ThomasPowers

A lot of smiths are a sucker for this sort of things---some may even have appropriate clothing already as they do demo's at historical locations. Others will work for beer!

Ohio is smack dab in the middle of the blacksmith's "Happy Hunting Grounds" I used to average a good condition name brand anvil every year there for less than US$1 per pound. Start beating the bushes and remember the ones you find *not* being advertised will often be cheaper than the ones being advertised!

Bankruptcy sales: I have seen them go from $2 on the dollar to 2 cents on the dollar---*depending*

I have always felt it was the *silica* in wood ash or rice straw ash that was what was fluxing---just like using quartz sand or powdered glass. Pkrankow---you didn't address the silica aspect at all; could you edit your post to include it as well? And when I said that wood ash was better at high temps it was not that it was better than other fluxes at high temps but that it didn't work worth a hoot at lower temps but did seem to work some at higher temps. Sorry for the confusion!

First go to your local public library and ILL "The Complete Modern Blacksmith" by Weyger. In it he shows how he made a forge from a paint can and a chunk of pipe and used charcoal from a fireplace for fuel and a chunk of metal for an anvil. Using this forge he made a set of engraving chisels for doing woodcuts. I've forged in a hole in the ground before. You have a lot more available to youeself than you suspect! Second find the local ABANA Affiliate and start attending meetings You are on your way!

My last steel shipment by USPS was mill balls. I ended up building a box of 1/2" plywood and 2x4 and over 20 drywall screws that fit perfectly in the flat rate box. I heard it made it OK. I once had to re-send a "lost" shipment of wrought iron that I had sold at break even price and so lost money on the deal. Ever since then I have made wooden insert boxes and insured everything for enough money that I would be happy to do it over if it got lost!

I don't have a camera; but I would guess that my weirdest anvil is the one I made from a RR spike hammer and some 2.5" sq stock I forged out into a shaft with a spike on the bottom and a tenon on the top that the spike hammer was rivetted onto making a small flat section with two cylindrical horns of differing diameters. I used to have the broken knuckle off a RR car couplet than made a dandy anvil; but I gave it away. I have a bridge anvil too but can't really call it weird as it is a commercially produced beast.

There are always folks out there who think that a $100 hammer and a $1000 anvil and little experience will make them a better smith than a $5 fleamarket hammer and a $100 anvil and *years* of using them. Every hobby has those people who spend a lot of money on stuff to impress people seemingly unaware that it is what you *DO* with it that is the basis for impressing others. Having a hammer that is appropriate for *you*---right weight, right handle length, right handle shape, right face dress is far more important than how much it cost. OTOH---If you are buying a newly hand forged hammer you should expect to pay shop rate for the time involved and at $100 per hour a nicely tuned up hammer *will* cost you some bucks! (most I have seen are probably being sold *too* cheap!)

Do you deal with the water outside well so it doesn't seep into the building? Gutters, french drains, slope of the areas around the foundation? If no new water is being introduced to your floor it will dry after a while and then can be worked on. May take a bit if you are starting out saturated and the drying potential is low. Good air flow across it helps. Since you must be here in NM like me and so have the same conditions; only a couple of one digit humidity days with wind and sun should dry that puppy up!

I have a heeless anvil that is my "loaner" for new students; I might make a variation of this by drilling and tapping a hole down in the side of the body and then making the tooling with a hole for the bolt. Of course then they may never want to return it---getting their own anvil with a hardy hole is a subtle push when using one without!

Hammers: a couple of larger ballpeins and at least one small sledge will work Anvil: look into improvised anvils---like one made from a junked fork lift tine with the steel oriented vertically so that the mass is all under where the hammer lands! Forge: I have worked out of a corner of a campfire before, raking hot coals over to where a small bellows was set up with a couple of fire safe rocks helping to contain the charcoal stack so it was deeper and narrower for forging. Tongs: good fitting tongs are a safety item! However I have used visegrips from the fleamarket to bootstrap making tongs. Bellows: may not like unsheltered conditions but work well---be *SURE* that have a checkvalve to keep charcoal from being sucked into them. (Lots of the cheap "fireplace" bellows lack this *mandatory* item) They are simple to build though. I would not use leather but a treated canvas for the sides. Hand crank blower: perhaps the best way for your set up; but they are harder to find a good one and can be expensive. POSTVISE can't get around this one. A good postvise is a must have tool for the smithy IMNSHO. Not very expensive in OH region; worth the expense in the NM region. Where in the world you are we don't know. Once you get good you can forge quite close to final size; then anneal, file (good files are quite easy and fast to use and result in far fewer accidents!) to shape and heat treat and only then do you need to touch up the edge with a hand stone or hand crank grindstone (one of the small bench mount ones) Weyger's "The Complete Modern Blacksmith" is *the* book for you as he addresses starting from zero and finding and making everything *and* has a full section on making woodcarving chisels that can translate to your needs.

Converting vertical storage of firewood into horizontal storage of Frosty!

Or have a friend turn another one and drill it for a tool holder! (What I did)

No I don't have plans to the bellows; didn't have plans when I built them either! Laid it out on the board, cut, used the first board to trace out the others, designed the snout when I saw how much space I needed for the hinges for the boards, etc. John I would have to disagree on the hand cranks---if you have a *good* one. A poor one is just a whole lot like work, A good one that turns easily and will run 3+ complete revolutions after you let go of the handle is nice to use. Unfortunately a lot of folks use too heavy an oil in their blowers and are spending most their effort churning oil than blowing air!

Have you checked with a local HVAC company to see if they have a blower from a commercial oil fired unit that was scrapped out that you could get cheap? Find a fellow that works there that's interested and you might get the materials and expert help *free*! Uh propane doesn't burn without air so unless you are putting air into the delivery tube it can't "burn back" into the tube. Now acetylene can "exothermically disassociate" without the presence of air and is generally used at low pressures coupled with high pressure pure O2 and that can cause problems. But it's not what you are using right? (Sort of like worrying about gasoline issues when your vehicle is a diesel...)

Yup; you need to switch refractory distributors/makers! Should be able to find one that will go all out for your business in this economic climate!

Hanging around with friends like us!

Youngsmith; if you could get anymore of them cast by your friend you would make a lot of folks very happy! If the price was decent it would pay for a Quad-State and perhaps for the vehicle to haul them to it!

As an example of stop block usage: I was using my flypress to make some 1/4" sq tenons on some stock so I took a piece of cold 1/4" thick stock and mounted it on the bottom die and then just stuck the hot pieces in next to it and whappity, turn, whappity---the tenon was roughed out and was ready for a reheat and a monkey tool to dress the transition. The stand my screwpress sits on has a shelf full of various sizes of small chunks of steel to use as stop blocks and then on the side it has a bunch of toroids to use as dishing forms.

Actually "colouring copper" by using zinc ores in contact with copper was quite well know and discussed by Biringuccio in "Pirotechnia" back in 1540. However except for use for the colouring effects the cost of doing such things is generally more than the cost of just using the alloy in the first place.

I don't think I would shoot one of your anvils---it mightn' shoot back! (If they want a boom at my shop they can pony up for some single F and fuse and shoot the cannon!)

Looks like there was a crack in that hammer as well as the large grain.

Si' Sin Duda!

Look under the heel, is the underside smooth or are there hammer marks from a large powerhammer? (if so it might be an Arm&Hammer, a great brand of anvil made in Columbus OH at one time. The long skinny heel and horn makes one think of HB, A&H and Trenton's, the depth of the face inclines me away from HB and towards the others, just wish it had a caplet depression on the underside of the base...

Well I didn't say that you had attacked me; just that reading it gave me the feeling that some folks were getting trod upon for emotional rather than rational reasons. If you want to attack me feel free to call me old and fat and make fun of my ungainliness and pretentious diction---just *DON'T* make fun of my disreputable red hat---them's fight'ng words! I view this type of thread as valuable gedanken experiments as people with different backgrounds attack common problems from a different direction.