Rich Waugh

Kevin, I'd guess that it is one of the Fisher and Norris anvils that they made for others to sell under their own names. Many Fisher anvils have no "Fisher" on them, as they originally came with a decal for the logo, which quickly wears off. The foot lugs are a bit odd -looking compared to most of the other Fishers I've seen, but not out of the realm of possibility. All in all, I'd say Fisher.

I've used BIg Blu's and their very decent hammers built by really good guys. That said, I still think the best value in an air hammer is currently the Iron Kiss built by John Larson. That is the nicest ten thousand dollar air hammer you can buy for about six grand. Heavy, powerful, great control and super support from the maker. Oneof the best things about the Iron Kiss is the vast headroom available. It was 9" between the dies, but I think John said he's upping that to 11" for the new ones. That means you can use a vast array of tooling without needing special or weird dies. You can see some of what he offers at Blacksmith Power Hammers - Iron Kiss Hammers, or give John a call. He'll be at Gichner's Hammer-In this weekend, but I don't think he's bringing a hammer.

What brand of lock are they from? There are sources for several out-of-manufacture locks, dcepending on the type and use.

I wouldn't miss it, and I have to fly several thousand miles to get there.

Mine tend to be any chunk of scrap with a hole drilled in it. Quick and dirty. I keep threatening to make a real bolster block if I can ever find a piece of 2" plate about a foot square. Drill a series of graduated holes in it, chamfer them and put it on a sturdy stand. Also have a shorter stand for "floor" use when squaring tenon seats on long pieces. Someday.

Man, that would be be a real help to me, Candidquality! There's no real big hurry, either; anytime in the next fifteen minutes should do fine. (grin) I'll wait for your email, so we don't take up Glenn's bandwidth.

I got overcome the other day with anvil lust (it happens, even to the best of folks), and bought an anvil I've been wanting for years. Unfortunately, it's about twent miles west of Dallas TX, and I'm nowhere near there. Not even close. In fact, I'm in the Virgin Islands, so you can imagine how this is a bit of a problem. I need someone in the Dallas area who might be willing to pick up that anvil and take it to a freight company for me, so it can be shipped. It will need to be strapped to a pallet and dropped at he shipping depot, the shippers will take it from there and bill me at this end. Naturally, I'll pay any costs incurred, plus something for the help. Is there anyone out there who might be able to help me with this? I can be reached at: rich.waugh@gmail.com if you might be able to help me out with this. Thanks!

Ed Thomas is right. If you're going to sell forged work, then forge it. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, looks like real forged work except the real thing. When viewed by a knowledgeable person, the real thing is obvious, as are the fakeries. Why would anyone want to be a faker? There is nothing dishonorable about fabricated work; it just isn't forging, that's all. I like forging. Good forged work is a thing of real beauty to me. Phony "textured" pseudo-forged work is an abomination in my eye. Be honest about what you produce and be proud of it, whether forged or fabbed.

Also check on "micanite", a composite product.

Nope, it doesn't have to be sealed super tight; you're not trying to move the carbon into the steel by creating pressure. The carbonaceous material in there will burn up any stray oxygen that creeps in.

Nope, the idea is to keep the carbon in and oxygen out, but creating pressure isn't necessary. Something combustible (the carbonaceous material)in there burns up any oxygen that might creep in.

Stabilizing wood isn't really all that difficult. It takes a vacuum pump, bell jar or vacuum-tight container, and a sizeable quantity of cyanoacrylate ester (superglue). Dunk the wood in a container of cyanoacrylate and pull a vacuum on the whole works. You don't need a .00000001 millitor vacuum; one of the small pumps used by air conditioning repair places will do just fine. Hold the vacuum for a few minutes to a couple of hours, depending on the thickness of the wood and the density. The vacuum sucks all the air out of the wood, and it is replaced by the cyanoacrylate, which stabilizes it. The same thing can be done even better with methylmethacrylate, but it costs way more.

I built a pneumatic hammer using a 2" by 12" cylinder driving a 65# tup. It works fine, but if I had a 7-1/2hp compressor instead of a 5hp, I'd definitely use a 2-1/2" cylinder. The stroke length of the cylinder can be longer with no problems, but don't ever try to economize on a shorter stroke. If you do, you won't be able to use top tools under the hammer. You want at least 8", and preferrably 9 or 10" of opening between the dies. That usually translates to a 12" stroke cylinder but, as I said, you can use a longer cylinder without problems. The valving on the hammer will just use less than the full stroke of the cylinder, so you won't be "wasting" air; you only use the volume that is swept by the piston and unused stroke costs you nothing. The real killer on homemade hammers is undersied valves and lines. Use a cylinder, air lines and valves with 1/2" ports, nothing less. Make sure your 5-way valve has a sufficient c.v. factor to handle the volume of air you'll be moving. You can calculate it by simple arithmetic; radius of cylinder squared times pi time the stroke equals swept volume of the head side. (The same formula, but minus the volume of the rod gives you the swept volume of the rod side of the cylinder.) The higher the c.v. of your vlaves, the better they will move air and the harder and faster your hammer will hit. Many a good design has been crippled by crappy, undersized valving. Multiply the volume of the cylinder times the number of strokes per minute times two to get the total cubic inches per minute needed to supply the hammer. (Divide by 1728 to get cfm so you can relate it to compressor size.) When amassing the necvessary parts to build a hammer, don't neglect a good, high-volume air filter and micro-mist oiler. I like Norgren brand, myself. Again, get ones with 1/2" minimum ports. Keep your air piping funs as short as possible, avoid tight corners and use copper tubing wherever possible rather than rubber hose. With the copper, use flared fittings, NOT compression collars. Or sweat-soldered fittings, if you can make good joints. It is better to use a mechanical linkage from the treadle to the exhaust valve than it is to have a long hose running down to a foot-poedal valve like the plans show. That long hose has lots of backpressure, resulting in sluggish performance and treadle-response. Lastly, put a filter/muffler on your exhaust port so you're not blowing oil-laden air into the shop to breathe. Pipe the exhaust outdoors too, if you can. Hope this helps.

In order to electroplate steel, you must first plate it with copper, then with nickel, finally with the silver. The silver will still tarnish to some degree. The solutions needed are toxic as all get out, some explosive, and hazardous waste, so the cost has gone through the roof compared to thirty or so years ago. If you're going to do it, you might as well use gold, since it won't tarnish. Actually, a thin rhodium plate over nickel is pretty durable and won't tarnish. Chrome is pretty free of tarnish if you keep it scratch-free. But - all of this is dangerous and expensive. It would be easier and cheaper to just start out working with stainless steel. By the way, galvanizing is NOT necessarily electroplated. Most commonly, it is hot-dipped. A few select materials use electro-galvanizing, or electroless galvanizing. You can get silver nitrate at a medical supply, a photographic supply, a forensic crime scene supply house like Serchie or Lynn-Peavey, or at VanWaters and Rogers Chemical Supply. It is ferociously corrosive to human tissue, (doctors us it for chemical cautery) so wear gloves and don't inhale or ingest it if you wish to continue among the living. Handlin it leaves a very long-lasting blue-black stain on your skin, and it will sear your flesh if you get it on raw tissue. Nasty stuff, so why use it?

I do fast drawing over the far edge of the anivl face near the step, much as Hollis recommended. One thing that will help you on this is to start from the near part of the stock, not the end. That way, the part that is losing heat waiting for you to get to it is hanging off the anvil in the air and not losing heat to a cold anvil face by conduction. Doing this will save me about 1/3 or more of the heats I used to have to take. The other thing that helps is to have a square-faced forging hammer that has a decent radius to the edges. I use the side edge of my hammer's flat face as a "top fuller", and it allows me to swing it from a natural stance that delivers more power and accuracy than trying to use a cross pein.