metalliferous

I know how to make split crosses, I've made several. I was wondering if anyone knew the whereabouts of a picture of one made out of square tubing. I thought I remembered one on here, but I can't find it.

I'm contemplating making an up-sized sawn cross using square tubing instead of solid stock. I think I remember seeing something along those lines in the IFI gallery, but when I went back recently to make sure, I couldn't find it. Anyone here know what I'm talking about?

Depending on the heat treatment, a steel can become harder and more brittle or softer and more ductile. With 1018, however, since it is a mild steel, you'll probably see very little difference with any heat treatment. I'd probably just normalize it to relieve any residual stress from machining and let it go.

A36 is a mild steel with around .3% carbon.

I have a swage with different sized spoon molds, but for small stuff I prefer just to hammer the steel down onto scrap wood.

The carburization/decarburization that happens during normal forging (in coal or gas) is usually far too shallow to really affect the end product. It might affect a blade's edge, but really any grinding should remove it.

To normalize most steels, heat them to a little above their hardening temperature and let them air cool. This relieves internal stresses, refines the grain somewhat, and makes the steel the toughest it'll be.

j-hooks. They give a good warm up for most of the basic forging techniques, especially if you upset the corner for a right angle.

That's adding serious insult to serious injury.

Some bandsaw blades (though usually more of the metal cutting persuasion) have odd coatings on them you'll have to remove somehow before welding.

I was wondering if anyone else here has run across this site. Its purpose is to allow people to post how-tos on the internet on nearly any topic. There's a pretty strong interest on smithing in it, too. Most of the smithing related instructables are pretty elementary, but that's what appeals to Instructables' audience- introductory lessons to many hobbies/interests. If you check it out, make sure to look in the group "the Forge." You might see a familiar name.

the Forge

If by cromic acid you mean chromic acid, then yes it might work, but you probably shouldn't use it. Anything involving chromates is highly toxic to humans and can produce toxic fumes. In any case, it's not in kidsmith territory (or, for that matter, in most young adultsmith territory either).

If it's the Complete Modern Blacksmith by Weygers, then no, I don't think it provides an appropriate guide for heat treating H13. Alloy steels, especially hot work ones like H13, require sometimes much different treatment. Here's what I got from azom.com regarding h13 heat treatment:

Air Hardening Hot Work Steels of H13 Type

These steels may be air hardened in sections up to 60mm. Above this thickness, whilst full hardening will occur, carbide precipitation at grain boundaries wilt lead to poor tool life and low impact strength.

Heat Treatment

The preferred procedure is to quench into a fluidised bed furnace or salt bath held just above the Ms point. This allows the cooling rate to miss the critical areas of the

It sounds like you've got either chestnut oaks or bur oaks, in case you want to incorporate a species name.

With 1/2" square, I wouldn't count on plywood; if you're going to use a jig, it'll have to be steel. If you're going to freehand it you might try working over the horn or maybe with some bending forks.

nice anvil. Try the measures you're talking about, and if they don't work, try heavy plastic or rubber underneath the anvil. With all that, something is bound to work.

it's worked pretty well when I've tried it

Just lay a few big magnets (like the one from car speakers) on the anvil's side.

I agree that your smithing won't make much of a noise nuisance (the smoke might be a nuisance, but that depends on your fuel). You might be able to ease their worries if you offer to deaden the anvil's ring with magnets/chain/rubber and demonstrate how much that cuts down on the noise. I hope that they're reasonable folks.

Thanks for the info. These things had mystified me for a while.

I've got a few pieces of steel and I have no idea what they are or what alloy they are. They were found in a big pile of RR spikes, so I assume they have something to do with that industry. They have a surprising amount of hot hardness; we have to bring them nearly to burning to move the steel around at all. Anybody know what I'm dealing with here?

Frosty, brazing on a face sounds like a strong method, but I don't think it quite fits the "relatively painless" description tetnum was looking for. Tetnum, I don't think there is an easy way to attach a hardface (or at least I don't know of one). You may end up finding it's better to use the O1 for something else and start saving for a steel anvil. just my $.02

My father and I had an anvil with a badly worn down and chipped hardface. It took more than one try, but eventually, we worked out a way. We had a friend build up the hardface with a high manganese workhardening hardface rod (I forget the particular #), after which we roughed out a flat face and workhardened the whole area. Once it seemed hard enough, we had it blanchard ground to a nigh unto perfectly flat surface. But that's just our particular way; I'm not sure how well it would work w/ just the corners.

It's iron oxide, and I think it's mostly magnetite (Fe3O4) as opposed to rust (Fe2O3), which gives it the ferromagnetism nett was talking about.

So what's the cutoff age? I was formerly a kidsmith (15) but where do I fall now (at 18)?

"Young-adult smith" seems a bit of a mouthful.