bajajoaquin

I've spent some time looking at how to harden the face of mild steel (you can search on my user name to find some of the threads). You have three options: 1) Carburize or case harden the face. Nobody with deep knowledge has determined that this would be a good and/or cost-effective idea 2) Weld a hard or hardenable steel plate on top. One of the members here did that with an anvil, grinding away to form a deep channel on each side of a central ridge, and had very good results. 3) Apply hard-facing wire to the face. There's an anvil restoration article on the interweb that uses this method and another anvil that was built here doint it. Rod is the easiest to find. The I Forge Iron member did it by TIG, and MIG is available, which is what I am going to be using. Face-hardening wire is about $15/lb, with a minimum purchase of 10 lb. I would imagine that stick rod and filler rod would be similar. So why are you doing this? Your steel plate weighs about 55 lb, and if you add a plate, or hard-face it, you'll be around 60 lb. You're talking about significant expense and effort for a small anvil. If, like me, you want to do it for the sake of doing it, that's reason enough. But if you're looking for a cheap way to be striking iron at home, I'd put your money and time into an effective stand and hold-down, keep it cheap, use what you have, and keep looking for other options.

I have a pic up in the gallery. As you can see, it needs a bit of cleanup, and I'm going to start figuring what else it needs. So far the "for sure" list is a set of end mill holders, an arbor, and related support pieces. More as I have it.

I'll see your set, and raise you $20 in San Diego: My link

You've all ready gotten the bottom off, so this is more for someone who searches on the topic later.... The problem here is that propane is heavier than air, so just opening the valve may only release the propane that's under pressure. Upside down would be better, but not totally assured. Many guys fill with water to displace gas. It only needs to go "boom" once to ruin your day.

Atlas didn't make a vertical milling attachment, but a company named Marvin did. Unfortunately, they seem to be quite expensive and rare. I'm not too worried about it, since it can still run an end mill, I just have to think 90 degrees off! As I did some research, it looks like I'm missing the stabilizer bar, and the arbor for Woodruff cutters. It has a 2MT spindle, and currently has a chuck in there for tool holding. It has the original milling vise. The bar is 1-1/2" solid bar, but I'm not sure how easy it will be to find the arbor. It has the power table feed (X axis, I think), but I haven't run it yet to see how everything works. Other than the arbor, bar and bushing, it seems to be complete. Only one cutter, and no other tooling. Still, for $275, I'm pretty pleased. For those who are curious, info can be found here: Lathes.co.UK -Atlas Horizontal Mill. If you check the links, there's a picture of an unknown-manufacturer vertical milling attachment. I'm wondering if, with some more practice, I can make one. I'll get it out of my truck on Saturday, clear a space, and take some pics this weekend.

I picked up an old Atlas bench-top horizontal mill yesterday evening. I'm pretty excited, because I've been looking for small shop mills and lathes lately, and this one came along. Originally, I of course wanted a vertical mill. But when this came along, I snapped it up. I loaned my truck to my brother for a couple weeks, so it's in the back of it tied down for another couple days until he can come by and drop it off. I'll take and post pics when I get it here. That's it. No questions. Just idle excitement.

So you have the block on the left, and you're looking for the block on the right? Yater Blocks on SwageBlocks.com Not that I have one, but I was just looking at the SwageBlocks.com site yesterday.

That link is not working for me.

Well said. I'm glad I kept deleting the comments I had on the subject. You said it much better than I would have.

I second the thought about the mill. You should be able to get a drill chuck for it pretty cheap. Look at Enco. The mill should tell you the taper of the quill. Its probably MT3 or 4. From there you can get an adapter for a drill chuck. For example, I think I spent $30 to get a drill press up and running. I bought a 4MT to 3JT adapter, and put my 3JT chuck on the press. How heavy is the steel you're using for your anvil? Any sense of what kind of steel it is? Until you find another, bigger anvil, probably your best bet is to find a way to mount it, so that it's as solid as possible. Last, get a smaller hammer. You can probably find a 2 to 2-1/2 pound cross pein or ball pein at a garage sale for a few bucks. If not, you can buy them (as mentioned) at a local hardware store for $10-$15. A lighter hammer will be more effective than a heavier one.

I think the video was made by the seller, not the smith who produced the openers. That site seems to have a video for most of their products.

Also check out the Vista Forge web page. Tongs are a lesson taught in the Basic 1 classes. Look for the "simple tongs" in the projects section ("very simple tongs" require pre-cut blanks). http://www.cbavista.com/

I'm not sure how many more tools you really need at this point. There are lots of comments in threads on here (usually about really nice anvils) that it's the smith who makes the tools effective, not the other way around. If you have two hammers all ready, you probably have enough to keep you going until you come across bargains, or find an expensive one worth while. You don't say what you have right now, but if you have a 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 lb hammer ball or cross pein, and a smaller ball pien, that's a pretty good start. For forge welding, you probably want a small ball pien. But that's pretty easy to find at a garage sale. Patience!

I don't charge for my smithing (still an amateur), but I did set up a cost and pricing model for a manufacturing company a few years back. I used Microsoft Excel to set up a spreadsheet that would calculate the parts of the job, and then add them up. It was broken out by component, with a unit of measure for each part of it. There was also an overhead component that accommodated rent, lights, consumables, etc. So, if we were building a run of 150 clothing racks for a retail store, it might have 3 shelves, 2 hang bars, one base and one central frame. I'd break the components out into shelves, bars, base, and frame. Each component would then be further broken down into the steps required to build it. Shelves would be cut, then edged, then trimmed, laminated, drilled, and boxed. Each step had a time factor, for which I had a shop cost (note, that's separate from price). Multiply times quantity per unit and times number of units, and you would have your cost for that component. (It would also give me the ability to price additional components, which came in handy.) When I calculated the overhead, I figured on a dollar figure per hour, and a certain percentage of capacity (I figured the shop ran at a steady 80%). The total hours in each component then got an overhead charge associated with them. This all got added up, and the cost was calculated. I had a couple more formulae to calculate certain percentage markups, so the owners could make an informed decision. Working it back to blacksmithing, think about Brian Brazeal's post on making a crane. All the steps are laid out. If you give a time estimate for each one, you could come up with a total time estimate for a crane. Of course, this is if you think of your work in clear steps like that. I'm not there yet. Another thing to note is that I made sure to include setup line items. Every time you have to change a tool (or make a heat, I suppose), you need to account for the time it takes.

The San Diego Zoo doesn't have "cranes" listed in their animal group names page, but if storks are close enough, then it would be a "mustering." San Diego Zoo: Animal Group Names

Does Andy Rooney wear boxers or briefs? Depends! How much experience do you have? How much money do you have? How much training do you have? I take classes with the Vista Forge group of the CBA. They're only $5 per month, but I also need to join the museum which hosts the shop and the CBA. Even the basic class gets into tempering. If you don't have any experience with it (I know I don't), that would be of some value. But let me put it another way: When I used to race cars, I started out running SCCA autocross in my local stadium parking lot. Cost me about $25/day to participate. I had fun, but I wanted to be faster. So I bought new wheels, tires, shocks, and sway bars for my Miata. Cost, all told, about $2000. I also spent $125 on the autocross school. The difference in my lap times from the school was waaaaaay more than the difference from the parts I bought. If you have the money, do it. You'll get a full day of forging and meet some other smiths in your area. You might even learn something new.

Most political? Perhaps. But also the most specific to that point. It's easy to throw around generalities about how bad everything is (environmental regs), but it's much more difficult to say specifically what's bad, and defend your opinion. Same goes for a blanket statement that "progressives" are hurting America. It's easy to be nebulous and call people names when they disagree with your opinion, but it's harder to say specifically what harm they're causing, without distorting facts. It's easy to say that Harley "did it themselves" and all the government did was steal our money. But it ignores the lobbying Harley did to put the tariff in place, maintain monopoly status on sales channels, and the use of the patent and trademark offices to try and seize public domain property. So yes, when people make venomous generalities, I am likely to reply with specific rebuttals.

What diameter wire and how big a machine did you use? The spec sheet I found says 2 layers. Is that an example, or a maximum?

Really? DDT, lead paint, CFCs, and smog are smart? Carly Fiorina (our Republican candidate) shipping jobs to China and changing HP from a high-margin market leader to a low-margin commodity builder is the example of how conservatives will lead the country to renewed industrial prosperity? Meg Whitman being a part of the Goldman Sachs pillaging of the economy, making $120mil and laying off workers?

Um, no, it's not at all like the "gloves, no gloves" thread. People don't wear gloves because of concern that they may cause extra injury, or interfere with the ability to perform a task. This is absolutely not the case with motorcycle helmets. Helmets do, in fact, protect against impact above parking-lot speeds. To think otherwise is to misunderstand the mechanics of the vast majority of motorcycle accidents, and the injuries that the helmets are designed to prevent or mitigate. Sorry to rant, but the decision to wear a helmet, or to legislate (or not) should be made on accurate information, not on urban legend. For the record: I'm pro helmet, and anti helmet law.

They're not traditional, but you can get made-to-order welding caps with and without bill here: http://www.dadscaps.com/ I've got a few, because the price is right. No affiliation, other than as a satisfied customer.

Unfortunately, it was sold before I got there. The seller never replied, but my follow-up email was rejected by Craig's List because the ad was removed. Well, back to hard-facing my steel blocks!

I'm sorry, you must be looking at a different ad. The one I replied to is offering a different brand of anvil: "Hay and Butten Blacksmiths' Anvil. 185 lbs. Rings like a bell" Far superior to Hay Budden, I'm sure!

Wow. I check daily, and that must have come in after I looked this morning. I sent him a note. Wish me luck!