggest putting a rivet in to hold pieces oriented correctly for welding.

Sounds like something to wear around Quad-State...

She'll be noisy when you beat on her so chaining her down would be a good idea---see why I don't use such names for my anvils?