Ironscot

Is that the same Toad Suck Ferry that's just a little south and west of Slick? I've only heard of one such place, and cannae think there'd be too many others. :? :? Course, my dad was from Yonkers, and the only way you could live there now is with permanent scuba gear. Like you say, things is what they is where they's at. They's a whole nother sumthin somewheres else. :wink: :wink: 8) Do you think the dynamic of post modern local industrialisation, the impulse of art versus practical application and latent need will ever generate a broadscale industry in support of the art as it exists? There are a great many hammer makers, a few anvil slingers and a whole slew of ancillary supporters of the median ancillaries. Seems to me with the resurgence of interest in arcanae both agricultural and industrial, you could be on the cutting edge, and the rest of us could ride on yer coattails. :wink: Oh yeah, we were talkin about the price of an anvil weren't we. :wink:

Didn't happen to leave em in Arkansas did ya? I'd hate to think of you having to tote that stuff all over creation. Just concerned is all. :wink: :wink: :)

Sure we did Glenn! This is the South man. Any topic is approached like high headed cows. If you go straight at em they'll hit the thicket and you'll not see them the rest of the week. You kinda have to angle at em obliquely and never look em in the eye or, they'll hit the thicket and you'll not see them again for mebbe two weeks. I'm trying to figure out why my camera and 'puter don't like talking to each other. I'm suspecting personality differences. :roll: :wink: :wink:

Good work! That's the stuff your boys will look back on fondly for the rest of their lives. 8)

Been my experience that the old timers know everything. The hard part is to get them to talk one at a time instead of all at once. 8) I've chased hints and rumors of anvils and trip hammers all over the back forty. I think it's just a game they play to see where they can get me to drive next. :roll: :roll: :D

Where abouts in Stroud was he located? I pass through there from time to time, but have never stopped to enquire about a blacksmith. It's usually the weekend when I go through, and the place is deader than ethics in D.C. :lol:

Thanks Thomas. That's pretty much the average price that I'm aware of for London pattern anvils. I didn't know if it were plus or minus of average for something as different from the norm as a bridge anvil. I keep thinking I need one of Mr. Jaquas finest, but then again I think I oughta hang on to thissun, for gang waleing. Decisions decisions... :roll:

I didn't know where else to put this, so here it be. I have a Champion bridge anvil that's been sitting in the barn for too long now. I know what I paid for it, but don't have any idea what it's really worth to users. I don't want to see it parked in a garden again. :roll: It's in pretty decent shape, nothing that couldn't be worked out with decent sanding. Some lunkhead did bend some cold stock in the pritchel hole in the tail at some time or another and left a ding in the face. :x :x I have no idea what it weighs, I use the front end loader on the tractor to move it around. NADA doesn't have any pricing estimates. How do y'all valuate these things.

I don't have a particular questions. I'm just sitting here with a, Wow, cool! look on my face and a little drool from my slack jawed stare. Can I come over and play at your house?? :)

Even if he wasn't, I am. Nice piece of work! This is a tough crowd to associate with. There is so much good work happenin that the social/technical archeologists of the next several generations will be overworked. :D

I have a few of those Reil type burners as well. Mine were made by a fellow out of Smithville, GA. When I was up in boat school, I took an extra smithing course for its attraction. I spent the first day modifying a blown gas forge to use my burner. WOW! After the smoke had cleared so to speak, I could go for three weekends on the same amount of gas that the others were using in one day and didn't have nearly as much scale to deal with due to the regulating capacity of these burners. Atmospheric burners rock! :lol:

I've gone a bit beyond current capabilities in naming my mash house. I call it 'Crazy Cracker, forge, foundry and fixture'. The first and third parts are in place, but the middle is still in the research and gathering phase. In a nod to the Irish side of the Scots/Irish of my family, I'm arranging the three Fs in a clover pattern. Gonna take someone with plunge EDM capabilities to make this touchmark. That or thirty minutes with a punch set. I threw out the name Bullsh(the forum will not let me complete the spelling)t Forge. As much as I love to get into the rhythm of hammer and anvil work, it seems that shops gather malingering miscreants of miasmatic meandering, and that is a forte of mine. :wink: Edit: wording added but did not change the content of the post

My name is Bret Smith. I live just south of Tulsa, OK and have a small cow calf operation about halfway between Henryetta and Okemah. Several years ago while I was getting into geneology, I met a fella out of Colorado through a message board who was anachronistically enhanced for lack of better terms. He was a run out mountain man, high country cowboy and blacksmith/bladesmith of distinct quality. Through the course of several conversations I mentioned that I wish I could do what he did. His retort was an understated 'why don't you?', which has led to my current level of perdition with the craft. I started pursuing the trade around the internet and subsequently found a class through the local Vo-Tech. I went to work with the instructor afterwords and learned a great deal from him. I haven't had the opportunity to get around much in the field, but distinctly desire the chance to do so. That's the blacksmithing part, I suppose a little more bio is in order to keep up with the Joneses. I'm 38 single and never married. If you know any red headed Irish lasses, rurally minded and pleasantly proportioned let me know. My family has a respectable holding in Okfuskee county and looking to expand operations. I've been involved in a family business for the greater part of my life, though the operation was sold about five years ago which cut me loose on the world. Bwaaahahahaha! I wouldn't declare myself a machinist, though I've learned a great deal from those I've worked with and had work for me over the years. I still have all my digits and can muddle my way from an idea to finished parts on conventional mills and lathes with respectable precision. I am a self taught, scholasticaly bolstered welder, and a certified journeyman millwright. I've been trained in traditional wooden shipwrighting, though I was two days short of receiving my certification through inherent personality quirks. :? 8) As soon as I get enough slack in my rope I'm intending to open a blacksmith, custom furniture and whatever shop. I have some bold ideas relative to bio energy if you're keen to discuss them. I'm active in Southron Nationalist issues and alternative economics. Any research into the Agrarian movement on your part will inform you on where I'm coming from. I'm a firm believer in learning all you can and applying the knowledge efficiently and effectively for the enhancement of your existance. Basically a legendary curmudgeon looking for a place to happen! :lol:

Cool! That proves there is no end of mediums, just shortfalls of imagination. This is the first I've heard of working sugar. How did you come by it?

I just had another idea. How much heat and pressure is this part subjected to? Perhaps you could have it made by stereolithography, then copper flashed and hard chromed to surface finish. This would be infinitely simpler, so long as you have a top flight CAD engineer. Sorry folks, I can't quit thinking. :oops: :oops: :oops: :oops:

I have to second HWooldridge on the explanation of an interferometer. I read an article in a science journal a few years ago about the bearings in an experiment. They were going to try and justify another part of the theory of relativity by doing a picture framing experiment in earths orbit. The parts were manufactured to fifty electrons. I myself always quit at two tenths. For one or two parts, I don't think sintered metal would justify the cost. Forging to density aside, the copper flash and hard chrome would overcome surface issues. At least from my limited experience. The last time I went to IMTS, metal injection molding was doing some amazing things. Basically one to one reversal of medium with roughly ninety-nine percent accuracy. I'm going to go ahead and get my ofishial biz license again just to go back to IMTS. For those who make or do anything with anything that has to do with manufacturing, fabricating or automating, that place is Mecca. Be sure to block out at least four days. That's if you're going to try and see everything at a dead run. Be forewarned, the robotics and lights out tech will keep you enthralled like a youngin at the lion pen at the zoo. :shock: :shock: For the parts in question, I tend to agree again with HWooldridge, plunge EDM. A month or two lead time could definitely yield the desired parts.

Wow, that's good. Thanks for posting it Irnsrgn.

I've been thinking this over for the last several days. I have no idea what a laser interferometer is, but the part description is hard to let go of. This is my idea, so throw rocks as you see fit. How about making the part out of stainless sintered metal, forge to density on an under sized mandril then lap the bore to tolerance? If density isn't an issue, then copper flash fill and bright hard chrome the bore. Like I said, I don't know how the machine works, but I keep thinking about it while going about my normal chores. My other idea was metal injection molding with a lapped and honed bore finish. What are the part quantities and lead times looking like?

I had the same thought myself. :wink: Good ideer Mike-HR!

Education has its place, but natural born storytellers don't grow in clusters. :wink: :lol:

JWBIronworks, you have a Merry Christmas too! It's a fine line a man has to walk to get all the coal and none of the reprisals this time of year. :wink:

Ed Thomas, as soon as I get a chance I'll cobble something together. I'm the worst for archiving anything. I've got tons of blank journals that I intended to fill on various trips and never took any photos of my work when I was starting out and working in a shop. It may be spring though. My tools are packed in the back barn and it's dark thirty when I get home right now. If I can run down another smith I know, and he'll let me use his shop, I'll try and post something sooner. Winter isn't good for anything but making a fella appreciate summer. :lol:

Thanks for the review Leah. I need to take a closer look at Franks class schedule. Late spring or early summer is about the only time I can get away. Once the grass gets going good then the cows can fend for themselves for a while. :wink: I can make a passable approach to most techniques, but my welds are all still Millers. :roll: :roll: Sounds like you sure got your moneys worth out of the experience.

Not a doubt about that Ralph! I'll sing like a bird if it's good. I was just sitting at breakfast with my Dad this morning talking about the things that we can find to talk about. He was telling me about his first trip to the big town of Wagoner on a mule drawn wagon, which was his first trip to town ever. His first real straw hat was acquired on that trip. My granddad was the local blacksmith in a town called Yonkers, Oklahoma. Now days that town is about fifty to seventy feet under water in Ft. Gibson lake depending on the time of year and how they regulate the dams. My dad was relating his infatuation with how his dad would lap weld end irons on singletrees and measure and make all the things he did in the course of his making a living as a blacksmith as well as shoeing draft stock and mules. Funny, my dad probably couldn't hit an anvil with two swipes of his hat, but it fell on me like the proverbial aforementioned. My grandma sold everything out of his shop for a poorly sung song long before I was ever a thought, so I had no base to work from. Everything old is new again, tell me again how much better we are now days with our liberation from our ancestral roots! :| :| I'm stupid with the prospect of reconnecting to the places I should've been. Funny how my folks were working so hard to get away from the places I'm trying so hard to get back to. Whoodathunkit?

Leah, Do you have a link for hooking up with Franks class? I've been thinking about heading east for the Campbell Folk School forge welding class, but New Mexico would be a whole lot closer for me. I'm trying to fit these things in between feeding cows, building fence and pulling my hair out. Much appreciated in advance.