metalliferous

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.

I'm still not quite clear on what you mean by "sheet plastic" here.

hit it like you mean it

Last year there was a mouse that died in my slack tub. Unfortunately, he sank to the bottom, and it was only after a few weeks I figured out where exactly the stench came from. That was some disgusting quenchant. Has this happened to anyone else?

I can start a coal fire straight from paper and coke now, but when I was just beginning to make my own fire, I'd always make a small wood fire and add coal to that. If you have no luck with the pinecones, I'd suggest going with some kindling.

chyancarrek, I do look forward to demoing again, but I'm not sure when I can do it. bipolarandy: Fortunately for me, these weren't fourth graders, they were twelfth graders. The idea of demonstrating to elementary school kids isn't terribly appealing to me, but good on you for pulling it off.

Earlier this month, I posted asking for pointers/info/warnings on giving a smithing demonstration. I gave the demonstration this morning, and I'm happy to report that it went very well. I only had them for about an hour and a half, so I didn't get as much done as planned, but I think they all got into it and really enjoyed seeing some forging. Thanks for the tips.

If it really does have good rebound, it must be some kind of steel. Cast iron is completely dead under a hammer blow. It may be cast steel, but that's a whole different animal from cast iron, and in any case, if it works, it's good, since the whole point of it existing is to work.

Thanks to everyone for the tips. I'll make sure to post how it turned out.

First, I should state that these teenagers are my classmates from school, so I know them fairly well. I'm probably going to be working with them for about two hours, but there's going to be a fair number of them, so I might try to have them broken up into smaller groups. I am going to let a few of the guys work with the iron, but only when the workpiece is long enough to handle safely without tongs and the guy is one I know has sense. I don't want to risk something flying out of the tongs at high speed (which has happened to me before). I think this is my list for the demonstration: 1) basic techniques 2) basic items from those techniques (j-hooks and trammel hooks) 3) let a few of them try their hand at forging 4) make and heat treat a RR spike knife 5) make something ornamental, like a rose or a musical cleft bell I've been thinking about showing them some basic metal casting, but I'll probably have to ditch the idea due to all of the safety considerations. I'd like to show them some repousse work as well, but I'm not sure what to make.

I'm going to do a blacksmithing demonstration for some high school students fairly soon, and I was wondering if any of you have any suggestions or ideas as to what all I should show to them. Since I'll be dealing with teenagers, I'll have to keep it fairly interesting to overcome their short attention spans. So far, I've decided to first show them basic techniques, like drawing, upsetting, twisting, and punching, then showing them how the elements are combined in things like j-hooks and trammel hooks, then show them slightly more advanced things like forge brazing and tempering. I've decided against forge welding because a) I don't have enough safety glasses for everyone and I'm not the greatest at it. I'd appreciate any input.

I've tried forging brass as well, and it crumbled every time I worked it hot. I did a little reading afterwards and found that there is one kind of brass (I think called "muntz metal") that will work, but that nearly all of the others fall apart. I think your best option at this point is to either anneal repeatedly (from a low cherry red) and work it cold, or buy some aluminum bronze, which does hot work readily without cracking.

I think my plan of attack from here is rebuild the face, work harden the deposited steel, and grind it all back down. I would just work harden the current face, but the underlaying carbon steel is showing in some spots and I think it may have gotten a little thin from everything we (and others) have done to it. My only concern is that I'll work harden, grind it, and then find that I just ground off the work hardened layer, leaving it too thin again. I've contemplated welding a sheet of S7 or similar tool steel to the face, but I hear that technique leaves a lot of dead spots.

I purchased a somewhat abused 200# anvil not too long ago, and from the amount of swayback it had developed I decided to have it ground flat and resurfaced. Once the machining was done, I had a friend build up the face with a high impact resistance high manganese rod. However, the face is now far too soft, because I picked the rod without noticing that it was intended to be work hardened. Does anyone know the proper alloy welding rod to use for an anvil face? I figure it'll be fine to put another layer over the soft stuff. Thanks for the help.