piglet_74

Mark, it may be a little slow for you if you have any time at the anvil. The first day (Sat) we didn't start our first fire till after lunch. We talked about all the tools and some things to look for when buying them. Once the fires were lit, there was some down time for watching demos but they gave everyone enough time to make at least three of each exercise. The first thing we did was drawing out a point on round stock and then curling it up. Next was upsetting the end of some round stock, making a "fish tail" and curling that up. All the while you're practicing cutting off. Once we had that down we made some hooks using drawing out, curling, upsetting, and twisting. It also introduced half face blows on the near side of the anvil and punching. The second day you were allowed to come in early and get your fire going to practice some stuff from day one. You pretty much had the forge going the entire second day. You made a coal rake/poker and a watering can. Then the last 2hrs was whatever you wanted to make. The instructors would help. You could practice welding if you wanted etc. I thought it was great never having touched an anvil before in my life. If you have any bad tendencies then maybe having someone watching you could help. I thought the price was reasonable too since material was included, even for you own project (barring making a section of fence ). The class was 175.00 for the two days and there were 8 stations. Every station had 10 different tongs. I used 2 ! 5 different hammers one of which was like a 2 - 2.5 lb hofi, english pattern anvils, and your own post vise. Definitely a pretty nice setup. Hope this helps. I'll post a few pics. Rob.

eBay Purchase $39.95 Pickup only so gas was about $40 5" wide jaws 41" tall model - only markings were a 2, 3 and 6 or 9 weight - I'll edit the post All parts were included Area found was Berwick, PA

Actually i do need to do that.

Glenn, good call on the tape thing. I'll have to give that a try. Thanks, Rob.

I had no idea what you were talking about when I read your post but I was interested so I googled it and this page came up. Sorry if you've already seen it. The Art of Tsukamaki, by Thomas L. Buck

Frosty - Good point! I spent a good bit of time on it and didn't really make much of a difference. The threads looked good though and I took a minute to file down the mushrooming around where the bar goes through the screw (caught my hand on it once already). I put some o-rings there to help prevent future issues. Peyton - I'll definitely have to look you guys up when I'm in the area. My mom lives down outside of Richmond. She would be happy to see me more Rob.

Just wanted to say Hi. I've been lurking for a few weeks. A little while back a friend and I took the Carroll County Farm Museum BS-101 Course. It was a great time. Since then I've nearly wrecked my truck 2 times daily looking for scrap on the side of the road/tracks between home and work! Just ran up to northern PA over the weekend to pick up my first tool. I grabbed a leg vise for $40 off eBay (pickup only). Got it home and took it apart following the bp. Cleaned the old grease out of the screw box and re-lubed everything. Made up a thrust washer for the screw. Cleaned the gunk and paint off it. Now I'm looking forward to getting something to hit on and something to heat with. Just wanted to say thanks for the great resource and hope to be posting something else soon. BTW below (hopefully) are pics of the stuff we made in class, the vise, and a wrench I grabbed for 3 bucks. Once I clean and straighten it I'll weld a handle on and use it for a twister. Rob.