Sam Falzone

A friend of mine is trying to get my wife and I to come out and try some 1812 re-enactment. We talked about it a bit and he even mentioned his unit would love to have a blacksmith. I've been thinking about it lately and then I find this on Kijiji - an 1800's anvil (I don't know the exact date), 50 lbs. Needs a bit of work, but would be a much better fit to an 1812 smith kit than my Mousehole. Got it for $65.00. I think this may be a sign .

What I want to know is ... How do you keep them from falling through the BBQ grill? and Where to you find a burger-bun small enough? (I mean, I've heard of sliders but one of those guys wouldn't even be a skid-mark)

I have this great little hole-in-the-wall cafe a few blocks from my house that has become one of my favourite spots. It is always friendly and it's a great place for neighbours to gather. Coincidentally enough it's called "the Heart of the Hammer". I decided to make a stained glass ornament for them (because I happened to have some stained glass scraps handy) and while stained glass is not your typical blacksmithing medium, I did add my own smithing flair to it (with a name like Heart of the Hammer, you know I was gonna ) Hope you all like it. Sam (ps: the nickname for the city of Hamilton is "the Hammer" because it's a steel-town)

Hi Tim. If you're planning on gold plating anyway, you may as well make your torc out of copper instead of steel. From what I understand about plating, if you made it out of steel, they would have to copper plate it first anyway because the gold/silver plating process works best on copper (or copper alloys). I look forward to seeing some of your results.

Found this site online. http://www.leprevo.co.uk/ Hope it helps.

Walking Dog I've been looking for those suspenders too ... for the past 5 years. Will you mail them to Canada??? PM me please.

Ya but it looks like they completely mushroomed and deformed the one end. Weird looking tool though - can't tell where it would mount to a bench or anvil. The section that looks like a foot does have a slight flange around it but it doesn't look like enough to keep it stable if you're pounding on it. Truth be told .. I got nuthin' Anyone else?

I'm curious ... does lead work-harden? Following all the posts I couldn't help myself but try to come up with my own version of the "came rolling machine". Kinda' cool. I'm envioning a warming tunnel to soften the wire (probably warmed with a simple propane torch heating the outside of a copper pipe tunnel. Then the wire is fed into two knurled wheels to form the channel. But that's just my freaky imagination - much better to copy a proven design, like you said. Good luck.

Well I don't live near Cambridge and I don't have pictures of the tools you're talking about BUT if your friend decides to go with professionally made caming I know a casting house in my city that makes all the types of lead caming needed for stained glass - I'm sure they ship.

That is fabulous!!! I love the fact that it is riveted instead of welded ... makes this still an achievable project for anyone who still hasn't mastered welding. The hooks instead of chains really stands out. If you don't mind, I may want to "take some inspiration" from your design and make one for my wife. If you object, I would understand.

It's noticeable in the picture too. If you hadn't mentioned it, I would have thought that the picture was taken crooked or the mounting/floor was not level. Could be that the anvil has seen alot of serious and heavy hammer work near the horn-end. It might be a casting defect. Looks like you should still be able to just shim it level and still get lots of good years out of her..

Hi folks, I don't know how well known this is, but an OABA member here in Hamilton, Larry, organizes a bulk coke purchase from Alcarb here in Hamilton, twice a year - once in the spring and once in the fall. The fall run for 2010 was on Saturday and I picked up 400lbs of pea metallurgical coke for $95.00. I'm going to ask Larry if it's okay to post the spring date on this OABA forum, if there is an interest from the S.Ontario smiths here. Would anyone be interested in being notified about the spring run for 2011, if it's okay with Larry?

Nope ... I'm committed somewhere else all that day The universe continues to conspire against me and all my plans . Oh well, there's always next meeting. ;)

Yup Biggun, you beat me to it. But I've always been told to sift out any big "bits" and charcoal to keep it fine as possible. Why spend money for vermiculite when you can get wood ash for free for all your annealing needs. Not so much of a health concern with wood ash as with other annealing mediums, like vermiculite. :huh:

Hot off the OABA calendar. Sam --- November - Saturday November 13 David Brandow - 5050 Whitelaw Road - RR #6 Guelph ON Southwest corner of the intersection of Highway 24 (sometimes known as 124) and Whitelaw Road just outside of Guelph. Parking will (only) be available at 5068 Whitelaw Rd (across the street on the northwest corner of the intersection). In addition to volunteer demonstrators (hint, hint), David will be demonstrating how to make an eagle feather and discussing his experiences with glass inlaying. On Google Maps

No not David Robertson - I don't think I've ever met him ... but then again I'm horrible with names and I have a memory like a seive ... The idea for the anvil "easy-bake oven" comes from Darrell Markewitz.

As for the magnetic heaters or steam iron, or even the light bulb, I don't think the heat gets high enough to affect the heat treatment on an anvil. It would be very much like leaving an anvil ouside in the hot sun - really warm, maybe even uncomfortably warm, but not hot enough to be causing physical changes in the crystaline structure of the steel. The hot plates could be a bit of a concern, especially if they were large, thick plates and heated to extremely high temperatures (like a high yellow). A plate large enough to cover the whole face of an anvil heated to that temperature and left to soak in could start to affect the heat treatment (I think) - but I don't imagine anyone with any blacksmithing experience at all going to that extreme. Does this sound right or am I way off base?

A friend of mine who is a professional artist blacksmith came up with an ingenious way to keep his anvils warm all winter. He lives up near Owen Sound here in Ontario which is around 2 hours north of where I live - it can get pretty cold up here in the winter (sometimes minus 25 to minus 30 degrees celcius). His solution, so that he doesn't use up fuel to heat up heating-plates but still lets the anvil soak up heat all night long is to build a plywood "anvil cozy" for his anvils. The plywood box is big enough that he can line it with rigid styrofoam (the stuff with the shiney reflective layer on top) and slip it over the whole anvil. But the real ingenious part is that he attaches inside the top of the anvil cozy a light socket wired to an extension cord, with a 60 - 100 W lightbulb screwed in (so the box also has enough headroom to allow the light socket and buld to fit above the face of the anvil). Everynight he slips the anvil cozy over his anvil and plugs it in. By the time he starts work in the morning, the anvil had been soaking up the radiant heat from the lightbulb for over 8 hours. He says that on really cold mornings his anvil steams when he takes the cozy off - probably hot enough to keep your coffee warm I love that idea.

I wonder if those naval salvage yards still have all those anvils. Bentiron do you know the name of any naval salvage yards? It would be interesting to find out. Sam

Awh -man ... this is just killing me ... a Little Giant 50# is right at the top of my wish list too. Now I wish I'd never seen that post - I'll never get any work done now with that on my mind.

A hairdryer set on low and cool will work just fine - and it's dirt cheap, especially a used one from the local sally-ann. Stick the end of the hairdryer into your tuyere, plug it in, no muss / no fuss it's as easy as that and your neighbours won't even hear it. If you get one with hi, med and low speeds then you have lots of options in your air-delivery that a bathroom fan won't give you, unless you know how to jury-rig a rheostat on it. Trust me a hairdryer is all you need with charcoal ;)

http://cgi.ebay.com/50lb-Little-Giant-Power-Hammer-/250711242729?pt=BI_Pumps&hash=item3a5f8df7e9 needs work to get it running - bid is at $2000 I wish I had the money ... hope it finds a good home. seller is in PA.

They've got 6 induction coils that will heat 1.5" billet to 2200F - $3000 each http://cgi.ebay.com/6-Unused-used-billet-heating-induction-coils-Tucker-/120633756103?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c165509c7 - too rich for my wallet.

Here are some punch tools i made out of coil spring. There is a V chisel, some ball punches, a round punch, a small fuller, a cutting chisel. Forgot about the centre-punch