ThomasPowers

I open up both 10'x10' roll up doors on opposing walls of my shop and it there is no breeze I'll throw in a 1/3 hp fan. Of course I often do knives and so tend towards a reducing atmosphere in the forge anyway... If I lived in a cold climate and had a fairly "tight" shop I would probably totally enclose the forge in a steel box with outside air provided for combustion / vent needs and use an air barrier to keep exhaust from entering the shop through the access gap.

I on the other hand find it discourteous as it provides a "false positive" for "new postings" and on weekends I have to access this through a slow dial up line---our unincorporated hamlet doesn't even have T1 to it!. (worst of all are forums where folks have pictures as part of their sig lines and I have to wait while 10 copies of a stupid picture that has nothing to do with the forum downloads and as a moderator of that forum I feel I have a duty to keep abreast of it!) I much prefer new posts to have new info in them. I have no problem with throwing info out into the aether as I realize that it may provide help to many more people than the original.

What he said, it's now probably full of copperoxides along the grain boundries and so cannot be annealed or worked (or melted). Needs to be re-smelted. Scrap it!

If a fork lift tine is too soft for your liking you would be better off heat treating it than hardfacing it!

And when you're done for the day/job your borax soaked shirt or cloth apron can be dropped in the wash with the rest of your clothes. You do have to re-soak it after it's clean though.

(but I keep waiting for my wife to post *my* picture in it...)

Related to "SLO" Sword Like Object often referring to rat tailed tanged stainless wallhangers

Mick you owe me a beer for that! For those of you who are not familiar with american anvils "Arm and Hammer" is a brand of very nice anvils made in Columbus OH, (as were Trentons). They are not to be confused with Vulcan anvils which had a trademark of an "arm and hammer" as well but it projects from the anvil as Vulcans are a steel faced cast iron bodied anvil; but not nearly the quality level as a Fisher. Now for you Motie fans the gripping hand is very handy for smithing!

Note that workhardened bronze is about the same hardness as real wrought iron that took over with the iron age. Iron is just *easier* to find as ore most places. Of course once they figured out carburization and heat treating then steel zooms way up past either one in hardness.

1920 is a "spring chicken" as far as anvils go! Now I have a wrought iron bodied, steeled face hammer I dug out of the mud at a scrapyard in England that's probably double the age of your anvil and is still going strong!

Generally a lot of folks from the net, the old keenjunk---now forgemagic crew, will get together in a campsite and have a potluck, show and tell, etc. One sad year we held the toast for Paw Paw there. I plan to drive in from New Mexico; but unfortunately will probably arrive on Thursday evening. We may have to plan to have a Banner or something to identify the group. I of course will have my disreputable red hat as fair warning to others!

A less destructive test for wrought iron: From "Formulas for Profit", Bennett, copyright 1939, 4th printing "To identify iron from steel" "Mix 5 drops nitric acid with 10 drops H2O", (remember acid into water *NEVER* water into acid),"File a clean spot and place a drop on it. If it is steel it will turn black immediatly. If it is wrought iron or malleable iron it will stay bright for a considerable length of time." Use at your own risk!

The only "unseen" danger I can think of would be if the anvil had been through a fire and thus de-tempered. However if this had happened *nobody* has used it since as the face shows no evidence of being soft *and* the body doesn't look like it's been "cooked" (or cooked and then cleaned and repatinated) I would be willing to buy that one based on what was provided already.

A blade is one of the pickiest things to forge: you need to get the correct forging temp, need to stop before it gets too cold, need to hit it just right to prevent hammer dings, need to worry about grain growth and decarburization and lastly----all the heat treat issues. Doing one without help as one of your first projects is rather like having your first driving lesson on the New Jersey Turnpike during evening rush hour after dark in the rain... I strongly suggest you forge an S hook or 12 and attend some of the local ABANA affiliate meetings and learn the basics first! I've been forging for over 28 years now and even with me standing over a new student advising and helping I won't let them do a blade as their first project.

How well does it work?

Looks to be a good one and with the cast iron stand for it too! There was another smith from the UK posting about how plentiful and cheap anvils were over there; perhaps you should dig him out if you don't get that one! The base of the anvil seems to be a common place to test the temper of chisels on and so many of them show damage in that region. Really in quite good using condition; if the price is reasonable when shipping is factored in then I'd go for it!. Of course 260 miles is not that far around these parts, our county is about 100 miles north to south and 80 east to west iirc and do not have those numbers backwards...I'm plannin to drive close to 1500 miles each way to go to a smithing conference this fall...

some stardrills have a hole in the center to pump water through in use, That hole makes a good centering point for the swage and a point keeps the hole from being squished while dressing it.

Ahhh Phil, you might want to read the post from 06-29-2009, as it addresses what you just posted.

The tire recycling plant my Father was involved with caught on fire when an electrical transformer exploded; this happened *before* I moved out here. 5 years later and completely buried it's still burning under ground.

Some vermiculite contains trace amounts of asbestos as does the soil of any place around a roadway that is old enough to have had asbestos brake pads used by cars traveling on it. What about Pearlite? (they mine it about 2 miles from where I'm sitting...)

My massive Fisher has more of a "thwap" than a "TING"---very nice when you spend a full day standing over it; but I still tend to wear hearing protectors anyway. I'm used to them so they are comfortable and makes it easy to switch to a power tool without a break in the flow to hunt them down. I have a small arm and hammer I use for demos as the "TING" helps bring in the crowd. Foam rubber earplugs are a big help with that one!

YES! O-A makes it *easy*!

Out here the only good sized wood locally is cotton wood. I ended up using *old* creosoted bridge/mine timbers that had been reused by the ranch next door and then donated to me. Back in Ohio I'd use whatever was handy and replace it every 10 years or so. Less hassle than maintenance on a piece.

No! Top swage for redressing star drills for drilling stone. (before they made the replaceable tips for powered drills) For the rolls---make a roller! be a pity to waste all that effort on cutting them. Thomas

Well even back several hundred years ago the proverb was "if a good blade you would win; you forge thick and grind thin"