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I Forge Iron

ThomasPowers

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Everything posted by ThomasPowers

  1. And folks *THAT* is why we always suggest people put their general location in their profile!
  2. I bought a lot of smithing stuff at the South High Fleamarket in Columbus OH, Wed, Sat, Sun. when I lived in Columbus including probably 50 hammers, several post vises and even an anvil or two. Of course there is no guessing what will be there on a particular date but I would visit it 2-3 times a week for the 15 years I lived in Columbus. Picked up some old cold chisels to use as high C stock last Wednesday just before Quad-State when I was in town visiting from New Mexico. It's at the drive in movie place between 104 and 270 on south High St. Fellow was there with a really good collection of un-used files too!
  3. Or you can just take the untrimmed stock and starting at the widest section apply it the boards and trim the edges when you are done. Picked up a beautiful Victor regulator at the fleamarket today, looks almost unused, 0-30 on the low end and 2000+ on the high end, reverse thread to the tank. He asked $20 and then rached down to $10 when I was walking off. Hope to use it on propane for a new burner I got at Q-S.
  4. At Q-S there was a fellow who had 3 round bins on the ground with one being the $1 bin, the next $2 and the last being $5. I picked out about $20 out of the $2 bin---not rust but MOB chisels, a hammer head, etc. Of course I'm cheap---picked up a beaut of a Victor propane regulator today for $10 at the local fleamarket. (Reverse thread on the tank fitting, 0-30 psi on the low gauge---but no red-line for Acetylene so I figured it was for Propane.) Just what I needed for my burner test set up.
  5. The angle of the cutting edge. Cold cuts will be stout and squat, hot cuts will be slender and "sharp".
  6. Get the anvil---avoid the grinder! At most just use a sander on it to clean surface grunge off. My usual suggestion is to only do to the face of your anvil what you are willing to have done to your own face! Lovely tome of year for a drive on Saturday, make sure you have some small bills for garage sales and fleamarkets and junk stores...
  7. As I have picked up a number of both sizes for US$1 a piece at fleamarkets I don't see why you wouldn't just get both. Surely you were not planning to overpay and buy them *new*! Not knowing your arm I would say the 3# would be too heavy and likely to damage you of used too much too early. OTOH the 1# is awfully light---but we don't know what you plan to be making. If I was to have only the 1 hammer I would probably go with the 2#.
  8. Heat treat should totally burn off any finish that is on it and you would then need to repolish and re-finish. Can you remove the bump with a belt grinder? The finish might clog the belt but *not* needing to re-heat treat it is worth a belt or two!
  9. Ought to be able to pick up another old lincoln tombstone locally for around $100, use it and then resell it for the same price...
  10. Yup I ran it by Postman on the way to the display; sigh, I was hoping for a "Powers". Fred was interested in my Powell till he found out it was broken; evidently they are a bit rare over here. It's one of my using anvils, especially for students doing heavy work as it's already missing the heel. The one missing everything from the waist up was probably a Peter Wright!
  11. Come on now! Remember the Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Engineers Thumb" with the famous line "Sorry to knock you up so early Dr" which always gave rise to speculations in American readers... Or the first evening with an exchange student from Sri Lanka that lead into a discussion over "knocking off the lights"... Welding cones is easier with real wrought iron. I would think about using a "one firebrick" propane forge to get used to forging small stuff.
  12. I love it to "preview" books before I fork over my tightly clutched dinero. Nothing worse than to blow your book budget on a book only to find that it didn't meet your needs while a different one would but you can't afford it until your budget recovers.
  13. You can diffuse stuff into your steel but diffusion rates for things like Ni and Cr are SLOW---think of *YEARS* at high temps to get amounts/depths that carbon will do in minutes to hours. Now how expensive is it to heat your piece in an expensive alloy container to high temps for several years? Why I bet you could do it for a bit less than $10000 a pound! (How much is that "too expensive" steel you were referring to?) And of course the grain on the ferrous stuff would then be totally trashed! I buy old cold chisels at the fleamarket for 50 cents to a dollar apiece and reforge them into anvil tooling. Also old rock drill shafting is generally a good tough alloy, (the old stuff is generally a higher carbon content than the new stuff in my experience as ther old stuff---say 100+ years is a straight carbon steel and the new suff will be alloy) For a hardy how about an old pickaxe head hot cut and forged to fit the hardy. Or an old axe that was broken at the eye---making it cheap!, cut it off and forge to fit the hardy. Have you asked around machine shops about scrap? I've picked up some O1 from an old machinist for $1 a pound and a pound goes a long way in the forge. Now if you want to diffuse carbon into your metal may I commend unto your attention: "The Cementation of Iron and Steel" *way* more than you will likely *EVER* want to know including tons of experiments showing things like you can get carbon diffusion without CO... Or for those other historical weirdos out there: "Steelmaking before Bessemer, Vol 1 Blister steel; Vol 2 Crucible Steel" One last thing---vehicle springs are generally not high carbon, they are medium carbon like 5160 or 9260.
  14. Got a friend at work who has an old bomb shelter in our small rural town. He uses it to store his homebrew at a much better temperature than the summer desert heat...
  15. ThomasPowers

    Tachi

    I'm going to go out and whisper "Hrisoulas" to my neighbor's horses and see if they rear and neigh... Lovely work as usual; any update on the next book? Christmas is coming and my family always asks what I'd like...
  16. Unfortunately hand tools are generally a medium carbon steel and not "tool steel" (generally being higher carbon and higher alloy content steels). Files are generally an exception and often run about 1% carbon and so can "juice up" a billet. If you plan to make a blade from your current billet I'd add a section of file every time you fold it or between each layer if you cut and stack it to get the carbon content higher. Hot vinegar and salt makes a great contrast etch on my favorite billets but does not do much in the way of providing topography for those who like that in an etch.
  17. You can spend time or you can spend money. I think my average is still a great condition name brand anvil a year for under US$1 a pound; though the prices are creeping up---paid $1.33/# for my last anvil earlier this year; a beaut of a Peter Wright at about 110#; wanted another small anvil for my classes where I have to take the shop on the road. Lots easier to move a bunch of 100# anvils than 150 or higher! But I'm always on the prowl, checking craigslist every day, talking to everyone. Following leads. (BTW asking folks at a fleamarket selling rusty barn junk about anvils left behind as they are too heavy to move is a great way to hunt down bargins and if they ask *you* to set a price start with US$1 a pound if it's in decent shape! Also asking about anvils when you see a tool or two---picked up a MINT vulcan once cause the owner had brought the hardy to it to the fleamarket, I bought the hardy and then asked "where is the anvil it goes to?") In general you don't expect to get a real steal on an anvil from other smiths; we know and love our anvils, (my wife says I have a "harem" of anvils for you venery fans). But if you have to have an anvil other smiths will usually deal fairly as we do know what the condition is and what it's worth on the *using* market. (Anvils as collectibles makes me shudder...) Some folks brag about how much they spend on things; I've always bragged on how little. I don't hoard anvils, I've sold on a lot of anvils with only a small profit to cover my hunting costs and the only ones in my shop get used on a regular basis!
  18. I would cut a chunk off your block and forge one. BTW how large is your block and of what alloy? CP 1 and 2 forges much easier than steel does save that you have the gas embrittlement issue if you are not careful. Machining Ti can be a pain and the swarf can be quite dangerous in the "why is my mill/lathe so bright and forming a cast iron puddle on the shop floor?" sort of way.
  19. For light duty stuff a rolling barn door set up mounted on the rafters can do quite a bit. You know they are rated for several hundred pounds; so anvils, heavy vises and large stock can be moved around the shop easily. I plan to put one up in my shop as soon as I can scrounge one...or even one on each side of the shop.
  20. Low carbon steels are the easiest to find as they are the most used! Transformer laminations are made from alloys specifically designed to have as little hysteresis as possible and large magnetic permeabilities. In general they are very low in carbon and may have silicon added. Annealing a higher carbon steel does not change the alloying! I generally buy my hammers at fleamarkets and don't spend more than US$5 for one. They often will need to be dressed to provide a smooth "rocker" face without a sharp edge.
  21. There is a pick variant that has a thick heavy DULL end on it---looks a lot like a post vise jaw if it was heated up and bent 90 deg....
  22. I agree; I'd bet it's been through a fire---might see if you could get a local VoTech to preheat and hardface that anvil!
  23. John Brooks, recent english make, good reputation for their cast steel anvils
  24. I run both types at 4600' and have been asked to test a new burner design which I plan to do at 4600, 6600 and 10,000 feet. BTW I do not know that blown burners cost more than atmospheric. I do know that they seem to be easier to build and have a much wider range---I can run my blown forge from "warm" to melting steel---at 4600' altitude Sure is nice not to have to have electricity though!
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