Michael

"A willingness to keep TIRING till you get it right". I'm going to route that in a board and hang it in the smithy.

There's some great information available on the 'net. I really like a lot of what's said on that site, but not the brake drum forge part. I learned a huge amount about smithing with the brake drum forge I built, for, I think, $50, and I was impatient and paid for 1/2 square for legs. Second and third versions of the brake drum had trays/tables around them. So, lots of good information, but my own (and I suspect many others) experience is in direct contradiction with the beautiful iron opinion on brake drum forges. Everyone has an opinion. When that was said to my then 2 yr old daughter the response was "I'm not a pinion, YOU'RE a pinion!"

Nice work. Love that ash dump!Are you doing all this in a gas forge? Any plans for a table top or tray in your plans? In all of the renos i did to my brake drum forge, most were about getting some "counter space" next to the fire.

Nice work. Love that ash dump!Are you doing all this in a gas forge? Any plans for a table top or tray in your plans? In all of the renos i did to my brake drum forge, most were about getting some "counter space" next to the fire.

Not that I do demo's but my vise stand is sort of portable, the base is a heavy, cast iron wheel with 4 grooves for V belts. A pretty sturdy steel cafe table is attached to the wheel with long U Bolts around the spokes. table top is bolted thru the larger vise bracket, and both vise legs are captured with yet more U Bolts that are drilled thru the cast iron wheel rim. the whole contraption is pretty heavy, yet rolls on the edges of the cast iron wheel to pivot around the concrete floot while well. I usually pull the vise stand out and add a leaky bucket of scrap and a bag of coal piled on the base to add some more weight.

That looks like a Painting! Were there any filters or photoshop manipulations going on?

Nice with the swivel. Great find!

A friend on the oldtools list had a question about an anvil that his father dug up from "a collapsed 18th century smithy on my father's estate" "My mum used to talk about an anvil in there but my dad was convinced that it disappeared before the collapse, lots of stuff has gone "missing" over the years! I remember old wooden work benches and lots of interesting old tools and bits of farm equipment that probably got dumped in the buildings over the years. Anyways he found the anvil in the rubble, it looks a bit like an Alsop to me, but I wouldn't know. Any tips on cleaning it up? Or does anyone recognise the maker? The place was built in 1750 by a French man by the name of David Latouche. Heres a picture of the anvil" He's trying to get some better pics and will get to his dad's to clean it up as soon as possible. Any pattern recognition going on for anyone out there. I can only recognize PW's and ASOs Thanks in advance.

I'd have to say that about a third my forging sessions end up this way. 'what have we learned to do differently today?' as I shut down the forge. i wish i had thought to treat it as forging two at the same time connected by the chin! Just did this with some dragonflys, working on two at either end of a bar. It seems easier to get similar details working like this

If its one of the Chas. Parkers that has a small set screw in the end of the knob the handle goes through, its an adjustable screw to hold the handle in one position, movable but it stays where you put it. I had mine over a year before I found that feature.

Good luck, I got about as far as you did, using far too heavy plywood and naugahyde as a covering. Ended up with a bellows that was too heavy to pump and put out too little air.

How very Roubo of you! Nice work.

Here's mine, from a smith who was moving. She did all the work of welding it up. The base is a large section of RR track.light enough to flip around easily. Mounted on my first anvil stand. Sort of useful

Here's my space, a corner of the 15 x 22 covered patio. The vise stand and anvil get tucked in near the forge and tool rack and everything covered in tarps (the patio roof leaks) when I'm not working. Recently got rid of the smaller of the two metal carts, it had my original brake drum forge bolted to it, passed it along during an Iron in the Hat event. the vise stand is a steel cafe table, bolted to a heavy iron wheel. Swage block I got from another smith (along with a whole pile of scroll jigs). Behind that pile of firebricks on the cart is a little gas forge made from 6 inch pipe, Kaowool and a MAPP gas torch, I'm working on larger propane gas forge from a Freon Bottle, Reil EZ burner to provide the heat. Still getting my brain wrapped around propane use, I've always been a charcoal guy when it comes to grilling. I try to keep it to the little gas forge on the weekends, only firing up the coal forge during the week, when most of the (very residential) neighborhood is at work.

That's funny, up here in Contra Costa County, Calif, I checked with the AQMD and was told less than a half a ton of coal on my property was OK. No emissions restrictions. Of course I'm a hobby smith, and still subject to the "Spare the Air" days when all burning is banned and fined. I still try to keep a low profile, lighting the coal forge only during the week, and using the gas forge on weekends, when neighbors are around. It only takes one grouchy neighbor to bring the authorities down on you.

I picked up a 60 lb vise at the Alameda Flea Market for $40, about 3 years ago, needed help carrying it out (made a couple holdfasts for the guy who helped me). Another CL listing 2 years ago got me a smaller columbian post vise along with a forge and blower for a song (got lucky on that one). Last post vise I saw at Alameda was an 80 lb monster missing a bracket, guy wanted a buck a pound. Craigslist, the worse the pictures the better for the buyer. Garage sales advertising tools (try to get there on Friday), and a variation of the TPAAA anvil finding techniques. Keep cash at the ready, keep your eyes open, Northern California, while not the Rust Belt, had a longer settled and working history than SoCal. Good luck.

For an eye punch I started with a half inch section of drill rod, drilled a shallow 3/16 hole about a 1/4 inch deep in the end after annealling, then filed the outside to an eye shape around the drilled hole. Used the same steel to make a triangular punch to set the eye punch into. Just filed a three corners of the rod. Harden as appropriate for drill rod (O1?) I made what I've heard called a "bull punch" a rounded end punch , about 3/8ths just ground to a sphere on the end, for punching the tooth inside the D that grabs the cap on bottle openers. Ground to a smooth ball and hardened again. Tire iron steel made a nice square punch, but I find I don't use a square punch all that much. Old sharpening steels from the flea market make great smaller round punches.

That's cool.

that apparently unfazed one who just held up a glowing hot piece to be pounded by those two huge hammers like it was just plastic and the hammers feathers... I LOVED that quick scene. The lovely wife cracked up as well. I keep trying to figure out how that set up would work, given the fantasy, dwarves and magic component of the whole series. Some sort of production work, the twin hammers on a regular cycle, a series of...lets say hammer heads, being punched and eyed and the final shaping of the faces (Brian Brazeal rounding hammer faces of course) being done in one fell swoop by the twin hammers. How the dwarf was holding the hot metal could be an issue, but the magical/fantasy element could explain (or spell) that away. the smith not looking up and holding the work perfectly centered was impressive. The later scenes did show a significant number of scenes where the dwarves all work together with almost subconcious connection to one another. Combine that with a 350 year life span and you'd get some really accomplished smithing, fantasy/magical components allowed for, of course.

That's great! you are well suited to making other hardy tools now too, Fullers, butchers, bending forks and swages. Nice thick box to pound home other tools.

Thanks for the tip. I've got a couple of clips in the scrap bucket. About 5/8 stock IIRC, so I'd have to upset to make a hardy tool, needs 7/8. One of the things that spurred me on for the block was being able to draw down, rather than upset to a thicker dimension. Next hardy tool is a small bottom fuller!

Not sure what the parent stock is, but it sure felt like mild while working it. Case hardened in a slap dash sort of way, half filled a small can, like a tomato paste can (Sardines, lunch) with coal dust that I keep as a punching lube. Put the normalized anvil block face down in the can, put the can in the fire till it, and all the coal dust, burned up. then quenched just the face in motor oil (there might have been some proportion of ATF in the oil pan as well) Face seems noticeably harder than the hardy stem, but I'm sure its only microscopically deep. Only did it once, then had to shut down and get the kid at school.

I've made welded up tools to fit in the hardy hole of my 107 lb PW (bending fork, guillotine etc) but this is the first time I've fullered and then pounded home a hardy tool. Just a square block to give me the occasionally needed sharp corner. Started with inch by inch and a quarter bar, too long to get anywhere near the power hacksaw, so in an exercise in .....exercise, ran the 6 foot bar into the forge, across the patio supported on a makeshift stock stand and cut with hot set and 6 lb sledge. Took about 4 heats, with the long bar stretched across the vise stand and held to the anvil cutting plate with a roller chain and weight, rolling the bar to wrap the cut around. New set of tongs from a garage sale are perfect for holding that size stock. Fullered the cut off, drew down the tenon to just fit in the hardy hole. Orange heat and the same sledge to drive it home in the hardy hole. a little hot rasping to clean up the flash on the tenon and then a rough and tumble case harden. None of this is innovative or even out of the ordinary, but a first for this backyard blacksmith all the same.

Love those corners!

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/for/3591311173.html Here's another one. Not sure if it was on this forum or another but someone found one of these still crated up in its original box with paperwork and everything.