Charles R. Stevens

The first 18 years were the easiest…

A retort and softwood scraps work well for charcoal Harder woods (like oak). Contain more silica, and thus more ash than softer woods like fir, alder, cottonwood etc.

Side draft. They seem to work better and get the hood out of your way when working on larger projects.

When you say fire box are you referring to the hearth or the actual hole the fire sits in?

Common wisdom is no. Gas forges in particular. One could get away with a solid fuel forge if one considers it to be an open fire place. Still don’t think I would recommend it.

A classic side blast is a box about 12” deep and 30” across filled with fly ash and clinker. Sided with a 30” square table tiled with brick. The tuyere sticking in so as to center the fire. this is of corse a coal fire. Charcoal really needs a wall or trench as one can’t bank charcoal like you do coal.

Yes sir, coal slag and scale stick to clay and sand. Coal ash and wood ash added to the sand/clay mix help prevent this. not much of a problem with charcoal. That is if you don’t burn up a lot of steel.

I don’t think any jeristiction allows untreated gray water to be surface distributed. Now being Oklahoma their are wide swatches where their is no inforcemet. I used to work for a septic pumping outfit, thus I know a little bit about septic and gray water systems. Ideally kitchen sinks and toilets should go to the one septic tank, and if one is using a gray water system you should have a tank for that. Reed beds and shallow distrabution lines for sub soil irrigation are ideal. These don’t have to be fancy. know the kitchen sink and it’s grease are problems, especially with out a tank or grease trap. They plug up leach fields faster than biofilm. another issue with older homes is schedual 20 pipe, the stuff is so thin it gets crushed. another issue is maintaining 1/4 in 10 drop for black water and as a minimum for gray water. Don’t allow any sags or bumps. soap, body oil and hard water also cause hardening of the arteries, so power snaking and enzyme cleaners might be in order.

3 gods rotted shots and the wife and I still came down with the plague! The other two daughters are on their own when they get married! good horse, look back a page or two and you will find a lot of the information you need. From there you will know enugh to be ignorant, and we can really get down to helping you out.

Thus I want a sail boat…

Sounds like Fort Benning! Screw that. 50% is bad enugh. I might have to move back to Phoenix if Oklahoma doesn’t cool down!

A swamp cooler will work if your not in a humid environment, a compressor cooler not so much. TP has the right of that.

I have a 16x32” drawer in the back of the Sam with all my ultra light gear, plus’s the sleeping pads tied to roll bar. The wife and I can sleep and eat about any where we stop.

Most of us don’t bite. Those that do, the moderators insure they are vaccinated!

I keep my axe close at hand when cooking, I have been known to swat a backside with the flat if anyone messes with my fire.

I marked out well and used an angle grinder cut off wheel. (Actually it was a used chop saw wheel on my big angle grinder. I use them untold they are small enugh to fit the gaurd) if your going to weld on it, heat it to about 500f (black hot or when the black soot from an accetaline flame burns off) and weld with high c rod.

That old farriers anvil is plenty for 90% of smiths. Don’t deride her, she is a thing of beauty.

I have read that US rail is 95 point manganese steel. I can tell you from personal experience that it makes a fine anvil as is. Here are a few ideas…

Yep, turn off two of those burners and if you have a cupple of soft insulating fire bricks reduce the size of that beast. higher the carbon content the lower the max forging temp. Bright orange for 100 point steels, lemon yellow for 60 point and bright yellow for mild steels. White hot for wrought. Usually it’s coal forges that eat steel but charcoal and gas will as well.

Looks like an anvil to me

True that

Scott, he may have been an off the books operation and the extra trip to pick up the check may have cut into his day job.

Yep, I spent a bit under Dad’s house working on termite damage and abatement. 16 inches at the dry end of the house and 12 inches at the wet end (where the termite damage is) fun, fun.

Liability issues have let to poor tools. Hammers and chisels being examples. They just don’t usually make them hard enough because idiots abuse them, then some one (often not the idiot) gets hurt when they spald and shrapnel goes flying. I routinely re harden hammer and chisels if they aren’t old. I want hammers to be as hard as my anvil. The exception being the short handles stone masons hammers. They are ment to be soft wile the back of the chisel is hard.

That particular scam is an attempt to reset the password on your account. Probably face book in that case.