Ridgewayforge

Justin, 

Sorry I didn't see this until just now- 

I see you're in Frederick- That's pretty convenient, Starting in August I'll be living in Thurmont again after my year in italy. 

Keep in touch, ifyou'd like. Great to see other smiths in the area! 

-Patrick

Ridgewayforge

Can you include a picture? Is the 59 stamped, or raised? 

Really, without more information and a few good photos, we can't help too much. 

You might try the trick of dusting it with flour or shining a light at an oblique angle to highlight any markings.. 

Undoubtedly one of the reasons why this craft has taken off in popularity (thanks in part to U-tube videos showing people how to endanger themselves...) is that IFI is a place where even the most foolish of us can ask, and be corrected in a gentlemanly (and gentlewomanly) way, without name calling or the like. Heck, how many more people would follow things like the king of randumb on youtube if we didn't dissuade them? 

Here's to the curmudgeons! Keep us young bucks and overzealous know-it-alls in line! 

1 hour ago, Ranchmanben said:

I'm going to be looking for ways to use them.

Heck, you could bend square bar into a flattened D and have a handy small shelf around half the waist of the anvil. Perfect for a hammer rest between heats, or something similar! 

8 minutes ago, Glenn said:

You purchased the whole anvil not just the face, so turn the anvil ever which way but loose, and use the anvil, the whole anvil.

Glenn, that would be an interesting project idea: Make something using at least X number of the anvil's parts. So, perhaps its the handling holes, the face, the horn, the feet... etc. 

When I get my shop set up in August, I will make something using multiple components of the anvil. 

Great thread! 

lyuv, what you say is true, but its not just temp that dictates the ease of forging. A good coal or charcoal forge would get plenty hot enough to melt both mild and tool steel. 

What is there not to work? You have a metal container designed to hold fire, and a sand/clay mix that won't burn, and a good sized firepot, and some air... 

Looks like a winner! You probably will see the clay start cracking as time goes on- But that's the simplicity. It won't be too detrimental to the forge. Its an interesting choice, to be sure, since the original JABOD is just dirt. It should work well. 

6 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

Would you suggest ITC 100 or satinate instead?

I suppose that would depends on what kind of burner you're planning. A friend once was challenged to eat a bhut jolokia pepper- for That  burner and similar, I'd recommend lining it with pepto bismol! 

You can't reline THAT with Kaowool! 

Now, would it be easier to forge on if its not converting the energy into heat? 

looks real good! How heavy is she? 

I would mount it upright so that the 5x5 face is your anvil face. Radius each edge, now you have 4 radii. Mount it in a box of sand, or something similar. Just something strong to transfer the force down to the earth. 

That looks like a stellar anvil! 

11 hours ago, David R. said:

I need to be clarify. My floor is dry even when raining, but if I come into it out of the rain the dust sticks to the wet boots  and  then I have muddy feet going back to the house.

I think if you substitute the soil dust for crusher fines, you might find its a different story. 

I started on one- they're awful thin. 

If you have nothing else, then yes. Use it in good health and make some things! 

I used to have a simple dirt floor- nothing too fancy. The dust didn't become a huge problem, even during the Maryland summers. There would usually be the finer stuff sitting on top of the packed earth, but it never got airbourne. 

Alternatively, you could get crusher fines or fine gravel and pack it down. After 5 or 6 years, whatever you have will be some sort of metal/scale/ dust/ debris mix that'll be fine as a floor. 

I think this is a good post, and a thought provoking one. One thousand words written by an 'expert' are no match for ten minutes trying, failing and repeating in real life. That being said, I think we can all recognize when people are speaking prudently and putting their own experience into what they write, especially here. Safety comes to mind- Even if science says that metal fume fever isn't a 'real' disease, personal experience of getting sick from welding zinc would still hold true. 

Its important to note, though, that when an 'expert' says that the steel won't move *this* way or *that* way, it can and should become a good-natured challenge to prove them wrong. That's how we advance! "You can't", "I will try" and then finding out that "Actually, I can!" 

Good food for thought!

It looks fairly pitted, but nothing too horrible. There appear to be some flat spots that can be used effectively. The short answer is no, its not unusable for knives, but I would suggest starting with blacksmithhing before you go into bladesmithing. 

We all know that there are no wrong brands of anvils, but there are two wright brands of anvils! 

17 hours ago, Ranchmanben said:

That must have taken awhile! Out of curiosity, what diameter is the stock? Looks like a fairly small, handy size. The smallest coil springs I come across are 5/8", I'd like to run across some 1/2" or 3/8". 

I had some 1/2" that came off of a golf cart- some leaf, too. It was good size for punches and chisels and the like. The only thing about cutting the pieces off is that the ends are never square with the bar. 

2 hours ago, JHCC said:

 The upper one in the top photo looks more like a hammer…. 

No, you smash it into the bottle- It opens it plenty fine, but has the tendency to spill a little! 

Sounds like its time to plant a new seed for the opportunity pile. If you plant a cut off of good steel, it'll surely grow big and strong in no time! 

Tongs you could use as the anvil! 

Now THAT would be a cool anvil! 

You could google old Hay Budden ads to see if you can figure out what it was marketed as. Cool find! Are you going to use it? 

Zeroclick, I am very intrigued by your holddown, could you explain how yours in used and how it was formed? 

Thanks! 

A hammer can be many things. Let's say, for the sake of discussion, that you want to make a dedicated hammer for hitting struck tools. You would then want something softer than the tools being struck, while at the same time some toughness so that it doesn't deform too easily. You would want this hammer to be fairly heavy, so as to deliver solid blows to the struck tools. As it is not a main forging hammer, it could have two faces, like a drilling hammer. -- 

    The pros of using normalized spring steel for this application are: The hammer will not deform as quickly as mild steel, so less dressing.

    The Cons of using this steel: Will deform the struck ends of tools more easily, especially if the struck tools have less carbon than it. It also increased the chances of shearing off work hardened mushrooming of the struck tools. 

Now, let's say you want a general forging hammer. This hammer should be fairly hard, but not as hard as the anvil. It would need to keep its form, and not deform. As it will be used on hot steel, you don't need it diamond hard. 

    Pro: Spring steel can give you the desired results

   Con: May not have enough carbon content to get it hard enough. 

Now, you can apply all that is written about spring steel in other posts (and written about in other applications) here, but looking at what is spring steel good for, and what are the parameters you are looking for in a given hammer. 

By creating this matrix of what you are looking for vs. which steel can do what, you can then go ahead and easily figure out for yourself what the pro's and cons of a given steel in a given application would be. It just takes a bit of digging and plugging in what you find into what you know about the tools and the steels.