Everything Mac

Raised lettering = indicative of cast construction. Lack of pritchel hole/ pritchel larger than the hardy hole = indicates an ASO. A ring/ rebound test would confirm this one way or the other. The cast "USA" brand is a well known cast iron ASO type anvil. Better than no anvil at all but unless it's really cheap or free, personally I'd pass and keep looking. All the best Andy

Both of these anvils above are KL anvils. Cast steel, English made. Similar to the Brooks anvils. The weight markings are quite distinctive on the KL anvils with both cwt and "K" on the same side. Cheers

I've heard of putting a stainless steel tray in the bottom of the forge before. That might be worth doing. Andy

Oh yeah that's a big boy. Bet that works well. All the best Andy

First video out in a while. Restoring a set of tongs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT5tI3W48Jk Language alert All the best Andy

Thanks Glenn.

Hi gents, Skip in a couple of minutes to see the jig and how it works. After the video was filmed I bent 20mm (3/4") square and 25mm (1") round mild steel cold. As mentioned I'll be upgrading the cross bars or bottom dies if you like to something much thicker. Ideally 2" round but I'd settle for 1.5" round. Just depends what I can find next time I'm down at the scrap yard. Sadly this is simply not a priority for me at the minute. Cheers Andy

That's a rather ingenious way of doing it. Well done sir. All the best Andy

Couldn't have said it better myself. All the best Andy

Cool. Best of luck with it. Reading back my last post I didn't word it very well. I meant to say that you could cast the flat portion of the roof as well as the upright or "post" section on one side so that it's all one piece. With a bit of stainless bar in the posts it could then be bolted to the floor portion. Hope that makes sense. Those stainless needles arrived by the way - they're a lot bigger than I was expecting, maybe 30mm long and 1mm diameter. They look more like shavings from some machining than anything else. All the best Andy

Ah well there's no rush eh. Like I say you'll be surprised how often you use it. All the best Andy

Fair enough bud. Get that welded up ;) Andy

Looks great so far. You won't regret spending the time on it. All the best Andy

Ok Joel, it's really not too hard at all. You mix it with water and treat it like mixing concrete. It has a tendancy to clump though and you get dry bits, so get in there with a mixing attachment or a bent bit of 1/4" round in a drill. You get a good working time but I couldn't say how long exactly. half an hour maybe? It seems to start getting hard after a couple of hours. I always leave it a couple of days to dry thoroughly before doing anything with it but that's been purely because I'm busy rather than anything else. There's three types: dense, insulating / light weight and medium weight. As I understand it all, Dense makes a good heat sink / is toughest so makes a good floor. Insulating, is obviously insulating like ceramic blanket or boards, good for your roof. Medium weight is a mix of the two. I'd try and get the fine grade if I were you. I've been using the coarse stuff and it is quite course. Maybe vibrating it or something would help but I've no way of doing that. I'm also told you should mix in stainless steel needles which can be bought by the kilo at castreekilns. I've literally just ordered some which is why I mention it. They're supposed to help bind it together and add strength. -Just thinking, if you can add stainless steel needles, I'm sure you could add something like a stainless steel cage to the mould. Think something like the rebar cages you see on construction sites. You could cast the entire shape for your roof with the right design. Welded up from threaded stainless you could bolt your roof on. Just a thought. All the best Andy

Looks good bud. You'll be surprised how much you use it. ;)