ThomasPowers

The average size is about 2" to 1 foot DEPENDING. You make them to suit your style of work. As I mentioned I like to make short ones out of high alloy steels; but a lot of my old punches are handled top tools. The commercial drifts I've bought at the fleamarket are generally about 6". A good bolster plate is a great tool to have. One I saw I liked and have sworn to duplicate when I get my shop powered and can use the 2hp drill press had a pin in it that fit the pritchel and the holes spaced so they fit over the hardy hole so you could rotate it till the size you needed was over the hardy and go at it---stamp the size on the thickness edge so it doesn't show up on your work!

All my use of a cone has been for trueing up curves and so no heavy hammering. I have a 90# 28" tall one that just sits on a stump and never have had any problems with it. With a tall one you may want to position it so the area you use the most is at a convient height. (or an adjustable stand!)

I'd worry about "throw" if you are doing out of balance forging on a set of dies---like combo dies where you may work on one side or the other but not the middle where the dies change. Twisting force has to go somewhere and will probably be the pitman tup joint. No problem if sized for it.

I'd look into cutler's resin/pitch before I'd use hide glue as hide glue softens when exposed to moisture---can make things slippery too! One thing to consider is that in earlier times people would *EXPECT* that a sword would need regular maintenance and that the grip might be expected to be replaced a number of times over it's lifetime. For burning in tangs we used to make a smaller tang "tool" and used that for burning---less wear and tear on the tang, no problems with tang heat treat and with skill a good fit when you drive on the real tang.

Were you working the iron hot? Also rebar bundle wire---the 1/8" stuff not tie wire is usually *very* soft and so good for such things.

Older anvils tended to have smaller hardy holes and they were using soft wrought iron as well. You probably adjusted your working methods to your equipment's capabilities just like nowdays... I have 3 anvils that have a 1.5" sq hardy hole and that's a heck of a shank in cold steel! Since many people use hollow sq tubing for hardy tooling shanks I think that they don't get as much force on the shank as you might think.

Well, I don't recall anyone named Gobbler way back then; but I'm nortoriously bad wrt names---why I wear the disreputable red hat. I don't expect folks to remember my name---but they remember the hat! I still use Thomas though. I'm very happy you weren't crushed by my unfeeling replies. I sure miss Emmert's place. My first Quad-State there I was in my sleeping bag in my tent and it was after 10pm and I could hear *4* triphammers running; 25#'r going ping ping ping ping; a 50#'r going thud thud, a 100#'r going WHOMP WHOMP and an air hammer going unhhhhhh-thwap unhhhhhh-thwap unhhhhhh-thwap... Did you get a chance to see any working schwanze hammers in Germany? I think what I was trying to convey is that what is normal to us is not necessarily normal in the scheme of the entire world. In Germany a single horned anvil is the oddball where in America the double horned is unusual. (though not as unusual as it was almost 30 years ago when I got started.) Most of the luft hammers I have seen were round shafted and I have seen at least two mechanical ones that were and owned one of them. Bought from an old oilfield weldor in OK for $250, sold it when I moved to OH and had to pay almost 3 times that to buy a champion #0. So lets drop this and get on to the interesting parts like how are you keeping the dies indexed? gibs in slots on the top ram? Index off the pitman-ram joint? Grits and red eye gravy?

It is absolutely amazing how comfortable PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) is when you actually need it! Makes you wonder why you ever *didn't* wear it!

Any chance a local vo-tech might take it on as a project to machine all sorts of interesting shapes into it?

Saying your idea is so good that other folks have come up with it before is not trivializing it in my book. OTOH not wanting to use a term that has been used for well over a century in the business for "trivial" reasons seems odd to me. Sort of like victorians who would put "trousers" over piano "legs" so as to not offend...

Screwpress screws are generally multiple lead and so for a 3 or 4 lead screw that pitch is not too strange. To stop you use a stop block the height you want. Screwpresses are famous for their pressure spikes when the ram bottoms out and the system reverses---makes them great for coining as that spike "squirts" the metal into the die cavities. I've used a powered screwpress, very nice and keep EVERYTHING clear of the dies save the workpiece!

What is the air flow pattern like? What kind of work are you doing? You definitely want to keep the precision machines separate from the forging area but you need to provide more info. If all you are doing is knives then even a much smaller forging area would be fine. If you are doing gates you may need more than you have when you start throwing 20' pieces of steel around.

A coffee can fits under the hardy hole in my anvils and holds enough water to cool a tool that drops into it. I've never had a stake that projected more than about 1" max below the bottom of the hole and so plenty of room to tap on it without messing with the stand. (I make my stakes to have a central projection so they can be tapped without "riveting" them in place. Note: I like short tools that can be held with specialized tongs. Makes them easier to use under a powerhammer, treadle hammer or screwpress---less kick out/headroom issues. Also they can be made of high alloy steels and so take the heat better but not break the bank to make them.

Have you seen very many european and asian powerhammers Gobbler? If all you are used to is what's common around here then you might even think that the "normal" shape of an anvil is to have only 1 horn...If I get a chance I'll look through "Pounding out the Profits" and see if they show any American round tupped hammers. Look up the term tupping and the application of it to a reciprocating shaft becomes clear... It too is a fairly common term in power hammers in my experience. If you ever get to Columbus OH go to their main library and see if they still have the videotape on making japanese kitchen knives that they used to have when I lived there. It shows a round tupped mechanical powerhammer IIRC. No problem with folks coming up with the same ideas independently---like pattern welding. Pattern welding seems to have been "invented" everywhere that the bloomery process of making wrouhgt iron was used. Part of that process is forging out and folding/stacking and forge welding the wrought iron repeatedly to refine the inclusions in it... Some cultures probably got it from their neighbors others may very well come up with it on their own... I remember meeting a fellow at the Knifemaker's Guild Show back in the early 1980's that was big on how he was going to build a knife that had a gun barrel in the center spine that would shoot the point---"Oh like the one from the Renaissance shown in 'Arms and Armor Annual---A Wheellock Dagger from the Court of the Medici' " he was surprised that he wasn't the first by several centuries.

Remember too that a lot of young folks today haven't had any hard labour in their backgrounds. I have college kids help me load/unload at times and it still amazes me that I'm better at lifting some of the heavy stuff then they are and I've toned it way back from when I was their age!

If this issue of which way the anvil horn points botthers people I can only suggest they purchase a european styled anvil with horns at each end and so always be *right*!

Cast steel

SWABA's August meeting is at a shop of a fellow that has a 750# West; he uses it. It doesn't seem much like a "collectors anvil" to me...

Good brand old files are usually around 95/100 - 1.2% C (with the *old* blackdiamond not stamped nicholson being the 1.2%) *VERY* good price for files that size indeed!

I had a 50# old shop built? fullering hammer that had a round tup shaft that was made 50+ years ago and have seen a mechanical hammer in an old videotape on japanese knifemaking that had a round tup. So using a round tup for mechanical hammers isn't new; transferring that option to the tire hammer may be. It's a great idea as it's easier to get good round than rectangular solids!

Normalizing will also refine grain in modern steels. I normalize 3 times after forging. Then grind/file/sand. Then Normalize again, Then Harden-Temper, then final grind, then polish, then hilt then make a scabbard, then sharpen! If I am interrupted forging I will generally let the piece anneal in the forge (propane).

Also CO2 tanks (think commercial fountain drinks!), some *old* fire extinguishers---they look at me funny at the fleamarket when I lift up the tank and feel the bottom. I look for *old* CO2 ones so I don't have to deal with possible toxic powders. (Ask at a fire extinguisher supply co they may give you old ones if you explain what you want them for.) Also valve lifters from HEAVY engines. For a different type: lifting hooks and toroidal hitches make nice "bottomless dishing forms" and RR dome headed bolts---*NOT* spikes---bolts make good dishing hammers. You can also forge out ballpeins into dishing hammers---not the peen but the "flat end".

Avadon; they seem to have been fairly commonly used in the old oil patch for repointing cable tool drill bits and as such tend to be found in very poor condition. I have one bought in OK, I knew another one in OK (5 generation smith in Stroud who had flipped it over and used the smoother base to flatten plow points on) and had a retired friend who's father used them back in the 1930's in PA repointing cable tool bits. I also found one out here in NM associated with an old cable tool rig---it's currently "stored in use" at the NM Tech Fine Arts Metals building. The one he has is by far the cleanest one I have seen!

1 take a shovel and dig a scoop out of the dirt 2 use the forge you just created I built a forge using an axle cover from a "banjo rear end" (from the 1930's) that I bought at a fleamarket in AR---two of them that had been made into jackstands for $3. I ground out any raised seams on the inside and removed the bearing race and have been using the first one as my primary forge for over 20 years. Used a cast iron drain grate or expanded metal for the grate. I have also made a nice forge from a brake drum that I used to use as my billet welder.

I have an anvil that sat in an unheated leanto in a swampy area of Ohio for 50+ years. It had a fine even pitting on the face from rusting from condensation. I'm slowly polishing out the face by using it and letting the scale do the work!