Nobody Special

Ah, you guys yell at the TV too. The "forged" ring in Lord of the Rings comes to mind. Or complaining about anachronistic mishmashes of armor in Game of Thrones...mixed w fantasy armor...sigh. Not to mention cast Damasc....I mean Valerian steel. (Although I did stop it in the middle of the battle with the wildlings when John Snow ends up going over a beautiful double horn German anvil.) The most common one though is hearing it in the background of a western/historical/fantasy movie and shouting "Stop (explecitive deleted in the style of Nixon) hitting it cold!!!"

True, boss. In fact, my favorite pots and pans either have copper bottoms or a steel sandwich with a copper middle. But the issue with copper exposed to the food is a little more obscure to a beginner than "gasoline goes boom", so thought I'd bring it up. (Also, how many people in the U.S. mess that up every year?) We can't go poisoning the members or turning their hair red. Much like I live in the South, the land of "What the heck is a rhubarb?" and wouldn't know that the leaves are poisonous. (Can ya ferment the toxins out? Is it worth it? I heard it's uber tart.) "Poisonous" poke sallet with fatback, garlic and onions though....yum!!!

The topic seems to be going in a completely different direction, but you might take note that copper is not good for cookware, as the oxides tend to be poisonous and/or you get copper in your food from cooking acidic stuff. It won't kill you probably, but you won't be happy, and you'll be hanging out near the toilet a lot for awhile. Bronze, being a copper alloy should have the same problems. It's why copper cookware nowadays is usually lined with stainless steel. Classicly, it was lined with tin, which I suppose wouldn't be too hard to do. On the other hand, copper mixing bowls are GREAT for whipping egg whites. But you have to clean the dickens out of them immediately before every use.

I'm not entirely sure what you're calling a connecting rod. Most rail is welded, but jointed track will have a fishplate on it. Looks like a thin piece of rail and has a bunch of holes in the side that bolts go through to connect the tracks. It's around 1060ish I believe, but with a ridiculous amount of boron. The bolts themselves don't have a lot of carbon for the most part, they want them to give, not work harden and break. Or maybe you have one of the rods they use across the gauge to keep it from spreading? This may not hold true for areas near turnouts and switches, as they have to meet tougher standards.

The damage to the face and the way that it's shaped, especially the horn shouts cast iron. Lot of generic makers over the years, especially in Russia and China, and they tended to pop up cheap at hardware stores, feed stores and harbor freight. They'd get them from whomever was making them cheap at the moment. Might be ductile iron, which is not great, but better. You can use ductile iron without it breaking, still tends to be soft.

I can't tell diddly on the anchor. Doesn't feel like wrought, but I don't know. A soft iron maul though? Possibly for use as a wood maul, although I don't think I've seen one that squared before. There used to be a lot of ones over here made out of cast iron for driving stakes and fence posts and such.

I like the toaster oven too. Big ovens are prone to hot spots. Also, just to add to the fun, the oxide layer gets thicker the longer it's in there, so for longer or repeated tempering cycles, the color may not match exactly what you see on the guide.

Thrall was kind of a weird blend of slave, serf, and servant. They were owned, but had a lot of rights. On the other hand, it was no big deal to abuse or even kill one as long as you paid the blood price, which I forget the name for. They could be freed, but once freed, still didn't have the same rights as a freeman, or carl. A lot of them started as freemen that gambled their way into servitude. A lot of Vikings would bet anything they owned, including spouses and even themselves if they lost everything else. Love the long sockets too. I don't know that he used tooling to get the "third edge." There used to be a video of Thijs de Mannaker making a spear where he got a similar effect using the edge of the anvil to draw stock sideways and leave the middle ridge.

1. You mostly just need air to get to the bottom of the fire. The tuyere can be underneath or above as long as that applies. You don't want it to clog with ash though, or melt away. I've always found a bottom feeding tuyere to be a little easier to use than a sideblast, but the sideblast is an easy build. In a bottom blast, a cone of ash and fines on the sides can be useful for fire control and for limiting how much fuel you use. 2. You absolutely can forge weld and make damascus in these fires...when you get good enough at forge welding. Easiest way is to get someone experienced to teach you. 3. The class...as a stark beginner at a tech school? I dunno. If you have the inclination and the money, it can't hurt. But if it's just picking up the basics that you're after, I'd recommend a lot of good reading, and looking for experienced people and if at all possible, joining a group. You can learn a lot in a couple of weeks, but a lot of it takes time and practice.

Not so too large as too deep, and the modifications are much more effort than getting a brake disc, used or otherwise. You end up using way too much fuel and not being able to get your stock where you want it. Discs generally work very nicely for a beginner. If you look in the blueprints for the 55 forge, (google might be faster than search on here) it's a fairly easy build, a couple of hours tops with an angle grinder and the 2" pipe fittings. (try plumbing supplies, the box stores rarely carry them, Ace maybe...) Basically a disc brake forge in a modified 55 gallon drum. It's also not hard to do a brake disc forge in a metal cart, like the cheap ones from Harbor Freight. Don't know your background casting, but aside from the huge safety issues, recasting a drum is still far more effort than it's worth when you can get a disc for nada, or blow the money on a firepot.

I've had bad luck with the water, great luck with PEG, so so with linseed. The hollow round wedges work great. I make them for any handled tool that I don't want to be able to take apart again.

I've been hearing the old chestnut about wounding the soldier with 5.56 for a long time now, but I think it's up there with the one about breaking horns off anvils in the civil war. If nothing else, consider that a weapon designed to wound directly violates law of war, which is the reason we're still stuck carrying the M9 with the lousy full jacketed rounds instead of something decent. After WWII, there were a series of combat studies that showed that most encounters happened at very short range, and were usually won by the people who could deploy the most rounds downrange in a hurry. They tried the M2 (carbine not the 50 cal) for awhile in the 50s, and the round in it was weak and didn't cut it. So, they needed something lightweight that could expend a lot of rounds, went to the M14. Better rounds, but too heavy to hump, (carry whilst and at the same time marching for y'all POGs) and it didn't carry enough ammo, so they switched to 5.56 and came up with the 16. I even saw some study where they tried using aluminum parts for the 14 to lighten the load, but of course they didn't hold up and were prone to nasty stress failures. Then of course they compromised it for mass production and it got its lousy rep, but I thought they were great...with the right suppressor, and the improved chambers, and the forward assist, and the drainage holes, and the rail system, and most importantly, decent optics and a heavier grain round. Found them to have very decent penetration, and beats the heck out of humping any gun with heavier ammo. Combat load is 210 rounds, which is a lot of trouble for anybody on the other end. (if that's all that you choose to carry) The 249 shoots the same round, and I'll let that beat the heck out of my knees marching any day of the week. Easy to carry, fun to shoot, and effective. And then, to completely contradict myself, my choice zombie weapons are the Ma Deuce, claymores (ball bearing kind, not the two hander) (and a killing zone to focus them would be lovely) and for hand to rotting mouth (hand?), a lochber axe or a good ole Lousiville Slugger, with about 3" drilled out and filled with lead, then wrapped in hockey tape.

Easy to grow too. Dig a shallow ditch, cut a fruit to the desired number of trees, toss in the ditch, bury, and then burn a safe zone around it every year to keep them from overgrowing the entire neighborhood. One about eight miles wide should almost do it. Fair warning, as tough as the wood is, the root structure is lousy. Don't plant one close to a house you want to keep.

One I wrote a few months ago. You get an ungodly amount of time sitting in the siding working on the trains and reading is against the rules. (except for the rulebooks) Writing though... What is an anvil, that we are so mindful of it? It toils not, neither does it spin. Its only job to stand, to resist, to endure, And to meet each strike undaunted, “By hammer and hand, all works do stand.” No praises sung, nor wanted. Conceived in fire, it takes what each smith gives, Starting life the way that we do, The first touch to greet us at birth, a blow. To prepare us for all the ones to follow. But when hammer and hand and works wear out, grow still, The anvil does not follow. What’s old is useless, as all men say, (Ask Ulysses, he knew rust to be a sin), And so they must find new life you see, As tractor weights, as antiques, and failing all else, As rail or rod or sheet steel, or the weapon of cartoon rabbits. Or rest half buried and forgotten, It soon becomes a habit. No anvil in myth ever brought luck to the smith. Dwarves robbed, Wayland and mighty Vulcan lame, and wearing cuckold’s horns, I hear even Sauron came to a bad end, Though tell the truth he was a jeweler. The Hittite was known for ironwork, Where are those fallen rulers? Say not as iron sharpens iron, Whose idea that? I use a stone. But as iron shapes iron and tool makes tool, makes tool, The world makes us all, man and woman, And we shape each other by strength, and shape, and endurance, And sheer persistence of being, each according to our own ends. Else what’s an anvil for?

Clinker. You can forge with anthracite. It's a pain, but you can. The big things are a. It takes a lot of air to light and to keep going. b. It's much more difficult to light. c. Clinker kills the fire fast. d. Because it uses more air, it usually burns much faster than bituminious, and hot. It's easy to burn up your work if you're not careful. You can't really turn the air down to allow slow soaks at lower temps with as much finesse. It also oxidizes the steel faster, more scale. e. It has a nasty tendency to go out the second the air is cut off. f. Some anthracite will spit chunks of coal at you as it heats up and splits. g. Since it doesn't coke, you can't build your little cavern for heating or welding. You have several complaints about bituminous that sound like fire management issues. A well managed bituminous fire with metallurgical grade coal should be very clean, and have very little smoke, outside of the initial lighting, some of which can be avoided by using coke from the previous fire during lighting. I would suspect that you are getting too much or too little air, and not allowing dampened coal to coke on the outside edges before moving to the center. I find it usually burns at maybe half the rate of anthracite, making it financially about the same if not cheaper to burn.

You just beat me to the pun... A young hobbiest filled with delight, Brought an ASO home one dark night, "Hey that's not what it seems, Don't you see this here seam? Cast iron and you can't make it Wright." There was a young girl with a swage, Who had all the young smiths in a rage, Until the day she was seen, Discussing one's peen, Story short, they now are engaged.

The worse they are, eh? There once was a blacksmith quite soused, no? Who once inquired of his spouse, "Yo," "Honey, which of my tools, Do I resemble as a rule?" Her reply, "You're kind of a Mousehole."

It may or may not be worth that. I probably wouldn't bother with one they wouldn't let me check for rebound and weight, and the labor bit of unloading it is well, words I can't use on here, but it's roughly mud colored, related to the south end of a northbound horse, and good for the crops. Agree that a decent one that size might well be worth that, and that pics and location would help.

One thing poplar is used a lot for is soundboards in pianos (spruce too).

Simply put, molten aluminum eats steel. The first, easiest, and safest method is don't use a steel crucible. The real deal is cheap enough, although you may have to shop a bit online. (nooooo.....please don't make me look at buying metal working tools online!) They go about 10 or 12 bucks on fleabay. Second is use something with thick walls, watch your melting temps, and replace often. You'll still get scale inclusions in your stuff. And I'm also guessing you didn't read the Dave Gingery books yet. Because he suggested a third method, sounds like what you're looking for, which was mixing a little fireclay and water, sloshing it around the inside, pour it out, let dry, repeat, heat slowly to bake it on. Something like that. Well worth picking up. Good read. Do you have somebody experienced teaching you? It's worlds safer and a lot faster.

Back when I started playing w metal, I decided casting would be easier and I wouldn't need any pesky classes. I did maybe 100 or more melts over time, survived (somehow), and here are some of the things I learned about. 1. Zinc fume poisoning. 2. Tin cans make lousy crucibles. 3. Some canisters have brazed in bottoms 4. Always allow for crucible failure. 5. Crucible failure in the furnace is a pain to clean up if you don't have a drain. 6. If you have a drain, be careful what it's over. 7. Crucible failure outside of the furnace HURTS. 8. Molten metal can bounce a long ways. 9. And will inevitably find something that melts or burns - skin, rubber gas lines, garden hoses, the bottom of your shoes (click click click when you walk.) 10. Always shield rubber gas lines, and for preference, don't use them. 11. With propane always use a good regulator. 12. Terra cotta pots should not be involved in any kind of furnace. 13. Concrete doesn't do so hot either. 14. Even the "refractory mix" on backyardmetalcasting. 15. Spalling cement can hurt. 16. Steam explosions in improperly packed furnaces. 17. Steam explosions in the crucible. 18. Steam explosions in the mold. 19. Water in the mold, good and bad. Mostly bad. 20. Preheating crucibles. 21. Preheating stock. 21. Making green sand. 22. Porosity issues from not making green sand properly 23. What the heck a vent and gate were. 24. Charcoal briquettes are no good for casting. 25. Porosity issues doing lost foam. 26. About four wrong ways to make a propane burner, and one and a half right ones. 27. Propane burners don't behave the same in a furnace as out. 28. Plinths and how to use them. 29. Making crucibles yourself is hard. 30. And refractory mixes REALLY don't work well. 31. Skip it and buy crucibles. 32. Mulling and such - apparently important. 33. So is a parting compound. 34. Wood continues to char long after you want it to, even when you pour low temp metals into it, no matter what you read on the net. 35. Flux is important. 36. Especially with copper. 37. You can also get zinc poisoning from brass. 38. Milk does NOT help. 39. Some types of metal suck for casting. 40. Those aluminum cans for example. 41. Wear eye protection. 42. And leather topped shoes. 43. And long sleeves. 44. Made of natural fibers (oops). 45. Muffin pan ingots are stupid. 46. And get stuck in the pan. 47. Those pans may have liners that melt. And then I also picked up a few things about safety, PPE, and a couple of technical bits about casting. But the most important thing I learned? This would have been a heck of a lot cheaper and safer to learn from a class or an experienced friend. The internet and the literature helped, but I was lucky as umm, heck that there were no long lasting serious injuries. Lots of little pointy owie ones though.

I've got it's smaller twin, including the tiny hole in the feet, and the only stamping I can read on it is ENGLAND.

What der frog said. Pretty pretty. Wire wheel with a non-knotted brush and a little wd-40 and put it to work.

No clue on the maker. A "dog's head" cutlery hammer. Good for blademaking, and I've heard of using them to work on saw blades. They always feel a little funny to me with all that weight forward, but a lot of people love them.