matt87

What you want is a coal with low ash, low clinker, high BTU, low sulfur and low volatiles. For best results it should be sized between peas and walnuts. Many (but not all) coals and cokes available in the UK will work adequately but if you get much into it you'll probably want to buy a few sacks of smithing coke. This is what almost all professionals (who burn solid fuel) use in the UK, as it's somewhat consistent and the Clean Air Act gets in the way of using a good bituminous smithing coal, which some would prefer.

Try a few scoops of whatever you have on hand, keep notes and perhaps visit a more experienced smith to compare his/her fuel.

Carbon migration is proportional to temperature. Keep a bar at welding heat in a reducing fire and it will carburise quicker than at red heat. However as Frosty said it's still a slow process and the carburised layer is usually scaled off faster than it's built up. It is theoretically possible to add a useful carburised layer in the forge and it has been discussed with regards to Roman smiths with their enclosed forges.

Blister steel used to be produced by laying bars of Norway (wrought) iron in hermetically sealed cases of powdered charcoal and kept at a red heat for a week, and when it came out it still needed to be folded and welded to homogeonise the carbon content.

It looks like it's etching the blade because it is; certain foods contain various acids. You can wash the knife immediately after use to reduce the staining but this 'patina' is just part and parcel of using a plain steel knife in the kitchen.

I am feeling wrought with all the philsophical imput. Here in florida they do wrought aluminium. Aluminium tube with cast finnials welded to it. talk about the 21 centeury.

I'd have thought they would be using aluminum in florida

Perhaps to throw a spanner in the works here, but perhaps 'wrought' iron was so defined as it could be wrought/forged, whereas 'cast' iron (unlike 'wrought' iron) could be cast but not forged.

Like Bentiron my 'sport' is target-shooting. Very little direct real-world application but it helps to relax me due to the mental and physical routines involved. Focusing all attention on getting every variable the same over and over again helps to calm the mind and get over the emotional stresses and strains we all encounter. Plus of course the people I meet through it are almost exclusively friendly and helpful. I've never really been one much for 'sports' though I do enjoy non-competative swimming, horse-riding and such -- though to me if I'm competing I'm taking to too seriously and usually don't enjoy it.

It's not exactly smithing related, but my advice is to keep your options open. You're a young man and, without being condescending, you probably don't have the experiences to know what you want out of life yet. When I was your age (only a few years ago) I wanted to be an archaeologist, so I studied for a degree in archaeology, during the course of which many things changed in my life. Before that I wanted to be an engineer. Now I'm considering a career in smithing -- but crucially I've learned what my parents had been telling me all along: keep your options open! If college over there is anything like university over here it's an expensive but valuable learning experience, and what you learn from books and in lectures is only part of what you learn. Granted it's not for everyone (despite what our quasi-socialist government tries to tell people) but from what I can tell you are more level-headed and mature than I was at yoru age (and possibly than I am now!) and I think that the learning experience of being somewhat independant from your family and in a new environment can only help, irrespective of what your study.

Yes thankyou John!

When's the next one? :D

Good job Avadon. Be sure to let us know how she does when you put hammer to steel!

Thankyou everyone for your input. I think the conclusion is: 'whatever floats your boat' -- though a convertable horizontal/vertical bandsaw is useful if you can't justify, afford or fit a dedicated vertical bandsaw. Again thankyou all.

Next week: Coke vs. Pepsi!

I've seen a video of doing this but only a few inches diameter. The guy in that video used welded steel pipe. He formed the node boundaries by taking isolated heats by rotating the pipe in a gas flame and upsetting. He also used a spring fuller to create a groove but I don't think that detail was included in the linked image.

Are your vices lower than your anvil face then? Or do yoiu have a dedicated vice for using these "anvil"tools in?

Mine's currently between wrist and elbow height with the anvil wrist height. When I move I'll be trying mounting the leg vice about knuckle height for just this reason. If I want an elbow-height vice for filing or sawing I can fit a parallel-jaw vice onto the leg vice or a dedicated mount.

Paw Paw Wilson apparantly used to re-work slipjoint pliers into tongs. Gentlemen you're in good company!

I took a piece of medium-carbon prybar roughly 1-1/4 wide, 2 inches long, 1/4 inch thick and forged a single-bevel chisel edge onto it, normalised, arc-welded it to a piece of 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/8 angle-iron, cleaned up, and painted orange (for 'hot' and 'danger'). I use it in my vice for several reasons: small anvil face, less danger to leave set up, hardy hole is blocked up. It's not pretty (especially with my welding 'skills') but it does the job. See Hofi's blueprint on 'using the hardy' for the reasons why I chose a single-bevel.

I find that if the hardy's too long/tall it is awkward to use and I want maximum control if I'm repeatedly smacking my hand down over a cutting edge...

Afternoon all.

I was wondering, what are the advantages and disadvantages of a horizontal bandsaw vs. a power hacksaw for cutting stock to length in a blacksmithing shop? We can probably assume the cutting of mild steel (and possibly annealed high-carbon?) up to say 2" maximum. Are there any issues or limitations of the smaller power hacksaws that take 12" blades? How does the speed and cleanliness of cut typically differ? Is any one typically noisier than the other (aside from motor noise)? Is it safe to leave a powersaw running while you're doing something else?

The question is largely hypothetical/academic for me at the moment but it's fun to dream :D

Good luck m_brothers, you've set yourself a lofty goal and as they say, it's better to set a high target and miss than a low one and hit it. Perhaps it would be a valuable initial learning opportunity to find friends' axes to try, make notes, compare. Estwing is a popular middle-range American brand. Gransfors-Bruks is a Swedish brand that is held in high esteem, an old company that employs teams of specialist smiths with a lot of specialist forging tools. Their 'Small Forest Axe' retails for about US$100 and their hatchets around $80-90.

As for myself I'm having trouble enough getting customers to understand why a

That anvil looks good and clean... shame I don't have the space or transport!

Out here in the desert I use linseed oil.

As do I out here in the wilds of... my back yard in an urban wet temperate zone... Linseed oil also of course gives the handles a great finish as well as keeping things snug. Looks amazing on ash or hickory; starts off a soft golden colour and gradually darkens over the years. Thin it with a little turpentine and it gives a pretty good coating for ironwork. You can also make paint with it, make oilcloth... a very useful sunstance!

A real steal there! Looks very useable in its current condition; you've got square edges at the heel and on the table/step if you feel you need them.

hopefully I'll be able to make it down there 15th 16th isn't it?

Yes. Hope to see you there!

Two recent ePay auctions:
Genuine Farrier`s Anvil on eBay (end time 30-Jul-09 12:24:01 BST)

Anvil Double Horned on eBay (end time 27-Jul-09 16:46:00 BST)
Note the large hardy hole and offset pritchel hole.

Ragnorak see if John B(ellamy) knows of any big anvils available down this way since you're coming down the IFI weekend next month.

Peter Parkinson suggests bedding the anvil on a layer of plasticine to deaden the ring in his book 'The Artist Blacksmith'. It's another option.

I've tried that with limited success.

There's plenty of 'things' around which will work as anvils. They won't be ideal anvils of course, but they will be better than what some smiths have successfully used in the past 4000-odd known years of ironworking. They will certainly get you by until you decide whether you want to stick with the ironbashing thing, and you save enough for and/or find a 'better' anvil.

A few ideas for 'improvised' anvils: large sledgehammer heads, heavy pieces of steel plate, sections of heavy steel stock, heavy machinery parts, large axle shafts, sections of railway iron (legally obtained), sections of heavy I-beam. Mild steel won't be ideal but it will do. Cast iron is even less ideal but again it will do in a pinch.

Guerro don't be so quick as to cut it straight away; rail anvils work better vertically than they do horizontally. You can then weld a plate if you want/can, or just use as is. The working face may be small, but it's bigger than any hammer you're likely to use and so is big enough. The other surfaces on the end of the rail can be ground into tools such as fullers and hardies, or cut away a little to provide better clearance around the 'face'. A square tooling hole can be welded onto the 'foot' of the rail. A bick/beak/horn/pike (the pointy end of a 'real' anvil) can be made as a separate part -- mounted in the square tooling hole, in the vise or mounted in a stump or stand. This was very common through the entire ironworking world until just a couple of centuries ago, and still is in much of the world.

:D as an archaeologist (by training) I find Americans' sense of 'old' interesting so say the least! I've helped to dig up the remains of a manor house older than your nation... and that was was a fairly minor dig largely for training purposes. The small city where I live is at least 1800 years old, with large sections of the Roman city walls still extant. Some parts are visible, some form the foundations for buildings dotted around the city. The city centre has a number of mediaeval vernacular buildings, still used as shops and homes. There are also a number of ecclesiastical buildings of similar age still in use though they tend to be stone-built. Until the 20th century there were even more ancient buildings but many were demolished, partly due to the actions of the Luftwaffe in 1942 and partly due to slum clearances and dealing with chronic flooding. This is quite common over here! My current accommodation is a mere 90-odd years old :D