Bigred1o1

i just have a piece of mild steel that i made into a hardy tool it works fine i am not sure what the steel is but its quite soft and about half an inch thick and works quite well just took the plate and welded some square stock onto it to fit my hardy hole

not to put to much of a damper on it but its to bad people going to the auctions wont have a chance to stumble on an anvil other than that glad for your good luck this might also be bc i just went to a auction where there ended up being a pre sale that meant that a good chunk of the blacksmiths equipment ended up going to a dealer before the auction

the mouse hole i found up here was stamped very lightly and by looking at the pitting on yours that would be plenty have removed it i have to say i love the transition of the mouse hole horns to the anvil body they look more like the prow of a ship

http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/26350-build-your-own-burner-video/ take a look at the video in this link and see if that helps you its pritty simple if you have a drill press or you could look up building a T-burner

i think this is more than symbolism if you look you can see that the anvil is pined to the stump through the pritchel hole so i am inclined to think this being used as a swadge block

i am still waiting for the photo proving hat basher is not in fact 4ft tall and that is a 12oz hammer he has tehre

no offence but i am not taking the time to download a 3.6mb photo if you have a camra that will take a photo that large i betting you have a fragment of skill to re-size it

i just had to add this one in Buster Keaton http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB3_Q7owAp4

its a nifty web sight for technical definitions as well i have really enjoyed looking at your work robakyo thanks for sharing as well i got a real kick out of your backdrops nice original artwork there

just thought i would link you to this thread as it seems pertinent and pretty darn cool anvil wise http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/27151-bogdan-popovs-anvil/

you know basher i have to say yours has more style and as you said its got some nice lines

sorry that was me being lazy and not wanting to have to spell check a post

good old google cold shut Top McGraw-Hill Science & Technology Dictionary: > > > (′kōld ′shət) (metallurgy) A surface defect of a metal casting in the form of a discontinuity where two streams failed to unite. Also known as cold lap. Freezing of the top surface of an ingot before the mold is full. HomeLibraryScienceSci-Tech Dictionary Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/cold-shut-metallurgy#ixzz1t16cSwNn

this is the way most things are this way i have a small beef farm and my investment in it is pushing 300grand this covers land 3 tractors 2 steel kicker wagons 1 rotary rake 2 tedders 1 disc mower 1 dump wagon 2grand in fencing this year so far not counting trips for "free telephone poles" and there is so much more heck as well this was a bad year for calving we lost 4 and one heifer so thats a loss of around 5grand to make up everything costs this is not that amazing a thing and i know for a fact that our investment for farming is small compared to most of the dairy farms the larger tractors and equipment can get up into the 100s of thousands sorry i made the mistake of commenting on this string early on and as a result i keep getting updates as more and more people comment so long story short blacksmithing can be cheap if you have the free time to spend or get lucky if you are doing this as a hobby and get enjoyment out of building your own tools and slowly building up your shop then you can do this for virtually nothing if on the other hand you want plug and play spend the cash get to hammering if you want to do this as a profession on a large scale it can cost like starting up most businesses i have dont watch much tv but at the end of a day of having things break/kick me(read cow)/or just not get much done i am lucky in that i find making simple things very relaxing and when i am smart i make things to sell that i can then fold that cash back into improving my set up some of the equipment is very helpful in the the shop in general so its a win win and while i don't real enjoy straitening gutter cleaner paddles or tedder arms i do get satisfaction out of fire up the forge and saving myself having to buy new parts

i just gave up and started uploading things to facebook and then linking them here the size of the photos were getting so small that it seemed sort of hard to see what was in some of them you can link using a ulr address clicking the photo icon and pasting it in to there not perfect but it works

it came out of a flower garden and took some work to get it back up and running but now just about perfect

if you can end up with a 4x4 working aria or something near that you will have plenty of room and yes you only really "need" something slightly larger than your hammer but having a little extra is very nice heck i was pleasantly surprised as to how nice working on a 2 1/2 x4 post anvil was its not perfect for larger work but it was quite nice for doing smaller work as it has a huge amount of mass under the face it was very responsive and for knife making it should work perfectly for you

nothing all that amazing about this but its quick to take apart i made up the base out of old 2x8s that a glued and screwed together then rand a few large bolts through as well i traced out the anvils footprint and routed out a socket for it, i made it a hair larger so that i had room for a strip of inner tube rubber between the wood and the anvil this makes for a very tight fit and cuts down on the ringing the main reason for doing this is the ease of taking the 2 apart as i take this anvil with me now and then and so far this has worked quite nicely and as always its nice make something up out of "free material"

well i finally got around to mounting this guy closer to where i was working 6inch jaws wide weigh is a bit over 100lb so was a but with the set up i have now its solid as a rock and i can still snag the whole set up with tractor bucket and drop it out side if i want to the 2 vices are mounted on top of three rims from full sized school buss not 100% sure how i came by them but this is the best use i have found for them so far on top of that i bolted 4 4x4s and then mounted the pose vice to the side of that with 2 long threaded rods that were used originally to just clamp the 4x4s together there this is a piece of 2 1/2inch wide half inch thick steel wielded on the the bottom rim for the foot of the vice so far i am very happy with the set up as it did not increase the over all foot print of the vice stand and has in fact made it more stable and my step vice i am loving having this around for quick twisting and bending work i have it set up with the spring external so i can disconnect it when the spring is disconnected the weight of the peddle holds the jaws together hard enough to keep light work from slipping through i have found this very handy i mounted it onto a 2ft by three ft plywood base made up of 2 half inch pieces screwed together not perfect but very portable and large enough for me to stand on it and keep things from shifting the small mutt of a anvil is there for upsetting

you might want to take a look at this link for your forklift tine build http://www.marco-borromei.com/fork.html thanks to ThomasPowers for the link

the other thing to think on is if you are not in a rush and take the time to look for things you can get them less expensively if you are doing this as a hobby or like me using it as another tool in the shop as well as for enjoyment you can bootstrap yourself some gear can be made others while nice are not vital make things in your free time to sell and if you are lucky then are things that will also let you practice your skills spend your cash on the things you need and keep an eye out for things that are barrens you never know what you will luck into dont get me wrong i can afford to be a full time smith but but it is a huge help when i need to fabricate or fix something on the farm

it seems to me you should be able to make a set of ratcheting tongs that would be able to quickly locked tight right handed and then used left handed with no worry as to the work slipping not perfect but just a though as well having had a friend loos the ability to close his left hand with any real force from a farming accident he had some gloves with a fiberglass mold over then fitted with things such as ski pole hands and the like that he could slip his hand into and still hold onto things http://aaavetsurgical.com/products.php?cat=197 this is a ratcheting set of medical forceps that gave me the idea for the tongs i dont know if its any help or not but thought i would put it out there

in that case a you dont need small just portable an anvil and stand that you can move with a dolly or pick up and put back together would be fine for you a a 50 to 100lb anvil can still be very nice i have a portable 118lb anvil i take to hammer ins that has a wooden block that a routed out the footprint of the anvil into so i can socket the anvil in with some rubber tubing as spacers to lock it into place and cut down on the ringing not that bad to move and set up

yeah knots but you dont say that bit out loud or you get chased off the property you let them think that part up on their own

sorry those photos are so large i still cant say i have seen one like that as i can get about 1/6 of the photo on the screen at a time