Bentiron1946

When forging on a daily basis it is best not to use a glove. You get used to the hot metal. If you are weekend smith and doctor or a dentist wear gloves. When I was doing it more or less full time I wore no gloves but when I was making my living drafting and had to keep the tracing clean I had to keep my hands nice to prevent the coal dust and dirt from my hands. I always did my best work without gloves. I only got one bad burn from hot metal and that was because I was talking and paying attention to which was the last piece out of the fire. When everything is black it is hard to tell how hot it is:D

Davis Salvage in Phoenix, AZ has several short sections for sale by the pound. I polished one up for jewelers anvil. Nice steel but the web between top and bottom flange is a bit thin for heavy forging.

Here in the Phoenix Metro area we are now getting Colorado River water and it is like thin concrete. Does it make acceptable slack tub water? Yes since it does cool the steel. It is the pits for irrigation though because after a year or so the soil is white around the trees and shrubs. We have to change it daily or leave an oil film on top because of mosquitoes. I used to raise turtles and their shell would be white from the hard water. It may make an excellent quench if you let the water evaporate and the dissolved solids concentrate.

So if it reprocessed it should be safe to use for a quench? I'm thinking there should be a safer quenching oil out there then motor oil.

Years ago when sissy bars were common place I made a few masterpieces for the bikers that drove by my studio. Started out with simple twists then progressed to filling the space with scrolls and all sorts of twists. I was concerned about what would happen in an accident and one guy said as fast as he rode it wouldn't matter

I never got to it but I wanted to build a rolling lift frame with a chain hoist to lift the 300# anvil and to rotate the blessed swage block when I wanted to use one of the other surfaces. That was one of the times I injuried my back was when trying to rotated the thing to get to the large half rounds.

I hope that you do as that is a nice simple hammer. thanks for the pics so far.

I got started some thirty years ago when messing around while casting bronze. There was a lot of good heat going to waste so I started doing a little forging while the metal was melting. I bought an anvil and other equipment and the rest just sort of followed.

Frosty, That one of yours looks like the one owned at one time. It was one of the reason my back got to me. I traded it for a smaller one and cash but the small one grew feet and walked off. One nice thing about the big ones is that their feet usually aren't strong enough for walking.

I like that hammer a lot. Sweet!

Black iron properly installed should be leak free for decades after all it has been the standard for natural gas for better part of a century or more. Having designed many air systems for manufacturing plants it is important to have a pitch towards the compressor. It is also important to have an auto drain valve on your compressor to eliminate water build up. When making up a branch take off do it off of the top of the main line instead of the bottom or side as this will prevent water from entering the line feeding the tool and it will drain back to the compressor. Auto drain valves should be installed when ever you need to change elevation of the main air line. I can see no need to run a shop air main line at pressures above 150psi. There are no tools in my inventory that require pressures above that and most below. It is better to over size the main then to under size it. The larger size acts as an additional receiver.

That is wonderful. How much does a ewer like this sell for?

Nice fish and tripod!

Harry, Sorry to see that your wife has preceded you. Jerry

I'll add in my two bits worth. Here it is, for a period type of shop I think that I would go with a helve type of hammer since they were in use from a very early period. I don't think most folk would object to an electrified version of an ancient tool since you are a long way from a water mill. Yes it will cost you more then $50 to build and maybe more then $100 but it will look more like it belongs in your shoppe then a tire hammer. The helve will be wood and you can even stick a real anvil under the hammer.The anvil can even be one of the regular shop anvils so you won't have to buy that extra steel. The rest can be built of wood and steel to add authenticity to it. Just a thought.:rolleyes:

I found a 4-7/16" X12" piece of steel which placed on a stump would be Ok but not great for knife making. Aren't there any scrap yards near you because for that extra cost of shipping maybe you could get a bigger chunk of steel to work with?

I love bronze age items. Nails often don't survive as they are recycled into other objects. Thanks for shareing.

WOW! Juggles, cracks jokes, drives nails and then sticks the hammers in the beam. What a guy! Does he get any real work done?

I was in a shop that had a 4" slab and a 50# LG and after six months of pounding the entire floor had hairline cracks. After another six months the entire slab was being replaced. If you only do ocassional forging you may get by with putting your hammer on wood but if you are a production shop I strongly suggest that you have a seperate foundation for the hammer.

I have seen several of the Kinyons in action and used the first Kinyon once at a demo. They are fine hammers but my air compressor isn't big enough to run one. If you have less then a five horse power they can be a little starved for air so a fellow named Zoller developed a small air hammer. Here is his link Zoeller Forge It can use a small home style air compressor. Good luck with your build.

OK, you're forgiven:D

Eagle, I don't have a project for you just a note of congratulation on taking a class that teaches you to use your hands. None of the high schools out here have shop any more, very few of the middle schools and it not until university that you can choose to take a materials class. Art class is very sketchy if you catch my drift in high school. All high schools teach college preparatory classes only but there is one speciality high school for some trades but that is it and they don't tell parents about it unless their child has failed everything else. Once again congratulations.

Swages are one of the most useful of tools. They move metal. Rather then cutting metal they help move it to a new location. That is one of the differences between blacksmithing and machining. Machining is a subtractive process and blacksmithing is more or less a moving process. If a machinist wants to make round tenion on a piece of square stock he will cut it. A blacksmith will swage it. I think you need to know what swaging is first. So get a dictionary and look it up.;)

Nice work! I hope that when you sell a bunch of these you provide a black screw with them, lol. That is a real nice looking door knocker. Good idea about an animal on the end.

Long ago I used to know a blade smith that had a 5' length of rail set in concrete and had the end polished. He said he didn't need a big anvil for knives just a "sweet spot" and that 5' length set in concrete gave it to him better then laying on it's side. Just a thought.