ThomasPowers

Out here in NM it's more like $25 per inch and up! Back in OH it was about $25-$50 per vise (bought 2 6" vises for 50 when I lived out there.

I'd guess shoeing as ridge backed as it is. I think I have a vulcan in worse shape. No face, ridge backed and with a broken off horn---I took it to Quad-State one year to show off how bad the casting had been. Where the horn met the body there was a series of bubbles in the cast you could fit pencils in! Why I don't like Vulcans and do love Fishers!

Welding carbon steel to cast iron and then trying to get it to hold together during heat treat? Not suggested. Not repairable but still usable! There is one small piece of face left and the horn---you could forge out a ton of 1/4" sq stock tourist trinkets on it with no problem!

The problem is that a new person may not have the skills or the knowledge on how to properly repair an anvil and so may do it harm trying to "pretty it up". Ever seen a lovely vintage car that was trashed by someone trying to "restore it"? Like sharp corners---my old smithing books tell you that the first thing you do when buying a new anvil is to round the corners! So making them sharp is not the way to go to get it back to original using condition. Like medicine: "First Do No Harm" then if you have the skills and equipment proceed with caution! I have a friend who had a PW re-done by a machine shop. Paid good money for them to ruin his anvil as they milled the face down till it was too thin to use. He was just getting started way back when. Just recently he had it refaced by a highly skilled blacksmith and weldor---took about 5-6 hours using the big welder (not counting the pre-heat!) commercial cost of that welding would be more than buying an anvil in better condition to start!

The "ideal" anvil is the one that best supports *your* methods of work and items you generally make! Look at some of the new ones with the graduated punching holes in them. Why do a custom piece and then want it to look just like a common commercial item?

Work on making the triangle *very* uniform. Make a small swage to start the bending into a cone and use a connical top swage piece to get the bend started very precisely. Have a proper sized connical bic to finish it off on. And Practice Practice Practice Practice Practice Practice

There's a BP on heat treating which is probably what you are thinking of.

"Gears in automotive transmissions are usually made from a steel alloy that is later heat treated to be more resistant to fatigue, and then surface hardened to resist wear" Doesn't say a thing on if thery are cast steel or forged steel---or cast and then forged---or not does it. Cast does not necessarily mean Cast iron. Especially as I don't know of any case hardening process for a material that already has so much carbon in it that it precipitates out as graphite.

The joy in blacksmithing is to be able to customize your tools and so improve them with every new attempt. If you are afraid of making mistakes; or if your first try *has* to be perfect then perhaps blacksmithing is not a good fit with your character. If you can shrug it off with a "well that didn't work...I wonder what would happen if I tried it this way..." Then you will find great satisfaction in blacksmithing and probably end up years later writing new people and telling them "I tried it that way but found that for me this way worked better..."

Dies for "magician" type tools or guillotine fullers

For mild steel I had a deal with a medium sized "ornamental iron shop". They would scrap all their drops and even some larger stuff after a job and as they had to pay to have their scrap hauled I was able to get hundreds of pounds of new steel for free by asking them, always wearing PPE, never getting in the way of the shop and leaving the scrap bin cleaner and neater (and able to hold more!) when I left. (medium sized as the small ones tended to keep stuff and the large ones won't want you there---forging trinkets for the office staff helps too!)

Can you tell us what it will be used for? "I have a 100# anvil is it a good weight?" For working 2" sq stock NO!!!!!!!!!!! For 1/4" stock YES!!!!!!!!!!! I once had a 190# HB swell horned farriers anvil that was terrible for making knives on---very narrow face but was GREAT for scrolls Anyone who offers a critique without knowing what it's to be used for is just guessing!

No need to "experiment" a good gas supply place should know how much to reduce jet size to go from NG to Propane. For a simple burner they did it for me by soldering over the jet and redrilling to the proper size. If you don't have to guess you don't have to worry about guessing wrong!

Well you didn't mention LOCATION or CONDITION so I would have to say somewhere between $1 and $3 per pound depending on LOCATION and CONDITION (and could go even lower if it's delaminating!)

Some shapes require such a gap for forging. However the ones I have seen were all used in the oilfield to repoint cable tool drillbits. (5 so far including the one I own)

Note that the last blister steel run I ran was 20 hours at temp and I got essentially cast iron out of it---just crumbled at a high heat. So "many" < 20 for 1/4" wrought iron strap in my gas forge.

Willow makes great charcoal for making black powder; not good for smelting ore though (crushes too easily in the smelter). The term "great" *ALWAYS* requires a "for what" after it. A formula 1 race car is a "great car" for some sorts of racing and a lousy one for others...

Ferric chloride is probably your best bet. Often can be found at Radio Shack as PCB etchant (Printed Circuit Board). This will etch most metals but is fairly "safe" to use compared to many acids. On the other hand why lie? If your katana doesn't have a real hamon why put a fake one on it?

Perhaps he wasn't so far away from the ally when he shot them off the *first* time. I was lucky enough to buy a demonstration bowling ball that had already been halved to show the interior make up---of course I found this *after* manually sawing one in two to make a poor man's engraving vise set up.

Do you yell FORE or fire in the hole? (My falconette has a 2" bore; not a motar just a smoothbore.)

I already own a less heavy bridge anvil and don't like the looks of that one---all the weight is in the base and not up in the bridge where it might be needed! If I owned it I would flip it upside down and have the base surfaced to use as a try plate.

I like laying out a scale in 1/4" increments from a middle line---helps me judge where to cut a billet better. I usually do this on a cutting plate though.

DMike: I googled Friction Drive Screw Press and almost all the hits on the first page were applicable. May I suggest you do likewise. I have to get ready for a road trip back June 1st. I have a friend who is a coiner and has an old FDSP that I have used---bought on the used machinery market and much cheaper then the new imports and better made to boot!

To make spring steel from regular low carbon steel look up "blister steel", "shear steel" and "cast steel". This can be done in a blacksmith's shop set up for it. I sometimes make blister steel while forging other items in my gas forge by placing the carburization set up along one side of the chamber and rotating it every hour. Shear steel is made by welding up blister steel. Cast steel was made by melting blister steel and then casting an ingot and heavily forging it to reduce grain size. To make your own high carbon stainless steels; look into buying an induction melter with vacuum chamber---you can probably do it for about double what my house cost if you buy used equipment. Note you will also need test equipment to get things just right. A bloomery can produce anything from zero carbon wrought iron to high carbon steel to cast iron; *but* the learning curve can take years of practice to get semi repeatable results.

Vulcan's have an abreviated weight cast in. Very few manufacturer's put the date on. William Foster and IIRC some Fishers have dates on them.