Nobody Special

Cut and glued up some dimensional lumber for a couple of anvil stands. Flattening the top, banding, etc. still to go. I hate waiting for the glue to dry. Dogs are there to hold boards down and for moral support.

I've been absent from blacksmithing and from this site for some time. Found out today that Glenn had passed, and moments ago about Thomas. To their family and friends, I am sorry for their loss, the world was a better place for having met them. I learned a lot from each, and I am sorry to know they're gone. The world is dimmer without them.

Southern Crescents were made in Chattanooga sometime after the Civil War, not sure when.  Used to see them in north Georgia. They were basically like a harbor freight version of a fisher norris, even cheaper than a Vulcan; thin steel top, cast iron body. Prone to having big casting voids, lousy rebound, and delamination. Every once in a blue moon you find one in good shape that wasn't made on a Monday or a Friday and it will be terrific, but it's the rare exception, not the rule. Most are in terrible shape.

Osage orange is lovely, good for hammer handles, good for knife scales, great for fence posts if you work it green. Tough as nails when it hardens. Maybe tougher, no fun driving staples into it. Makes a lovely shade tree that's godawful tough on lawnmowers, but don't plant it close to the house, they tend to have shallow root systems.

Well, nothing to show really, didn't do much for the last five years, then got into a conversation with a smith at a "Nordic culture" festival up here on Whidbey Island and went home and got inspired. Tossed a few engine blocks out, cleaned out a carport, moved an old Dodge Dart, modified a fan and got ready to get back into it.

I got all my blacksmithing and casting stuff up here from storage in Georgia a few months ago and now I have the itch, the tools, and a place to work. I'm putting together a couple of anvil blocks, may post pictures next week. I missed it, and you guys to boot. Ungodly sorry to hear that Glenn passed.

Good morning,

I used to find old mule shoes with big lugs like that sideways across the top, down in Georgia to give them more traction when pulling.  I suppose they would be useful for horses too, but all the ones I ever saw were for mules.  I ain't a farrier though, and certainly wasn't one a hundred years or so ago when the ones I found were made.

Mostly just seem to run into people that have trouble understanding the value of doing anything by hand yourself.  I put in a straw bale garden recently, and it was a seven-day wonder in the neighborhood, especially before I put in the trelliswork for the beans and squash. 

I've got one neighbor that comes over periodically to tell me that she's checked with county/state agricultural agents and has information on things like square footage for chickens and how to register my beehives. The bees make her extra nervous, so she sometimes asks things like if a bee stings someone in her yard, would she be liable.  Apparently, her lawyer told her no, when she also told me all about consulting with him over my bees...sigh.  Usually, I can smooth things over with neighbors by giving them a little honey or eggs.  This one may require mead or honey jack.

I second chasing and repousse.  It's traditional for copper, looks cool, and isn't hard to learn.  Casting is too high of a learning curve, especially in copper, and mistakes in casting are painful.  It's a blast, but best learned in a class or a group unless you like explaining the funny scars on your legs...like mine.

Hot forging copper is fun but runs contrary to what you're used to in iron.  It's actually easier most of the time to work it cold and anneal it before it gets too work-hardened and becomes brittle.  Finding the balance takes practice.  Annealing is completely backwards too.  You heat to red hot, then quench.  But unlike iron, you have a lot less wiggle room.

One of the great joys of forging non-ferrous metals hot is that they can have oxides on the outside that melt at higher temperatures than the metal inside them (looking at you aluminum).  Think thin candy shell with a chewy, molten metal center...which you then strike with a hammer.  It's deeply unpleasant, in the way that second-degree burns tend to be.  Oh yeah, and different alloys forge differently; some bronzes and brasses cast like a dream, but fall apart when you hit them.

On 3/21/2022 at 7:12 PM, Steve Sells said:

speaking of false info, who said meteorite is hard to forge? like anything else if you know how its not bad, I have an article on it somewhere on this site

You're absolutely right, but this brings to mind an Egyptian bronzeworking apprentice in the shop, talking to his boss.  "Oh, that star stuff?  Sure you can play with it.  Might be useful if you can figure it out; I've never been able to get it to work. Just grab some off the pile of meteorites out back. and make sure Tuesday's supply of chariot ornaments is ready to ship before you start playing, okay?"

Dressing is fantastic.  If it's on the face, you can also give up on dressing one smooth again and texture the face to make a hammer you can use to texture surfaces.  Be careful how you do so, and in using it.  Spalling metal hurts.

Hey, I was way more than seven years old when I wrote that.

Good afternoon, I always save broken pieces of handles whenever possible, and even will pay a buck or so at yard sales.  You get a lot of hickory that way.  Shovels and axe handles become hammers, broken hammer handles become knife scales, and so on....

I'm not crazy about kiln dried wood, it seems more brittle.  Of course that may be because a lot of wood these days isn't "old growth" and doesn't have the same density.  Pecan, mentioned above can be tough as nails.  Try splitting it green and you'll see what I mean.  It laughs at the maul, and I've seen it break a hydraulic splitter.  I always waited a minimum of one year, and for preference split it on a day when the temps are well below freezing.

Saw it on Facebook this afternoon, and rang the anvil for him.  He helped me a lot when I was getting started.

I've used solutions to plate before, I ran across this when I tossed some harmonicas in a musical instrument sonic cleaning tank, and all the steel bits came out bright pink.  I've also got looks similar to the photos above by forging copper plated grounding rods at low temps.  Too much heating or beating and you can take the plating off.  Not too much, and it just kind of blends them together with a lot of copper on the outer surface and looks cool. 

I suppose you could forge it close to shape, clean it, do a full plating first with a solution, and then beat the metal enough to take the copper off in places.

3 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

A lot depends on fighting style, A heavy shield wont  get pushed out of the way as easily; on the other hand you can't punch with it very easily either.

Heh heh...haven't played in a while, but still love how many people think of a shield as a strictly defensive weapon.  Even if you only bounce one off someone's toes, those things hurt.

Good afternoon,

I don't see the characteristic striations, or grain normally associated with wrought iron, especially after long exposure to salt water, although I may not be getting good enough resolution on my screen.  And it's not definitive, sufficiently refined wrought iron can be hard to find the grain on. 

The classic test is to cut a piece most of the way through, bend it over, and then see if the end shows splitting or a grain coming apart a bit.  If you like the chain, you may not want to do this, as it's a bit hard on the link in question.  If you decide to try this, you may want to look up the test first, to know what it looks like, and how to go about it.

And Mr. Powers has beaten me to it...

Jumping it to get the battery going with a stuck key can sometimes set off the anti-theft module in the computer.  Then you have to practically recite the Bhagavad Gita backwards while dancing the Tutti Frutti, and balancing a grapefruit on your head before it will turn on.  Seriously though, it can be a sequence of actions done over the course of say an hour.

Yardbird Forge.  My ex used to keep and sell ungodly numbers of chickens, and occasionally one would get out and do unspeakable things to my anvil.  I keep a few now, partly to keep the current wife happy, partly for the eggs, and partly because watching bald eagles bounce off of box wire trying to eat my birds is funny.  It doesn't hurt them, but it annoys the heck out of 'em.  One actually bent the wire last week trying an assault from above.

Or you could use the ashes to make soap. And that's no lye.

Gadget, have you tried blown air over charcoal? Since the first time I tried it 10 years or so ago, I haven't looked back.  I had expected it to take similar times to my propane torch.  Instead I melted the steel crucible (which I don't recommend for a number of reasons, this being one of them) and had about five or six lbs of molten aluminum running out of the drain hole less than three minutes after putting the crucible in.  Worked a treat for copper and bronze once I slowed things down and used proper crucibles.

I was reading a Roman casting technique just today involving urine.  I'll have to look it up and bring it back here.  They also had a neat technique I like for separating lead ores from silver, by melting the whole, then deliberately introducing impurities and skimming off the lead oxides.  Lots of fun.

Another solution is to counterweight a board on a fulcrum with something that can be removed in parts.  When it balances, remove the counterweight a bit at a time, then add up the bits. 

An alternate to my alternate? Use a BIG board and the counterweight is a water container, or something else you know the weight of.  If you measure as you add, you know how much weight you've added.  Water is a bit light for big weights, at "a pint a lb", (well, 1.04 lbs),  a 400 lb anvil would require 50ish gallons of water to even out.

What an enviable problem to have.  It's like having so much money that you need help counting it.

Funny looking thing, isn't it?  Definitely looks like a "real" anvil, but maybe one that was heavily modified.  Honestly, looks like somebody took a Trenton, chopped the bottom inch or so off, welded a couple of feet on either side at the bottom, and drilled the hardy out, stopping only to flap disc the heck out of the horn.  I'd take it, but I'm a sucker for abused and mangled anvils.

3 hours ago, Frosty said:

I'm a TBI survivor and literally don't have the patience, it's a common TBI issue. 

Also the wild emotional swings, loss of impulse control, easy distraction, aphasia in areas that use to be easy...it's the gift that keeps on giving.  My wife is a TBI survivor (kicked in the head by a horse), and goes into a blind rage about five times a week or so.  Can be for good reasons or lousy ones, may last 5 minutes or 50 until the circuit breaker resets, thinks it's perfectly logical until it's over, then sometimes doesn't even know remember it.  I can't count all the times she threatened divorce, and she actually got to the courthouse and filed papers twice before she came back to herself.  Home schooling the kids over COVID ain't helping any. 

Then there's my military buddies with 'em....Thank God, I only came back with PTSD (and that ain't sarcastic).

On 11/27/2020 at 10:29 AM, ThomasPowers said:

Nemo get's my "this week's Best Friday Post" nomination!    (Though did you try fluxing with the bones of your enemies? I did try some experiments with bone meal and blood meal about 35 years ago...)

I thought about playing with bone meal as a flux or to play with old style case hardening...and then I remembered what it smelled like whenever I heated up bone or antler for burn ins, to drill pin holes, or to cut it down for handles.  Smelled like burnt hair run through a full litter box in a crowded chicken coop in August.