matt87

WRT the original question, what are the steels used? That will give you a good answer in itself. Clue: high-tech high-alloy steels aren't ACW period-correct. No stainless for a start, and I think (but can't say for sure) no high-nickel steels. These are commonly used in modern pattern-welded blades to give a good contrast with a simpler steel, something like 1095. Period-correct Western steels were blister or its derivatives (shear, double-shear, triple-shear, crucible/cast). These are all fairly simple steels with carbon contents between, say, 0.7 and 1.5% by weight. Pattern-welding these probably won't give much contrast, even if etched; they're just too similar.

Pattern-welded gun barrels are usually polished and 'browned' (controlled rusting) to show a pattern. They were typically made from low-carbon steel and iron. Think: bag of rusty nails, old chain and other scrap. Think about the backwoods mountain smiths with very little spare iron but lots of spare charcoal, time and skill. Their customers were the people that might wait for a shot backed up by a tree, so they could cut out the bullet and re-cast it. They wanted a serviceable gun to go shoot their dinner or the panther eating their livestock, and the cheaper the better. Consolidating 'useless' scrap was a lot cheaper than buying in (and shipping) new iron. Later pattern-welded barrels became an aesthetic art-form.

It's often said that using too heavy a hammer on too small an anvil can/will damage the anvil. I've also heard that this is a myth. What is the truth to this? I have a 55lb double-horned hammer-welded anvil with a c.1inch thick steel face, am I likely to damage it by forging with a 4lb hammer? How about having a striker use a sledge? I'm not in the habit of forging iron cold. Does the anvil being welded-up or sold cast or forged steel affect things?

Try looking for oliver hammers. They are a traditional replacement mainly for a helper/striker when using set tools, not a viable power hammer replacement.

If you need to cast some head to your local shooting range/popular shooting area. If it's a privately owned range ask permission of the management. Look for brass-coloured cases, some stuff can be mild steel or aluminium these days. Certainly observe the warnings posted above. (I had perhaps 100,000 .22LR cases I was going to cast into something useful just to get it out of the way, but when the scrap prices skyrocketed we sold it at nearly

I can answer this much... no carbide tips. Whatever steel it is, it's at least the same steel the full length of the blade. There IS a raised section in the center, around the hole, but I think it's just more of the same type of steel.

How does one go about IDing it?

It's probably some grade of HSS then. Spark test will confirm this, but you'll need a grinder. Contacting the manufacturer wkth model number might give you a more precise answer. HSS can provide a very good edge if the right grade is heat-treated correctly. The problem is that it often requires HT precision beyond blacksmithing levels of accuracy. Consider it was designed to be fairly hot-hard; see here: M2 High Speed Steel it's still at 64RC at a black heat -- no running the colours here!

If you want something low-distortion, O1 is good and can get good and hard. It's also cheap and readily available in several sizes and sections.

From memory Harries and Heer (Basic Blacksmithing) consider it a plain medium-carbon steel. Sounds like you're gonna get sick of making hammers before you run out of rods!

What's special about the tines of a garden fork? Surely they're just like any other fork, though perhaps a little chunkier? A socket can be wrapped like on an arrow or spear, but bigger.

Well even with my limited knowledge of circular woodsaws, it could either be some grade of HSS or a steel of some description with carbide tips welded on. Or it could be something a little more 'out there', like L6. If you want any realistic chance of succeeding I think that IDing the steel is your first step.

Can't say I've ever made a razor, but my first question would be: what's that saw blade made from?

Welcome Dale!

Go to the IFI front page, and choose the 'lessons in blacksmithing' option. Tkae a drink and a lunch, you'll be a while!

In this country they are often known as 'man-traps'; gamekeepers would place them about the lord's land and camouflage them with leaf litter etc.; a broken leg is difficult for a poacher to hide... (As an important social point here, a poacher in the UK was/is traditionally a person (usually a man) who would take game and fish from the local landowner's property without permission. Rabbits, eels and other species considered unimportant were sometimes overlooked, but animals with a cash value (pheasants, salmon etc.) were certainly not. Since the Enclosures Act centuries ago there is no such thing as true public land or common land in the UK, this was to maximise profit for landowners and had the unfortunate consequence that the vast majority of the UK's population had no other legal option than labouring for cash, then buying food with this cash.)

Mr Mears is certainly a dude... never trust a skinny outdoorsman!

Look for the videos at the Netherton works; they are on Youtubem and there are links on this forum to them (search). Amongst other things they show the manufacturing of a 7-ton single-arm anchor to Admiralty standards. If memory serves there are aboutb a dozen strikers working on that piece.

I've heard of smiths taking over as strikers from apprentices on occasion -- don't forget that a master smith may have been forging for decades and have muscles to suit, whereas an apprentice could be under the age of 10... In addition it would be a way to train the apprentice in the tasks the leader performs. E.g.:

Bruce Wilcock has extensive experience of using multiple srikers; he seems to have a hobby of forging anchors and anvils without a power hammer...

There is a blueprint on junkyard steels, along the same lines as Woody suggested. IT is important to point out that these are not a guarantee; it's an 'educated guess' based upon past testing of these items and some thought as to what the engineers who designed them required.

Are you looking for a punch (e.g. to impress your touchmark), or engraving tools? Both have been discussed already at some length.

Welcome Al. You can build the tue from scratch too, see here: http://www.iforgeiron.com/forum/f11/english-water-cooled-forge-3643/

Looks like some solid work sir. What's the weight of that beauty?

British chainmakers used to use a 36lb double-shafted sledge called a johnny. I think there is one in use in the Netherton chainmaking video.

Considering the things that some people have used and do use as an anvil (cast iron ASOs for a start), I'm sure such an anvil is certainly useable. Whether you want to use it day in day out is another question though -- it was probably made before your great grandfather and not so many anvils survive that amount of time, considering the daily heavy use they often had, the reduction in demand that they experienced in the last century, not to mention the scrap-metal drives during the two world wars...

Do you have a power hammer, fly press or other way to punch a hole that big? If so you could take a larger blank, punch the hex hole and cut it in half. Hey presto, two swage blanks.

I don't remember the URL but the Practical Blacksmithing pupblications from the 1890s have a number of readers' projects of building their own blowers. Wood and tinplate predominate.

Horned anvils were a specialist's tool until about 200 years ago; before that a general-purpose blacksmith's anvil was basically a large block of bloomery iron, hopefully with a steel face welded on. If you need extra features, make them -- a bickern is easy enough to forge and it can be stuck into a lump of wood, the hardy hole or your vice. If you need to punch something, make a bolster plate, a strip of iron with a number of different size holes in it. Alternatively, take a strip of iron and curl it into a circle shape and use that as your pritchel hole. The hole is used when knocking the biscuit out of the hole, the majority of the punching is done on the anvil face.

Anvilfire.com has a glossary of specialist metalworking words in several languages.

Warren, I may be teaching my grandmother to suck eggs here, but I assume you are removing the punch and cooling it every few blows?

I managed to get about 100 lbs of re-bar from work last week, some 1/2, 3/4 and 1 inch diameter. Not sure what I can do with the big stuff though?

Legs for stands. Bick iron.