Bentiron1946

I go to Goodwill and buy pewter mugs for $1.99 to $2.99 and that's a good amount of pewter for making bronze in a home foundry. Yeah some of it has antimony or bismuth with a tad bit of copper but it's not that much and it does work well. It is probably of equal or better quality tin than they had in the Bronze Age. The pewter mugs from the thrift stores may turn out to be more per ounce than if you purchased a whole ingot of tin but they are close at hand, no waiting time involved for shipment to arrive and no worry as what to do with the rest of ingot. And if you buy two mugs you can watch you melt through the glass bottom of the other mug while chugging your beer.

Ben, Don't despair, there is always rocks, oops, I forgot that Florida isn't known for having many of those either. As mentioned check out scrap yards, there you should be able to find a large lump of steel. Some of the best smiths in the world live in what are denoted as Third World Countries, that just means they are so poor that they don't count amongst the richest or most industrialized so they don't have an abundance of London pattern anvils either and use just about any big piece of steel for an anvil or, gasp, a rock. Things like truck axles, forklift tines, steel drops, just as long as it has some mass to it will work. The first place to look is in the online yellow page, or heck even the paper version, and look for scrap metal dealers. Perhaps at one of them you can find that which you seek.

Ben, Don't despair, there is always rocks, oops, I forgot that Florida isn't known for having many of those either. As mentioned check out scrap yards, there you should be able to find a large lump of steel. Some of the best smiths in the world live in what are denoted as Third World Countries, that just means they are so poor that they don't count amongst the richest or most industrialized so they don't have an abundance of London pattern anvils either and use just about any big piece of steel for an anvil or, gasp, a rock. Things like truck axles, forklift tines, steel drops, just as long as it has some mass to it will work. The first place to look is in the online yellow page, or heck even the paper version, and look for scrap metal dealers. Perhaps at one of them you can find that which you seek.

Now that is cool! At the iron pour in Tucumcari, NM there was one of the locals that was taking some of the local rock and putting wax sprue rod around the rock and then putting shell around that and then pouring bronze, looked real nice having a rock in a bronze cage. I like these iron cages even better, Stone Age and Iron Age come together for the ultimate Christmas tree ornament, WOW!!!

I made a knife, once and only once, for another artist, "Kitten Disemboweler", she about got me strung up with that title for an itty bitty knife with a big handle, yours looks a whole lot more manly than my did but the title is still a little off.

You could turn the making of bowl adzes into a side business, there seems to be a shortage of good bowl adze. Handy looking little adze, you done good on that one.

Last year I started using a new dealer to do my tank exchange with, I made six trips back and forth with tanks that had leaking valves. They kept telling me to just open it all the way, to just crank the packing gland nut down tighter, finally I just told them to give me a tank with a decent valve on it, not one with a piece of junk on it! When I got there with my sixth tank they had a tank there with a new valve on it. My tank is almost empty again and I now looking for a new dealer to do business with. Some of these guys will put your life in danger just to make and extra few cents, good on you for standing up for your right to a safe tank. The USDOT demands it of them.

I like the steam hammer forging out the draw bar in Albuquerque, NM. I wonder what happened to that hammer?

That's a fine looking axe, you done good on that one, very good!

Boilers powered more than trains back then, saw mills, winches to haul trees out of forests via cable lines, to run pumps to keep mines dry and run lifts. Boilers were the portable generators of the their day. I have a boiler front plate that I found out in the desert and I have used it for many years as my welding table, it came from the scrap heap at an old mine north of Phoenix, AZ.

I wouldn't think it next to useless, without that screw and cross piece it would be next to useless but as it is it would be much better than no vise at all. Yes, whoever did that could have finessed it a little better, like put a spring of some sort to open the jaws, maybe a coil spring from an intake vale off of a 70GMC, that's work to open the jaws. And they could have put a sleeve of some kind to keep the screw centered in the back jaw, but next to useless, naw, I have seen the time I'd a give the left portion of my anatomy for a vise near that good.

Usually their wives crazy, other than most any vehicle ever made.

If you got #5 you could build a Brian Brazel style anvil or with either one of the two small chunks to the left of #13 You could build Brian's other small anvil he forges his hammers on. You really don't need one of those huge hunks unless you want a herniated disk in your back. Yes, I know a lot of you knife makers just love them but Brian seems to do pretty good with a more manageable hunk of steel. You may want to do a search of some of his topics before you buy a big old hunk of steel. Just a thought.

I pretty sure it's a military blade and not made by your g-g-grandfather unless he worked in the factory that made it for the some European army. It sure looks familiar but I can place it right off. A lot of armies used a similar type of sword for NCOs and artillery squads in the 19thC.

Hey! Those look pretty darned good, you done good, very good!

Harold, Thanks for the info on where my baby came from! Built in 1919, got a few years to go till it's hundred but it's in good hands now for sure. Give it a hug for me, Jerry

Quit putting it off Frosty and just do it, it ain't all that time consuming you know. You ought to take a look at the ones Sam made, go to his Face Book page I think, they are really nice looking, you ought to be able to do as good or better. He forged them and then ground them smooth, I'd love to have one like that. I made one out of mild steel and it is all ding to pieces, I've had to refinish it several time as every ding telescopes into the silver and has to be worked out.

I know how you feel, I looked forward to using mine too but health issues limited my ability to make use of it but it went to a good home.

It doesn't affect the anvils performance at all so they may note even have sold it as a second, it probably sold for full price.

we have a job with very real repeating dangers and its a little like choosing the rite armour for the rite fight..... Amen to that brother, amen.

Frosty is right as usual about the crap that is put out by a badly tuned gas forge CO is a silent killer in a closed up garage or shed in the winter months when you are forging, makes the others look like a Sunday School picnic. Coal has lots of stuff in it but here again it's mostly about ventilation. And over the years one kinda gets in the habit of just not forging any metal that is coated or painted without first seeing what it is, life is short, death is long but put the wrong thing in the forge and you can have a long lingering path to the long sleep. Forge clean metal only and that includes rusty stuff too as that means it ain't got nothing on it.

Sorry to hear that, I thought the thaw has come to Santa Fe.

I really like the Four Sisters and of course the others a mighty fine too, you done good!!

Glad to hear that you are OK, I was praying for you and all of those in the area, it has got to be awful there once again.

Hey Frank, How'd it turn out? Got any pictures of it and you doing it?