jasonmichalski

how did you taper down the 1" pipe, I'm looking to do the same to make sockets for wood handled fish spears? 

its fun and addicting, lol

good scores!

Thanks There getting harder to find.

Seriously? $20 for all of that? Nice!

yeah, the prices went from $0.25 up to a $1.00 most were around 0.25 to 0.50 they didn't know what most of the tools were, the guy said his dad used to shoe horses.

another $20.00 garage sale find, my wife is getting good at spotting tools I can use. 

Not an estate sale, but a friend of mine whom I told I was looking for an anvil texted me yesterday from a outdoor flea market and said she just found a 50lb rr track anvil.  Told her I was looking for something in the 200lb range, but thanks for being on the lookout for me.  She replied and said the guy selling it told her that I'd better buy it 'cause I wasn't going to find anything better.  Can you believe that!?!

Did you here up then and buy it!! LOL!!

I was excited it was to first sale I found this year with good tool. I had to stop myself I could have spend my paycheck there, they had a barn full stuff.

I love going to estate sales in the summer, Just found some good tools all for $20.00 at an old farm just down the road from my house. its getting harder to find old tools but if you look there's still some good finds out there!! 

Here is a darkhouse spear I just finished testing I still have to clean up the welds and I think I'm going to get this one powder coated, because this ones all mine. B) The last pic is of a little one that wouldn't leave my decoy alone. :ph34r:

Nice looking bit of gear, but isn't something like that called a Trident. Did you actually catch the fish using that WOW, my grandfather used to do a bit of spear fishing underwater when he was younger.

By the way what sort of fish are those.

a trident would have three tines, and the fish are pike they get spear though the ice from a darkhouse, which lets you see below.

I just finished my second darkhouse spear. I also forged a new set of tines for my heavy duty spear. I ended up welding in the wedge because it was giving me some trouble but it works great now.

I have lots of wrought iron from the farm and spikes from narrow guage trackes. The main train line is still in use and most of the nicer spikes are steel. My grandparents land has a old set od narrow guage track that the tracks were removed but they left every thing else and it all wrought iron. for about 1/2 mile. We used to walk the lane and use the spike to climb trees when I was a kid now I go out in the wood to find the old trees for the spikes. :D

I am curious about the spikes you used to make your knife and axe. Did you find these spikes on your property? WI maybe? Nice job on your forging! Sounds like you've got an awesomely fascinating piece of property for sure.

Robert

We have three old farms on our land, and the frist logging train north stopped here for the winter around 1876 till they build tracks so we have the first train stop and saw mill sites on our land and the things that were build out of need and because there was no town, you just started building it, were ruff and crude, but were build to do the job at hand, they hold a simple beauty of there own, and each craftsman put his own little details in the working tools of there trades.

This is the first thing a made from a RR spike and it was a chrismas preasent for my Dad last year. He has watched them made by smith a few times and has always wanted one, and I made a knife to match. I left it ruff to look more like something the settlers would use. The handle I had around, but the hole in the axe is tapered for a hawk handle, I just run out of time to make one.








Thanks for taken a look, He loved them, so I thought I'd share.

That's 45 mins of your effort Dave? WOW is right. That's beautiful work.

When you opening your school?

Frosty the Lucky.

I made this one last summer and after making the scroll and cleaning it up, I cold bent the shape and it sounds great hanging by a leather strip.

I also use this as a hot cut and for sliting.

The small one is a cold cut and is the first tool I made and I still use it over store bought one for cutting steel. They are from rebar that I had left over from resteel strenght test at work, they were ment to be part of a rebar cage for a 12' dia drilled foundation that went down to hard pan. They harden and temper very well.

or I could make it a fuller.

my first try I'm going to do one narrower next time.

As mentioned to cut down on sparking: sieve out the fines and let the charcoal heat up and drive off any water before getting to the heart of the fire. Remember that charcoal needs a deeper fire to get reducing---in a bloomery the point where you get a reducing fire is around 12 times the average fuel piece size above the tuyere (Rehder, The Mastery and Uses of Fire in Antiquity) so if you just pour on big chunks out of the bag you should be making a very deep fire indeed!

I turned up the air for the photo but when I have steel in it the is lower and the blue flame just pokes out with little to no sparks.


the water content of the charcoal can also cause it to spark this was the first time the forge was warmed in about two months.

the air source is fully adjustiable and the depth of the fire is about 5-6" and can be made to about 12" in this forge

I brake up the chunks and seive out the fines you can see the size with the air off and the charcoal from stores is not burned all the way so that the flaver gets to your food. homemade charcoal has no flaver left, if its all the way done

charcoal makes a nice flame like this if you do right.

with the air off it should die off like this.

Looks like a marriage to me. The back end of the screwbox looks like a columbian to me but the faceted leg looks more like an Iron City with the short facet length. Also notice the very large washer on the front totally out of proportion with the rest. So my *guess* is a mix of two vises---probably within the last 100 years or so.

I picked up this leg vise from ebay for $35.00. The seller said it worked great but was ugl,y rusty, and may be a good working tool. I got it home and it was better then I hoped. I can't find any info on the type and age. Does antbody have an idea on the maker and age of this 4" vise?



It has a 1X on the side of the screw box and on the front and back of the upwrights it has 5 tiny holes in a pattern of 2 over 3. The bolt nut is missing and the bracket is homemade. It has red paint under the years of dust. Thanks for any info you can provide me, I like to know the history of old tools thats half the fun of having them.