Stephen Olivo

old oil burning heater fans work wonderful. you could also make a box bellows or any other style of bellows. You will want something that gives you plenty of pressure so squirrel cage blowers aren't so great but can work.(think like the one in your car) You want longer fins so that when it has to push the air past a bunch of coal coke or ash it will.

Made same a long while back. Works great and is how all of my tennons were drawn out after fullering before monkey tooling for things like the collapsable table. About to get some heavy use as I have in the works 6 collapsable tables.

sometimes they don't have fat on them. You can find them at grocery stores labeled as pork rinds. OH and really nice score on the vice :D

That would be a correct translation. Its just deep fried pig skin with a layer of fat underneath it usually. :D Delicous stuff :D

A guild mate by the name of Dick Carlson demonstrated sharpening a plow up here like a month back…sadly I could not go. Work got in the way. Thanks for the link. An enjoyable read.

Congrats.

You can make a perfectly good spring out of mild steel for that. Less time no annealing or any of the other heat treatment steps and you can adjust it cold to the vice. http://ipneto.deviantart.com/art/Vice-spring-for-knife-guy-323146214 http://ipneto.deviantart.com/art/vice-spring-277231859 Sounds like you've got a lot of fun time playing with fire ahead of you. Wish I had as much. Work is just getting in the way for me. Glad your feeling better after the surgery. What kind of dies for the guillotine tool? Looking forward to pictures of all the fun stuff.

I would advise use as is. For large hot work only. you can always make an anvil block that will let you do the other things. Easier to heat treat too. I have many anvils some mild steel all the way to my vulcan at 80 to 90 percent return. All serve their purposes very well. It may not be what you expected but it is still a really good anvil. Just use till you find one more to your liking and then you might not want to get rid of this one. I know I wouldn't. Looks like a very nice anvil.

use it as one of many bench anvils. They are handy and I use mine all the time. A quick blacksmith knife would be what I would offer for it. Its a trade. its a good trade if both partys are happy. knives can be very simple or very complex. I have often heard those same statements from people who have no idea about any of the stuff that we do. Thats why it is always important to ask a lot of questions.

Drawing, sometimes work in clay, forging, then forging some more, forging till I get all the working parts right, Then lots of bench work.

you can use a piece of sheet steel to make a capture washer for it that will keep the head from moving.

top tooling. and if you can aford it everything else he has to sell :D

That would work but you are better off separating the stops and the fences from the working part of the tool. You will want an adjustable fence if you want to use it on different sizes and if your wanting to groove something and pierce something else then you want a stop that you can adjust the depth on. or you could just make them as you need them for each project that you do. Often it is easier to make a tool that does one particular thing than one that does a lot.

possibly a masons hammer. mason hammer

I agree with dave. End grain wood is also a nice shop floor. Yeah minnesota can be harsh :D but I still love it here.