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.

so…..you didn't call the cops?

a handle is a range. Think of it like a scale with the most control and the least power down by the head and the most power but least control at the end of the handle. When working smaller things you often want lots of control over how and where the hammer hits so you choke up. When you start to work larger pieces to brake the stock down or draw it out the control is not as much an issue but you need more power so you slide your hand down the handle to effectively allow your hammer to work the larger cross section faster. There is a point where the handle gets to cumbersome to use with your hand all the way up under the head and to short to effectively hold and control the hammer. A striking sledge is to cumbersome with the long handle and a piece of round steel can be used in the hand but its hard to hold on to and you can't get the full amount of work from the piece all you can do is lift it up and drop it. Works great for control but you are limited to the weight of the head for all your work. This is just what I have come to understand as I have used longer handles and shorter handles and at one point a piece of 4" round to strike some tooling with no handle.

Oh and you will want to radius i.e. grind those corners anyways into different sizes of round to make dies for forging as well as protecting the pieces you forge on it. The main time spent on most anvils is near the step over the body of the anvil in a 4x4 inch square with the corners near the step radiuses the most and stepping back from there in increments until you finally have sharp edges near the heal of the anvil. Looks like a good find. Plenty of smiths spent their whole careers working out of a pit fire. Get her hot and beat her. I look forward to seeing what you make. :D

arm and hammer brand anvil. logo is inset or stamped in as opposed to the cast proud vulcan arm and hammer logo.

http://ipneto.deviantart.com/art/hand-buckler-191858353

welcome.

Yet another reason to make your tools beautiful. I have always tried sometimes failed to show my skill in the tools that I use a lot. Its a great way to show ones ability and also makes it much more interesting for people to watch you demonstrate when everywhere they look theres something else to stare at. I also find it helps to keep my creative juices flowing. I have been wanting to add some decorative touches to some of the large tools I use regularly and I am still trying to come up with some designs I like. This will help me think of options thanks again for sharing.

Nice things to think about. I enjoy the stone building that we demonstrate in sometimes as there are plenty of stone shelves to put things and you really don't have to worry about the walls burning also it tends to stay a bit cooler. Some sheet metal angled out from the bottom also helps in those shops with wooden walls. Keeps the hot metal from hiding and starting a fire. I like the comment about anchor points as a person whose job it is to move large machines around and place them precisely you can really avoid a lot of head aches by planning ahead with anchor points. A jib crane or bridge crane can really make a space more usable as well. You might want to have a floor plan already designed before you build so you can place all your heavy items within a few steps of each other but most importantly the forge. Plan a separate room for finishing (cold or bench work) and a separate one for grinding. I am a fan of the half walls that have a counter weighted shutter for the other half. Makes it much easier to open the smithy and make use of the natural wind to cool off the place. On top of that makes you feel more like your outside enjoying the good days when still in the smithy. Plan for extra forging stations not because you will ever need them but if you do have a hammer in or just a couple of friends stop by its nice to have a dark place for another forge to be in and especially ventilation already taken care of. Thats another thing. venting is important along with places for fire extinguishers and a good easily drainable slack tub. A shower is also nice because if your anything like me you get really dirty playing at the forge and its nice to not drag all that in the house when your done for the day. Plan lighting like skylights or other ways of getting enough light by the anvil and tons of light by the bench while still keeping the forge in relative darkness. Nice barn doors would be good as well or carriage doors. Stock storage should also be thought about ahead of time and how to get to the cutter to make it into the bar lengths you will need. There are also types of flooring you may want for one part and others for other parts. End grain wood blocks make for a nice floor where your going to stand for long lengths of time like by the anvil. I don't have a shop and I have been thinking long and hard about what I would like to have some day.

I have done one sided on knives. I like the center weld and one side weld for axes. haven't really thought about a wrap around style. seen it just never really appealed to me.