bajajoaquin

I was told to use ATF in my blower gearbox, rather than grease.

Now that I think about it, there's some precedent to that logic. ATF has a pretty high detergent content, and is good at cleaning sludge out of mechanisms. I remember in the old days, if you had a car with a noisy lifter, one of the solutions was to change the oil, and replace one quart of oil with ATF. Get it good and hot, drive it around a bit, but without a lot of heavy service, and then change the oil again, putting in all oil. If the lifter was making noise because it was fouled with gunk, it would return to service.

It would make sense to use that same property in a century-old gearbox, as well.

You know its funny for me in the sense that I am a cheap buyer... Most of the things I buy I am buying because its a "deal" I dont see that as cheap.. I see it as shrewd... But when the blacksmith is buying from me... He doesn't want to pay the price in my eyes because he is cheap... Funny how Im shrewd and he is cheap

Not only are you shrewd, but you're self-aware. An interesting (and unusual) combination.

Since you haven't been deterred from the casting idea, I'd point out that you need to allow extra metal for the sprue, risers, gating, etc. If you want a 200 pound anvil, you're going to need to pour a good bit more than 200 pounds of iron.

I totally agree. That's where I was going with my off-the-cuff "300 lb" number.

If you're pouring the metal, and you run out, you have wasted that pour. So if you want to make a 200 lb anvil, you need to have extra for the sprue, risers, etc., as you said, and then you need extra "extra" to cover errors in estimation. It is cheaper to do a little more the first time than do it all over again.

However, I suspect that once you build a small foundry and get a sense of what would be involved in your plan, you'll change you mind about a cast anvil.

.....

I hope he doesn't give up. I think it would be really cool. Not cost-effective, but fantastic. And who knows? Maybe he'll get good at it, the prices of used anvils will keep rising, and he'll have a reason to go into production. My comments weren't intended to dissuade him, but to keep expectations realistic and avoid discouragement.

OP: I want to cast my own ASO.
Me: Unless you're already set up with all you'd need to cast an ASO**, it'd be cheaper to buy one.
baja: Even if you're already set up with everything you'd need to cast an ASO, actually doing so would cost more than buying a Nimba.
me: Really think so? Nimbas are pretty expensive!
baja: Yeah.

That's a fair summary (although considerably more brief than I'm likely to be! )

**And by "set up with all you'd need to cast an ASO," I meant, roughly, that you already own a cupola capable of melting ~300 pounds of cast iron in one shot, you have all you need to get all that iron into your mold in pretty short order, you already have enough green or oil sand to make a mold that size, you know something about pattern making, etc., etc.

I guess that's the crux of it. Even though I agreed to the stipulation, I don't see someone who is asking some basic construction questions just having that kind of setup laying around. I was also looking at casting in steel. I know that's not the question you were answering, so don't take my comments the wrong way.

At UCSD, they have an iron pour once a quarter or so, and it's a big freakin' deal. It's a huge production, with lots of people involved. And then, they pour less than 50 lb.

But even so: if you have all the green sand, all the fuel, all the materials "just laying around" presumably you have them for a reason. If you use them up for this project, you'll just have to replace them for your next one. So they're not free. If you had all the infrastructure laying around, from the furnace, to the crucibles, to the molds, to the heat treating capability, to the time, to the experience, then yes. You could make anvils cheaper than buying a Nimba.

But then again, you all ready would be casting them. Or something else equivalent.

Ya think? If you already have a cupola, and enough good casting sand, and a bunch of cast iron, and plenty of coal....? Nimbas are pretty spendy.

Just a guess, but yeah. You'd need to have the right alloy, or be able to make it. Which would take experimentation. Melting 300 pounds of steel would require pretty large facilities. Also, those items you listed aren't free, and you would be buying them in relatively small quantities.

You'd probably get it wrong the first time or two, so you'd be paying for your learning curve.

Not the easiest first casting by a long stretch. The biggest problem I see with it is that the easiest material to cast one out of would be cast iron, and for a host of reasons it doesn't make good anvils. Casting one out of steel of any size is beyond the scope of most (read 99.9%) backyard setups. Steel isn't easy to cast, from everything I've read and seen, and has a very narrow temperature window for casting. You just couldn't do it for the price of a good used anvil. The most efficient way to melt that much iron at once would be to use a cupola.

The only exception I'd take to this is that it's out of the reach of much closer to 100% of backyard setups. The capacity to melt, handle, and control 300+ lb of steel, plus the equipment sized to do it is almost certainly a professional setup.

Probably the only way to make this a "backyard" setup is to make the patterns at home to take to a proper foundry to make into molds.

Really neat idea, but the impediments I can see are just too great for a hobbyist. And I'm sure I can't even imagine all the impediments!

... You can buy ASOs for less than what it'd cost you to do it yourself, unless you're already set up for it....

You can probably buy a Nimba for less than it would cost you to do it yourself, even if you're all ready set up for it.

You bet there is one. Someone once said that if you pass up a discarded piece of junk saying you will pick it up on the way back from work so that you don't get dirty, it will be gone by then. And, you'll need it within the week!

Just happened to me, although not with an anvil.

There was a bicycle discarded in the center divider of a road near my house. For weeks, I kept driving by it, thinking I should grab it, "just in case."

Last Saturday, a friend came by, looking for advice on how to make a spinning wheel using a bicycle wheel as the base. When we walked out to the street to loo for the frame, it was gone!

I agree. Bad news doesn't get better with time. If you wait until he's realized it's missing, it will all ready be too late. You can still do the right thing without naming the guy who helped you load the anvil.

How about vertical plates? That exercise is left to the reader, with the hint that the Euler buckling criterion is applicable.

This totally reminds me of the movie Fletch: "C'mon, guys! It's all ball bearings these days!"


Will you tell us when the paper comes out? Or can you tell us about the paper now? Is it specifically about smithing and anvils, or is it about something else, and anvils are a good analog?

Not that I'm trying to criticize for being off topic (I think one of the criteria for a good discussion is going off topic from time to time), but keep in mind that I was thinking of the "monster" definition somewhere around the $7K-$8K, 1,000lb-1200lb examples that Refflinghaus produces and sells.

I don't think anyone here would say that a 500-lb shop anvil is a monster. Just an object of envy.

Could you provide a little context to this?

Baja, if I understand you, you are trying to identify the break point at which it becomes cheaper to roll your own rather than buy. Seems like a useful way to look at it. Since you estimate the time at hobbiest rates I assume you are not making this calculation for pro shops. 50hrs @ $15/hr seems reasonable.

I'm a bit confused whether you are considering a construction with a tool steel plate or rather, laying down hardfacing. I would guess the hardfacing to make a brand new face would be pretty expensive. I think the costs of the non HF welding rod, the grinding materials and the electricity to run all that welding, should be included.

....

Coming at the question from a different angle: New anvils go for about $6/lb. For a used tool in serviceable condition, 50% of the new price, $3/lb, seems quite reasonable.

If you're confused, it's probably because I didn't have a clear idea of what I was trying to achieve. It wasn't so much build vs. buy, but to look at several different ways of valuing an object. And by the way, for anyone who cares to look at it in such a way, you could say that I hit on one element of Marxist theory: the value of an object comes from the labor put into it.

I was definitely confusing in the part about tool steel. I didn't know where I was going with it, other than to acknowledge that anvils aren't made of mild steel.

Mostly, I was thinking about how to value that object in a way other than as emotional objects of desire. An anvil is a tool that produces work with value. There is some artistry, or collector value, but most of the inherent value of it should be related to its utility. (Think of your basic window versus a historic stained glass window.) If collectors are driving the prices up beyond the value inherent to the utility, we should be seeing that reflected when we do that kind of analysis (however informal). But we don't. Or at least I don't.

I'll submit this to the group, and to Southshoresmith's question in particular: If you think about it, anvils should cost about what they do cost. The main issue is that it's different from what we wantthem to cost.

Flap disk (Google is your friend!)

Sorry Insomnia post here....


My question to you reading this thread is.

How much should an anvil cost?
Why should it cost that much?

I've been thinking about this question and I don't think I'm making any more progress on the answer, so I'll just post my thoughts.

I tend to think of things in terms of threshold matters. I.e. what is the threshold above/below which something matters? So for an anvil, I think that would be the cost of the raw material. That should be the threshold below which a lower price would make sense for the anvil to be scrapped, or otherwise not used as an anvil.

I can get odd remnants at $0.25 per pound, and I bought 240lb of blocks at the same price, but that's not reliable. Big off-cuts are $0.60 or $1.00 per pound for mild steel. I don't know the price of tool steel (as for a face), but let's just say $3.00 a pound for the sake of argument.

After that, you have labor costs, on both sides of the equation: on the manufacturing side, there's the labor and fixed costs of production. Given the prices of new anvils, that seems to be around $5-7 per pound for a high-grade anvil. In order to turn my steel blocks and hard-facing wire into a low-grade anvil, let's say it's 50 hours. If I value my time at a hobbyists rate of $15/hr. that would be $950 for a "new" 250-pound anvil, or $3 per pound.

That would say you're looking at somewhere around $1 per pound plus the condition of the anvil as it approaches new. As you get farther from "newness" it would take more labor to return it to the new, fully-usable condition, therefore dropping price.

How do you figure the smoking deals? Look at the labor on the disposal side of the equation. How far is the nearest scrap yard? Do you know where to look for scrap metal prices? Do you have a truck, or other way of moving the anvil? How much time have you spent answering questions and showing it to prospective buyers. All these things (and more) can influence the motivation of the seller to reduce the price.

This is all a long way of saying that I think anvils should cost somewhere between $0.75 and $4.00 per pound on the used market!

.22 is about a quarter pound. 4 oz is small, but I've seen them used for forge welding hammers. Small blows with a light hammer help to set the weld, without splattering the molten steel surface out of the joint. Probably not big enough for forge welding an anchor, but might be just right for putting leaves on stems.

Nice rack too!

If he had two, they'd be stacked!

A good anvil is well worth the money. I think it was more the large increase of people taking up the hobby of blacksmithing over the last 20 years that drove up the price. Many more buyers with disposable cash. It just seems expensive because it is part of your entertainment budget, not your I need this to eat/pay my mortgage budget.

I hadn't thought of the hobbyist angle, but you may be on to something. I suspect that it's a little like the cause of a traffic accident: it's never just one thing. Hobbyists, an increase in professional architectural smiths, nostalgia, collecting fads... there are probably lots of contributing factors.

But I definitely agree with the perception comment. I think I mentioned in another thread that if its something you're using for your livlihood, $400 or $600 (or even $1500) isn't too much to pay for a tool key to your production.

Look at the bright side: as prices go up in the secondary anvil market, that'll drive some of the demand to new anvils. That extra demand will stimulate competition and greater production, which should eventually drive prices down. Pretty soon it's free, new Refflinghauses for everyone!

A perfect example of the free market economy. Southshoresmith offers a subsidy, and not to be out-bid, you offer free anvils. I am sensing that the market won't change direction any time soon. I'm holding out for MonsterMetal to offer to pay me to take some of his surplus off his hands.

It could happen. :D

I'm not sure I agree with the statement that, "Ebay definetly makes the prices artificially high(er)."

I purchased my Hill anvil (185lb) on eBay for $200, or about a buck ten a pound. That seems to be a pretty fair price anywhere in the country, let alone anvil-poor Southern California. I put in my max bid, figuring that it would get bid out of my range, just like every other anvil in my area. But I got lucky, and I won.

Remember that eBay allows more people to look for anvils, which lets more collectors drive prices up. But it also lets more people sell anvils to a wider audience, which would tend to drive them down. Every time someone posts that anvils are impossible to find at a reasonable price, others respond with stories that say just the opposite. I suspect that when the only way of getting the word out was a flyer on the post office wall, things were much the same. There are bargain hunters, and people who don't want to wait.

I totally agree with Matt's suggestion, and followed it myself.

I wasn't sure if this should go here or in welding/fab....

So I haven't been doing much smithing lately, but I have been busy after work, out in my little workshop. Between me, my brother, and my parents, it seems like we're having a need for some bar-height tables when we have guests over several times a year. My mom rents them, but my brother and I just tell people to hold on to their darn drinks.

Anyway, I thought I'd make some up that could be broken down easily and compactly, and transported in a car (so nobody has to come by and borrow my truck). I agonized over how to do it simply, but have finally come up with some ideas. In order to keep it cheap, I'm trying to use stock on hand. Looking around my shop, I found about 100' of 1X3 16-ga rectangular tubing, 6"X1/8" plate (6 or 8 pieces, each about 7' long that I bought as offcuts for a couple bucks each a few years ago), and some 1/8" X 1" strap (about 5' of it).

My solution was to create the center pillar of two pieces of 1X3 stitched together to make a 2X3. I cut out a square of the 6" wide material, and drilled in a square pattern. My legs are 1X3 cut to 12" long. I'm cutting 3" strips of the strap for clean end caps on the legs, and 4.25" strips that I'll drill to put bolts through, and attach to the central pillar. Leveling feet and attachment will be by 1/4-20 rivet nuts. I don't know how to describe it well, but I'm going to have a hook bracket at the bottom of each leg that will slot into the bottom of the pillar. That will locate and support the leg, so that I can attach it with a single bolt.

The top will be Baltic Birch plywood (13-ply) which comes in 5X5 sheets. Quartering that will give me a nice 30" X 30" cocktail table. I"ll put in 1/4-20 T-nuts so that you can screw up from the bottom (no pun intended). I'll make a standard set of wing-nut bolts, which will work in all the spots, so that it can be put together with standard hardware and no tools.

So far, I have one pillar and the mounting plate made, all the legs cut, and the end caps tacked on. Of course the only picture I took was of the jig I made to make all the brackets come out evenly. I'll try to take some more pics tonight when I get a few more things done.

Seeing the different responses to this (and to other threads), I think the choices come down to what camp you fall into. If you're a hobbyist (like me), $700 is a lot of money to spend starting up a recreational activity. If you're a professional, making your money with the tool (like Larry and Stewart), $700 is a pretty reasonable investment, and you'll get a return on that investment by using it for work.

So if you're a hobbyist, find an alternative, and keep looking for a smokin' deal. If you're a professional, suck it up, pay the money, and start earning a return. And keep looking for a smokin' deal.

You don't say if you have anything else to use as an anvil while you're searching, but you might consider alternatives to London-pattern anvils. I did a quick search on Spokane and Boise Craig's Lists, and found a few listings for scrap steel. None of it was really in the form factor you're looking for, but you should still be able to find some around if you keep looking.

I'm still putting together everything I need for a smithy, but I found the common advice to be true: as soon as I found something I could use for an anvil, I found another one near by. In my case, it was 260lb of steel blocks, followed by a Hill anvil that I got for a good price.

So that's my advice. Get something "good enough" to start with. Then you're not feeling pressured to buy at prices you feel are too high.

You need to keep stainless really hot or it will get stress cracks. It gets tough to hammer below orange. The other challenge is that it doesn't spark as it gets to welding heat so you can burn it up if you don't watch it.

I don't know of specific classes. One of my "grad students," Lar, is in the area and may know something: larnotlars@msndotcom

The Rock Ledge Ranch, a living historical farm is in Colorado Springs, and they formerly offered occasional weekend workshops in smithing.

I offer six day intro classes in Santa Fe, 375 miles south of Denver. I've demoed at Vista, Santa Ana, Cazadero, and Petaluma, CA.

http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of Blacksmith Schools

Thanks for the contact info.

I saw your name on the resources list, and thought first about referring her to you, because she goes to visit parents in Albuquerque periodically. I'll certainly be making that recommendation for the future.