Ramsberg

Hey GNJC, You make a very good point. However I would like to point out that during the Industrial Revolution the sharing of ideas was not done freely. Take for instance Corliss' steam engine. His valve gear and valve type was a massive advancement in steam economy and a great step in the Industrial Revolution. He won the coveted Montyon Award in 1878 for his engine, in great part because 80% of the steam engines on exhibit and in use had imitations of his valve type! At the time he was best known for the gear cutting machine which he had invented. When companies would call to acquire one of his gear cutting machines he would tell them NO, you can't have one, they are MINE! He was adament that only his companies would use his gear cutting machines and they would only sell the made gears. This was rather common at the time and frankly it still is. Within a company there was a lot of idea sharing, but between companies it was more a matter of "idea theft" then anything else. The exceptions were the meetings of the engineering societies, which often broke down into arguments(as can be seen from their records) . My point being that back 100 years ago it behoved the smiths to keep their techniques to themselves, since they were competing, literally, with someone across the street from themselves. Today, this type of competition is practically non existant in the blacksmithing world and it behoves us all to share our ideas and knowledge openly. Let the Blacksmithing Revolution continue!!! Caleb Ramsby

The Industrial Revolution occured, in great part, because of two things, greed and competition. Caleb Ramsby

There is a rather fine line here between asking questions that one should be able to easily answer with the vast quantities of knowledge available to one and all and asking specific questions about a specific process that one is having difficulty figuring out. Personally I spent a year and a half studying a dozen or so blacksmithing books before I put a bit of stock in a fire. I must say that I learned more in the first two weeks of working at a fire, then I did in the year and a half reading! What I learned is that half of the stuff in the books was hogwash and the other half was gold, it just took my actually doing it to be able to tell the difference. Of significance however is that without the book learnin' it would have been much more difficult to initiate those first two weeks of work and I wouldn't have known what to do when to what. The study gave me a great advance of "static" knowledge, the work gave me a little bit of "dynamic" knowledge. Once I really got going I more then less quit asking questions on the web(at that time IForgeIron didn't exist, it was mainly AnvilFire) and started answering them. What really floors me is that every few months I check to see what is being discussed at AnvilFire and virtually every time they are discussing the same things as they were 10 years ago when I first started! A number of times on here people have asked increadibly basic questions and I have pointed them to their local library and linked them to a few free blacksmithing books on google books. Sometimes they have responded with, "Yes, I already read them and I have this and that book too. " Well, they may have "read" them, but they sure didn't "study" them! If they had then they would have no need to ask the basic question, the answers are in the books. To me the greatest value of this website and online community is seeing so many different styles of work and of working the metal. A book, however valuable the information in it, usually only shows the style of work and working of the smith who wrote it. Here, every time someone shows a new piece or new(to them or otherwise) technique, they are increasing the knowledge of hundreds or thousands of smiths across the world. That, I believe is the true value of this website, not in responding to bad questions with good answers or responding to good questions with bad answers, but instead in the expansion of ones perception of what blacksmithing can achieve. Caleb Ramsby

Hey Nick, If you really want to get better, then my advice is to stay away from horns and production fixtures for as long as possible! When I started I had a plate "anvil" like you do and learned to form all of the curves over the edge. At the time I was upset that I didn't have a horn to make the work easier, but later I was increadibly glad that I didn't! Since it forced me to learn coordination of the three main elements of blacksmithing, which in order of importance are, the heat distribution in the metal, the position of the holding hand and the control of the placement, force and angle of the hammer blows. Once I got a proper anvil, I found that I really didn't need the horn for bends. It is important to have a nice radii on the edge of the anvil or plate so that the edge doesn't marr the work when bending over it. Keep at it and you will get it. Caleb Ramsby

My main reason for building the hood wasn't just for the smoke, which wasn't that big of an issue. It was more for the exhaust fumes. All that CO and CO2 didn't like my lungs very much and made my eyes water, especially in the very windy wide open country that I was living in at the time. My first outdoor forge had no hood and all though it got in the way at times, I was glad to have it on my second outdoor forge. Caleb Ramsby

Hey Jevan, The best advice I can give you is to make a small "test forge" . One with a manometer, which is a balanced water column or coffee to see it better, in a clear tube which shows the air pressure, on the air delivery tube. Then make a small section of the trough that you want to produce. Then fashion a bit of the wall out of a steel plate, with the ability to bolt on different outer plates. Then make a bunch of different plates with different sized and shaped holes in it. Not just round either, some with slits of different openings. Then keep a record of the tests as to the total port passage area, head pressure on the air and shape and type of flame produced in the charcoal for that plates orifice at different air pressures. This may sound like a lot of work, but it should be doable on a good Saturday or two. Then with the information you have gathered with your test forge with its single orifice, which was designed to be easily swaped out, you will not only know exactly what size and shape of orifices you need, but you will be able to supply said infomation to literally THOUSANDS of other blacksmiths who are wanting to do the same thing or maybe something very different with charcoal! Probably the most important knowledge you will gain is how the orifice shape and air pressure effects the flame shape and size. My initial response to your question was going to be a suggestion to use a continous slot in the side of the forge with some kind of plate on the back of it to shape the area of the flame. Then I realized that although I believe it would work great, I honestly don't know for sure. In other words. You pointed out that there is a great deal of lost and mis-guided information in blacksmithing, I couldn't agree more. Maybe your efforts with the shunned charcoal forge will begin to reverse that problem. Caleb Ramsby

Here is another option. The sides kept the wind from blowing the smoke around. I later made a chimney from two 55 gallon drums that I cut apart, flattened and formed into a 6' or so high rectangular chimney that slipped over the top of the hood. In the back I made the bottom of the hood with a flap that hinged up to allow long stock to go through the back. Never got smoke in my eyes. Caleb Ramsby

Slightly off subject, but the first time I realized how strong women were was as a child and being taught to make bread from scratch. Working a big ball of dough is not nearly as easy as it looks, it takes a great deal of hand and upper body strength when it is done right. Needless to say, I "Wasn't doing it right! " . If one looks at a lot of photos from the 1800's most of the women were rather stoutly built, generally more so then their scrawny husband. In great part I believe this has to do with the demanding physical work that the women did, as well as their vocation if they had one outside the home, often they did. If you have ever picked up an arm load of wet wash or hefted a very large cast iron kettle off of a fire, then you know it took real strength. Honestly, if you compared the max weight lifted on a daily basis by a general blacksmith of that time and the weight of a wet load of wash or a large full cast iron kettle, the women were on a daily basis lifting more max weight then the men were. The only true difference in strength is that generally men have more testosterone then women and the more testosterone one has in their system, the easier it is to develop upper body strength. The opposite is also true, the more one develops their upper bodies strength, the greater amount of testosterone one produces. This is why doctors advise aging men to exercise their upper body with weights. On a lb per lb, height per height basis, a women will have a stronger lower body then a man and a man will have a stronger upper body then a women. These of course are vast generalizations, which I detest using, but it is the way that on average men and women are built, there are of course great variations in the real world. Having said all of that, if I had to rank "strength" on the list of skills required for blacksmithing, it would be close to the bottom! I don't care if it is a 5' tall 90 lb man or a 7' tall 300 lb women, it all comes down to ability. Caleb Ramsby

Hey Thomas, Any idea what sizes the air passages were between the bellows and the coal? It sounds like they were very large, that would account for the light pumping required, as well as possibly rather large valves between the lower and upper chambers. Just saw your reply. Are you saying that you set the pivot on the lever so that the weight of the lower chamber was overbalanced just enough to pull itself down, but not so much that it put a load on your pull? Hey SReynolds, The port size for the Champion firepot can be calculated, but the best is to find out what size has worked very well for someone then duplicate it. Just for fun, here are some pictures of my second forge, with the fan taken off of a cloths drier, hand crank from an old meat grinder, ran out of sheet for the hood so one side is made from a 55 gallon drum that I flattened. Also my nephew looking into the fire, test burning wood pellets. That thing burned charcoal really well, but lacked enough head pressure to handle coal very well, it burned coke OK, but not great. Like an idiot I put the idler on the wrong side of the belt! Caleb Ramsby

Yep, just like Thomas said, more or less. The great or double bellows, as pictured, is really a two part machine, but both parts work on a force in, pressure out basis. The force applied to the bottom chamber of course is applied by the smith and its delivery rate into the top section is determined by the difference between the force applied, the resistance produced by the head presssure in the top section and the valve passage area. The delivery from the top section to and through the grate is determined by the difference between the force applied to the air inside it produced by the weight of and on the top board and the back pressure or head resistance produced by the piping and grate in the forge. If one pumps the top section dead full and keeps pumping then the pressure on the air going to the forge is determined by the force applied by the smith to the bottom chamber. What makes a pair of great bellows so powerfull is that one only need to add more weight to the top section to get more air through the forge, assuming that one can pump against that pressure to fill the top section. A fan has the same head balance or pressure balance issues, but its head on the air(by head I am speaking of inchs of water pressure) is determined by the velocity of the tips of the fan blades. There are also a great deal more losses involved with a centrifugal fan then a bellows chamber, as in head losses in the air flow. Remember that besides the friction losses in the fan chamber, piping to the forge and grate of the forge there are also the very significant losses of the air passing through the pile of coal. That alone can accound for at least 1/2" of water pressure. Small fans with shallow blades also are not nearly as efficient at producing high head pressures as larger fans with deeper blades. So they had to design that rivet forge to give as little restriction as possible for that small fan, otherwise it wouldn't work at all! The only rivet forge I have ever used was a neat looking reciprocating lever type. I really didn't like it, it didn't seem to give enough air to the fire to do any serious work. . . which is probably because it wasn't designed for serious work and just rivets! HA!!! Caleb Ramsby

Pictures or links with pictures, are worth the words of a thousand idiots. . . http://www.blacksmithchic.com/ http://www.blacksmithchic.com/gawk.htm Caleb Ramsby

Hey Mojotoo, Dating an anvil can be rather tricky! First off, if you are going to give it flowers make sure they are metal AND don't make them on IT, make them on the beat up 155 lb Fisher. Where it gets really tricky is that the 155lber will get rather upset and jealous. Can't blame it really, that "thinner better looking Fisher" is difficult to compete with. The key is to take things slow, don't rush it, remember the time period they came from, romancing the anvil takes patience and persistence. You may in fact need to spend more time with the 155lber just to get the 100lbers attention. . . just don't give up! Caleb Ramsby PS. That was all a joke of course. I can't help you with figuring out when it was made, but many others here can and will. Is there a number on it anywhere besided the 100?

Looks to me like the arm is about 35 years old and the hammer 90 years.

I would like to add that one cubic foot of water dropping 10 deg F in temperature will give off 623.4 btu. One cubic foot of air droping 10 deg F will give off .169 btu. That is a difference of 3,689 times the energy given off by the same volume of water as air. Caleb Ramsby

I copied the following from a post I made for someone else who was asking about the propane frosting effect. "Propane as a liquid has a very low boiling point and just like every other liquid out there is has a latent heat of vaporization, the exact btu per lb depends on the pressure of the liquid and its temperature. The latent heat of vaporization is the heat energy required to convert a liquid to a gas or a gas back to a liquid. With water at atmospheric pressure (14.7 psi it requires 970 btu per lb and must reach a temperature of 212 deg F to boil. A btu is short for "British Thermal Unit" a single btu is the heat required to raise one pound of water one degree F. If water is held at 150 psi then it must reach 358 deg F to boil and the latent heat is 864 btu per lb, at 1,500 psi it must be 596 deg F and the latent heat is 556 btu lb. Propane is the same way, the higher the pressure the higher the liquid temperature must be and the less the laten heat is. With a boiler one uses fire to give the water the energy required for it to evaporate and maintain the temperature required at that pressure. Propane absorbs the heat from the atmosphere, here are two links to two charts giving the latent heat at different temperatures and the temperature required at different pressures for propane. http://www.engineeri...ane-d_1203.html http://www.engineeri...ure-d_1020.html If one used a 25 lb tank in 15 hours that would be 1.67 lbs per hour, with roughly 155 btu lb that would be 258.85 btu per hour that the propane would absorb to maintain its temperature. If it is supplied with less heat then that it will drop in temperature and as the temperature lowers the pressure lowers and the latent heat required rises! Propane has a specific heat of .576, so to raise its liquid one degree F it requires .576 btu per lb. This is also how much heat it will give up for one degree F drop. So if you have 25 lbs of propane liquid at 70 deg F and it drops to 50 deg F then 20 deg F times 25 lbs times .576 then that is 288 btu that would be released. This is making it simple though, because as you draw off propane not only does it require heat to vaporize it but it also takes its heat energy along with it. Put another way if you have 60 lbs propane and you took 288 btu away from it, initial temperature being 70 deg F it would drop to 61.67 deg F. If you had 6 lbs and took away 288 btu then it would drop from 70 to -13 deg F! Which would only give about 15 psi, I don't know if that chart is in absolute or gauge in regards to pressure, absolute is considering the atmosphere and gauge is zero at atmospheric pressure, probably it is absolute. As you can see from the temperature/pressure chart that I linked to, the lower the temp the lower the pressure and from the other chart the lower the pressure the higher the latent heat. So it is a double down situation, especially with just a little left in a small tank, then any significant draw of gas from it will drop the temperature so much that the pressure will be too low to do anything. The freezing deal is from the tank walls becoming so cold that they not only condense moisture on them, but they freeze moisture on them. The simple solution is to place the tank in a bunch of water, that way it can absorb the heat from the water instead of trying to absorb the heat from just the air around it, there is a LOT more heat in water. So in effect you can get the operational aspects of a big tank from a small one sitting in a bit of water." Caleb Ramsby

Hearing of his passing is like a kick in the gut! I, like others, keep expecting to see a post on this thread by "NakedAnvil", then I must remind myself. . . well this is tragic. I never had the fortune to look him in the eyes but like others always read rather eagerly what he wrote on here. His knowledge and humility absolutly staggered me! I will never forget having a debate with him in a thread regarding bellow design, namely the air pressure and how to figure it. Eventually we agreed, then later he said something to the effect of, "I thought he was an idiot(speaking about me) at first, but after he explained himself a bit more I realized that he was right and I was wrong." This shocked me a great deal! It is increadibly RARE to find someone with as much knowledge as Mr. Sarver had and even MORE RARE to find someone with that much knowledge that is willing to admit their ignorance in a given subject! Frankly I don't believe that he would have amased such a vast knowledge(which he freely shared with any and everyone) if he had not been willing to admit ignorance on the rare occasions that it existed! He was also just about as practical as one can get. He also freely gave credit where credit was due. Some of his tongs and such were originated in other peoples minds and he would state, "Well, so and so came up with the original idea, I just changed it a bit to make it easier to produce and cheaper. Anyone who knows how it can be improved please speak up! " That is even more rare! I think that everyone writing about Mr. Sarver here has a bit or two or twenty pieces of advice from Mr. Sarver that they charish greatly. Most all of them are somewhere on IForgeIron.com in the forums. Is there a way that we could produce a seperate "forum" that had the best bits of advice that Mr. Sarver gave here? This would be an invaluable tool for everyone here, especially the new people. Maybe it could have sections, such as forges, tools, techniques and of course his jokes. Anyone else think this is a good idea? I can just see him now at the pearly gates alternatly asking Paul how the bleep you forge weld pearls and asking him if he can "Exchange an old Goddess for two newer models." May he smile forever! Caleb Ramsby

Don't forget that Henry Ford started up by making nothing, he had others produce the chasis and body, then his "factory" assembled them. Later of course he instituted the "from dirt to pavement" ownership of the supply chain. Frankly, he was a major xxxxxxx and very tough to get along with. His moving assembly line resulted in the highest turnover rates in the country if not the World. The average stay for a new employee was one and a half months and it cost $100 to train them. Thusly he issued the $5 a day pay program for his workers, which was an astonishing wage at the time. It more then doubled the pay of most of the workers. Thusly he was heralded as a "peoples hero" when in fact the working conditions were so poor and his workers were driven so hard that the pay raise was required. Unfortunatly it is usually the "throat steppers" with "the only correct opinion in the world" which make it to the top. They reach the top because that is where they demand to be and anyone which refutes their claim is crushed. Frankly, almost everyone here, including me, is a stuborn xxxxxxx and wants to do things their own way. This can cause issues at times, especially if someone states that "there is only one way to do something", if they added "for me" then I would agree, but to say that everyone in the world should do things exactly the same way is flat out foolish and/or dictatorial. I for one live in a free country with free minds and am very proud of that fact! Caleb Ramsby

You must have been checked twice on the nice list! One thing you can do with the flat tongs is fit each one to a different size of stock, that is what most smiths do. With the eight in the photo you could go 1/8", 1/4", 3/8", 1/2", 5/8", 3/4", 1" and 1 1/4". Some smiths have tongs going from 1/8" up to 2" in 1/8" increments, always a tong for the job at hand. You may want to do a spark test on those hoof nippers, they may be rather good steel so as to hold the nipping edge. Caleb Ramsby

Nuge, was that the first time you ever moved anything heavy? The original poster has stated that he has never pulled a trailer, much less moved anything heavy. I re-read his last post and he is taking someone with knowledge along, which is a very good thing! I used to go very out of my way to "do everything myself, my way", but the longer I live the more I realize that this often results in a false economy. I was just trying to point out that there are a great deal of hidden dangers involved with moving something compact and heavy such as a platten table and someone with a great deal of knowledge in regards to doing such things will make the process much safer, but nothing in this world is completely safe, nor should it be, what fun would that be. However pros make mistakes too: http://www.osha.gov/dts/maritime/sltc/ships/rigging/rigging_accidents.html http://www.croberts.com/rig.htm Caleb Ramsby

Hey Dan, I have got to agree with Bob Mainely, this doesn't sound like a very good idea! Don't trust clamps to hold anything that is moving in place! Especially on the bed of a big truck, trucks vibrate a LOT and vibration loosens clamps. Always imagine what will happen if/when a hold down piece fails. Also of great importance is the center of gravity, with small wheels the rolling resistance is very great when it encounters any bump, the great resistance will torque the legs, if the legs bend/break off then the metal slab will come crashing down, maybe damaging the truck or crushing a person. I just flat out don't trust rollers, they remove a great deal of control from the process and add a great deal of danger. Lifting the item with a profesional operator and equipment is just about the only way to go. If you hire a profesional then you could pick their brain about the how, why and what of moving heavy items on the way down and back, plus you get something potentially very dangerous done safely. Caleb Ramsby

Hey Jesse, I recall seeing some of your earlier work on that glowing flashing box and thinking, "If this guy learned some blacksmithing, there would be no limit to what he could make." I for one was astounded by the vast increase in my ability to create out of metal once I went from welding/fabrication to blacksmithing. I for one do NOT envy your position or exposure to humanity. There are many aspects of myself that if under a bright light would still be as dark as xxxx. Caleb Ramsby

I looked it up and it appears that the record for a sledgehammer lift is held by Slim the Hammer Man with a pair of 56 lb sledges on 31" shafts, that would give 1,736 lbs of force or resistance to the wrists! Phil, I should have been more specific, I was refering only to the static load or force on the wrist when lifting the hammer dead off of the anvil. Yes, much more must be considered when figuring out the striking force on the work. One thing of interest is that the old steam hammer makers found that although a smaller hammer moving fast would produce the same foot pounds of force as a heavier one moving slowly, there was a difference as to what part of the work was being deformed. The lighter hammer would deform the outer surface of large stock and could cause internal sheering of the metal. The heavier hammer would penetrate deeper into the work and deform it all the way through. This is why I prefer a light hammer of 1 lb or so to finish or smooth thin elements, it just kisses the surface of the metal. Caleb Ramsby

Maybe we could all learn a bit by sharing the head weight and distance from the center of hammer head to center of the hand. My favorite hammer is 3 lbs and I hold it 8 1/2" from the head, that gives 25 1/2" lbs of force. Caleb Ramsby

The production of damage to ones self is directly related to the leverage on the wrist created by the hammer. Looking at Alecs videos the center of his hand looks to be roughly 4" from the center of the hammer head. The head is 5 lbs, multiply that by 4" and we get 20 inch pounds of force. Compare that to a guy using a 2 lbs hammer with the center of his hand 12" away from the center of the hammer head, that is 24 inch pounds of force. A 3 lbs head at 12" is 36 inch pounds, that is 1.8 times the leverage created by a short grip with the 5 lb hammer. Grab a 6 lb hammer by the head, swing it and notice that there is virtually no stress in your wrist, forearm or elbow. Caleb Ramsby

OK, my main point which I never seem to get to is this. There is fact based on fact and theory based on theory. If someone uses a bomb type calorimeter, a device in which a fuel is burned in pure pressurized oxygen and surrounded with water, to determine the heat content of a given fuel. Then they are using facts, such as the specific heat of a gas, a liquid and a solid, to determine the calorie content of a fuel. That is a fact based on a fact. Now if someone finds some man made article in the ground, then the question is Who, What, Where, When and How. They would then use other peoples theorys to produce their own theory as to the Who, What, Where, When and How of what they found. Hundreds, Thousands or Millions of years simply can not be reproduced in a lab, they can't be reproduced period. The vast majority of archaeology is based on theories, which are based on theories. The only facts are the articles found and very often exactly what the article is and what it was used for is up for debate as much as who produced it and when it was produced. What it is composed of can be determined in a lab but that is about all that can be verified as a pure fact. Caleb Ramsby