ThomasPowers

The problem is that a forge doesn't burn coal to heat steel. It burns coke. The coal that's burning is just to change it to coke and is around the outside of the fire. I don't think you can coke tire rubber and burning it will be a nasty tarry mess. You would have to figure out how to separate the burning from the metal heating. Sulfur contamination is another big issue as sulfur degrades steel. So is it possible? You could probably figure out a way to do so with a reverbatory furnace (look it up) and it would only be many more times as expensive and as difficult that using coal or charcoal. You know it's possible to burn diamonds as forge fuel, just not "efficient". BTW the recycled rubber is known as "crumb rubber" according to my father who was on the board for a tire recycling business.

"I wonder how many people understand your Fe?" round these parts I'd guess that *most* of them understand it. May your mother's passing be gentle.

I use a 10" wheel as that was what the fellow I trained under used and so I went for it when I bought my bader rather than getting a smaller wheel and then having to pay for another.

I have been known to dress that area with a chainsaw file if I wasn't happy with the way it was turning out---mainly for eating forks where you don't have much stock to play around with to start with.

Well there is heat treating and there is heat treating---I wouldn't want to leave pretty much any tool in an annealed condition but a lot of my tooling I use normalized. Tools that get "buried" in hot steel I try to use high alloy steels for that stay hard to high temps.. Even if the tip will get drawn back by hot metal the shaft of some tools profit from being a bit harder and tougher---especially if you use long punches.

Hacal; let me rephrase your original posting as I understand it: "I have an anvil very much like most medieval and traditional Japanese swords were made on but of higher quality as it's quite hard with a loud ring. I got it for free; but I am still looking for a good anvil at a reasonable price" I quite understand wanting more than one anvil; but I would not be in a hurry to pay too much for another one.

Archiphile, tyvek is designed to let moisture pass through it; so how will this help?

You can always leave the edge a bit thicker and go for max hardness and then after tempering grind it the rest of the way down. A thin edge can be a problem in HT.

John when I did the pattern welded pizza cutter for my wife I made the cutting disk by forging a billet down along the long axis---just to see how well the welds would hold. It is impressive when you start with a 3" long piece and take that down to 3/16".

Rereading this thread I was reminded that people making these were often required to make several thousand a year as "tax" payment. If I had to make 20 or 30 thousand in my career I might get pretty good at them too.

After a number of years outside your stump may rot and or get termites. However it may be easier to just replace it as needed than to try to stabilize it. Having it rest on a piece of concrete to break the ground/wood interface will help quite a bit; as will having a cover for it to keep the rain off. (One smith I know of made a dog house on wheels to cover his anvil and discourage theft of it as well.)

What alloys are your knife blades?---makes a difference on what fluxes work well. "Killed acid FLUX" is zinc chloride made by dissolving zinc in HCl until it's "killed" (neutralized). One of my old "Farm Shop Manuals" discusses it.

My fisher is a quiet anvil with great rebound. All the vulcans I have owned have had less of a rebound but that is due to them having a softer face not the sound.

Don what country are you in? (Unless you are willing to pay for international shipping...) Do you want new or old ones? If old ones you should list sizes as you are dependent on what's out there. Note that listing the size of your hardy hole helps if you do not want to spend time converting them.

Acanthus, or anything you come up with Tobacco leaves have been used on some traditional work.

If they can't get it to pass at the false temp data it sure isn't going to pass with the correct temp data! And 20 minutes is a long heat!

Yes they can be annealed and re-heat treated. "The Complete Modern Blacksmith: by Weygers has instructions on how to heat treat a rail anvil. With your design the top plate is what needs to be heat treated not the rail, the horn should work as normalized or if heated and quenched should be drawn back substantially blue at least! Remember to pre and post heat the rail for the welding and do full penetration welds. Try to use a suitable top piece that will not pop off the rail when being heat treated.

I used to be in the MOB; Mid Ohio Blacksmiths, if you are around central ohio you may want to look them up. I hope you will be at Quad-State this year. Barring medical problems I plan to drive from New Mexico to go to it! Just look for the guy with the disreputable red hat.

Cal-k are you using a buffing compound designed for polishing up a finished wood surface?

Several foreign countries do it that way, the older your car the higher the registration fee. I'm driving a 1990 pickup but it has less than 130K miles so far.

Depends on if the A36 is annealed or work hardened or...

"And malt does more than Milton can. To justify God's ways to man" Of course poetry probably won't get through to the dog either... BTW The landscapes over here were exploited, just not in ways Europeans recognized.

I saw this program as a way to save car manufacturing jobs and the methodology was to try to kill two birds with one stone.

I had a friend who had his anvil's face milled nice and flat---it was then too thin to use and he had a professional welder spend 5-6 hours building it up again to a usable thickness. I have seen another anvil that was taken to a machine shop to mill flat. Turns out that the face and the bottom were not parallel so the machine shop clamped it down on a large mill and made them parallel---milling all the way through the face in places. That person paid a goodly chunk of change to have them RUIN his anvil. Do no more on yours till you have used it a year or two and know more about what really is needed!

The small ones tended to be made from a single piece hammered out---as was shown in the viking exhibit at the Smithsonian a decade or so ago and can be seen in the "prune people" viking book. (one of the many called "the vikings" but with very good line drawings of physical culture as well as pictures, unfortunately all the people are drawn with "prune" faces).