anvil

Considering I'm left handed,,, me too.     

One of my fav stories,,,, living close to the Grand canyon, seeing just where he drug his axe.  

I still have my hot working farrier tools,,, pritchel, creaser, and fuller, but I was more a cold shoer than hot. My ex- son in law ran off with the rest of my farrier tools including my apron. Somethings are unforgiven forever. 

Lot of great inspiration! Beautiful railing, John, and BillyBones, your angle bracket is first rate. Especially noticed the right angle bend!

I visited there with my family around '75. Both, but particularly the gunsmith, were inspirations and still are today. Wallace Gussler had moved higher up the ladder by then. I saw his movie around '73 and that pretty well cinched my pathway as a blacksmith. 

 Breathing a sigh of relief!!

If you tap coke with your poker it makes a soft sound. If you tap clinker,, well,, it makes a clink sound. Visually coke is grey and porus while clinker is more glass like, shiny and bubbly looking.

Nice! how did you join your iron to the marble?

Never looked at it that way. Its just a way that has a bunch of positives and no negatives. Doing chisels is a no brainer. Bring about 1-1/2" of the end up to critical, or after it loses its magnetism, quench about 1/2" - 3/4" and give it a quick buff and watch the colors run. Put it tip down in a tin can with about an inch of water in it and let it cool. Then you go from normalized to a nice color run. After you've done this a few times, do a knife. Same technique, just a different shape.    

Also its pretty bullet proof for healing mistakes whilst learning. About all you can do is miss your temper color. If so, just anneal and repeat the above. Time spent equals learning

Great story! Thanks. Hope you put it to use. Every ring from your hammer will fill your heart with the inspiration of the adventures of that smith by the river,,, Bet he made more money working iron than mining for gold.  Lol, my family roots are Cripple Creek, Co.  

Great story, Mike! I was a full time farrier for 17 years and in 1980, quit getting under horses and started working straight up as a traditional smith. Still smithing. 

A farrier is one of the few ways to make a good living with a hammer and an anvil. 

I use the reserve heat type of tempering, or differential tempering on nearly all my ht. The heat runs from the eye to the face on a hammer, the shaft to the edge on a chisel and the spine to the edge on a knife. However, as I read the OP, he is quenching the outside of a ~1/4" round 3' long and wanting the heat in the center all along the length to run out ~1/8"  to the outside edges, to get a spring temper along the 3' length. Not going to happen.  

Lol, the greatest mystery in old blacksmith tools is wondering just what and why it was made for and what reason.  

I met him  a few times and watched him demo. An inspiration.   

I saw that. I've just never had that problem, which is why i asked. I don't use a butcher brush, just a common wire brush. And my rasp end is pretty sharp. I specifically started using a sharpened rasp to solve the problem you are talking of. I would be more concerned with removing material, not just scale and changing the texture with the wheel you show. 

Also, when you forge weld a branch, as an example, the negative space in the crotch disappears as opposed to an arc or gas weld where you get a "U". Your dremmel tool would accent the "U", and remove the disappearing forge weld detail or it wouldn't get deep enough to remove scale as it gets tighter. 

I mention this because you are talking of transitions, and transitions are what catch the eye. Changes of texture and seeing brightwork vs matte black hot iron finish  are time consuming to repair, so i stay away from the problem. I also realize that if it is a gas or arc made joint, a wire brush is not the tool of choice to clean it up. And if you are going to paint it, then the color change doesn't matter, other than changing the inner detail of the vee. 

Lol, I know,,, details, details, but hey, thats why we are here.    

Yup, what Frosty and George said.

So much power,,, so little time,,,  Won't a hand held, manual operated, no moving parts wire brush work?  Also my farriers rasp with the end ground to a sharp edge can get in there with no problem. And guaranteed no friction burns on the back of your calf, even if you are sitting down on the job.   

I have one similar to the one Glenn has above. I don't use it but it looks cool.  

Pretty cool!

Thanks

Lol, you got it, Frosty. I had far more sense than to ever want to live in LA!    Still do, for that matter.

And to be clear, even in the rube burg  called Colorado Springs, back then, the junk yards were connected to a data base that they could search by phone, or however, and  not just search the yard for parts which is what I meant. But I always paid the man in person and with cash.  This is not internet commerce. So Im not sure what your point is.  

22 hours ago, JHCC said:

luxury-item/status-symbol category

Yea, the primary users back then were the bad boyz on the streets so their illegal transactions couldn't be traced.    And look where its led!!!  I think the bad boyz of our day just aren't on the streets, they control the phones, wear fancy suits, and live in Silicon Valley.  It's very scary that minutes after doing a google search for something that the adds on my phone are places to buy what I searched for!  

What Jason L said above. Lol, old outhouses aren't filled with boulders or rocks.  Proper tool for a proper tool.    

20 hours ago, Shainarue said:

You paid using a credit card over the internet in 1968? Erm...

Lol, you named it. And what you said above that is what I meant. The same as the bad boyz on the streets using early "smart" phones to conduct business and not get wire tapped and busted via landline,,, the "grandfather" of our smartphones of the day.  

Sorry, Frosty, but back in'68, you could go to a junkyard looking for a part and they would search for it. Then you paid the junkyard for the part. Hardly the same as some "hottie" selling time bought with a credit card so you could watch her at home on your old dos 6.22 or earlier machine,,, or worse!

Looking good. How does it do for code, or is that not an issue.

Interesting topic. When the industrial revolution matured it removed the "Trades" type work from all crafts as a viable form of economics, but can't compete, even now, with the "Craft" and "Arts" branches. I suspect it will be the same with AI.  

I find it interesting that internet commerce got its start from the porn side of the internet and much of A.I. development comes from the game side of computer programming.