Dogbyte

it doesnt take a great deal of time to dry hickory or other handle type woods from green all the way to workable moisture content. ~mid teens, and below even, 7 or 8% is attainable. 60 days from the stump it can be done with a home made hot box, powered by nothing more than low wattage light bulbs and a little shellac to prevent checking. like others have said, grain should more or less run the same direction the hammer or ax is in motion (both share the same plane), the wedge should also be oriented with the grain, not across it. On hickory, the outer layer wood is packed with growth rings. make a bunch of splits, shellac the ends (and the back if you debark), dry them out, cut to length, get a draw knife and/or hatchet, and go to town. :D of course there are many ways to go about it, this is just one way. this is some pignut hickory. some will be used as handles, some will be intended for use as bows...

i dont know anything about blacksmithing, but if you create a wedge or taper the ends and make them enter the wood more easily, you are more apt to split wood. if i dont want to split a board im about to drive a nail through, i dull the end of the nail, i want it to cut through the wood instead of wedging its way through, and maybe rub some wax on it if im close to a knot, or the wood is really dry, wet is better. I'd drill a pilot hole smaller than the spike, wax it up and drive it. Shouldnt have to taper the ends of the spikes for anything if you pre drill. Thats a small post to be driving a spike through, if you dont drill, make sure you drive it through the grain instead of WITH (or between) the grain. The spikes shouldnt ever pull out no more weight being hung on them like you mentioned. Will the beam be mounted horizontal? or vertical? If horizontal, i'd pay attention to how he mounts it to the wall, be better if its supported like a mantle, instead of bolted to the wall, again, depending upon the total weight he hangs on it. JMHO

i guess im gonna settle on it being GREEN as the name. at least that is supposed to be the name of a manufacturer. Ive looked at it til cross eyed, made etchings of it, but i guess GREEN is a good a guess as any.

yessir, i misunderstood someone explaining it to me, i didnt realize their hundred weight is 112lbs either. i finally got to beat on it a little today.

now that i look closer, it almost looks like it could be saying GOLDEN, and the O maybe looks like a wagon wheel, or an O with a cross in the middle. it weighs 93lbs, so maybe the middle number is a 4? and the heel weighed 21lbs? probably pretty close.

to me the middle number looks like a 5 or 3, because of that lower rounded portion, and the lateral straight line that you have in a 5 or the old style 3. it say 70lbs is very near the ball park. only thing i can think of picking up near that size is a bag of portland. i will weigh it later tonight.

I believe Hanlon's Razor applies here. It wasnt intentional. :P

cant make out the numbers, or letters. hard to get it to show on camera.

i literally asked almost everyone i have daily contact with, and it paid off. yeah, he said the things just been sittin in his wife's flower bed for years.

i'll know more when i get it this week, and im able to see it bettter, but is there anything i might be able to do for it with an angle grinder, to help dress it up, on the surface, ect...?

readin my mind. =P

although im not gonna keep it, since he says its been in his wifes family for 40-50 years, i am gonna see if its usable at least til i find a better one. sorry for the pics, these are the best i can do til i get the anvil and take better pics. its got part of it broke off, you guys take a look. right now since i have nothing, i figure this is better than that. and for no more than what i plan to do at first, i dont see why this wouldnt work.

Hi Dan, yes i believe that will be the simplest way. i dont wanna let perfection be the enemy of the good, i just want to get started best i can, thanks.

thanks guys. i found a blacksmith org here in arkansas, but their website isnt maintained, but from the look of the addresses of the officers listed, they are all from an area 3 or more hours away. still looking though. ive put an email to a local knife maker asking around to see if there are any in this area too. nice pics stephen, that looks like a lot of fun.

i agree that it may just be easier, to mount like the far left pic, dress up the sides of the rail like the model on the far right, with the similar hardy hole config. i may could hew a good sized stump i have, and lag bolt the track vertically to the stump's hewed upright surface. if i take a case of beer to my buddy with a welder, i bet he can figure how to weld some cut sections of rail to the sides like in the far right pic, and then shape somehow...is there any danger of taking the temper away from the rail if you cut it with a torch ect? i know next to nothing about cutting up large pieces of metal and have them retain their purpose.

thanks for all the suggestions fellas. i dont have access to a welder anymore, so whatever i come up with will have to be close as can be, to its usable shape. I will ask to see what my chances are. My good friend's dad works for the RR, in their shop, he said he'd ask his dad, but you know how those deals often work out. I wont press his offer. Sure would be nice in my mind just to get a reasonable length of RR. If i somehow got a small horizontal section welded to the top of a long vertical section as was suggested, would i need to reface (flatten) the crowned surface at all? I understand that the surface is a different temper than the rest, so may not be practical. How much efficiency is gonna be lost by only stacking the two pieces, and welded where they touch?

If you had access to someone that worked at a RR shop, and you didnt have a real anvil yet, or money for one, what length of RR track would you ask for? a short one so you could more easily mount it? or a longer one so you'd have more mass below where your hammer strikes? I know there are trade offs for everything, but for someone just beginning, i dont know which trade offs i need to worry about at this stage. im thinking as long as i have a flat surface, and some sort of good 90 degree edge, that should be the main thing for now? copyrighted image removed at request of legal owner.

is a post vise the same as a leg vise? Ive been looking for a leg vise for a while, even before i was interested in blacksmithing. I need one to hold stave splits secure, while i work on them initially, and even toward the end with finer tools. ive just been looking for someone selling one, but i'd like to search the scrap yards, i have no idea where any are around where i live, besides the local dump, i look each time i take the trash down. i agree on the ringing. i see in Brian Brazeals videos, he says his is bolted to a metal stand, and then the legs are bolted to the concrete, not seen his anvil profile, but that one sure seems quiet. can you get one quiet enough off a stump? or will it still be like ringing a bell that hasnt been dampened with your hand?

wow thanks for the RR anvil heads up from that site, that was very interesting to read. point taken on the bounce back efficiency. i had thought about taking my framing square, to check both axis of the anvil face for level, i'll have to look for a bearing as you describe, i like that idea better than a hammer, and me guessing, especially with no experience, the ball bearing will give me a number. thanks for the tips.

hey fellas. just another beginner, got a few other hobbies under my belt, so at least im not full of romantic ideas that im gonna be making knives next month as soon as i find me an anvil =P I seem to collect hobbies that take a lot of patience, so i think its a curse, hah. make my own wine, grow my own muscadines, just started making self bows last year, try to pick and sing a little when i can for folks, all these things have, and will take more years to come. jack of a few trades, master of none of them... I'd love to say eventually, i'd like to try my hand at knives, but thats the long term. For the short term, mainly wanna do some 18th century common items for my sister's new cabin they built, its rustic inside, pine siding inside, very nice, would look good with some hand forged fire pokers, wall hooks ect... i figure there are quite a few items that would allow me to go through the basics, and have something worth while in the meantime. S hooks, hinges maybe, trivets, very simple scrolls maybe of single pieces, maybe a door knocker, or handles and hooks, stuff you put on the porch...triangles, ect... she's all into that sorta stuff too, she's a pretty fair hand at outdoor cooking, cast iron ect.. anyway, all that sorta litle stuff, that covers the basic steps i'll need to work on first should be in there. i aint shy about reading, have already read a few older books, Farm Blacksmithing 1901 (Drew), just started another old one called Practical Blacksmithing, not sure of the year, but they are written very easy to understand, and i like them so far. so far just biding my time, keeping an eye on the paper, and craigslist, and have put the word out to friends and family to look out for an anvil, or an anvil shaped object, heh. Rail section would get me started on little simple stuff til i found a proper anvil maybe. I have a bro in law that does lots of excavator work, gonna put a bug in his ear to look out for an old track pin if he comes across it. anyway, love the site, looks like a lot of material to read, hope to learn a lot. -dale howard