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I Forge Iron

ThomasPowers

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Everything posted by ThomasPowers

  1. Chris with that set up I'd guess you would do better with a car heater fan; also 12v and much better made and without the annoying hair drier whine. Cheap/free from wrecked cars too.
  2. There is a dynamite smithing group in VA; hook up with them and you'll be on the fast track for sure!
  3. I would consider a 1/4" dia peen to be much too narrow to do a lot of work with. Most modern hammers are sold with too narrow a peen cause they are not making them for smiths! A nice broad peen lets you draw a piece on the anvil horn *fast*!
  4. Use better coal! Don't burn up stuff in the forge go to hand powered vs electrically driven air supply But the coal you use is the heavy hitter; wish I could suggest to you where to get some of the good stuff but I can't tell what country you are living in!
  5. Horns should be flat on the end and if "1/2" rounded off the top" means that the edges of the face were rounded then that's OK too. What you look out for is remaining thickness of the face, delamination, excessive sway---and you can do great forging with quite a lot of sway present! and cracks around the hardy/pritchel area CA is not the blacksmith's happy hunting ground you may want to pass the lead on to other folks who would be happy with those ones.
  6. swordforum.com, the antique forum might help. I have an old book on Cut and Thrust Weapons that has a section of Passau markings in it. Cut and Thrust Weapons (ISBN: 0600006158 / 0-600-00615-8) Eduard Wagner
  7. Talk with your local propane supplier! They did the inspection and furnished a new valve for my large tank and at a trivial cost, (cost of the used tank + inspection and new valve was less than 1/2 the cost of a new tank!)
  8. I made sure I married a lady that had a strong devotion to a craft as well---and made sure it was a different one---(she never wants to use *my* tools!). She also understands *why* I *must* have something and is quite down with me going off to conferences without her---as I get to take care of things when she goes to conferences. She's a spinster and so we are a steel-wool couple.
  9. Very nice railing indeed! Will you have to modify it any to pass local code?
  10. I usually think of white cast iron as chilled cast iron VERY HARD not like ductile at all!
  11. Looks like there is a welded up chunk just above the waist on the right hand side. That is probably killing the ring *but* will *NOT* affect the use of the anvil much if at all. (Just avoid abusing the anvil with large sledges!) Dandy anvil *years* of life left on it. Get thee to smiting!
  12. My favorite cross pein has a pein that looks like a 1" rod attached to the hammer. It works so well for moving metal that I would be upset if *anybody* tried to narrow it down. Is your larger than that? Now for using one to do decorative peening like on a flower petals I have a modern one with those too narrow a peen on them to use to move metal without causing cold shuts.
  13. "I will wench it up very carefully though!" Safety is always a good idea and when you are done wenching you may want to look into using a winch to lift the drillpress... (thanks for the smile this morning, I've been married 25 years and so my wenching days are long ago...)
  14. They don't have sales tax in Oregon???? Time to move out there!
  15. Note that the second legvise never had a long leg as it was a wagon tongue vise and so mounted via the rectangular bracket to one side. Much more rare than legvises.
  16. Generally you weld wrought iron at a temp that would be burning up modern steels.
  17. Yes they do have a weight limit---70 pounds for the large one and it's quite possible to exceed it when you are dealing with metal! I had a friend send me a 68 pound one the local post office claimed was over 70---must have been the tons of strapping tape they taped the shards of the box to the 2 pieces of round stock in it.
  18. Ahh what are you planning on making? Shop layout is *STRONGLY* dependent on what and how you plan to make.
  19. If I was going to try to forge weld them I would use a wooden hammer to try to save some of the texture.
  20. Good sized and good quality Machinist vises often cost more than postvises at fleamarkets in OH. Cheap Machinist vises have very short use lives!
  21. Fisher's are a quiet anvil, easy on your and your neighbor's ears. PWs go for a bit more than Fishers on the open market; but if I was working somewhere there was close neighbors I would go for the Fisher! I have two large anvils in my shop and I use my Fisher in preference to the Trenton. Small round forges usually have pretty poor blowers on them---make forging a lot more work than a good large blower. I'd go for the anvils and let someone else get the rivet forge!
  22. We had a crucible failure one time in the forge and the molten copper ran into the ash dump forming a nasty mess of clinker, ash and copper. I told the fellow working on it to use the *hack* saw and cut it up for remelting, turned around and he was using my *back*saw, one of my finest woodworking tools---totally ruined the edge of it and having it re-sharpened was going to cost several times what I originally paid for it... I have also learned to put my "tool colour" on *everything* or else hold downs and punches and drifts get used as stock...
  23. Billy Merrit from out Indiana way made a payttern welded RR spike more than 10 years ago. IIRC Hrisoulas once made a file from a knife... Lots of smiths are a bit odd in their thinking, I blame it on the coal smoke (even when I'm using propane!)
  24. Probably "Warrented". I'd have to check AinA for the crown bit
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