ThomasPowers

When I switch my forge from coal to charcoal I place a couple of fire bricks next to the firepot to make a narrow deeper fire. It does use a lighter blast.

Shoot I had my Y0-1K forge out last Saturday, used 2 single action bellows, (one cost me 20 roofing nails the rest was scrounged!) Worked a treat. We ran a raised firepit to produce charcoal for forge fuel had to chase folks away from it when we needed to transfer some.

Bad assumption; I don't know of any anthracite burning power plants. Bituminous and even in some locations lignite is used. Power plant coal is often fairly poor in quality and generally produced by strip mining.

Yes it is possible to forgeweld without flux or using a different flux than 20 MTB. If you are not experienced in forge welding then going for fluxless welds that are as good as fluxed ones will probably be a long period of disappointments. Much longer than starting from zero and getting a decent weld using flux. *ESPECIALLY* for knife grade steels!

Or a sledgehammer head mounted into a stump---there is a video out there of a fellow in Asia using a sledge hammer head for an anvil forging knives for commercial sale. Note too that the I beam will be LOUD!

That's why I have to tell folks when I suggest "The Sword in Anglo Saxon England" to them that the appendix on Anstee's work has been superseded by more modern research---We know now that using rods produces a different pattern than using flat stock billets and making and welding rods is a whole lot more work when you can do it all with flat stock! But if we see farther today it's because we stand on the shoulders of giants and Anstee's experimental archeology with his cheese weight anvil sure moved things a lot farther forward than all the discussion of folks who "thought" they must have done it that-a-way with no basis in actually trying it to see. You see the same things in such forums; folks who have never tried something giving suggestions that are fairly off to folks who have done a lot of the thing in question. Welcome to the internet where *everyone* is an expert and folks put up video clips show people how to do things when they don't know how to do it themselves!

To answer the question: you start with stock long enough to hold in your hand and forge the opposite end into the tong.

Welding leaf spring to itself can be a bit more of a problem due to the alloy content. Slipping in a piece of medium carbon sheet (10XX) can help. As has been mentioned froes traditionally were not carbon steel items to begin with. We tend to go that way as leafspring is often about the right size and with an eye already there

Once you weld up the bundle do you then twist it for faux cable effects? (A bit like how Anstee though that pattern welded early medieval blades were done?) Yeah the "armour that the control cable runs through---might be nice if I tried it again using Ni wire through the centers...hmmm cast iron welding wire....

I took a metal framework and bolted a couple of pieces of pipe to it in parallel rows to make a hammer rack, holds about 75 of them and is right next to the forge so it's easy to put hammer's back when you are done with them. I bolted on a tong rack to the front of it for my most used tongs too.

I made mine "sword like" and hammered a bevel on the edges so the twisting on the skewer is quite unlikely.

Hey now! I used to cut the honeysuckle back to the fence line with a sabre, *best* tool out there for that!

About 10 years ago I did a knife using the coiled stuff that lawnmower control cables go through. Used tie wire down the middle of each section to let me hold them together. Didn't unwind the stuff. It made an interesting pattern; but because I wasn't so sure about the carbon content and I didn't have a lot of the stuff I put a nicholson file in the final fold for the edge so I have a great using knife with the snake skin pattern towards the spine.

I put a limit on things so they don't pile up and get in the way. My limit for postvises was 10; when I bought another I had to sell one on. My limit for london pattern anvils is 5 (but if I found a great Mousehole I might go to 6 as I have: Fisher, PW, Trenton, HB, A&H... Funny it was never hard to find folks who wanted to by an extra vise or anvil...

You can still find sledge handled RR cold cuts fairly easily. Many folks try to sell them as splitting mauls but they have too small an eye to be good for that and a fairly narrow cutting end.

I bought an old large Milwaukee used and in 10 years have only replaced the brushes 1 time. It is heavy and the start up torque will let your wrists know you have a TOOL for WORKING. I have a friend that has a 9" Makita he calls "the Destroyer"---he once offered to bet me he could cut my truck in two lengthwise (including the engine block) with it. I turned that bet down...

$2.30 a pound would be high for OH, not too bad for NM. I can't say for Iowa

When you consider what gets shipped by rail and where those rails go (often right through the center of cities) you can understand why they might worry about folks wandering the tracks. The RR police have had interesting powers and jurisdiction ever since the great strikes of the 1900's you definitely don't want to mess with them!

May I suggest you start by trying some versions where you punch and drift the eye and don't need to weld? Is your gas forge one that will weld? (many of them don't and welding can be quite hard on a forge not set up for it as the flux eats most refractories) As for written instructions pretty much every blacksmithing book out there will have them. In particular I believe I recall that Charles McRaven's book Country Blacksmithing covers making axes this way. abebooks.com lits a copy for around $4-5

It makes a fine smithing hammer though if the weight is right for you. I finally picked one up as my Father, Uncle, Sister, Wife and I have worked for the Bell System at sometime over the years---waited till none of us were working for them anymore though.

Ed Rhodes (sp?) of the SOFA group has made a number of "hardy hole mini power hammers" and shown them off at Quad-State before might check and see what worked best. Prior art?

Note Arm and Hammer anvils are traditionally made and so have slim elegant lines and the arm and hammer logo is stamped in. Vulcans are a cast iron anvil with a thin steel face and the arm and hammer logo is cast out so it stands proud of the surface. Very easy to tell which one is which at 50' away!

RFraser; not much difference than using cow horn scrapings that I mentioned several years earlier... keratin is keratin and in the box carbon is carbon...

On a knife the thickest part is where the blade and tang meet. As the tang is uniform or tapered you can then slide a guard up it until it lodges at the junction of blade and tang. Some knifemakers will use a low temp silver bearing solder like stay-brite to solder the two together without messing up the heat treat of the blade. All this should be explained in your knifemaking book---you do have one like "Step by Step Knifemaking" or "The Complete Bladesmith"? Or do you expect a couple of paragraphs on the net to be as good as several hundred pages in a good source book? I'd suggest you go to your local library and ILL both these books and others and decide which ones you might want to own---christmas is coming! (I usually provide a list of books to my family so they can always buy me a gift that I really want!)

Look for cracks in the casting---nb fresh paint cuts the price DOWN in my book as you can't be sure what's under it. Any signs of abuse---old repairs, broken cast iron *anywhere* on the piece. Look for wear on the screw and on the guide plates. Any tool holding stuff come with it? Is it set up to be able to easily switch out top tools? Is there a sturdy bottom tool holder in place? Yes you can make all this stuff but it's extra time and really needs access to machine tools to do it nice! Can't help on the price I got my large old H frame press in mint condition FOB for about US$100 ($50 for the press, sales tax, 15% buyer's reaming, and $35 to have a rigger load it on my truck)---industrial auction and all the company buyers wanted arbor presses that day