Foundryman

That's not my particular area but I do know that the higher the tin % in the bronze the harder the alloy is (within reason, go too high and I believe it starts softening again). Higher tin bells tend to sound "brighter", not necessarily higher pitched but they sound more energetic, for want if a better word. Conversely, lower the tin content and the bells sound more mournful, the sort of sound you'd want for a large memorial bell for example. I've no experience with other metals however, though I believe harder metals resonate for longer when struck. I have no experience forging bell bronze but I would imagine you need to work it at a dull red, much hotter and the tin starts to sweat out due to its lower melting point and it'll already be molten by the time you hit orange. By the time you hit high orange/yellow colours it'll be snowing tin which will have evaporated from the bronze and condensed into snowflakes. I don't believe you can cold forge an 80/20 tin/copper bronze, it's just too brittle.

I honestly couldn't say, It's not a particularly well documented subject as far as I'm aware but the core process really wouldn't have changed much from the 12th century. We semi-regularly have bells from the 14th century onwards come into the foundry for work, I believe we have some bells from the 1400s in at the moment with what we suspect are the original iron clappers.

I work in a bell foundry and bell metal (bronze), at least by our specification is around 80% copper, 20% tin and would be very difficult to forge I would imagine. We buy it in ingot form. It's a very brittle alloy compared to what most of the world would expect from bronze but the hardness means it resonates so much better than lower tin alloys. That bowl is beautiful, very nice work!

I cant tell if it originally had a horn and heel but the roughness where the horn would have been suggests that there could be something missing. If nothing else it looks like a section of the face plate has broken away.

Well it's an incredible piece to retire on! Beautiful work, the fit and finish are flawless and I love the contrast you've gotten into the blade! Simon.

I would recommend the iron work museum in Kropa, Slovenia, if you're heading into the Baltics. I went last year and found it very interesting, some of the iron work on display is incredible, not to mention the fact that the street outside its literally lined with anvils. http://m.slovenia.info/en/museums-and-galleries/iron-forging-museum These are the anvils on the street outside, the stones they're standing on are original anvil stands from the local nail forging setups demonstrated in the museum but I do not think were originally used with the anvils currently sitting on them which I guess would have been freestanding. Has anyone ever seen anvils like this before? They've clearly seen quite some use judging by the mushrooming and sway back on them, I assumed they were used under water powered trip hammers as the whole site is based around a local river flowing down from the mountains. I assume originally there was some kind of flip up tooling mounted on the side of these anvils but that's just guesses on my part. Simon

Speaking as someone that was tasked with breaking up a 1.5ton bell with a 28lb sledgehammer I respectfully disagree. Watching a 28lb sledge bounce harmlessly away is somewhat disheartening! Bell metal is incredibly hard, especially in the higher tin ranges, though its a little brittle and would be an awful heat sink!

Cheers Owen, it's not what I was going for, but it turned out quite nicely none the less! It just means that I'll have to make another one in the future with the dimensions and pattern I originally wanted.

There are two ways to get steel the shape you want, one is forging, the other is stock removal, you must do one or the other. With Damascus stock removal is by no means a bad thing, the more metal you remove, the more pattern you expose! I have to say though that without a guard that knife looks as dangerous to the person holding as it would be to whatever is on facing the pointy end.

Let me start by saying this blade is not what I had in mind when I set out on this project. I was aiming for a 3 bar "langseax" style blade of 14" or so with a chevron pattern at the spine and a mono-steel cutting edge. However, this wasn't to be, I had a failed weld at the tang end of the blade and had to loose a couple of inches there, then halfway through the project I had to re-line my propane forge as it was in a terrible state, after the re-lining I managed to burn the tip of the blade, something my forge was never capable of even when brand new, it never got hot enough to burn steel! I set out on this project without any great expectations other than to learn, I've made my mistakes and hopefully I've learned from them so I'll stop short of calling it a failure. I intend to have another attempt at the originally planned 14" langseax blade in the future. The blade is hand forged as I have no power hammer, it's 8.5" to the tang and 12" overall length. The blade is constructed from three bars, two of 7 layers of 15n20 and Uddeholm 20C, one twisted clockwise and the other twisted anti-clockwise, the cutting edge is O1. As you can see, the top twisted bar was over-compressed in the forge weld, I should probably have welded it with the mono-steel bar on top rather than the twisted one. I also ground too deeply into the twisted bars, through the "chevron" layer in the twists and into the crosses closer to the center of each bar. I also didn't put enough curve into the tip when I forged the profile and almost ended up grinding through the O1 layer. I am happy with the finish I achieved on the blade though, hand sanded to 1000grit and then applied ferric chloride with wire wool which has given a satin finish that I'm very pleased with. I consider this project another step along my path as a bladesmith, Simon.

I believe possession is 9/10ths of the law though if your referring to the Elgin marbles, I think they're currently on loan to Russia which could prove problematic! I don't believe an objects' location has any bearing on its historical significance, however, by taking these anvils to a place where they are considered rare and are highly desirable you are ensuring their continued survival which can only be a good thing. I hope they're happy in their new homes and are getting fed lots of hot iron, Simon.

Walter Sorrels did a mini-series on making a set of wood turning tools, check his youtube channel, it's well worth a look.

I believe vaughns bought out brooks, or the two companies merged though I could be wrong and if anyone is better informed than I am please feel free to correct me. I should have said in my previous post I don't believe it's a cast steel brooks anvil, I think they made wrought iron ones before moving onto the cast steel ones that were painted blue.

It doesn't look like a brooks to me, the heel is too slender and there's no sign of the casting seam, though with the blue paint brooks was my initial guess. I think its just an anvil that was painted blue at one point in its past.

I would dearly love to own a church window anvil but would never buy one described in this way. "This anvil is definitely an antique with historical significance" I would contract the seller and ask what makes these anvils historically significant compared to the hundreds/thousands of identical ones available in and around Austria. Fortunately my girlfriend has family in that part of Europe so I hold onto the hope of sourcing myself one of these beautiful anvils at a reasonable price one day.

As a British member of the forum I feel duty bound to say that rumours of surplus blacksmithing equipment in the UK are slanderous and untrue, we have nothing spare for export. *spreads his arms wide* move along, nothing to see here. Now, where to store the bountiful supply of (relatively) affordable anvils?

For an antique anvil used by a genuine craftsman, still bearing slight wear marks from years of loving service, $175 is a bargain!

That's a beauty, what do they want for it?

It's hard to put a weight on an anvil from dimensions, though in this case I'm sure njanvilman can give you a pretty accurate weight as he owns and runs the fisher anvil museum. As an educated guess I'd say 300-350 lbs based on the length and width provided, for reference my 450lb anvil is a 6" wide face and 36" over all length.

Basher of this forum has one that's over 860lbs if I recall correctly, that's a bit of a beast to be sure. found the link http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/37592-ideas-for-reforging-a-867lb-anvil-bick/#comment-383398

It's worth remembering that layer count is relative, 100 layers in a billet finishing at 3/8 thick is going to much bolder than 100 layers in a billet 1/8 thick. Also I was taught to forge bars to round before twisting, it helps stop the corners tearing and avoids cold shuts, I don't know how true this is as I've seen people twisting square billets fairly frequently but it's what I was taught and therefore what I do.

Thank you for the kind words Charles, I enjoy cooking and I've made several chefs knives before of the "clunky" variety, these by far feel the most natural in your hand. Maybe I can offer to add to the set for future birthdays, actually that's not a bad business model. Thanks for sharing your wisdom Steve, that seems fairly likely as it was drawn out by hand, that information will be very helpful in my next project, always learning, Simon.

I was recently commissioned to make a pair of kitchen knives as a 21st birthday present for a member of my family, I was given some photos of the blade and handle profiles that they wanted and then approved the sketches that I came up with, then it was time to get to work! The blades are 150 layers of 15n20 and Uddeholme 20C steels with a ladder pattern ground in and then forged out, the handles are bog oak with stainless pins all as requested by the customer. A question to those with more experience than me, is ladder pattern damascus particularly prone to warping during heat treat? I had more trouble with the larger of these blades than I've had with any that I've previously made, even though my heat-treat process remained the same. The blades were left 2mm thick at the edges, they were triple normalised and then quenched into pre-heated rapeseed (canola) oil, whereupon the larger blade decided it would rather be a banana than a blade, I repeated the process and it still warped but not as bad and I was able to take most of the bend out immediately after the quench and the rest I managed to remove during the temper cycles by clamping it just past straight and allowing it to spring back. These are my 11th and 12th finished blades and I'm happier with the lines on these knives than with any of my previous ones so they definitely represent improvement in my mind. Simon.

On the 4th photo of your original post I see a 9 just above the waist seam, about an inch to the right of the two deep vertical gouges. Might be worth hitting that area with some chalk or flour and see if anything shows.

If the welding is only on the side it won't have affected the hardness of the face of the anvil, however you can argue that the anvil is damaged and say it's reduced the value of the anvil even though the usability hasn't been affected. It looks like a good one from here, if you're in need of an anvil, I'd say go for it, though do the rebound test first just to check that the face is still good and hard!