Timothy Miller

RR track is hard you as a beginner need soft steel to work with.  You have enough problems like getting a good heat, holding the steel properly in a good pair of tongs, anvil that wobbles on the base or is too light.  Your arm is not trained.  You throw into the mix hard steel to forge with you might give up.  Give your self a break and buy some hot rolled steel from your local steel supply rebar is not really a good choice for the beginner.  It is used when nothing else is available.

I was told the side clip was used for forging clips used in coach work.  The side shelf is not in line with the face like on German anvils similar design different purpose.

Why do you need to clay your fire pot?  I found the clinker can fuse to the clay and be hard to remove.  I haven't used clay in years.

Yes, there's a lot of recycled content is steel but it still has to be transported,  recycled, transported, re milled, transported, sold etc.

 

 

And modern industry does all of that more efficiently than you or I can using less energy.  But I like your hooks  

I've seen people refinish the surface and what not but what if it's gone too far? 

The classic solution is to heat up the old anvil in a large forge.  Cut off the old face with a hot chisel and a team of strikers.  Make a new tool steel face and forge weld it back on to the old anvil.  Then re heat the anvil to the hardening temp of the steel and quench in fast flowing water then temper to desired hardness.  This involves lots of skilled hand work and expensive equipment but this is the way it was done.  Today most people use hard facing welding rod and build up the anvil by arc welding then grind back to shape. 

Definitely I've been thinking about this one and why I love to work old rusty stuff.  Am i that cheap?  A bit but the deeper truth is I try to make the act of buying, at least buying a new product or material, way down on the list of solutions to a problem.  I have this dream that the next U.S. president would put a one year moratorium on anyone buying anymore new crap so we would use all the old stuff that litters our world and learn to fix stuff and make do....  Seriously, in this country we have all the stuff and its way too easy to buy.  Travel to any third world place and these rr spikes would be used for a purpose.

 

In business this isn't so easy.  The cost of time you take to acquire any type of reclaimed material is a killer and can you keep up with demand if your product gets hot?   

 

As for no longer looking like spikes, that the deal with anything good, isn't it?  Would you rather see a deck post made from a 4x4 from home depot or a custom milled 5x5 from somebody's back woods?  The 4x4 is common, uninspiring, and your eye passes over it without a thought.  

 

The comment someone made above about just leaving a whiff of the previous life of a re purposed material is a powerful move.  And I do believe there is old power, life force whatever you want to call it, in some old stuff.  When you get hold of an ancient spike with the waffle marks from the hammer of some old boy who had to whack them in all day you can't help but to think about that story.  Awhile back I saw somebody was selling some very old wrought spikes and their marketing ploy was all about the two known times Lincoln had passed over them, once he was in a casket.  So cool.  

Modern steel is made in large part from recycled steel 60% to 70% In most cases.  Industry does it on a larger scale and more efficiently and using less engery than a smith burning coal can.  I enjoy hand made things and things forged from repurposed materials but the RR spike has become a cliché in the blacksmith world.  Now if you could forge a Knife into a RR spike I would be impressed. 

" I don't know why people bother with them"

 

I used the think exactly the same way, hoss.  Then I started thinking about them not as spikes or 6" pieces of 5/8" stock, but as preforms.

 

Like the hooks in Nuge's example, or Red's flippers, the main part could be made out of new stock, but then I'd have to upset the head or fab a head from plate and weld it on to the shaft.  With a spike, I have the head already upset and all I have to do is draw out the body.  It's a tremendous time saver for a small shop and allows a hobbyist an opportunity to create something they might not have been able to otherwise.

 

That's not to say, however, that you'll ever see me forge a railroad spike knife!

I basically feel the same way.  I just wanted to present a contrary opinion to induce thought.  Perhaps get some of the guys to move out of the comfort zone.  I like Nuge's hooks They no linger look like spikes.  

A length of 5/8" square costs me about $17  with a spike being about 6" of material I can get 40 pieces.  That's 43 cents a piece I don't know why people bother with them.  I have RR tracks behind my shop its not even worth the trip out the back door. 

If you want to know you should pick up a copy of "Anvils In America" By Richard Postman The author spent years and thousands dollars of his own money compiling this information. 

I think most of them are much newer than the civil war because the jaws appear to be drop forged and not made from wrought iron.  Vices from the civil war period would have been wrought iron and forged by open die hammers and or mostly by hand there would have been a bunch of hand fitting and filing involved as well.  That being said these vises are fairly rare and can fetch up around $200 biased on what I have seen them sell for. 

The reason it cracked was because you straightened it cold.  It was most likely fatigued at the bend and bending it back was just too much for it. If you had annealed the vice first it may have bent back cold without too much trouble. Also it could have been done hot with hammer and anvil.   I have done the same job to 3 or 4 leg vices so far experience and reading shows that cold bending is risky especially on older things where the exact metallic composition of the vice your are working on is uncertain. Some are steel of varying carbon contents some are wrought iron and some grades of wrought iron don't weld well at all unless its a forge weld.  In the long run you find the powder coat to be problematic because when you clamp hot iron the sparks and scale will ruin your finish.  Not to mention you will be breathing plastic fumes. 

Visit your local welding shop and ask for some cut offs.  Bring beer or doughnuts and coffee for trade.  You want hot rolled steel for non tool stuff.  High carbon steel is a whole other ball game and requires additional skills to work correctly.  

Very cool I need to get my friction screw press up and running I have been procrastinating for too long.

There is some very good information here '?do=embed' frameborder='0' data-embedContent>>

I've sure drifted a lot of holes using old bull pins

So have I but if you want a smooth hole with parallel sides you need drift pin that has parallel sides with a taper on both ends so it can be driven through easily.   Its classic text book technique.   

sorry about the picture it was the only thing tat i could find that sort a looked like a drift 

Don't be sorry I just saw it as an opportunity to explain the difference.  All you need is a round pin tapered on both ends regular steel is fine for this sort of tool.   

The tool pictured is not a forging tool it is used for lining up work so it can be bolted together by rail road and structural steel workers.  A blacksmiths drift is just a round or shaped pin tapered on both ends.  Handled punches are thicker and have more taper to them then handled drifts because they get hit with much more force than a handled drift.  Drift punches are also useful for driving out stuck bolts and pins. 

As an American I would call those pincer tongs.  Great Video thanks for sharing.  I use small ones under my 60 kg all the time.

Looks well built I bet it saved the smith a whole bunch of labor and time. 

I use the commercial drill storage boxes made by Huot they are about 150 bucks each but they save us a bunch of time.

Bad link removed, maybe poster can try again ?

So I have to flatten some hammer textured Stainless steel plate that is polished.  I want to preserve the finish it is only 1/8" thick.  My plan is to make some sort of soft caps for my power hammer dies to help to flatten the plate.  I was thinking of different materials I could use leather wood rubber or plastic.  It needs to be a tough material and something I can attach to a steel plate to bolt to my dies.  Any and all ideas re welcome.

It is the kind of tool that would have been in common use prior to 1850 in the United States.  It is a hand made tool not a mass produced object.  The form of the tool has a 18th century feel about it.  But to be honest it could be anywhere from 1870's to the roman period and there would be no way of knowing with out finding a makers mark or doing some complex and expensive metallurgical analysis  

You would need a roll with a top and bottom flange to contain it to stop it from twisting on the hossfeild. 

I have over and over posted information on this site that is baised on my own personal experince of 20 years of being a professional smith that I experinced with my own eyes and hands.  Only to have people far less experince under their belts respond by saying black is white.  I have spent many hours tring to provide good solid information to people who want it.  Call me fed up not defensive it also may be a NY thing we like a good verbal sparing match many people from other places dont understand its not personal.

 I tested the jaws of my vices with a file they vaired from glass hard to somewhat difficult to file.   Most of the wrought iron vices are faced with older types of steel like blister steel shear steel and cast steel.  This stuff can be very hard but it is also prone to soft spots and chipping.  Some vice jaws have been anealed by contact with hot steel though they did not start out soft.  I don't think you could have cut very far with a saw or drill on a fresh out of the box wrought iron leg vise with steel jaws. 

I started out with yard sale hammers in the 2$ to 5$ range put new handles on them and still use many of them.  I also have forged a bunch for my self.  Don't over think the hammer thing until you get serious and develop your style.