anvil

We went a long time without convenient hot water and had a lot to make up for. Everybody knows it takes less time to heat hot water than to heat cold.

It goes against my personal philosophy so I,ve never used the self checkout. As far as the inconvenience, its all relative. I have a service animal and she is a great icebreaker standing in line. Inevitably, the person behind me, or the cashier or the bag boy or, perhaps a wide eyed child of 3 or 4 start a conversation about "Tigger". Its kinda like biting into that cold grape on a hot summers day. And without a doubt, that and what JHCC said above, are the rewards of being a craftsman of any sort in this day and age.

Interesting. It appears to me, if you look close, that the reins are forge welded to the jaws.

No doubt she could speak profusely on just why they burnt down buildings to salvage the nails....

We don't have any Osage orange in the high country of Colorado or where I am presently,, just east of the "Land of Enchantment", but I do understand it's available somewhere between Flag and Prescott. The message here is, where ever you live, do a little research, and find the best material that keeps you working on top of your anvil Instead of what's holding it up.

Anybody who does that much repetition is,, well,, hitting the nail on the head,, you might say.

Use a good wood for your stump. Bugs, humidity, moisture a problem? Someone above said use cedar. Most cedars have a natural bug repellent oil and the same oil will protect from rot. Another choice for the above conditions, use oak. How about scrounging up an old wood telephone pole? The base is great for a stump. Here's how I do it. I use a dirt floor and my peeled stumps/stands are all in the ground. No matter the wood, seal all underground surfaces with roofing tar. Don't forget the bottom. I bring this tar up an inch or so above grade. Put 4"-5" of clean 3/4" or so road base/gravel in the bottom. Now level your stump in this gravel and set your height. You do know how high above grade your stump needs to be, correct? Use this same roadbase/gravel as fill around the sides. Should be about 3" or so around the stump, and pack well with a tamper. If you do it this way, moisture will perk down into the gravel at the bottom, and should keep your stump pretty dry underground. As for the above grade part of the stump, I usually apply my hot oil finish on my anvil. This linseed, turps, and beeswax will, depending on how much work you do, keep your anvil rust free and will protect your stump above ground as well. It just kinda naturally happens. As for bugs,, I suspect most bugs don't like vibration heat, scale and noise, so if you actually use your anvil fairly often, you shouldn't have a bug problem. This works if you set your stump into the ground.

Here's a recommended " tool" for those who choose to live "utility challenged". A propane on demand hot water heater. With the '50's vintage propane stove that came with the '52 trailer and a washing machine, we used about a hundred# bottle of propane every couple of months.

Came out nice. I do a lot of lever handles and match them to contemporary door deadbolts and mortise units. This is how i join them, so file that away for another application for this technique. I usually just drill it and drift it round. tap threads into the lever handle and secure it with a set screw.

Actually if the top jaw swiveled on the bolt, you would have parallel closure on many sizes

Considering I started shoeing in 1965 and transitioned my business from farrier to blacksmith in 1980, about the only hand made tools at that time were GE nippers, then DS broke off from them. Dale Sprout having been trained by GE, both were excellent nippers. I shod my last horse around '04 and in '08, my ex son-in-law ran off with my tools. I still trim a few. Just goes to show,,, old horse shoers never quit, we just do fewer and fewer horses. I still have my Diamond rounding hammer. Altho it "took a break" for a few years around '80 while learning how to use my cross peen, it is one of three rounding hammers along with 3 cross peens that are my primary hammers. \ I never liked diamond nippers, they were cheap in all respects.

lard makes better biscuits and bread. Also makes for very flaky pie crusts.

And that's about right for a spring temper. For those who don't know, Bredlow was the first president of ABANA, and at that time was the blacksmith for the National Cathedral.

Lol, first I'd make them from mild steel. Second, if I made them from a tool steel, I'd just normslize them. To answer your question, I would do a test piece and harden in water to see if it works. Tom Bredlow turned me on to this. He tempers small springs with large cross section changes in corn oil. Put the corn oil in a large enough pan to cover your hooks. Then slowly raise the temp until the corn oil flashes. According to him, corn oil flashes at the temp he prefers for a spring temp. Works for me.

Glad you are doing ok.

That would make me nervous too.

Thomas hit it on the head. Also, drill and then use a cold chisel and remove material. Make it like a closed end wrench with two handles in line with a nice little bolt to the fireplace cradle to hold it.. And this just touches the possibilities. Have fun.

Sometimes drilling thin stock is a pain. Even mild steel can work harden when drilling. Heres a few suggestions. Drill a single pilot hole, then go to your final bit. Make sure the pilot hole is a little bigger than the flat on your final bit. Ease up on the downward pressure. Too much creates heat and this will cause your work to harden. use cutting fluid or even water when drilling small pieces. Apply the fluid before you start to drill. Otherwise it may harden your work when drilling. If it hardens, anneal as was stated above.

Like Frosty said, it comes annealed. You can score the whole length with a cold chisel, clamp it in your vise and it will easily break using scrolling wrench or vise grips or tapping it with a hammer.

It always amazes me just how beautiful simple lines and black iron can be.

Boy,, from a bit earlier time. 17 years shoeing horses full time. Diamond nailing hammer rounding hammer and shoe pullers, two Frost knives, two Nicholson rasps, and a set of long handled DS nippers to die for.

Hands on always gives a great lesson. You need to know this basic thing about forge welding. You just must consider this for every forgeweld. It gets thinner where you hit it. No matter what, one way or another you have to deal with this,, not loss of material, but this movement of material. If you end up too thin, This is called a wasp waste. There are many ways to deal with this, upsetting before forgewelding is pretty basic and it works for many situations. So upset the end of your bar along the edge you are going to slit. It doesnt have to be much. Forge the end to a diamond, but leave the edge to be cut flat so you can start your slit. Now you have a quick and dirty scarf on both edges. ~ half the upset on each side with a thinner outer edge to easily blend into the tool steel. Forge a wedge out of the tool steel. Sorta match the tapers, and make it as long as needed. At the sharp edge of the wedge, with a slitting chisel, cut and twist the edge. This makes a few rags. If you have a long enough piece of tool steel, use a long enough piece so that you dont need tongs. Let the tool steel cool and bring up the body to or near a light forgewelding temp. On the anvil, tap the sorta cold tool steel into the vee with your hammer.. Flux and put it back into the fire and your tool steel will quickly reach its slightly cooler FW temp( compared to the body). The rags will hold the two parts together without a problem. Bring it over to your anvil and give it a quick wirebrush and bring the whole bottom edge to your anvil face with a quick rap. This drives out slag at the bottom of the vee in FW area and lightly welds the bottom edges together. Now lay it flat aand lightly and starting at the thick end lightly tap it along the bottom length of the FW and work up to the top edge. At this point, depending on your skill level your forgeweld might be done. You might need one or two more forgewelds. Thats no big deal as long as you dont burn the tool steel.How big of a scarf? A larger scarf means you have enough material to follow rule one above with as many forgewelds as needed. Fewer forgewelds saves time and protects the tool steel from burn. Why do you heat the two pieces separate? Generally tool steels forgeweld at cooler temps than either mild steel or wrought iron. It takes about as much time to do either way, depending on your skill level, but you have better control over overheating that steel tip and minimize the time the tool steel is in the fire when you apply the tool steel to the very hot body.

Measuring is a trip. I'm as fascinated with precise measurements as a blacksmith as you are at cosmic measurements.

Beautiful job! But I agree with JHCC. You cant beat bending forks and scrolling wrenches for bending iron. Different sets for different widths of stock.