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An old cutting plate works for me, heated in the forge and dropped over the anvil till I'm ready to start, most of the time I have the same problem as woody, dehydrated smithy, I sweat buckets when its hot!

I agree with Chinobi, I wont strike for a smith who is a ditherer and cant make their mind up before I'm into the swing. Wandering the work around the anvil so I have to continually adjust my stance, mumbling commands, misplacing tools during heats, leaning over the work and blocking my vision, it all adds up to a pretty frustrating experience for me and almost guarantees I wont be back.

I have some similar tools for driving bearing shells and seals into place. Nowadays they are a one-use throw away item made from tin or plastic.

I think it is the little hidden gems of information that makes it worthwhile, it took me two years of looking from a distance to decide to join this forum, I was discouraged by all the railway iron anvil posts, inane nonsense that gets regurgitated constantly and flippant dismissal of techniques and science that some regard as not "traditional" without much thought or examination. The thing that prompted me to join in the end was not being able to see a photo of something I didn't understand from the text and could not find anywhere else. I have found the site has "grown" on me as well, the same as Rich has observed. I now realise I don't have to read or respond to everything here and I understand there is no obligation to post info from my area of expertise but by the same token I feel obliged (now that I'm here) to cobble together at least two quality topics or posts a year that I think would interest or challenge the other members to look at things a little differently or to see a wider scope of blacksmithing as practical engineering not a dying art. I enjoy the friendly banter and subtle wit and humour that keeps things ticking along from day to day. very content with it all

Back in the late 70's (1970's) when Australians still had a sense of humour there was a research team working on Kangaroo Island studying echidna reproduction. They had T-shirts for the members of the group. The shirts were full of hundreds of little holes and had "HUG AN ECHIDNA" printed on the front. I saw two of the little guys close to my house last year snuffling around, big surprise, they are not supposed to be living anywhere near here, according to the boffins.You have certainly captured their echidna-ary-ness.

I recently dressed a PW faceplate and about an inch down the sides with a flap disc on an angle grinder. the plate looked rough when I started while it was rusty but as it cleaned up and I smoothed the sides on a couple of dents in the top I found most of the small marks disappeared leaving some nice big flat smooth areas to work with. It's pretty hard to do any damage to the face with a flap disc, cos it is really tough. once I cleaned it up, and had a quick forge on it I could see it was not marking my work on the backside I am happy to leave it alone. Its not the best anvil for making tongs because the edges are well radius-ed and it doesn't have a nice square corner to work over. If it was my only forging option I might consider welding and hand dressing the corners and rebuilding three inches of both edges across the middle of the anvil. The one in your photo doesn't look like a candidate for milling to me, it looks to be in quite good condition. Most hard facing rods will only do two layers before they start to crack, the stoody rod is a little unusual to be able to do unlimited passes AND make a good join with the plate material and the base. I guess one thing you need to consider, if the idea is to patch any shallow dents in the plate with some 1105 or something similar, is that you may get some undercut along the edge of your weld if you use a bigger rod, this could possibly be deeper than the original dent, then you weld the undercut to patch that and pretty soon you have welded a lot more of the plate than originally intended. It pays to have a bit practice on angling the work and getting the weld to stand proud of the surface in a couple of short passes and getting good control of the heat before tackling the real thing, just so you know what you are up against. cheers yahoo

Fire clay is a pretty generic term covering a multitude of clays anything from porcelain to terracotta bricks. you are looking for a Kaolin, ceramic or china clay. Potters sometimes refer to it as EPK clay (short for Edgar Plastic Kaolin) this was the first company to mine a true kaolin in America (Florida I think) and has become the default standard benchmark. They typically have a chemical analysis around 46.6% SiO2 38% Al2O3 13% H2O ions and very low amounts of anything else. Ironically it is often formed under a layer of coal because the forest removes almost all the minerals that could be a flux and leaves the aluminium and silicon oxides (refractory). pure white kaolins have been hard to find in the past due to re-contamination from erosion and glaciers plowing through the landscape grinding massive boulders to dust and depositing it back into this clay layer.

oxy pressure seems high for a small tip, you will get better control of the oxy with the torch valve well open, I would have thought 12-20 would be plenty. If I am using someones gear and the oxy pressure gauge is dodgy I do what JMCUSTOM says, get the acetylene flame to just reattach to the tip then with the oxy pressure set on the low side open the valve a good amount and bring the flame up with the regulator on the bottle, go well past where it looks right and adjust the valve back to a neutral flame. gives a good starting point.

I saw some scrap counterweight the other day, spring steel billet 5"x5" only catch, the shortest length was over 13 foot long, the rest were 37'.

Look for some sort of 2 component anchor epoxy, its for anchoring to concrete and stone, its non shrinking so it wont come loose with time. I don't like using the tubes with the mixing nozzle if I only have little jobs to do, I end up throwing away more than I use, I try and get the two little tubs and mix my own with a paint scraper on an old bit of laminex. Depending on the stone the hole may need a clean and the metal stud or pin needs to be roughed up a bit with a chisel or the hammer and maybe a bit of a sanding. Will need to think about how to sit or hold the piece while the epoxy sets if you are not inserting studs, which can take a while. Or alternatively there are epoxy products that can be drilled and tapped like devcon's plastic steel putty so that the metal structure can be bolted and the head hidden or capped.

Rebound is an indicator of how much energy the anvil itself is absorbing, one of dozens of losses that eat away at the power in every swing of the hammer. A true forging blow should deform and move the hot metal through the full profile, not just smear the surface on the top and bottom which is what tends to happen with poor rebound,loose anvils and poor technique. If you start a new topic I am sure there will be plenty of discussion. I like the extra space on a larger anvil if I am working with a partner and using handled tools. If I had to choose between a #350 and an extra swage blocks, I would choose the blocks, I jig and clamp on the blocks a lot, the hole I realise at the last minute that I need to use, is always covered by part of the jig. :(

Hi Dragonorb, Welcome to the forum. As with most things the devil is in the detail, perhaps I should have been more specific. With my meat cleaver I removed the handle so I didn't burn it to a crisp and BAKED 4 microscopic layers of oil onto the metal at a very high heat, for about 45 - 70 minutes bake time per coat. Not the same thing as slopping it around like salad dressing, the result is similar to seasoning cast iron cookware.

Did you have a look at Brian's video titled "how to make tongs" on youtube? He has a very detailed demo on how to punch a hole starting at the 15 minute mark using a center punch style tip. How to forge tongs it is worth watching this bit a few times Gary Huston shows a flattened chisel demo for slotting slit/slot & drift Mark Aspery Forging inch square holes Ring Project punching and drifting square bar I cant remember if they make the point in the videos but the idea is that moving the metal in a shearing plane will detach a biscuit of metal away from the parent stock. I guess this is a punching or slotting action and for thicker material Hammer heads and the like, the greater mass of the hot steel holds up better to deformation of a cutting action so a slitting chisel is used.

I was going to ask what charcoal you were using. the briquettes are usually pulverized and compressed straw, not a huge amount of energy to be got from them. Charcoal made from pine burns really hot but you need a fair supply of it because the fire doesn't stop when the blower is switched off like using coke.

Hi Brad, wood and coal both have the same problem, they need to be pre-burnt to consume the dozens of chemical reactions that rob massive amounts of energy from the fire. once the coal becomes coke or wood is charcoal these reactions are finished, only then can the heat start to build to the temperatures you need to work steel properly. When I work with wood I have a fire going on the side and pick and chop the charcoal to the right size as it is forming with a shovel and stoke the forge with that. With coal you mound it up over the burning coke in the forge so that any escaped heat from the burning fire cooks the coal down to coke ready to use. the other two things you should keep in mind is that there are techniques to use in building your fire that insulate and reflect the heat back into the center I am guessing you are loosing a lot of heat out the top and you need to be able to create a hotspot that the steel can be gently slid into, outside that area red heat is about all that is possible. Santa is not the easiest shape to work with to get a good forge fire going. If you have some loose house bricks it is possible to make a temporary forge on the ground just stack them so you have two little walls a couple inches apart and feed the blower pipe into the middle from underneath sort of angled upwards and pile the charcoal on top. then you can spear the steel into the hot part of the fire from the side and the nice layer of charcoal on top keeps the heat in.

I guess you could try some stand oil, it is linseed that has been heated without oxygen to start the polymerization process (not boiled oil). I have been playing around with some high iodine value oils and baking 3-4 really thin layers on in an oven, gives me a nice smoky finish and a rock hard layer. At this stage I couldn't say how long it will last or if it will yellow. A meat cleaver I coated last week come up with a beautiful finish with grape-seed oil, I had the temp a bit high for the first layer and the layer was too thick, luckily I was watching it and pulled it out and give it a wipe with another clean paper towel and saved it from flaking.

This was prototype MK1 a couple of years ago, I built it in about 15 minutes for a bet. it is burning unused motor oil which is harder to burn than old stuff and it was only just lit so it's running very rich in the photo. I have since made a pre-combustion heat vaporizer version but haven't done a lot of testing on it yet.

:) I can just see ya, down a dozen raw eggs in a glass of milk, run up a flight of stairs punch the air a few times, get the ninja headband on..............pause.........forge wont light :unsure: . yeah, might just nip inside for a quick coffee before i start. Gee that lounge look comfy. Nup, its all to hard, looks like it might rain too, must be somethin good on the TV. Seriously Joel, function is one of the hardest things to get the head around. for example say you make candle holders to sit on a dining table. what is function in this case? romantic mood lighting? not falling over, dripping wax or scratching the table? holding the larger candle properly that women seem to love? having different height holders to give a tiered look for a table centrepiece? Notice I haven't said "provide some light so I can see what I am stuffing in my mouth" Can you explain the function of a $2000 tattoo? no shortage of them, and some of the wearers don't exactly look loaded. bath candles? :huh: vintage booze? :blink: If reliability sold cars we would all be driving 2003 Toyota camry's. Some folks love rustic wagon wheels as garden features, but only when they are free! People have no imagination, unless they have made the decision that they need some blacksmiths handmade wall hooks before they visit your stall, you need to SHOW them, dress up a piece of that waney oak and mount some hooks as a display. Keyring is easy to explain but its a hard sell unless the have a wow factor. Textured finishes go in and out of fashion, at the moment the hammered look is IN here (as long as it doesn't look like copperart) so your Despres style bowls would sell at a premium at some of the country markets I visit.

I have found that a slit and drifted hole that is slit along the grain in a drawn flat bar and normalised afterwards, will resist cracks forming far more effectively than a drilled or punched hole in the same plate. That says to me that the grain structure and all those molecular carbon links are still there.

The modern equivalent would be the highest grades of plywood. I used to call it "marine ply" it is hardwood timber with no defects that is cross laminated. 1 and a 1/2 inches of that stuff (2 x 3/4") will stop most things, the outer surface can be veneered and you could bolt through it using short lengths of pipe as spacers between two sheets leaving a gap for insulation, the bolt head and nut could be capped with a fake rivet head.

I think this is another example where it started by "making do" with the materials they had and it eventually become trendy, a bit like how most modern cooking recipes are derived from the poorest underclasses of people. the fact that the door is laminated means you dont need a 150 ft tall perfectly straight tree with good grain to start with, you can use timber that is left over from structural work. Same with the iron, low quality, minimal working, quick and easy to make, can be done with small bits of iron from the furnace. If the door is made with green oak the shrinkage as it dries will hold the rivets even if the heads are sheared off, the whole structure would be tied together like modern crossbracing no twist or sag , and solid oak is very fire resistant. It's a good design for a defensive gate.

Looks like the driveshaft for the chamber packing fingers on an international small square hay baler. the tapered keyway would fit a 45 degree timed bevel gear the 90 degree gear end is driven from the plunger crankshaft.

It looks like I should have read the link I posted right to the end before I posted it. I apologize, There is a difference between between analog controllers and ones with a digital console and I assumed he had posted solutions for both types. What you have is a MC2100 controller and the blue wire does regulate the the motor speed BUT it needs a specific signal type to do it (a variable duty cycle square wave pulsing at 50 milliseconds). It is not that difficult to build but it certainly isn't for beginners in electronics. I had a quick look on the web, I couldn't find an obvious commercial prebuilt kit conversion in the USA. The only ones I see throw the digital controller board away and replace it with a controller from KB Electronics or Baldor. For a first try the best controller to start with is the MC-60. it is on the most basic old treadmills and I would be surprised If they are not obtainable for free but as always there is a chance that it has been cooked. it is a straight conversion with a single turn linear pot. old slider control panel on an analog treadmill console.

Instructables DC treadmill motor drive

all of the original #250 PW's I see, the step down to the cutting plate is 3/4" or a tiny bit less (all later models with the square tail and the horn not kicked up). This one looks lower than that. The front corner on the orange side looks like it has been patched and the other side has some lines under the deck, its hard to tell but it looks like weld overlap to me.