Nobody Special

You don't have to tell me from moisture content, Sonny Jim, I've had a hive or two in my time, and will again after I buy my next place this month. Probably not as much as you. I'm a bit north of ya on Whidbey Island. I've had a few sweet meads come out okay, depends on how sweet you go. I've got one I prefer though that I do with champagne yeast and simmering plain ole raisins in the starter as a yeast nutrient. I know it's a bit of a dated technique, but the final product is wonderful, feels a little like a honey beer, and has a fairly high alcohol content. With blackberry, you might consider doing a "sack" melomel. In the older sherries, they'd add syrup after they racked a couple of times so the initial sugar didn't get too high and kill the yeast. You can play with it to adjust sweetness and alcohol content, counteract some of the astringency. I'm still not sure I'd trust most fruit wines past two years or so. You also might try a little bit of honey as the sugar in a homemade fruit vinegar. Homemade vinegars beat anything you can get at the store. I've got an excess right now. Had about ten gallons of...what was definitely not pear and apple mash...that I didn't get around to this winter came out as good as half the vinegars that I made deliberately. They benefit nicely from aging too.

Better than a lot of them. Sometimes the owners kill them in the walls without knowing better, and then the fermented honey starts coming through...which you would think would be lovely, but you also have all the wax moth larvae and bugs that get in after the wax, honey, and dead bees, plus mice, you name it. It's naaaaaasty.

My first ones were...ugly. You're not doing too bad. Keep practicing. They'll get there.

He was good, I liked the Jerry Lewis version better. Well, it should be easy and cheap enough to experiment. If it doesn't work, can give it to the kids or try something else to stiffen it up. I dunno. Finally about to get a place of my own up here and set up shop again, mostly propane this time, maybe dip down to Georgia to pick up the rest of my tools. No telling what the kids would get up to with four lbs of silly putty.

Mr. Powers, with all due respect, I are a Texan, if slightly misplaced at the moment. Even we have standards...as far as beer cleanliness, at any rate. Not sure which is worse, spilling beer on a good horse, or spilling good horse in your beer.

Hoof picks from half a horseshoe sell well with the horsey people. Bottle opener on the back end is optional. I dunno, never been sure about using the same tool to clean gunk out of the frog and open my beer. They seem to sell either way. Easy to forge too.

I had to read up tonight enough on the concept of self as an illusory construct. Now I've got two youtube jokers peddling me chemsitry and physics the same way. If I want solipsism, I prefer to get it from Decartes, not Dmitri Mendeleev, and I'll stick to Terry Pratchett for consensual reality theories. If the sky looks like a blue duck, and walks like a blue duck... Also, is it still blue up there? You're even further north than me, sun went to bed an hr ago here.

Good evening, Something else you could do if you have a large enough piece of plate is to set it up on edge to get maximum mass under the hammer, and put a series of different radiuses or dies into it. Still no heel or horn, but there's ways around that as above. Google Brian Brazeal anvil and you'll find an image easily enough, probably on iforgeiron somewhere. Here for example...

So, I was reading up today on silly putty (one of the kids asked something technical about it. don't ask), and I found out it comes in different stiffnesses, some of which are used for their adhesive qualities and/or for industrial purposes. They used it on the space shuttle to hold tools, and there's an astronomical laboratory that uses it as a backing when they're grinding mirrors. I'm not sure it would be cheaper, but it got me wondering...There's gotta be a dollar store that sells the stuff around here somewhere. What do youse guys think?

I just went on a trip through their titles and clicked on a video here and there. That hurt my brain. They apparantly claim that Iron and Aluminum aren't elements, but that water is, that salt, NaCl contains water, and that the Philospher's Stone is real. This isn't even good alchemy.

Good evening, I'm getting to the party late. I agree with the TPAAAT method all day long. Save your money, and wait. If something below quality pops up or too high price, pass. The first one will come, and then you'll start finding what will feel like three a week, even if that week comes six months from now. Try the farm auctions, I always did well at them, and even if they didn't have anything directly blacksmith related, they were a great place to pick up tools cheap, sometimes obscure tools or hardy tools. Got a blower and a nice 75 lb Columbian at the last one I got anything blacksmithing related at for about $90 each. If you don't get anything else, go get a big regular hunk of 4140 or 1040 at the scrap yard. It's cheap, comparitively, and you can harden if you like, or not. It will work harden some, and if you put a ding in it, you don't feel bad about hitting it with a flap disc. Or you can turn a rectangular block sideways and do a Brian Brazeal style anvil with the built in dies. Heck, even a big chunk of mild steel works okay, if not as nice as something a little more high carbon.

Sure, when they're not stealing your rawhide mallet. Sneaky booger. I MISS that dog.

Well, the last one I tried successfully was this metamorphic goop they have around parts of Atlanta called gabbro I think. It's got a little basalt, and olivine, and quartz, and I dunno what all. Kind of a Heinz 57 with a lot of grainy crystalline structure to it. I found out it was tough driving fence posts, and figured anything that hard might work to pound on. I used to break it out of the holes with a chunk of tractor axle, and that was a job and a half. Worked pretty well, and you could find a flat-ish piece and dress it, to a point. Not as fun as a Columbian, but it worked.

There was a TSP substitute at one of the paint shops I tried a couple of years ago when I was playing around with that gladius. I wasn't thrilled enough with the sword to post the end result, but the chemical worked fairly well. The one thing I hate about bone is the smell when you cut or drill it. Like burnt hair or fingernails times sixteen. Tried boiling alone too, but wasn't happy with the results. Too short, and it left greasy goop in the center. Even the ones that looked alright after leaked grease on a hot day. I dunno. I didn't stabilize any of it, it's all in GA in my storage unit with most of my other blacksmithing stuff. Should be interesting to see how the bones cleaned using different techniques held up and what's falling apart when I get down to get it.

Did someone say Norfolk Southern??? Congratulations on the hammer. Are you in the Alex Bealer group? One of the Goat and Hammer crowd? I need to get back down there, half of my stuff is still in storage in Marietta, including my best anvils.

Just pick the right stone, some of them don't take the heat well, and become friable. Stone splinters hurt.

And a string jack is easier still. Of course being a nail and a wound piece of string, there's very little forging involved. I like smoke jacks, but with modern chimney flues, there's not a lot of places you could install one. Nah, Digital for chat and video, analogue for pleasure reading. Plus I can take it into the shop without risking my laptop. I've lost two or three phones in there already.

I have less experience than Mr. Powers, but I would recommend the petrobond too. You might consider picking up the Dave Gingery books. Some fun stuff on simple casting. I've found pewter, mostly Brittania metal at flea markets and thrift shops. Don't fear, I don't melt down any true valuables, it's mostly the folded, spindled and mutilated that find their way into my crucible. Three part seems a bit much to me, I'd stick with the tried and true two part cope and drag. Have fun, and be careful, even low temp casting can still have nasty issues.

Vulcans were made by Illinois Iron and Bolt, starting in the 1870s, and running for about 100 years. The reason they were quiet, and you shouldn't mess with the face is that they have a cast iron body with a thin steel face. Makes for a quiet anvil that's fairly cheap to produce. Fisher did the same thing and so did Southern Crescent. Fishers are great, Southern Crescents are lousy, and Vulcans...are hit and miss. The good ones are great, the ones made at four o'clock on Friday, not so much. The face looks good what you can see of it. If it's clean, and the rebound is decent, maybe three or four bucks a lb in the eastern United States. Out where I'm at in Washington now, maybe a buck or so more. Anvils are like hens teeth out here. (and all but my little 75 lb Columbian are in Georgia, dang it). And also, looking at your name, I'd also caveat that with don't use it as a welding surface, you'll make soft spots on the face.

Doesn't look quite even across the top, any wear or hammer marks as a clue?

Sure, that's fine for you, but I had my tonsures and my adenoids removed.

Beware the Jabber-vise my son, the jaws that bite, the claws that catch. Beware the Jubjub...I dunno, anvil stand, beware the Frumious Curmudgeonsnatch! Oy...I stretched poetic license too far, and I think I broke it. Does anyone know a good blacksmith?

Hello, You've got most of the requisite warnings that melting iron is dangerous and expensive. Bloomeries are less so, and leave you a workable product at the end instead of cast iron. Where are you at? I would highly recommend checking out groups in your area (and it may have to be a larger area) that do iron pours if that is what you are into.

I have used portland cement in the past, using the recipe at the site formerly known as backyardmetalcasting.com. I forget what they're called now. If I remember correctly, it was 1 portland cement, 1.5 parts sand, 1 part perlite, and 1.5 parts fireclay, with the first three mixed together, then fireclay added last and mixed with as little water as you can get away with. It worked...but it was problematic. Definitely not as effective as a good refractory. I used it on and off for several years without spalling at temperatures suitable for melting aluminum or lower temperature metals, but at higher temperatures, it..well, it didn't explode, it just kind of degraded, got brittle, and fell apart a lot quicker. Pieces started to break off of the inside and required patching when you poured bronze, copper, or brass. Not explode, just kind of cracked and gradually fell to the bottom over multiple uses. Not really desirable, and you ended up having to cover your crucible. I did have one rather glorious explosion in one furnace, but that was due to a failure to ram the refractory in properly, which allowed a gap in which water collected. The thing about cement is it's porous. And any porous material that collects water is prone to nasty steam explosions. Honestly, with homemade refractories, I did about as well with a 50/50 sand/fireclay mix over grog, with maybe 10 percent straw or sawdust built in and baked out. It's about as effective as a refractory, and easier to work with. The real way to go is to buy a proper refractory and use it. It's cheaper in the long run, and far more effective. Have you looked at the Gingery books, or the website above?

Yesterday's Peddinghaus and today's Peddinghaus are not the same anvils. Both are nice, but the older ones are often quite better quality. I've played a bit on both, and was happy with each. I haven't used the other two brands. Joey van der Steeg is very knowledgeable of the german brands, and used to hang out both here and in the blacksmithing forums on Facebook, sometimes under the name TechnicusJoe, although he's a bit quieter these days. If all you are concerned about is a large striking anvil, have you considered obtaining a block of 4140 or some similar? When striking with a hammer that large goes awry, it can be tough on the anvil. Good luck any way you choose to go.