nett

Ray Larsen has a nice one piece compass/scribe in his book Tool Making for Woodworkers. It's not completly one piece as there is a fastener used to clamp the pencil in place and the slide (bridge piece?) and locking screw are separate pieces as well, but the entire body is made from one piece of 16" X 1/2" X 3/16" AISI 1095 high carbon steel. It's a very nice clean crisp design that I like too. I tried to scan it but I'm not having a good computer day. The Luddite in me is rearing its ugly head.

Some of us choose an octagonal handle. I guess it's kinda like a rectangular handle but with VERY soft edges. I also prefer the adze eye for a hammer if given a choice, but considering I entered the Smithing shop through the woodworking shop might explain it.

Uri Hofi's leg vice is moved that way. BP1009 Post Vise

Two busted anvils, a head and a tail? Cool! Now, if you can figure how to stick both ends together you'd really have something. Actually, I wouldn't mind have those two halves. "They must have been racers in their days" That sweetheart deal on the swage block requires a great deed from you in the future. Don't forget.

Makes sense, Uri. After investigating WD40, I find you are essentially finishing the wood with mineral oil that is diluted to be absorbed quickly into the wood. And after the initial application, you maintain the finish with nose and elbow grease (body oils and hard work), and over time you develop a rich patina and feel that money can't buy. I like. WD-40's main ingredients, according to U.S. Material Safety Data Sheet information, are: 50%: Stoddard solvent (i.e., mineral spirits -- somewhat similar to kerosene) 25%: Liquefied petroleum gas (presumably as a propellant; carbon dioxide is now used instead to reduce WD-40's considerable flammability) 15+%: Mineral oil (light lubricating oil) 10-%: Inert ingredients

I have an '88 Ford too, but my tailgate is still in fine working order. The only fault I ever had with that truck was the paint job. After about one year, the paint started peeling off. Ford paid for the new paint job but wasn't happy.

Uri, I've read that blueprint more than once and have borrowed from it. I do not make one hundred handles a day but I am getting faster at making one or two at a time because I have control over what I'm sculpting. My last handles were made of Osage Orange from my wood pile and am very happy with the results. Note to myself: stop burning Osage Orange. I really like your idea of using Sikaflex

Oh, that Acanthus leaf. We call them bears britches in California, and I even have it blooming in my yard. I believe it was used extensively in Greek architecture, like around the columns.

Search etching using this site's search machine. You'll find a lot of information. Blacksmith Forum - Search Results

Last working day? Are the heads annealed of hardened? I particularly like the small rounding hammer on the lower left. How much you figure it will weigh after you dress the faces?

My leg vice is mounted on a post set in earth. I can, and do work with the vice from all sides, but the most work is done facing the screw or certainly on that side of the vice.

rlarkin, I can see it, too, all I had to do was squint. In all my country scrounging voyages, I alway found exercise machines tossed with (w)reckless abandon. A good source for iron despite that insidious powder coating. Yours appears to be designed with some stout material. I like.

I don't know acanthus leaves from shinola, but I know I like your gates.

OK, that xxxxxxx General Sherman. Love or hate him, he was still a general.

New rail sections are not hardened plus a lot of people chose to grind the crown off old rail sections to level it. That work hardened steel is only on the surface so the newly created horn is not work hardened either.

Bonfires were hot enough for General Sherman's boys to make the famous bow ties. When General Sherman cut loose of his supply line after the fall of Atlanta and continued the march to Savannah these same troops turned their abilities to the destruction of the railroads. The troops would pile up all of the ties from a stretch of track and place on top of these piles the rails taken from the same stretch of track. The pyre would then be set aflame and the rails would soon begin to glow red at the centers. The troops would then pick a rail up off the fire and take it to the nearest tree to bend the rail around the tree and, for added difficulty, twist the rail. They did all of this knowing the South had only one plant which could undo the destruction they had done to the rails. If I was to attempt to heat treat an RR anvil with a bonfire, I would make a day of it at a site next to a fast moving stream to quench the rail anvil.

Getting into the blueprints has been next to impossible while the are reorganizing them. All my bookmarks to neat BP's are now dead, and I'm not sure how the access the BP's on a regular basis. BP232 is an elusive one that I can't find either.

deleted by its author.

BP0101 Anvil Repair

You could save trashing a nice hole saw by using a brake drum that already has a nice hole in it. They are found in a variety of width and depths too, you know, from puny little VW bug size to monster ones off a tractor trailer rig.

Can't help with the coal, but if you upset the 3/8 rod two inches back, or so, you could beef it up enough to make a decent pair of lightweight tongs, say a pair of double pickup tongs. Why do we call it a pair? Same question with scissors or even a pair of pants, why a pair?

Google™ sand casting. Visit your library. Read! Read some more, you will never regret it.

Brake drums may suck and are heavy annoying chunks of steel, but golly gee, they make safe firepots. Savvy? Often, you don't even have to go to a junkyard for one, the local tire and brake shop will fix you up with an old used one if you ask nice.

I'm sneaky that way! Bealer's book was the only one out there in my day. I purchased it after Weygers recommended it back in 1969. Little did I know that Weygers would come out with his own books a few years later. You would do well to add him to your library: The Complete Modern Blacksmith by Alexander G. Weygers On edit: your hot cut chisel shank can be upset to fit, the vice will be handy for that operation if it gets mounted securely.

It's sharp and pointy, its all good in my book. ;)