ThomasPowers

Normal is the bell curve!

Having forged patternwelded blades using a hole in the ground, a carpenter's hammer, charcoal sifted from old bonfires and a chunk of RR rail for an anvil; I have to ask if your flat is on a boat offshore?   I've forged using a one soft firebrick run off a cheap propane torch as used by plumbers in the USA----in my basement!

I have a #1 but with plain flat dies.

May I commend to your attention the COSIRA books on blacksmithing some of which cover gate making in wonderful detail!

Any eta for book 4?   I probably have about a year left if I am lucky and have been waiting on #4 from when you still lived out west...

Forging makes changing the cross sectional area of pieces much faster and easier.  It makes stuff look less "cut and paste" and more organic flow and as you can build and use a forge VERY CHEAPLY it might be a good idea to try one out.

Ditto on the length issue; heating more than can be worked in one go causes decarburization, grain growth and scale losses in the areas hot but not being worked so making a long forge for sword forging makes for a worse sword!

Definitely a Trenton; I do have an Arm and Hammer with a caplet indentation; but it's clearly stamped and Postman said there were a few examples where they "shared" bases.

Old School?  Coal use for smithing is high/late Middle Ages ("Cathedral Forge and Waterwheel", Gies & Gies) and the hand crank is less than 150 years old IIRC.  Not too "old" out of 3000 years of smithing!

What is the intended end use of your metal?  Scrapyards often pay LESS for ingots than the original aluminum cans as they can't tell what alloys are in the ingots; but cans are obviously good alloys for cans.  So time and fuel costs to make a lower return may not make sense.   Do not mix Al and Fe!

I teach out of the local University's fine arts community college metals class.  The instructor and the Uni have all the "fun" with liability...

If Yellowstone goes up; folks near to it won't need to worry about it!

The "next" volcanic incident in NM, USA has been forecasted as possibly happening 10 miles to the north of my shop.  I've decided not to wait around for it.

Chicken Nuggets are Fabbed.

"Not Chicken" with mutation(s) to produce "chicken eggs".

What does the base look like?   

Caplet indentation: Trenton or Arm and Hammer 

Hourglass indentation: Hay Budden

Have you explored Backyardmetalcasting.com  (now alloyavenue.com IIRC) a wide range of alloys were used in Biblical times often depending on what the intended use was; (mirrors use different alloys than swords for instance.)  a 90% copper 10% tin was a common alloy---I get my tin from rotometals.com)

May I respectfully point out that due to liability laws in the USA; you are basically asking us to risk our house, car, shop, savings on whether you can follow directions correctly and will take the proper safety precautions.  Unfortunately I'm not willing to make that bet based on what I have read.

I learned taking an out of hours metal casting class from a local university's art department and have been using my forge to cast silver, copper, brass, bronze since the early 1980's.  (Mainly blade fittings...)

US$25 100#+  forklift tine anvil made by a friend of mine. Original tine was 180#. 

They make a low temp melting alloy just for bending small tubing in various ways.

OTOH; we've gotten multiple calls asking us to remove the "Parent's Curse". ("May you grow up to have kids just like you were!")  They had *twins* almost teenagers now; Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha!   (Luckily 700+ miles away.)

Good example of "Merchant Bar".

It does remind me of the Adventure of the Dancing Men; a Sherlock Holmes story.

And here I had just consulted my Daughter the Veterinarian about treatment regimes for broken legs for larger animals.... 

Crank?

Be careful as there can be other issues hiding as well. 

[My wife noticed I was "off" called a friend who is the local ER DR; was told bring me in NOW! CT scan, 6.4 cm mass in brain, 100 mile helicopter flight, brain surgery, biopsy: glioblastoma,  several "missing days" and now no driving or power tool use...or smithing. So glad it was found before possibly terminal accident(s)]

Throwing knives profit from medium carbon tough alloys...

Lab coat?  Standard machinist wear at one time...