Gergely

Hi All,

Well, yesterday was a pretty good day: forging 8:00-17:45 with a lunchbreak. Gotta tell you it feels very nice in my different upper body parts.

Although I did not accomplish too much: two bottle openers from bike crank arms, and one big shoehorn made from some old agricultural thing. The horn was actually really power and time consuming task: I begun with a piece, 1' long 1/2" dia threaded rod ending in a ~5/8x5/8 square and after it a ~5/8x1" flat style. I hit it into a 2' long twisted and srolled-end bended shoehorn. No pics yet, coming soon.

Interesting experience that my "half-home-made" 2# hammer moved the steel almost as good as the store bought 1,5kg hammer. Without leaving hammer marks.

So, nice Palm Sunday around here, even if the neighbors expected something else... ;)

Oh, and today was a good day too: I found my first pieces of old wrought iron. Won't go to a scrapyard anymore without the hacksaw  :)

Greetings

Gergely

Hi Eric,

Thank you for the info. Sorry for the late reaction, I was busy with some pieces of steel :)

Bests:

Gergely

Hi,

That's a nice looking hood and forge. Have you used it yet? It looks like it can work efficiently. 

Can you tell how high is the hood from the top of the forge? (Red line in the picture.)

Best wishes and have a good time by your renewed forge.

Gergely

Nice catch! 

I'm going to the scrapyard to try to disassembly two big ornamental-like gate elements. Or to see if those are usable.

Greetings

Gergely

Best wishes to both of you! And keep on the great work of yours!

Greetings

Gergely

this followed me home today, a friend asked me to rehome it

weight is 63kg at a guess 140 lbs

had not seen an anvil with the extra bit near the base before, anyone have any ideas of the use of it.

no markings, 3 handling holes 

table is 5" wide overall length is 17" and height is 10"

Wow, Sir, that is some really awesome score! Are you going to use it or is it going into display?

Greetings

Gergely

Beginners rule of timing in blacksmithing:

If you carefully calculate how much time you're going to need to complete a project... Well, multiply it by three and consider yourself lucky if you get it done in time.

Addition:

If you got your project done in time calculated originally and you're happy with it, it is very much inevitable that you ruined it in some way.

Hi Jon,

I'm happy to hear about you being able to forge again in the wintery Ontario.

Very nice fokos head you got there. It will be a deadly weapon with that 4' long shaft. I'm looking forward to see the ready version. 

Bests to you

Gergely

Hi TJ,

I like those tools too. Very nice with the twisting and bending. If the bends aren't disturbing while using the tools I'd let them be so: unique design elements.

If you don't have any soft material hammer can try what I do: grab a piece of firewood and hit the twisted stuff with it on a stump. It works until you manage to get something better. (If there is no firewood, any piece of unbarked thicker piece of wood works like a primitive mallet.)

Greetings

Gergely

Thank you All for the kind words!

I like the design on the first one.

That's a crank arm for an old bike. It was suprisingly nicely forgeable material. I really liked to hammer on it and it twisted very easily. - I will hunt for these arms cause I like this opener, too. 

Bests:

Gergely

WaughnT: you're right, I called the seller, he said that it's definately a 2. So it has to be 208 and kg-s.

There are some letters above the number, an E and O was recognizable. 

Were there manufactured any anvils of English pattern in the continental Europe? 

I wonder when the european makers first went with the pritchel hole?  Does the lack thereof make it pre-1830?  Or, is the pritchel simply plugged up?

 

Overall, it looks like a quality anvil and I wouldn't hesitate to buy it. I don't see any signs of parting lines, so I feel good about it being a forged anvil.  No way to tell the maker, though, especially when you consider how many there were back in old Europe.

I can't see on the pics whether there is no pritchel at all or is it plugged.

Well, Thomas,

if the first number is 5 and we assume that means pounds, it makes this 508# or 230 kg, which may be correct.

At least if its weight is marked as 508 pounds that could clear one cloud of confusion: if this is an english pattern anvil why would be the weight written in kg-s on it?

Fatfudd:

There is no pritchel hole.

Thanks, 4 of them already went out as gifts. Hope the new owners like them.

G

Dear All,

In Hungary we usually have only anvils of Austrian pattern. But there is this very piece on an auction site which is a London pattern. I contacted the seller but he could give me very few details. All I got is this:

Overall length: 97 cm (38")

Height: 37 cm (14,5")

Weight: there is -208- on the side of the anvil, the seller told me it must be the weight in kg-s, because his 200 kg scale wasn't able to weight the anvil.

Hardie hole size: 4,5 cm (1,8")

NO pritchel hole

If you have any idea what this monster can be, please do tell, I'd be very thankful.

Best wishes

Gergely

After I viewed a couple of bottle opener topics around here I decided to try some myself. 

I managed to pick up some opener-to-be like stuff from the srapyard, so yesterday made those into their second life form. 

The whole idea was originally far from my mind, so I thank you guys for the inspiration, espiacially: 

beammeupscotty, coldironkillz, Michael Dillon.

Any critique is very welcome!

Greetings

Gergely

Here is my first one. This was a scrap crank arm from some old bike.

Thank you guys so much for the inspiration.

Greetings to all

Gergely

I'm with Dave on the asking. How did you do that!? I just can't get what I see.

Very impressive work!

Just asking:

Isn't bending and twisting different kinds of operations? I can twist a bar cold, just did it today with MI, but the same material might crack if I try to bend it 90 degrees.

But I'm not familiar with the book you quoted and also may have misunderstood the whole thing.

Greetings

Gergely

That's really something. I like the shape and surface texture on the blade and the handle. Beautiful. And BIG.

Gergely

Hello and welcome SRM!

If you look for it you can find anything around here already cut and served. 

Have fun and please share your works and toughts! So it will be fun for us, too.

Best wishes:

Gergely

I'm sorry for the previous. I got a bit over-enthusiastic because of some not-so-responsibly-consumed liquids after carrying logs all day. 

If someone authorized person could delete this two comments of mine, I'd be very thankful.

Bests

Gergely

Good for you. I like curved blades very much, so I like this one. 

What steel you used for it?

Bests:

Gergely

Last weekend I was able to forge for 2 hrs I was 1 hammer blow away from finishing my nail header. Had to stop and go pick up the kids from school. Have not fire up the forge since. Been driving me crazy all week. 

Ooh yeah... that's the best.

BUT!!! 

you still got the chance to forge. It's a lot better than not at all. 

Being a wise-a..know-it-all aside I can really feel for you - hurry can kill all the joy. and having an unfinished job is like done nothing. 

BTW: I planned a nice smithing session for today. The wife said yesterday she needs the morning, and after that the father-in-law said there was some road cleaning work necessary to free the way for heavy lifting vehicles to carry in an old (museal) lathe. 

OK so it's a noble cause: a lathe in my shop, it's worth the trouble.

Greetings

Gergely

Eggwelder: I try to PM you, that it wont go too off-topic, but this keyboard went really fightful, so tommorow only

I'm getting to be a huge fan of yours. I'm thinking we could start a cheering section.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

I even found a lousy rhyme:

Loosing tool is hard

Maintaining tool is hard

Remaining overtooled is hard

CHOOSE YOUR HARDTOOLS!

Allright its a paraphrase form here:

http://www.chattingoverchocolate.com/2013/06/35-by-35-4.html

I'm sorry  :D

Gergely