ThomasPowers

Coal was the english term for charcoal in medieval and later times what we think of as coal nowdays was always called "rock coal, earth coal or sea coal" and was not used for smithing until the high middle ages and even than charcoal was the preferred fuel until charcoal became too expensive. Language is a tricky thing and while the words may be the same what the mean can change quite a lot! Thomas

First firepots are usually cast iron and not steel. If it is cast iron you need to treat it like it. Cast iron is brittle so don't drop it/hammer on it. Note that cast iron has very little value as scrap, steel is much higher! Usually the clinker breaker is the grate for the forge and so would not have a connecting pipe but fasten on to the firepot---these bolts often rust off---whey folks keep asking if theye is evidence that they were once there and have rusted away.. If the clinker breaker will fill the hole and has mounting lugs you will need to drill new bolt holes in the firepot for it and mount it in place. Thomas

Julian; may I commend to your attention "The Complete Bladesmith" by James Hrisoulas AKA JPH. It has a lot of information on how to do guards and grips for swords. You can ILL it at the local library; but once you look it over you will probably want your own copy. (Note all the mounting details are pretty much the same for both stock removal and forged blades so this book is great no matter which way you got there) Thomas

Ironscott. I did that one day---started at the annual fleamarket at the dog&gun club looking over some smithing tools I met a fellow and he mentioned a triphammer about 30 miles away. Tracked that one down but the welding shop wanted to keep it but they mentioned one about 40 miles back the way I had come. The farrier with it was still using it---made his own shoes; but he asked me to leavy my phone number cause he might know of another one.... 3 days later he called me up and said his wife had told him that he had been kicked in the head too many times and was retired, come and pick up the hammer... I'm afraid I might be responsible for your problems---I picked up a 25#LG in Shawnee for $75 back in 1981 and a no name 50# fullering hammer from an old oilfield welder out near Roll ($250 for the hammer + a massive forge + some tools + a blower + some heavy duty flowline pipe for a cannon...) and took them over to AR when I moved... Thomas

Coal can be quite annoying to your "neighbors". Charcoal is a bit more friendly. If you do use a gasser make a sheetmetal cover for it like a dragon's mouth---impresses folks missing the coal. One trick I learned from a peripitatic smith is for a post vise stand. Take a 55 gal steel drum with a bung on the side near one end. Cut out the other end. Take a chunk of 2x8 or 2x12, water bed frames are often discarded with nice sideboards for reuse...place it ontop of the open end and scrible the *INSIDE* curve on it so it just touches one flat edge. Cut out the arc and mount inside the barrel with lagbolts. Mount your post vise to the board in the barrel with removable mounting system. To use: mount vise and fill with water---about 400# of weight for stability, water for fire safety/quench tank. At the end of the day remove bung and let barrel empty. Remove vise and the empty barrel is light an can be used to haul stuff in---I like using it for my scrap as it can't poke holes in things like the tarp or bellows if it's in the barrel. To make it a bit better you can weld a holder for the vise foot to it. Or since I usually demo on grass or gravel I took a rr fish plate and welded a piece of pipe to it and then "stake" it to the ground to hold the foot---holds for anything I should be doing in a demo situation... Thomas

Durned if I can remember; it was about 20 years ago, fellow had a nice masonry forge, triphammer, etc. I found it idly wandering around but I bet if you asked at the cafe or coffeeshop---hopefully they still have one---all the old timers should know. Thomas

I once visited a 5th generation smith in stroud OK (IIRC) who had a bridge anvil with a pattered face. He had built a stand to hold it upside down and used the smooth wide base to flatten plowshares on.---I need to do that with mine for large blades... Thomas

It varies from each municipality so for america there are probably 50,000 answers. I'm out in the country and the unwritten law is "don't annoy your neighbors". In the city in OH I used to live in there was a "reasonable" noise law that went from around 8 am till 10 pm but there is also a noise ordinance that limited loud noises at any time---measurement being done at the property line. Now these ordinaces also depended on if your area was zoned industrial or residential as well. Thomas

Nut sized sewall seam poco Thomas

A nice trick I learned from SOFA was to rig the electric blower with a foot switch---so it's only on when you are standing on it. Saves a lot of coal and stock as you are less like;ly to "forget" work in the fire. They also have a switch for on all the time for when you are needing a welding or other big fire. They also have an airgate to control the ammount of air to the fire when the blower is running. Thomas

Currently I have the open 10' x 10' door by the forging area and a skylight in the rear of the shop. At night I have a double halogen worklike on a stand that I bounce off the steel roof---ok for forging but not for finishing. I have 5 8' double bar fluorescents to be installed when power gets to the shop they will be run to seperate switches so I can only light the areas needed. Thomas

If you are doing straight stock removal you probably want to buy straight leaf spring stock from a local business that makes leaf springs---check the yellow pages. If you are nice they might even be willing to give it a spring heat treat after you are done. *I live in NM, the largest town in the entire county is 9,000 people and it's a big county! I can find the stuff out here. If you can't find it in a "thickly settled" area you need to hunt more. Thomas

Ahhh there is no workpiece on the anvil---is this to show how the Olympics are big and fancy but accomplish nothing? Thomas

Anvil prices vary quite a lot by location---they cost about twice as much here in NM as they did in OH. As a starting place have you researched bridge anvil sales on e-bay? Generally I find e-bay vastly overpriced compared to what I can find but it's a starting place. I paid a dollar a pound for mine around 25 years ago. If it's in good shape I would expect the low end price to be around $2 a pound and the high end price around $3 a pound depending on where you are at! Thomas

When we do a bloomery ironsmelt we always cook over the bloomery. One of the adcantages of using charcoal as a fuel. We have found that if you keep the steak in the reducing flames you can cook it very fast without burning it! (As in count the seconds between raw and ready) And I have eaten sausages fished out of the firery furnace whrn they explode off the fork. When I use charcoal at demos I like to cook my lunch over it---it bemuses the passer's by. Thomas

Don't worry as soon as your lungs go you'll be out on the street and get all the fresh air you can use living under a bridge. It's interesting to note that average height and life expectancy went *down* during the industrial revolution. Thomas

as to "wooden handled tools" I had about 150 on the rack when I moved two years ago---most are hammers as I don't use swages or flatners too much, a half dozen or so are hot cuts. As I work everything from silver to pattern welded billets I have 4 oz ballpeins through a 17 pound crosspein. This is not counting the bucket of ballpeins that are actually "scrap" for making hawks and punches from. I like to have back-ups of my favorite tools in case wear or theft makes me need to move on. My steel building has a crossbar about 5' off the ground that I can line the hammers up on with the end I use the most out so I can see which one I want. 80% of my work is done with only about 5 different hammers; but the weird ones sure come in usefull for odd tasks---like peening rivits deep inside a spangen helm... Thomas

I know several people who have small anvils for the hardy hole of their big anvil some things just need a smaller horn. Thomas

I have a frined, Patrick Nowak, who works at Scott Forge. They don't consider stock big till it gets in the 1 meter range. I need to dig up their website and see if they still have the pictures of them working 1 meter stock... Thomas

It can help to use *1* hammer until you really *know* it. I was carving a dragon's head once and noticed that folks were staring at me funny---I finally realized I had been driving the chisel with the pein of my sweedish crosspein. I'm so used to it that I hit square on the 3/8" round stock end of my chisels and punches without even looking! I was watching what the working end was doing. I know have a "warm up/cool down" hammer as I haven't been able to spend enough time in my shop to use the 1500gm hammer straight out for an all day demo... Thomas

I would want any of the foam insulations where a hot piece of metal might hit them, even the ones treated to not burn still give off nasty stuff when hot. Thomas

Yes I've used all of them. I started with an electric blower (both types) and then moved on to a *good* hand crank---it's large, easy to crank and the handle makes 3 full revolutions when I let go of it. Some small or hard to crank ones make the job too much like work. I found I used less fuel and burnt up a lot less metal when I was responsible for the blast and that I would automatically tweak the fire to get exactly what I wanted for the job at hand. Then for historical demos I built a double lunged bellows and found that the steady blast and large air storage was even nicer. I have it rigged that I could pump it with a single finger and I've even welded up billets with it. However I still prefer an electric blower if I have to do a lot of pattern welding. Now I've used bad versions of all of these---electric blowers with no control, hand cranks that wore me out and even a bellows that took all you could give to pump it---did some serious wear damage on the smith that had to use it as part of their job at the historical smithy. Thomas

I got laid off after nearly 15 years with my previous company; did a lot of unpaid overtime and had a stack of "peer awards" that was about 1/2" thick. I spent 7 months out of work and then landed a great job in a lovely rural location. I found a great house to live in with enough land to build my smithy on. We like it so much we're trying to pay off the house before my phase of the project's over so we can try to stay here even if I have to take a 30% pay cut for a different job. I get email from some of the old crew and they are not having any fun---our group went from 5 people to 1 and he says the workload wasn't cut. Hope he gets out before they ruin his health! Good luck and remember that "living well is the best revenge" Thomas

Hosepipe, one for ths anvil and one for the smith... Thomas

L6 has an appreciable Ni content and C content and makes for good differentiation in pattern welded steel billets. Thomas