CaptainBruno

That's pretty gorgeous. I'm impressed.

here is a nice socket transition to blade for ya..
 

Merci Yves. haha funny suggestions. I will most likely end up making a terrarium with these eventually. But a large lamp wouldn't be so bad. even an electric one with a nice sand or pebble pattern inside.

Picked it up today. Really nice guy. Also got a nice little squirrel cage blower along with the big one. The guy started telling me his story and a bunch of old jokes. He said he used to be a welder in his youth. Now he's retired so he gave me his old leather apron as a gift.

Only things I'll have to work on.

1- make a circuit regulator to give in an adjustable speed for the motor(right now it's only one speed which is really too strong)

2- Open her up to clean her. But it has a piece of pipe brazed on the outtake. I'll have to cute that off before I can open her.

all in all great experience. :)

Cool thanks. Keep us updated on these operations. It would be great to have someone on our continent that imports these beauties.   

LastRonin. I live in Quebec Canada. A little far from alabama in my opinion  :D. And these are big btw. about 2 1/2 feet tall. Solid thick glass. 

I appreciate all of your mead recipes hahaha. I might make some for friends but I'm sober so it won't be much use for me  :lol:

Thanks for the reply. I'll give him a call tomorrow. another option I was considering was to make my own blower with these plans.

http://gingerybookstore.com/product36.html

I'll post an update if I end up getting it. thanks 

So I have this guy selling a motor powered blower very close to where I live. I'm just wondering if it's worth 150 dollars or if it's too much. I just don't ever see any of these around where I live so it's a rare occasion. And I have nothing to use yet other than a shop vac with a brake drum(I know it's pathetic)

http://qc.kijiji.ca/c-acheter-et-vendre-outils-outils-electriques-souflerie-W0QQAdIdZ466226566

I translated the ad for you guys.

Nice Big blower. 

Buffalo Forge.

For whatever usage, cooling something, machine or other

power a forge fire, or or or...

New motor 1/3  110/220 volts, very rare, very inexpensive at this price.

I tried with a big pipe in my fireplace passing the air into the fire,,, too strong.

So if you have any advice I would appreciate it. Thanks a lot.

So I have a few wine jugs. Know as Dame Jeanne where I live. 

Now I've sold a few. But I basically can't get rid of them. So now I'm thinking that they might be useful in the shop. I just don't know quite how. Maybe cut it in half to use as a water bucket?

What would you do with a couple of these guys? Or do I just throw them in the garden?

It would be a dream to get a piece of art like this in the shop. How much would one of those mid sized(roughly 300 lb) ones cost? And wouldn't the shipping cost nearly as much as the anvil? That's an insane amount of weight.

Speaking as a beginner, I am constantly surrounded by craftsmen that have years and decades of experience above me. And as a result of this, everything I do, I compare to their work. It is always a hard goal to meet, but I won't be happy until I meet the standards they have set. How can I consider my work good enough if it pales in comparison to the standard?

So good enough for me is when I can do the same or better than the masters and my teacher. Sometimes that's not possible, but then that's just not good enough is it?

Then why did you remove mass in the first place?  Seems it will cost more than the real thing before you are done, and still not be as effective.

I have no proper answer to that other than the fact that the aim was to get a final product that looks the way that I want it to. For my costs and access to equipment, the removal was the easiest for me to do in my current situation. I could have simply bought a 200 pound block of steel or buy a real anvil for that matter, but the goal was making something and having fun.

Alright Update!!

So I got the rough shape cut out for 40 bucks. Goin to have a to do a lot of welding and grinding to bring it to it's final shape but I'm super happy with it.

Okay so I have a slightly unusual question. I am right handed and I've been welding and doing metal work for about 2 years now and I just went to get a professional massage the other day. The masseuse made a remark how my right arm and shoulder muscles are larger than my left side. It's not very noticeable yet but with extended working especially blacksmithing, I'm afraid I'm just going to get a overly strong right arm and a weak left arm.

The left side still has to hold tight and my forearm and hand muscles are quite strong but I just use very different muscle groups on both arms. 

Do I just do some left arm dumbell lifts when I get home at the end of the day? How should I counteract this?

I'd go for a nice Yellow for sure. With that nice pattern but the copper might not show that well in the yellow. Is there any way you could stain the inlay grooves beforehand maybe a black or brown? That might highlight around the copper and make it pop a little more.

Did you preheat your surface before welding? And how many passes thick was that? And how many rods did that end up costing you in the end?

But even if you didn't manage to get complete penetration of the weld, the airspace left is on a non-working side.  Not really a critical area, imo.

True. I'll see how much getting the block machined costs and then see if it's worth it. But I might do that and it'll give me more mass in the end. 

Oh I could easily fabricate the plate you're talking about myself. I'd just be worried about the gap leftover under that plate you know?

Thanks everyone. So I went on yellowpages and I found a place near me that do high pressure waterjet cutting. I'll see if they can cut my piece, if so that'd be my best option. As for the church windows, I know this really nice guy who's a machinist, he might be able to mill that in there. It seems like I won't be doing all that much work myself eh? 

For the hard face. I'll see what I can come up with. I'm gonna go see my welding supplier and see what he can offer as a deal for hard surfacing rods, cause that can get pretty xxxx expensive. otherwise I'll just dish out the 60 bucks and get myself a plate of tool steel, give my anvil's top a nice deep bevel and get about at least an inch of penetration under the plate. There's no reason that wouldn't hold.

As soon as I make any changes I'll be sure to show you guys.

Thanks a whole lot.

Well there's honestly no way for me to know. I can try cutting a bit and attempt to harden to see if it'll take, but I'm willing to be money that it's just some A36 MILD steel. This stuff was in a gigantic pile of scrap. All from the same source. They were all leftovers from cutouts of some bigger pieces. There was way too much and I got this for 15 cents a pound. I doubt it's anything more than mild steel.

Maybe a water jet can cut the shape you want? Or an eight inch grinder with several metal grinding discs. I've seen a couple of guys attach a piece of tool steel. But if your just going to hammer hot steel on it, I don't think hard facing it will be necessary.

do you think a water jet could cut through 4.5 inches of steel? if so that would be my best option. I was going to cut it by torch, but I don't have the equipment for that. My oxy-acetylene setup can't do more than 2 inches nicely.

for Mainelybob. I understand where you're coming from, but the point of this project isn't exactly function. At the root of it, yes. I do want a functional anvil, but I could just buy one. I want to make an object that I feel is beautiful, and something I'm proud to say that I made. But I also want to beat metal on it.

I also have the time to do this, so it's not like I'm losing valuable time in this thing. I want to learn, have fun and be proud of my anvil.

Alright, For my grad present, I went to my local scrapyard and bought myself 150# of steel. I'm going to make myself an anvil. I don't think it's any kind of alloy. As far as I know, this isn't some special alloy of some kind, it's relatively soft, but it still has decent rebound already. 

As for the layout, I figured I want to make something I can't buy. I really like the german and french hornless styles. So here's what I came up with as a design.

So what I'm asking is.

What would you suggest for methods of cutting this shape out? or would you suggest welding the pieces onto the sides?

Also, for the hard face, I'm thinking one of two methods.

One, I buy a tool steel plate, and weld it onto the top.

Two, I try to find some sort of large torch, preheat the anvil, get some hard surfacing welding rods, and weld a layer onto the top.

So any advice is welcomed, along with any comments that this is a terrible idea and I'm doing it completely wrong. 

Thanks for taking a look.

That's what I figured. Thanks John. Yeah, I used a few of those coils for handles for outdoor fireplaces.

So I was lucky to get just under a dozen of these cheapo chipping hammers from WELDMATE. These are chinese made, and simply stamped into shape. They are soft enough that a file bites relatively easily into the tip. So I don't think that they're quality high carbon. But they're not soft either and they hold their tips relatively well. 

I was able to forge one of them into a pretty decent spear head. I haven't tried hardening any yet just cause of time and not having access to any flame since the holidays. So I'm just wondering if anyone has any experience with these things before? Worth harding and using for tool bits? or just for ornamental stuff? Any clue as to what the composition is?

I'll attach three pictures. The last one will be of the spear head I made out of one of them.

Thanks

@ Clinton. See that would be great but I think it's just MILD steel. So I don't think it would last all that long as an anvil. I could always build up a hard layer with welds, or weld on a tool steel plate to one side.