Ian

Dan,
my worry about the bottle jack was when the jack is lifting or lowering the anvil BEFORE the pins are put in. Even I'd figured once the pins were in the jack would be let down! LOL
Jump as much as you like mate, Tykes are built for the ruff stuff. As for the shodiness of scissor jacks... well I suppose everyone has somthing they're not keen on. I've used them a fair bit on various things without major hassle and thought about one precisely because they're so easy to get from a scrap yard. Hydraulic jacks, bottle or lever are much quicker and easier, no doubt, but unless your design lets you remove said jack from the stand entirely it seems a waste of a better tool than a scissor type.
YMMV of course, look forward to seeing your design mate, thanks for the well wishes. America may be further down the line than I was hoping, we'll see.

You know I could be wrong, and I throw this open to you lot, but isn't there actually a piece of classical music that actually requires the use of an anvil? I can't remember the name of it but a gut feeling tells me its German in origin. If anyone knows it or has heard it then post a link, I'm curios.

Ferrous,
I'd been thinking along similar lines meself, but using a scissor jack instead of an hydraulic bottle jack, with heavy duty pins to hold the box section (inside thicker box section) stand at increments of 1/2 to an inch. Hydraulics dont often fail but if they do then there's nowt stopping whats being held up from coming down, potentially a toe cutter or worse if your not quick enough with the pins. A scissor jack doesnt have that problem which is why I was thinking of using one.

Apprenticeman,
Rogers workshop is absolutely amazing, the video he has is just a taster. Plus which he's a really friendly guy and provided your not a complete idiot he really will let you try one of the Beche's, he did when I went to see him a while back.
Hej Roger! Har du bra? :D

Nice hammer, not much more tweaking and you could add a motor :D

Welcome to the site Larry,
I still have the flares you sent me in the UK safely boxed up for when I get back home, great to have you aboard.

I'm with Ed on this one, and Strine as well (the modelling clay idea is a winner, Dan Davie a world Champ uses modeling clay a lot to plan out forgings in case you need further proof) Its all in how you set up the material before you flatten it. A lot of Smiths have showed me their take on leaves and all of them got the metal 'set' before they flattened it so that the shape of the final leaf came out. For a heart shape you need a thick section after a thin neck, with an almost sharp shoulder between the two.
The best thing is to grab the clay and model it out so you can see it come together yourself

I've saw 'container' Damascus made at Alan Ball's teaching workshop up in Logan Village after the Muster. Have to say that nothing about the process put my hair on end (not that I have a great deal of hair to stand up anyway) as long as you use a modicum of common sence I wouldn't personally consider it particularly dangerous, certainly no more so than any other activity you may ingage in as a Smith.

Welcome aboard Otis,
you've found one heck of a resource here in Iforge, make use of it and the friendly folks who visit it.

Yup,
I've seen Hardy tools that were all forged from one piece and I've seen plenty that were welded together, even made a few in Choppers Shed meself. The main abuse on a hardy tool should be on the shoulder thats sitting on the anvil, the shaft just has to sit snugly in the Hardy hole. If your beating on it sideways then your missing somthing..... :D

Another tip,
to make sure your jet is centralised down the throat of the burner venturi (the bell shaped 2" to 1" reducer) without having it lit and thus capable of removing your eyebrows, hook your pipe up to the hose from your garden and use water....
You'll get a jet thats easy to see and you can adjust it to dead centre, lock everything down and then use air to blow out any water thats still in the system. Depending on the type of reil burner the up and down height of the jet can be adjusted without losing this dead centre.

From the look of yours its one of the very early designs where you drilled a tiny hole in the gas pipe that went across the venturi for your jet, mine was like that and it was a dog to drill a perfectly straight hole into the gas pipe, the mig tip helped get rid of this issue, but you still need to check the jets centralised and at the right depth inside the bell housing. Look on the net for the variants that let you do both adjustments seperately, or if you have the cash check out the T Rex burners.

My two penneth worth.....
When I was casting I always wore a full clear face shield and it saved my sight when a mold let go once, a charge of molten silver hit the worktop, found a drop of water and blew all over the place. I had a 2mm ball melted into the shield right in front of my left eye, but I still have my left eye
I have to wear glasses anyway for close work so the face shield is good for me.
I would say that the foundry safety glasses make good sense for smithing, right kind of light radiation, what we need is a suppliers name if anyone can think of one

Okay,
the thinly vieled refernce to 'sparing' use of Vegimite was almost certainly aimed my way, but unless your raised on the stuff telling non converts to lather it on will hardly cause the groundswell of popular support Vegimite so clearly needs in the States will it?
Softly, Softly, catchee monkey?

Once you've trained your facial muscles not to try and run around your head after its hit your tastebuds the stuff really is very good.

I'm a bit peeved I won't be able to take any with me next March, I certainly not leaving my Jar behind.

I wonder if you'd have a better chance of surviving an Indian attack if you let them know you were a Backsmith :D

I've heard of several ways of doing this, but personaly I think trying to heat an entire coil spring is going to be 'interesting', if you can then putting it over a suitable round mooring point and pulling should certainly work (a tractor is fun but perhaps a tad overkill) If I was doing it for knives and such then I'd do it like Rich and just take what I needed, using a hot cut, and then straightening the section. Smiddy's way will work well too, if you get it hot enough.
Worth remembering that while you 'can' get some excellent steel from automobiles that are 'retired' it's not new steel and should be carefully checked for cracks etc, sometimes from what I've heard you can do all that and still have it fail on you, especially with knives.

Glad to hear you're ok Tyler :D

LOL,
yeah Smiddy, good stuff too.

Dale, I'm only ever gonna be an honourary Aussie mate... just can't eat toast with a half inch thick layer on it like youse proper Aussies can, leastways not without the rest of my face suddenly trying to crawl inside my mouth after the toast. Kind of like chewing a whole lemon, your face suddenly gets a life of its own, and doesn't want anything to do with what the rest of you is up to:D

......vegemite.....LMAO!!!!

I've still got 7/8ths of a jar in my 'esky', might I suggest if you try it that you spread it VERY thinly, otherwise it's an aqquired taste. Great source of vitamins though.

As to the toaster your friend will want to heat the 'tenon' part of the arches to make flattening them into the counter sunk holes in the baseplate easier. If he's not using big stock it should be possible to do them cold.

I cant tell, it's a teeny picture on my computer :P

Now then Blue!
Don't fret I'm not gonna rip the 'mick' or owt (as tempting as it may be ) just want to add my own best wishes for a speedy recovery (even though we's already talked and I know you ain't exactly dying) If you aren't back on your feet and kicking buttock in short order I'll have to come back down there and nick your doonah!

Seriously though, take it easy mate, hobble first, then walk, then run okay?

When I was in Holland I made a point of visiting Arhem, site of one of the second world wars most valiant military blunders. The famous 'Bridge too far'. Afterwards I made the half hour journey to the tiny village of Oosterbeek where many of those killed were buried in the Allied war cemetary. There were several holders of the Victoria Cross (Great Britains Highest military decoration) among the dead and in my several hours there I managed to figure out the average age of those men was around twenty six. All except two graves. The men in those graves were in their eighties. They're last wishes had been to be buried alongside their friends and comrades who had died so many years before them. I feel no shame at all in admitting that the sight of those two graves made me cry. Thinking of them now still does.

"We few, we valiant few... we band of Brothers"

Hmmmm,
I've got some stuff in the pipeline as far as photo's of other Smiths workshops go, and as far as shots of my own stuff goes, well as soon as I remember to bring my camera and can get a few minutes online again I'll try and post some stuff either here or over in the gallery.

Just so you all know I'm currently looking around to get a laptop (yes I know I've said that before but I've finally saved enough money for one, I hope) which means I can work more stuff up as I go. I'm only online at the moment thanks to the good graces of Uncy Chop Chop (AKA Chopper, AKA Dale) so until I get that sorted I'm not going to bust a gut nicking all his free computer time (he uses it as well you know )

Bear with me folks, things are coming along. In the meantime pester Glenn, AKA Ntech, he HAS got a few reports up his sleeve....

By the way here's a picture of Strine demoing at Gulf Station to keep you all ticking over (told you he really did look like that )

EDIT:

As the proud owner of a brand new Dell Ispiron 6400 laptop (YES I BLUMMIN WELL BOUGHT ONE!!!!) I finally got round to posting some of the work I've been doing here in Oz under the guidance of Chopper over in the gallery, just look for my name. The ashtrays and fleur de lees stuff is a commission the fish tail scroll work is for a towel rail come shelf for Choppers other half ( the wonderful Sue) Hope you all like them

greeting's boys and girls!

Okay, okay, I know.... everyone is wanting to know what the heck I've been up to since I landed down under so I'm taking the spare two minutes I DO have to myself today to post a quick update on all things Antipodean.

So far... I've found meself both: a) accomodation and, employment. I've met aproximately another 10 to 20 Part and Full time Smith's over here including (Of course) Chopper and Strine from Iforgeirons own pages and some other guys (From the A.B.A and from the historical museum at Mont De Lancy)...
I've taken a xxxx of a lot of photographs of Victoria, and Melbourne in particular. I've got shots of Chopper's forge and his various projects.... I've got shots of our trip over to meet the Boys from the A.B.A. at Bundura Park ('The Barn')...including some strange ones of Strine (the way his face blurs in a camera's view finder isn't thanks to photo shop, it's how he actually looks ) I've got photo's of my trips over to Mont De lancy and Oskar's work-shops sessions there... I've also got shot's of my own works in progress. YUP! I'm actually getting paid by someone to Smith
In a few weeks time I'll be heading up towards Queensland for the 'Hot Iron Muster'... hosted by Alan Ball and his wife. I can do that because I saved my pennies and cents and bought myself a little camper van, which Uncy Chop Chop christened 'The Bumble Bee'. Now that I have accomodation AND transport sorted my next goal is to FINALLY get meself a ruddy laptop so I can try and get all the guff (Ahem! Sorry... EDUCATIONAL and INSPIRATIONAL information) into you the viewing publics sweaty palms....

All I ask is for another pair of hands and a swiss bank account...

So keep watching this space (it does tricks)

I'm a big fan of the great outdoors, always have been in fact and one of the lovliest places in the UK is the area around Loch Lomond in Scotland....
Myself and a good friend of mine were pottering around the eastern side of the loch in my mates old Landrover (a 4x4 jeep type vehicle). This thing was built like the proverbial tank and it had a huge steel framed luggage rack on the roof that all our camping gear was lashed onto. We intended to drive up to the hotel thats at the end of the road on that side of the lake and then hike/camp around the 15 miles of the shore where there isn't any road. It was getting towards dusk and we were in serious need of a pint so my mate Roy was being a tad heavy with the old right boot. As we came leaping over the brow of a small hill doing around seventy miles an hour the spotlamps lit up a HUGE Deer smack bang in the centre of the road. Cue pandemonium as old Roy tried to both brake, avoid the Deer, and convert to Allah, Odin or any Deity who could magically remove the 200lb roadblock in front of us.
Needless to say none of them did and we hit the unfortunate animal at about 50 mph with an almighty bang! Both of us had instinctively ducked (images of sharp pointy antlers coming through the windscreen will do that for you) and when we sheepishly stuck our heads out for a look there was no sign of the Deer at all in the road in front of us. Nor, when we got out to look, was there any sign of it behind us either. Now they come pretty tough in Scotland but both of us could see the huge dent in the Landrovers bull bar and we were certain that the said Deer must surely now be very much an ex-deer. We looked through all the hedgerows for a hundred feet in all directions, there was nothing, no blood trails, no tufts of fur, no tracks, our Deer had simply vanished.... or so we thought.

Thoroughly perplexed and slighty perturbed we set off again for the hotel, now in need of somthing a little stronger than a beer. About ten minutes later just as we were pulling into the Hotel car park all hell broke loose from the roof of the Range Rover. Bambi's bigger brother, it seems, had been thrown into the air all right, and had landed smack bang in the roof rack of the 4x4. Out like a light.
The breeze as we continued must have helped revive him some because he was now well and truly awake, and well and truly browned off at :
a) Being run over by a couple of Halfwits from Yorkshire, and
being stuck in a roof rack among all our camping gear.

We just stood there in awe with our jaws hanging open as he completley trashed the roof rack and all our gear before eventually bouncing off the bonnet with a mad glint in his eyes. Both of us legged it into the Hotel to watch what the mad Moose would do next. After eyeing up the Range Rover he finally seemed satisfied that there wasn't anyone he could actually KILL for causing all his woes and stalked off into the woods, never to be seen by us again.

The Scotsman who owned the place had joined us at the window by then... his dry remark capped it for us.

"Yea did'nae hit 'im hard enough then boys?

You know, as a bloke thats done a little bit of silverworking I really did like that, I'd have a crack at it myself. Most rings are cast these days and to see an old silver coin used did me good, ingenuity in action :D