anvil

That is the best advice yet. With a good set of tap wrenches, your control increases exponentially. This translates to far fewer broken taps that can be a real pain in the butt to remove. This also means you can use less quality taps without their breaking.

Good to know, it sets the stage. A smithy is the shop. You need 4" of coke under your work. A y more and you are burning too much coal, any less and you are working too hard to maintain your fire. This is for a "1" shop, meaning your average material is 1" or less. You can work larger stock, but it takes a bit more time to heat your iron.

I'd suggest forge welding it. Then amperage becomes the least of your problems.

Hey, we are traditional smiths! I suggest we keep it simple and follow the actions of our forefathers and bury it in a large pile of horse manure!

Just my input. I'm not a fan of a striking anvil. For me its redundant. Thus I dont need to consider mounting it to a striking anvil. I dont believe weight in the hardy hole of an anvil is a problem as the primary use here is forming not forging. Like Thomas said, a square shank works for me. And sized for my hardy hole. And, as he said, square works fine in my post vice where I usually work it. I prefer solid stock over tubing primarily because I dont use much tubing, so it's not easy to come by in my shop. Not to mention that it's far easier to forge solid stock to fit my hardy than forging tubing. I wouldn't mount it in a race basically for JHCCs' reasons. Not to mention that shaping below the equator is pretty awkward. Height is critical. If it is a one off, it goes in the anvil. If I have quite a few pieces, a chair by the anvil works. But usually my post vice is my workspace for my ball stakes. Thus a short shank works best for me. Free standing on a long shaft with a base on the ground ad in the OP appears to me to not be stable enough, not to mention storage if you have a large section of sizes.

I believe it's always best to assume "operator error" than to blame it on preexisting conditions. Especially when just starting out. More often than not forging coil/leaf spring when it's a bit too cold, or heating it too much is the problem.

Sounds like you have a lot of experience as a fabricator/welder and related fields. Great input. Thanks.

Vaughn, I wouldn't touch tools from China. Not just because of current politics, but you get what you pay for. Steamboat, soapstone in a fab shop is fine. However in an architectural blacksmith shop, chalk is fine for drawings on a table, but not near as precise as what's needed for layout. When Building mortise and tenon railings, you are either right on, or you are screwed. In a fab shop, just get a bigger rod works.

Excellent latch!

Frosty, I heard you are going to be busy forge welding Alaska back together again!! Hope all is well.

Nice jingle bells!

The way you have described it in your posts is how I've always understood the "semantics" as well. When the two bases fuse, you are welding, no matter if you use a filler. Anything else is soldering/brazing.

I saw that. Have you ever considered a full sized mandrel that this would fit in as a removable top? About 4' high. I'd be interested.

I use hex far more than most other shapes

Francis Whitaker used either this, or mag chloride in his shop. He watered it on Friday and raked any high spots into the low areas usually in the triangle. I've followed suit, and it makes a great floor. Some like dirt floors, some concrete. I am a dirt floor guy. It's easy on the feet and allows your post vice and anvil stumps to be sunk into the ground. And if you need to move them, it's far easier than dealing with concrete.

Yea, and that danged ole chalkstick gets eaten up by the chalk monster faster than a dog on a bone and became my most expensive consumable!!!

You taught him well, and a great demo he created! Also compliments to you and your techniques on this cross! It's nearly identical to the way Francis Whitaker made them. On one of his trips to Europe he learned this from, I believe, a German blacksmith who's last name was Freidrich(sp). For quite a long time, this was called "Freidrich's cross" by Francis to honor the man who taught this to him, much like your student did for you. He did an article in the anvils ring on this process. I believe this was around the mid '90's. Just adding a rather contemporary note to the cross.

Excellent and inspirational. That's a great mill. My go to milling setup is an Alaskan mill and a sthil 046. May this be your best and last!

Me too. Can't beat a 6'metsl folder. And my scribe trumps soapstone and silver pencil hands down.

This is correct. Do you wa t to restore it, or is this going to be a working forge. I have one similar, and its use is as a portable forge. The first thing I did was cut out an opening in the bottom and put in a proper firepot, twyre, and clinker ball. Use a blower setup of choice. I set mine up with a stand mount candy otto blower.

Yup, you are correct.

Without a doubt, charcoal is cleaner than coke, and coke is cleaner than anthracite. I dont believe the relative difference between charcoal and coke is much, but the relative difference between coke and anthracite is,, "appreciable".

Check with your local ABANA state affiliate. You are most likely within an hours drive of good coal.

I realize that. And about the only reason I can think to not use met coal (thanks for spelling it out) is when you are just starting out, do not know where to get it, and do not want the ease of just going to Tractor supply. Expense is an initial factor as well. However I believe every state has an ABANA affiliate. This, especially in my part of the world, can be expensive. But the longer you "play in the flame", the easier it is to justify a two day journada to buy a ton at ~80$-100$ a ton. This is certainly out of the question till you truly are bit by the bug. And a big compliment on your article. Your layout is something I lack. A fine example of a well thought out piece!

You have put a lot of time into this article. Congrats. However, in many places your comparisons between met coal and anthracite are quite the opposite. No quotes, but I'll work thru some highlights. Yes, when you look at the specs, anth appears cleaner than met coal. And has a higher carbon content. However, what you are missing is that when met coal cokes the impurities are burnt off and coke is pretty close to 100% carbon and it is nearly impurity free. Charcoal is, in this sense, cleaner than met coal. A cardinal rule, especially when doing tool smithing and especially forgewelding is that you want to keep any and all "green coal" out of your coke fire and away from your steel. There is absolutely no way you can keep green coal away from your fire,, it Is your fire. This is why from a blacksmith perspective, anth is "dirtier" than met coal. Because any coke is far "cleaner" than even the best anth. Concerning air. You are correct, you need more air in your working your fire and more air to keep it going when at the forge. As to the first, working the fire. Quite simply more air means an oxidizing fire, and our iron, especially forge welds and tool smithing(including knives) strongly prefer a neutral vs oxidizing fire. You can reduce the air to nearly zero, and maintain a forging fire with very little added o2 in a coke fire. As to the second, when working more than one piece of stock, that extra air you need will scale far more due to the o2, and it's far easier to burn your work by a magnitude,,, no matter if you are working many irons or just a few small pieces. Starting a fire: well the only time I use anything but a piece of newspaper to start my met coal fire is my first fire ever. This is the smokies fire I ever have. After that I use a match, newspaper, and coke left over from the previous day. Coke doesn't smoke, so again, keeping that green coal out of the fire prevents a smokey fire. And the time to start every fire after the first takes about as much time as it takes to turn on your ox/acetyl, run out your hoses, and light your torch. Maintaining a fire: I have never used water on my coke fire because___ "its coke. thus with no coke I can use less water." I use water liberally always to control my fire size,,, from a small slit fire for tempering springs to a large fire to work multiple irons at a time. And you are correct, with anth you control your fire size with air. And when working multiple irons, there that bugger called an oxidizing fire. And a small slit fire is really hard to maintain for the very reasons you state. It falls apart each time you pull your iron from the fire. Smokey fire: I never,, let me repeat,,, never do I put green coal on the top of my coke fire. It smokes like a son of a gun, and contaminates my coke. I work my fire in this manner: Coke in the firepot surrounded by "green coal" which is burning off all impurities(the green wispy trails) surrounded by the other coal reserves. As the coke burns to clinker and ash, it goes down thru the clinker ball, and never blown up and out where these fines will contaminate your coke and plays hades with your iron. Not to mention breathing that stuff when it is in the air. Then pull the fresh made coke into the center and maintain ~2" coke on top. No cave. Hollow fires suck, in more ways than one.. pull coal in to fill the green coal stash. Then add more fresh coal as needed to your forge. And last, but already sorta mentioned, never leave a fire unattended. With a hand cranked blower, as soon as you quit cranking, the air supply decreases. Thus no burned iron, and when the air stops completely, your fire is literally out. Out such that when I take a lunch break, say, I dump the ash, prop the ash gate open a bit and put a small log round in the top, and i have a safe "cool" coke fire waiting for at best a handful of wood shavings if a crank on the old blower doesn't do the job. In conclusions, there are reasons to use either, but it's best to understand both in order to make the best choice,,, and there are very good reasons that met coal is used by the steel industry and is called "blacksmiths coal."