HWooldridge

Very interesting...my surname is "Wooldridge" (spelled the same way) and my ancestor supposedly immigrated to the US from the Birmingham area in 1697.  Might be a chance we were related up the line a ways...thanks for posting.

He was also reputed to be a blacksmith by trade who indentured himself for two years in order to pay for the cruise.  Funny how stuff works out sometimes.

​Possibly - or supply and demand may take over.  Other enterprising souls beside the current crop of makers could go into production and build new ones.  The Fisher model of cast body onto steel plate might be the best modern solution or cast entirely from steel - unless someone with large machining capability could knock them out of a billet for a competitive price.  Flame cut the profile from plate then round all the proper edges and broach the holes. Lots of possibilities - India has a lot of this type of manufacturing capability and could probably compete with China.

The faded lettering might be "Stourbridge" - which as you Brits know was a well known iron/steel-making area...or it might say "Platypus"...hard to say (LOL).

Great idea - although I would be careful of the potential for fires with sawdust, oil and hot iron - at least bears monitoring.

I used to tumble parts in a mix of blasting sand with linseed oil mixed into the media.  Worked pretty well to clean off all the loose scale while coating evenly at the same time.  The only problem was that every piece had to be hand wiped to remove remnants of sand.

Did the sawdust stick to the parts or come away cleanly?

Might be really tough to machine - what's the approximate hardness in its existing condition?

I think the antique shows like American Pickers have contributed to driving costs up and some collectors who will pay a high price don't care if the anvil was abused; they might think a mushroomed and swaybacked top adds to the value.  Anvils have always been hard to find in my neck of the woods and I traded an old 44-40, 1892 Winchester SRC for my first Peter Wright (shown in my avatar).  The rifle is probably worth $2500 in today's market so it might have been a better investment...except that I've produced many thousands of dollars in revenue on the anvil.  The rifle might have gotten fired a few times a year (and the use would have degraded the value)...so I look at the issue in the light of what the anvil has contributed to our standard of living over the years I have owned it.

The other side of the equation is that a lot of people are getting interested in the craft as a hobby and might have money to burn so it turns into the old supply/demand seesaw.

Possibly an old machine vise?  (Like for an early shaper or mill).

^{Looks like a one-handed spike maul.}

There are two issues here - the extra volume needed for the finial and forming the pyramid point.  The bolt idea is a good one but you would still have to forge the body to square.  Should be faster to wrap a small collar and forge weld it to your square stock.  With regard to the diamond, it is easy to use top and bottom swages (Smithin' Magician or separate tools) with the correct angle.  You  pinch the stock and get a small waste piece on the back of the dies but the finials will be very uniform.

No reduction, I put a 3" solid drive pulley on it so the SFM is high.  I run belts over a 10" round caster as a contact wheel.  It will hog material pretty fast and doesn't bog down.  I'll try to post a couple of pics tonight after I get home from work.

Either will work.  I got my scrap motor from a friend who pulled it out of an old mainframe computer system.  It is a 1 hp, 240v single phase, cap start TEFC motor at 3600 rpm.  Has run like a champ for almost 15 years.

Here's an anecdotal story that makes no attempt to answer your question directly...

My great uncle learned how to make bows and arrows from a Native American prior to WW1 and he taught me the same skills when I was a kid.  One thing he emphasized was to search out and use raw materials that required the least amount of work to finish.  Subsequently, we looked for whitebrush sprouts, which naturally grew long and straight in the river bottom on his property.  We would cut 100 to 200 at a time and bundle them together until they dried.  Bows were cut from bois d'arc or elm saplings, debarked while green and put up  to cure, etc.  We used wild turkey feathers for fletching and tied them to the arrows with sewing thread.  Points were flint or bottle glass chips.  The arrows cost almost nothing to make so I practiced a lot and eventually harvested many rabbits for the stewpot.

My obtuse point is that most cultures naturally look for efficiencies and I would wager the Vikings were no different.  Therefore, a sapling is less work than a split stave - so that is a logical first choice so long as performance was similar.  Type of wood would again vary with whatever was available locally.

The other possibility is that they traded for them - since the Vikings were also famous for traveling far and wide.

I saw a pic once from one of the better known schools (might have been Tom Clark but I cannot recall) where every anvil stump was a big square piece of lumber, maybe 14-16" square and set on end but only a foot or so tall from the floor.  The anvil was fastened to a similar cross section piece, but also very short.  The two pieces sat above each other and were aligned at each corner with a large piece of angle iron with slots milled part way along the length.  The anvil was lifted or dropped to make it comfortable for whoever was using it at the time then wooden shims were slipped between the pieces so there were no air gaps.  The end pieces had large lag screws going through the angle iron slots which could then be tightened.  Pretty simple arrangement.

Another shop I toured many years ago had sand in a half oil drum that the anvil set upon.  The anvil could be lifted then the sand either scooped out or added to, thereby adjusting the height.

There are lots of ways to skin the cat...

Vee block gives a little space between stock and chisel tip so you don't damage the swage.  The stock is also less likely to turn because it's only touching along two planes - just like holding round stock in square jawed tongs.  Smaller surface area for a given force and all that jazz...

Slitting in a Vee block also helps keep everything oriented prior to drifting the hole to size.  One of Otto Schmirler's books has a drawing for a jig to punch round - IIRC, it had a spring loaded plate that slid out of the way as the punch went through the piece.  This offered more support while allowing the punch to advance.

Pigskin or buckskin driving gloves work well.  There are a lot of choices out there - Tractor Supply has a good selection.

Low wages are more recent than we might think...my grandfather was a self-employed smith in the 1920's and 30's; I have his old ledger in front of me as I type this.  "May 31, 1928: Sharpened 4 sweeps for Emil Herbart, $1.65 total".  The next day, June 1, he made one hitch for a Binder for $.75 (also for Emil - must have been a good customer as the list of entries is quite long).

The list goes on and varies with the work done...on February 26, 1929: "Baled corn for one day, $1.50".  On August 15th, "Shrank 6 Wagon Tires, $4.50 total".

The most expensive thing I could find was this: "4 new wheels for wagon, $36.80".  I wonder how many hours that took?  Did he have to cut down the tree for the wood or did he buy the raw material?

On October 20, 1928, his bank balance was $715.50 after a deposit of $22.50.  My mother was born in July of 1931 and always said they never had much cash in the Depression but they never went hungry.  My grandfather built his own house and lived in it until his death at 92 - I consider myself fortunate to have known him for the first 32 years of my life. Reading his ledger, I understand why he used to say that I didn't really know what hard work was.

I found this in a search related to the 30-40 Krag:

"From Brophy's book pages 32-33, there is a description of substandard steel received in fiscal year 1894. The spec for the steel at the time was ultimate tensile strength 100,000 psi (100ksi); yield strength 60 ksi. Max C 0.5%, Mn (max) 0.6%; Si (max) .16%, S (max) .034%, P (max).045%. The report also indicates experiments were being conducted with nickel steel to obtain 80 ksi yield.
"Hatcher's Notebook" 1st edition pg 225 & 226 confirms barrels of both Krags and 03s were made of Ordnance Barrel Steel, and the "double heat treated 03s) were made of same Springfield Armory Class C steel as the Krag was. Note that Hatcher's chemical compositions are slightly different than the 1895 report quoted by Brophy. For high numbered double heat treated 03 receivers, of course, the heat treatment was different."

Another notation about Krupp steel.

Quote: 1905 Krupp Chrome Nickel Steel Brand D

0.5% Carbon
3.26% Chromium
0.16% Manganese
1.26% Nickel
0.04% Phosphorus
0.11% Silicon
0.03% Sulphur

Tensile strength was near 106.5k lbs
Elastic limit near 92.5k lbs/in^2 End quote:

Both spec at 50 points carbon but the German steel has the addition of nickel and chromium.  It looks similar to what we might call an AISI-SAE 3xxx "nickel steel" today - although not exactly the same composition.

I started the journey over 30 years ago and had no guidance in the beginning.  The first project I attempted was a pair of tongs - which took 12 hours of hard work and would not hold anything when completed...

Francis Whitaker lamented that life was short and the craft so big that nobody could learn it all.  Read books, watch videos and go visit other smiths - then practice, practice, practice.

Record keeping doesn't have to be a 500 page manual.  I have attached a Word doc describing a simple key ring holder.  In this case, I did not number the jig (shame on me - do what I say, not what I do, right?) - but it does provide a basis.

Key Ring Holder.doc

I always keep track of heat cycles.  Some people pooh-pooh this notion but if I can consistently forge a snub scroll in two heats once the forge and my arm are warmed up then I should be able to do that every time.  One heat is pushing too hard and three heats is wasteful (and as Alan said, they won't look the same).

I also have a scale engraved on the front side of my anvil in 1/2" increments so I can easily measure from the zero point on the heel.  My old Haybudden anvil (now out of my possession) had one leg of a framing square riveted to the side for the same purpose.

With regard to sequence, some operations must come before others to reach the desired result.  For example, it's usually best to forge a point and shoulder the stem before forging a common leaf form.  It is entirely possible to develop a different order of operations but it might turn out to be cumbersome.

I started in the business making multiple wholesale items that had to be similar within a family so my process was more or less as follows:

Design/Conception - what is it supposed to look like and performance criteria.

Operations - what must be forged and design of assembly.

Size - rough estimate of the required stock and number of heats.  This would also involve making samples and correcting if necessary.

Jigs and fixtures - was there anything I could build to help with uniformity?  All of my jigs and forms are numbered so I can refer to them specifically. For example, all my scroll jigs are numbered 1xx, length jigs 2xx, special dies 3xx, etc.

After all of this was completed, I created a written work instruction with stock sizes, photos, instructions and required jigs.  Using this system, I could return to a part months or years later without reinventing the wheel.  I tested this once by giving one of my sons a work instruction and having him build something without any extra help from me and he was able to do it successfully.

Surprised nobody has suggested using a fish/game scale. Amazon sells one rated at 440 lbs for less than 50 bucks. Could probably find a cheaper deal by shopping around.

I have a self contained 55lb striker hammer and it is great but one thing I dont like is the constant "chug, chug, chug" when it is running. A utility hammer does not make a sound until you actually start hammering, the self contained never shuts up. 

Some folks pipe the exhaust outside to cut down on the fumes and clatter inside the shop.  It may still make noise but the oil mist will be reduced.

Just as an FYI, you can buy 1006 and 1008 from some steel suppliers, which is very low carbon content. I have a small stash of 3/8" square 1006; forges like butter and welds easily. Unfortunately, it's quite pricey and approaches tool steel in cost. I was lucky to buy some scrap from a machine shop that made electrical contactor parts from the original material.