ThomasPowers

Solar, I remember seeing plans in an old MEN (Mother Earth News) about a solar collector that was getting stuff to 1600 degF and thinking Hmmm that's gettintg towards forging temp... Now I live in sunny NM I may have to give it a try... Thomas

Didn't your mother tell you never to play on ice with hot metal? Thomas (mine didn't...)

As other decorative knots both the larkshead and the sheepshank can be tied by just forming loops and manipulating them rather than by complicated threading of rod around and through loops. As stated easy to demonstraight in person hard to explain---I may make a couple this weekend to show at the SWABA meeting next month, now if I only had more 1/4" and 3/8" rod to play with... Thomas

Ask Patrick Nowack what he did over at anvilfire---may take him a bit to answer; or you could search on his earlier postings and send him e-mail from it. IIRC this forge was built in a square metal box and lined on all 5 walls with soft firebrick so lots of insulation value. he didn't have a lot of fancy tools so the burners were probably pretty simple. Thomas

I had a friend build an aspirated gas forge and brought it to a MOB meeting to show it off. While talking to us he *melted* a billet in it---pool of liquid steel on the floor of the forge How much hotter do you need? Coal forges do not get hotter than gas forges can; but most any coal forge will burn up steel and you need a gas forge designed to get hot to melt it---not all gas forges will weld, some will weld with tweaking and some weld so much better than a coal forge that it's amazing to use them. You can't say gas forges don't get hot enough---rather you can say *this* design/implementation doesn't get hot enough" Note most professional pattern welders use propane forges these days. James Hrisoulas welds with an aspirated forge and is several thousand feet above seal level to boot! Coal forges do have a nice restricted hot spot in them while gas forges tent to heat everything in sight.. Thomas

1: don't try to weld car spring to itself as a starter project 2: this is when safety glasses and a face shield and a leather apron, long sleeves and gloves are mandatory! When the flux flies it's unpleasent to have your skin be the landing spot. 3: Deep Fire and bring up the heat slowly---you don't want an oxidizing fire! This also helps get the center to welding heat as well as the outside. 4: Don't slam the pieces with the hammer you want more of a firm tap to set the weld---some folks demo this by welding a billet using a hammer handle to set the weld. 5: have everything to hand *before* the piece comes out of the fire and don't set the piece on the anvil but hold it slightly over it and let the hammer push it onto the anvil---helps keep the piece hot And as my original instructor used to yell at me---"DON'T LOOK AT IT! HIT IT!" Thomas

I make that style so that they will clip into a leather belt pouch for camping events... Of course the last eating set I did was for the local smithing group's potlucks---did it from Ti and coloured it---pretty to look at and dishwasher safe. Thomas

I was refering to the post immediatly above mine and pulling the High Poobah's leg a bit---he doesn't have anything that will shoot this far---that he is admitting to... Thomas

Was it pattern welded? Thomas

That is one way to look at it---but if you weld the same stuff to itself you still get a pattern---look at welded cable blades---all the same metal welded up but the pattern is there. Turns out that decarb and possible weld zone pick up keeps the layers from melding into one. Thomas

Gee when mystuff starts looking like that I usually just throw it back on the scrap pile---just kidding it's a nice display holder and I like that sconce too.... Thomas

From "Anvils in America" by Richard Postman, *the* *best* reference on anvils! "Vanadium Steel: Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward both sold these anvils under the vanadium steel trademark in the late 1930s and early 1940s, prior to WWII. There was a Vanadium Steel Corporation, which manufactured tools and they were the ones most likely to have manufactured these anvils they are listed in the catalogs in sizes 75, 100, 125 and 150 pounds. A 100 pound anvil is listed in the 1941-1942 Fall& Winter MW catalog for the great sum of $17.95 The trademark Vanadium Steel is cast in bold relief on the side with the weight listed below." The listing also has a copy of the Sears catalog, Spring-Summer for 1938 with the 100# anvil listed as being $14.95 and "Guaranteed not to chip" (which indicated they may be a tad soft...) From the sourcing and price I would guess that it's a decent but not great anvil and should sell for less than one of the top tier anvils. Thomas Powers

rthibeau---I've always said the difference between a cannon and a pipe bomb is whether the projectile come out the muzzle! When I had mine built I had a choice of cannon ball molds, one was slightly over the bore size, the other was under by a greater ammount. now they do force fit lead balls in muzzleloading rifles at times but I hold by my first statement and went loose---it's a smoothbore anyway and scrap leather wadding is quite sufficient for messing around. Thomas

Why so large a forge? Even when forging swords you only want to heat up the area you can work on before it cools off, (especially for swords as heating where you are not working results in grain growthn scaling and decarburization---all bad things.) Thomas

IIRC Postman mentions them in Anvils in America, unfortunately I won't be able to access this forum after perusing my copy till Monday. Thomas

OK so you should have hammer control down. But those hooks were probably mild steel; working high carbon you will need to learn forging temp ranges, heat treat, finishing, hilting, sheath/scabbard making (*NO* blade should leavy your shop without some type of sheath---even if you are sending it to the sheath maker!) You have much better turnover time learning all this on knives---you can put in a lot more time forging 1 sword and ruin it in heat treating and still not know what went wrong or ruin a bunch of knives learning the basics in less time. Why folks assume their first time forging a sword will come out right I never know---like assuming the first time you drive a car you are ready to win a road race... Thomas

With rope make sure you do at least two levels---adults and kids. As for horse shoeing, I tell folks that while many blacksmiths in *America* were general smiths and did a bit of everything---we having more of a fronteir culture, (and 19th century and earlier blacksmith day books show them making and shoeing horses and oxen as well as all the other stuff they did. When you only had one smith in town they did everything!); in europe smithing and farrier work was quite seperate---different guilds and asking a smith in Europe to shoe your horse you were lucky if he only threw his hammer at you. As for myself I just tell them that "Horses are *bigger* than I am and *dumber* than I am and that is just too scary a combination for me..." I usually have some scrap pine around and if they ask "is that hot" I touch the wood and let them see the flames shoot up---and then say "no" it's down to about 1200 degF and time to reheat it. Do you get burned "Yes I was cooking dinner the other night and..." "No, at the forge!" "Yes but I get burned worse and more often in the kitchen" and then talk about gloves and tongs and other PSG. "My grandfather was a real smith"---"Want to sell any of his equipment to someone who will use it?" Remember if you are demonstrating *DON'T EXPECT TO GET ANYTHING DONE!" you are there to educate/entertain not produce product. If you are expected to "serve two masters" at the same time we usually have a smith and a "talker" and the talker is the one who interacts with the crowd... Thomas

550C is WAY TOO HIGH for an old simple steel faced anvil. That's almost glowing in a dark room hot---it will lose it's temper hundreds of degreesF lower than that! I would not want it to go over 350-400 degF myself. Thomas

I would advise that they make their weight in knives before they do a sword. Thomas

You can ask whatever you want---just don't expect folks to come breaking your door down to buy it. I don't know of anybody paying a premium for bridge anvils---now if you really want to do it right you get some big name smith to do a demo at Quad-State using a bridge anvil and letting on as to how it's his secret to doing great work. At lunch time you just hapen to have your one for sale near the demo area and wait till you get a live one... It's interesting that I have bought several items that had been talked up at previous Quad-States and then were re-sold by their new owners several years later as they just didn't suit them the way they did the demonstrator---how I got my sweedish cross pein that Rob Gunther likes and I was too cheap to buy new---now I wisht I had. Thomas

Only time I get clinker in a charcoal fire is when I've been forge welding. The rest of the time I just get wood ash that blows away when I crank the blower hard a couple of times. Scale and flux are two other components of clinker. Thomas

Whoa there! Just sit down easy like and sniff a little coal smoke until the fit passes... Our family used to collect odd town names as we travelled everything from Bucksnort TN to Bugtussle OK I can still remember driving out of our way to take a ferry over the Mississippi back in the mid 1960's I've been on picnics at Toad Suck Ferry, Near Little Rock, don't expect there would be others. Thomas

Fewmets or feumets is an archaic term for manure. You sometimes still see it used referring to dragon manure but it was used for animal manures in general---rabbit fewmets, dear fewmets, boar fewmets, etc usually in reference to tracking animals as "these fewmets taste fresh! Thomas

If you are not skilled in making these perhaps modifying a pickaxe would be the fastest way to go. Most old pickaxes will be of an appropriate steel at least here in the USA. The eye is rectangular so that the head will not want to turn on the handle during use. The heads and handles are also tapered so that the head seats itself more firmlly during use rather than coming off. BTW do they use the flat adze or the gutter adze? Thomas

Yup, the 25# ended up with a smith in Fayeteville AR area and the 50 with some friends near Toad Suck Ferry---never realizing that in OH the prices were several times higher and the selection much lower. I about swallowed my tongue when that 30# champion hammer ran me $700 and then all the OH smiths were telling me I had made out like a bandit! I moved that hammer to NM with me having already been warned about prices out here... Thomas