psilogen

A perhaps related question: I have an 1841 William Foster with a great face, but some rough edges. No chunks out, but they are peppered with small chips. Will enough forging safely round off these edges (assuming safety glasses, etc) while minimizing loss of steel, or is it better to quickly buzz a flap disc over them before doing any shouldering or similar work? I'm leaning towards the flap disc, but I'd obviously like to leave as much steel as possible, since the old girl ain't gonna heal herself of my damages.

I think that's the kind of coal we use at our shop. I can burn the heck out of 1x1/4 mild steel bar with a bellows and a burnt-back forge pipe, so I should hope you can weld with it.

One of my coworkers gifted me a rod he pulled out of the river, and it will indeed fray like a rope if you start out at an orange heat. It's a lot of fun to forge if you can get it to white, though.

True on the wrought iron, but we have hundreds of bars of mild steel and zero bars of wrought iron, so one must make concessions. Today I found a crack in the blade. During the welding/forging I noticed the blister that has made itself more apparent, but it will hold up to wood. once I'm back in the shop, I think I'll start on #2. One of the other smiths brought in a few examples made by smiths much better than I, so I have something to aspire to. The rifle barrel pipe hawk was especially cool.

Thanks, all. I welded an old chunk of file into the mild steel the rest of it was made of, just sandwiched in the end. I think most of the current edge had the carbon burnt out of it, but I haven't tried tempering it yet, and I guess I'm taking it on faith that it was a solid steel file. I plan on grinding another 1/4" or so off of it to see if I can find a point where a file skates over it. If you look at the top and bottom (no pics yet), you can clearly see the seams, but it holds together alright, and I learned a lot in the process.

I work in an 1820s shop, so I figured I'd forge an 1820s tool. This is a steel-edged tomahawk, made somewhat in the style of the trade hatchets being sold to the natives in the area (Mississippi/Minnesota confluence in MN, USA). I'm told that the trade hatchets would have been fairly soft steel (designed obsolecency), but I wanted to make one that would last, so I attempted to weld a steel edge into it. I have to admit that none of the welds went half as well as I'd hoped they would. For the edge, I had a lot of steel hanging outside of the main 'hawk body. The excess got burnt and mucked up the rest of it, so I'm not sure how much good steel is actually left. As for the socket, the blade near the socket is necessarily twice as thick as the iron forming the socket, so the iron forming the socket heats much quicker if you place it poorly in the welding fire. Consequently, there are some pretty hideous burn marks (adds character). I think I've figured out how to prevent the steel edge from burning (trim it very closely to the size of the unforged blade edge, flux and then hammer together at orange, then go for the weld heat), and the socket will be a matter of arranging the whole thing in the fire in some novel manner which leaves the weld seam in white coal and the socket in yellow or orange. (Perhaps straight up with half the blade buried in ash and the socket sticking slightly above the weld hotspot?) This is my first one, so be harsh. additionally, I can't find the "Edit Photos" button the FAQ refers to. Could someone help me out?

my main hammer was a gift from an antiques crawler I work with. It's about 2#, cross pein, and I gave it my own handle. It's served me well, but I am a big fan of the double-faced sledges, 3-4#, with a heavy taper. I haven't seen too many in the wild (we had one at my employer's forge, but it started falling apart and we'd rather not throw chips all around the shop). I found the heavy taper helped me to really squeeze out nails, being a smaller guy without the best technique. Does anyone know where to find a decent one? I tend to switch it up a little bit, depending on what I'm working on. A smaller hammer for shaping, sledge for drawing out.

I wonder if I could convince my employers to let me do some mig work on my own anvil in their shop; that thing is a beauty.

man, and I thought it would have been a hassle to obtain a 300lb with my Toyota! I have a decent number of friends, but I do not have enough friends to lift a half-ton anvil into a hatchback (nor would the car survive).

I only learned about the legalities after carting off 27 spikes and some odd pieces from a local freight line. I can see where they're coming from, but 1. I do not mess with established hardware, and 2. they ain't coming back for that stuff.

my first forge was a portagrill with a hair dryer too. right now we've got a shop-vac with the tube in the other hole, but I've got ducttape covering all but a square half-inch or so of the intake, because I don't really need my bottom draft forge acting like some kind of horrible coal fountain if you can find a squirrel cage and a motor, it's not terribly hard to rig up a plywood assembly for it, but if you've already got a hairdryer, just disable the heating coils and go to town.

vulcans are cast iron with a tool steel face welded on, I believe. KevinD: 8 inches (face) + 5 inches (horn) = 13 inches (whole anvil) that is a seriously small anvil, but for 30 bucks? I would probably go for it.

it is all about ubuntu

those are good tips, I will try to put them to use I've only got one chunk of real wrought iron left and it is not going to a lowly s-hook ;)

welcome, mithral!

My name is Jim - I work at a historic fort in Minnesota (3 guesses as to which one, first two guesses don't count). I've been there two seasons now, but only really got into the blacksmithing heavily this year. I've got my own anvil, hammer, blower, and forge, so I guess once all the pieces come together there will be some mayhem. Good to find a group of minds that share in the pursuit of the ferrous.

leave it to a VNV Nation fan to bring the harsh criticism down on some plebian effort (haha, I am just kidding around. I love VNV and have not seen this documentary show)

dang, Leah. You are the winner. a million thanks

I have made a couple attempts at forging an s-hook with a basket twist in the middle, but I have run into problems. My basic design is 4 rods bundled up and welded at the ends, formed into an S-hook, and twisted around to leave a nice basket in the middle. I've tried doing all four on the face at once, but the nature of round stock is that it acts like a wedge against other round stock, which is clearly counter-productive, and I got nowhere. I've tried doing two rods at a time, which worked for the first join at one end, but then the other end didn't stick, and if I can only hit that weld right 50% of the time, I am gonna be wasting a lot of stock and time. I got close enough by bundling up all four rods and peening the mass in the v-groove of the swage that I know I can get the next one to completion if I am more careful about heat (the ends started to fray a little, and I burned the heck out of two of the rods in the twist) I'd like to develop a skillset similar to a serious frontier smith of the 1800s, because that seems like the most hardcore way to go, and it would also give me more than enough basic skills to help me branch off into something more specific or lucrative, and to me this means doing things with as few tools as possible. Should I: keep trying the weld (in parts or in whole) on the face of the anvil until my dumb head figures out how to do it, or should I accept that one must start somewhere, even if "somewhere" for a frontier smith might be nowhere near a swage block, and take the easy way out? maybe this is a bit more of a philosophical problem than a smithin' one, but I also don't have a swage block at my home shop, so it is also a practical concern. I guess what I am wondering is: 1., would a professional blacksmith be able to do this on the face of the anvil, with all 4 rods at once, with a minimum of failure, 2. are there any tips you can give me on doing a faggot weld either on the face or in a swage (ideal tong shape, orientation of bundle for welding blows, etc)

first salvage trip along a local rail line. all the spikes are 6.5", a bit short for my ideal spikeknife, but I think I'll flatten the handle part out and wrap it in leather to make up for its diminutive length, rather than doing the twist handle and having a 1" blade. Obviously I cannot forge the baseball or the half-rusted can opener into anything useful, but do you folks have any suggestions for the rest of this stuff? I've got a decent anvil, so I don't need the plate for its hardy holes or anything. As I said, a few of those spikes will become knives (probably xxxx steel, so they will be decorative), a few will become incense holders, and I'd like to save some to forge into ribs (gonna make a xxxxxx skeleton once I've got enough stuff and a torch), but everything else is up in the air. Also, I am a beginner. This is the first stock I've owned that wasn't 1/4" nail-rod pinched from work (with permission). It is a momentous occasion. do you think any of that stuff could be made into useful tools? I should probably throw a spring-fuller together, but I don't know quite how springy any of these parts will be.

I trust that everyone here has read (or, in my case, borrowed) Anvils in America by Richard Postman? If you are looking to buy an anvil, that is the book to carry with you.

was that 1200# thing designed for forging ironclad ships or something? it is ridiculous

you have got to be kidding me my brain cannot wrap itself around the concept of that video