philip in china

A couple of thoughts on this. I have made a few and simply buy a bristle brush and bolt it on to the frame work I make. This is good because inevitable such brushes wear out due to contact with hot surfaces. It is easy for the customer to change the brush. I actually have made brushes a bespoke size and shape. Find out how tall the customer is and whether left or right handed. What I think is cute is then to put a slight rake in the brush handle and make it just the correct length so it reaches the ground without the user bending. I also sometimes put the same slight rake in the rake (if I can use that expression). That is so that when the rake handle is held in a relaxed right hand the business end of the rake is dead horizontal. If you include a twist in your design for the rake that is where to put the degree of twist needed.

If the cast iron is contaminated with steel - i.e. the load isn't pure cast I suppose that that lowers the price further.

Plenty of people on the site are turning out good stuff on anvils in worse condition than that one! So don't do a thing to her except get hammering! There is plenty of life left in her. A good size as well.

I have a small muddy patch round the back of my new forge. So I just dump all my ash there. Eventually it will be quite a decent surface. I am in no hurry. At the old shop I laid a path in the same way. Just always dumped my ash and clinker there. After that was completed I wanted to extend the shop out at the back so used to throw my ash out there. Then when I could be bothered I would mix up some concrete with the ash and anything else that was lying around- old bottles, broken bricks etc and do bulk in fill. It was all ready for the top, smooth skim when I left. So I don't know if it ever got finished.

I tried to PM somebody but that function seems not to be working on my machine today! Touchmarks aren't actually very expensive. If you look at the register on another site you will see the "art work" that I sent to Bluebird tools. That was enough for them to produce me a decent touch mark. Remember a touch mark can also be used for marking a lot of other things. They do a very good mark in leather for example. I have also marked the "rack" cues I have by my snooker table. You have to get the TM aligned correctly with the grain but mine punches nicely into wood.

I have a touchmark but rarely produce anything worthy of marking. Am I asking a stupid question? How would I date work if I wanted to? The only work I date is work on safe or vault doors.

Also regarding stainless steel cars- it is economics. Where is the advantage to a manufacturer of making a car which resists corrosion? The life of the vehicle would be far too long! WIth vehicles also the factor of vibration and, therefore, work hardening comes into play. On tests a half hardened stainless resists projectiles virtually as well as a ballistic armour plate but it is unsuitable for vehicles as it can, and will, crack after time.

We are in a fairly warm (in the summer) and very damp area here. Anvils get a slight coating of rust but it isn't an issue. I just paint the sides. All the working surfaces take care of themselves. If I had to leave them for a prolonged period I might smear grease on them- but probably wouldn't bother. Stainless is fine for some purposes but has its limitations. I think the 1% chromium in the alloy for some of my anvils is the reason why those ones don't rust as easily as the simple carbon steel ones. Certainly the alloy steel anvils are as hard as the carbon steel (if not harder) but are certainly tougher.

Some times some texture improves a project. I made a log basket with the hoops to hold the logs out or rebar. The roughness helped hold the logs in place. The lower end stuff really is very inconsistent. It is just remelted anything so even in the same bar one bit might be a remelted gear box, the other end of the bar could be a remelted car door. The two are completely different steel but acceptable as it is sold only to be used to add strength to concrete.

If you are doing general smithing either try to get a real anvil (see what others have posted) or go to a scrap yard and buy an offcut of mega plate for scrap sort of prices. It will work fine.

First of all thank you for serving. We need people like you to keep the world safe. I have a vaughans. British made anvil and one of the best I have ever used. It is a 125Kg which is a lovely size. PM coming your way.

I am delighted to see you have got such a good anvil and a very good size. Don't be too anxious to get the welder out. See how much the damage actually has any effect on the work you do. Then see what remedial work is needed.

Plenty of people on this forum are making good stuff on anvils nothing like as good as that one. So get to work!

My group here would be happy to forge an anvil. If you want to go ahead please let me know and I will work out a quotation for our tima and use of the smithy.

Let he who is without sin cast the first anvil. (Slight paraphrase there). Why not let this close now?

I think enough has been said on ASOs and this one certainly fits into that category. I can get them very cheap here in China so got 3- the biggest size, the smallest and a mid range one. The big one is totally useless. I have enjoyed playing on it to see just how bad it really is. I loose all my energy in a blow because every time I hit the anvil deforms to accomodate the work! The smallest size I bought for the son of a colleague of mine. As a toy for a little boy it is ideal. The mid range one I gave to a colleague who teaches physics. He uses it when he wants an inert block as an example. I understand it is good for that although a block of concrete would do the same job- the anvil shape just looks good. BTW it is NOT a cheap anvil. It would, actually, be the most expensive one you would ever buy as it is worthless.

I have 3 anvils. The highest is also the heaviest and the one which gets most use. It is too high for me but I have some timbers- about 5 x 5 and they live next to the big anvil and make a great surface for me to stand on. That is not as good a solution as the 2 stands but are you really going to swop the anvil from one stand to the other between users? It isn't feasible. Alternative is get a second anvil.

Google "Scold's bridle" for an idea.

Near the Washington border? So how close are you to Spokane? Try www.incandescent-iron.com

A thought crossed my mind the other day as I was working in the shop. Imagine something happened whereby you lost everything from your shop. How much would you have lost? Before you start counting, though, just remember that the cost of your tooling should include your time spent making it. Even if you count your labour in at minimum wage, and I like to think most of us are worth more than that, it really must be a huge figure!

A sort of philosophical question. So you are forging something big and it goes into the forge. What do you do whilst it is heating up? A genuine question. You are all sworn to secrecy on this one. As I can 100% rely on my wife not being in the smithy I tend to grab my stash of smokes and have a quick one. Also as my shop is nowhere near finished I go round and tweak stuff So come on, own up, what do you do?

I don't think anybody has ever tried this. That is why there are no threads on the subject. I certainly wouldn't use railway line. You might get hit by a train. :)

It is English. Stourbridge is a town right in the middle of the industrial area known as the "Black Country". It would be right at the heart of 19th century and early 20th century anvil production.

At what stage does an anvil become a monster? Interestingly although I have several anvils I tend to use the biggest and the smalles of mine and tend to ignore the mid sized ones.

We get more or less this question every few weeks. Yes it can be done but it is neither cheap nor easy. The honest answer, which you don't want to hear, is use that one as an upsetting block and get yourself either a proper anvil or failing that a large piece of steel which will work as an anvil.