ThomasPowers

You can use either NG or propane by switching the orifices, they originally come with a mixer box that lets you vary the air and gas to suit a wide range of burns.

Well back around 1980? I saw a rig where a fellow had taken an old lawnmower, removed the blade and mounted a commercial dryer pulley to it and then a small electric motor with a 2" pulley and then took off the head and used the head bolts to fasten one arm of a cutter to the engine and had the other fastened to the piston. With the pulley reduction he got a safe speed on the cutters and the torque to cut fairly heavy rings. He could then just feed in the coils as the cutter cycled automatically. You still got the cutter deformed edges though. When I was making my shirt I was a poor college student and couldn't afford good cutters and didn't know hot to dress them to keep them cutting with minimal deformation. So I kept tightening the bolt that held them together and it finally got to where I could close them one handed but it took both hands to open them again! Well I was at a bar one night in west Texas, remote area---the kids had a 90 mile bus trip to and from school each day---and a rancher was there and feeling pretty good and wanted to "howdy" with me. When we shook hands he started squeezing---so I "clipped a link" and his eyes started to bulge and he stopped trying to squeeze my hand and offered me a job on his ranch instead. I was on my way to Houston for logging geologist training so I turned it down; but those cheap cutters sure bought my way into the "crowd" that night...

My step daughter had twins and there was many comparisons twixt the two of us---just wait till I buy *both* of them ballpeen hammers for their second birthday---next year!

I used to have a "travel stump" that was made from a hollow log---lot lighter to move for a demo! AZ---do they have an pecan farms in AZ like they do in NM? Pecan and Hickory are considered pretty much the same wood when grading... When I first started drying my own wood I thought the 1 year per inch was a crazy wait---now I have some stuff that's been drying 20 years per inch and quite understand the fore-stock pieces of walnut I picked up at a barn sale that had been drying since the 1930's... (My oldest air dried wood has been drying for over 200 years---from a colonial structure the historical society tried to save back when I lived on the east coast---we lost to developers; but I did get one piece of oak beam when they razed it.)

The alloy may not be harder it's probably just sold work hardened---have you tried annealing it?

Tell them to make riveted maille where slight deformation on the ends won't matter much after the flattening!

If it's for a bloomery soft is not so much an issue---we have consolidated juicy blooms with a wooden hammer before!

Looks quite usable and handy to have around in a smithy. Have you given some thought to re-do it in a more renaissance mode sometime in the future now you have the bugs worked out? Lots of great construction ideas in De Re Metallica! Just exchanging the 1820's anvil design for a large chunk of steel and hiding the arc welds will help. I'd think about making the anvil a large cube of steel and have one side milled for drawing and then make the sledge head reversible and have one side ground for drawing too. There are multiple examples of helve hammers in art from the renaissance, (Venus at the Forge of Vulcan usually has an example in the background) but treadles do not seem to have been used as a hoard of trained strikers was the norm see Goya's "the Forgers". I call my powerhammer my "smart apprentice" as it does exactly what I tell it to do!

I tend to just re-build propane gas grill carts. I jettison the grill and bolt a plate of steel across where it went and bolt my forge to that. It already has a holder for a bottle built in! I also replace cheap wheels with better ones if necessary and make a hammer/tong racks on the ends that typically have wooden slats that can be replaced with steel pipe. I design for building with a 3/8" drill and an angle grinder

I was told the big domed hammer was a boilermaker's hammer; I have two and armourer's like them for dishing! They are different from the british version as I once ran across a box of WWII surplus "Hammer's, Boilermakers, 1 ea" with the broad arrow on them. (Managed to keep *one* of them for my hammer rack the rest went FAST at Quad-State) Since tailgating is free at Quad-State I'd suggest dragging what you want down there; marking your price on them and leaving a can out for the money---what I used to do.

EMRTC is just up the hill from here and they have things that go boom on a regular basis. They do a lot of explosive welding. training---first responder for NBC and explosives, and research---one of the bigger booms since I have been here was them making industrial diamonds using explosives! The also do a bang-up 4th of July Fireworks display for the city of Socorro! Their "open house" is a lot of fun too and they just started a new tradition of blowing up graduating NM Tech Senior's old books, papers, etc. (got to go watch when my Daughter graduated!)

Some folks are extolling the virtue of slab handles rather than the rounder ones that are more traditional in these parts. However getting cut in fireplace log size, then de-barking and selecting for straightest grain and then splitting out radial sections and then splitting the radial sections into over sized blanks is what I do. I also collect thrown out candles and have a coffee can of candle wax I heat up (*CAREFULLY* OUTSIDE) and dip the ends of the blanks in the very hot wax and then throw them up on top the shelves in the smithy to dry. I think that one of the Woodwrights books or perhaps Drew Langsner's book on working wood gives instructions on this. (might check Foxfire as well) Split rather than sawn makes for a much stronger handle as there is NO grain runout!

I've seen several like that in central and southern Germany and so they are "not un-common" in that region.

Perhaps for plow work?

Howdy; I've been in the SCA for about 32 years now and smithing for 29. I bring a forge to events and have fun---(I don't merchant). I should be at the next Estrella; so if you attend stop by the period demo center and have some fun! If you are near central NM let me know and you can come over to my smithy some time. Thomas Powers. SKA wilelm the smith, OL, OE, OSO, OLM, OST, EI, EI, O

I picked up a book on prisons just for the pictures of smithing set ups in prison. Several prisons produced items for sale to counter the costs of housing prisoners---IIRC "Ohio Tool" sold tools made at the old Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus OH at one time. Not so much "training" as "hard labour". I'll see about digging the book I mentioned out tonight and get the cite. from www.mvr1.com/Ohiowoodenplanes.html: re Ohio Tool Company "They were founded in Columbus Ohio in 1851 by Peter Hayden, of P. Hayden & Co. which had been doing business since 1842, and various associates. The company continued P. Hayden & Company's tradition of often using prison labor for the production of tools. By 1880 the use of prison labor had ceased," I picked up an Ohio Tool corner chisel out of a fleamarket dumpster once---I had actually tried to buy it earlier; but I guess the dealer had rather throw it away than to accept what I was willing to give for it...it was a great day for dumpster diving as I found a dollar coin as well...

I've noticed a strong lack of the concepts of "center of gravity" and that "big things can be fragile" with modern workers too! The guru claims that moving machinery is responsible for a majority of the damage done to it and I can well believe it!

Fisher's were not forged together but had a slab of tool steel heated and laid into a mold and had cast iron poured onto that. It's the use of cast iron that makes the anvil "quiet"; cast steel anvils are noisier than forged ones! They make a great anvil---my main shop anvil is a 515# Fisher! However every Fisher I have seen has *nothing* "Stamped" on it; everything is cast proud of the surface rather than stamped into it. (eg the sand molds were stamped with the info and so it stands proud from the surface and is quite easy to change things in the "stamp") If those are really stamped into it they may be aftermarket additions... As for forging multiple pieces into an anvil---that technique dates back several thousand years

26 years of not having to eat my own cooking and I have reached a mature gravitas so to speak....

I saw the "name" mountain man and so thought the entire blade should be as usable and utilitarian as possible. The curls on the guard can catch stuff when hiking through brush, and why the curves in the blade edge?

Conrad; were you working with real wrought iron and so at white heat? It's a lot softer than modern mild steel when it's up to that temp and you don't need to pound as much! Of course as a geologist I wouldn't consider basalt very hard---I like the description of the asian anvils made from Jade which should resist cracking a lot more than basalt does. (BTW was it a vesicular basalt? I've been meaning to pick up a chunk to refine blooms on but the "good stuff" I've so far found here was on tribal land.)

You welding some steel to that wagon tyre for the edge or it is just for fittings? Bounce is generally a factor of the hardness not the material (and the size to a lesser extent).

Ahh I would say a continental anvil of the 19th century due to the handling hole shown. I have never seen medieval or renaissance ones with handing holes. However the shape is quite a good stand-in for a medieval anvil and I would be happy to have it myself!

"Good Forge" for what? What's an acceptable forge for some things might be quite poor indeed for other things!

How high of pipe will be outside of the window? How enveloping will the hood be? What will be the gap between the pipe in the hodd and the forge table. What size pipe will you be using? Basically we need to know a lot more details between saying Yes-No-Maybe!