NateDJ

I have made knives, a spring for my leg vice, anything that needs stock about that thickness. They usually are about as high in carbon as a spring needs to be as they need to be able to take a hit and not shatter while holding an edge as long as possible.

LOL couldn't have said it better, what with it being made of "PigIron" To do the cutting I finally had to go buy a real torch, had no trouble after that. But that is all covered in my other anvil thread. ;)

I preheated the whole thing, then used a 1/4" 7018 stick. It rings kinda like a gong but that is because I welded it to a stand that causes it to ring... or more correctly clang. Better than the splat sound it made before the new face :)

So far they are holding up fine, this anvil has been relegated to the kids so it doesn't get as much use as my other one does, but it perhaps sees more "abuse" which I am not sure the original face would have ever stood for. The original face could be dented by dropping a hammer on it from 1' or so and just in a day or so of use it was already showing some serous sway/potholes/etc. the new face fixed that and has not had any more trouble since except for the nose which I did not cover.

Still a very nice looking knife!

Makes a great BBQ grill/smoker as well. I used one as a side draft hood for my forge.

Awesome, Great job.

In my experience Corn will burn very fast compared to coal, It will burn very hot though. It sparks just like or a bit more than charcoal so watch out for that the best part is that it sticks together even better than coal. I can make a 5 Gal bucket of coal last ~8 hours easily but it will take the entire bucket of corn in about 1 - 1.5 hours. If you had a way to use the corn gasses you could do more with less t would think. I have had no time to look into building a biogasser yet though.

You could also build a ground forge using fire brick a good electric blower and long enough pipe with holes drilled along to build a long fire and supply air to it. Then use a barrel of oil to drop the spring into, you will have to keep the spring moving so need to hang it by something you can move around. Once it is cooled you will have to find a way to reheat the entire thing to the exact temperature you need so the spring will gain it's proper tension (temper) This is something that can be done in a fire brick forge but you need a way to measure and maintain exact temp and you need to know exactly what temp your steel needs to be tempered to and for how long. Where there is a will there is a way! Do you have a safe way to test the spring after you are finished? I would not wish to risk my life to a spring which was not tested but that is of course up to you.

Basically the problem you will have is the heat treating part. You will have to evenly heat and oil quench the entire piece at the same time. The heat treat specifics are ones that are dependent on the type of steel and your desired temper of the steel. As Steve said, you will do well to find a decent sword maker who should have the proper equipment and a far better understanding of heat treating steal to desired temper than I.

Some day I would like to see this one, Creusot steam hammer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Take a look at my 460# Anvil in the gallery, was made from forklift forks. They work great!

I am actually looking for a welder that small, I have a very good Marquet that i can crank down to about 75A but it still burns through the very thin stuff before I can get the stick moved off in time. Thought about trying to build one using a UPS power supply transformer... it puts out about 25V... no idea what the amperage is though.

you can also try filling the tube with sand before twisting.

I finally decided to drill a hole in mine and insert a square tube and weld it up. seems to work so far. I would suggest a larger than a 1/2" square however ...