Jason L

I'd love to go but I'm not sure I can make it. I certainly hope I can

Was the hole near the feet drilled in later do you think? My HB doesn't have that. What would the purpose be for something like that? Mine also doesn't have the number stamped on the heel but other than that, they look the same.

I actually have that grinder Dan and it's ok. As was said it's not the best thing for knife grinding but it does work and it's much cheaper than a KMG. The motor is a little weak so you can bog it down fairly easily and the belts are a bit too small but if it's what you can get, go for it. It's still faster than filing and it does a relatively good job. I like working with it myself but I'm still planning to make a 2"x72" eventually.

I've learned a lot from this site and in fact it has opened many gateways to me so that now I'm able to actually crank out a little bit. There is a lot of good info on here. I also recommend Purgatory Ironworks lots of good info on there for newbies and people just starting out.

Hey Matt, I've seen that anvil and I've had half a mind to call the guy about it but it's slightly further away than I'm able to travel at the moment. I would love to have it though, it looks like it's a really great one. I wish there were some a little closer to home, but for the next few weeks anyway I'm down for the count due. The forge I've been working on is sadly on hold also for the same reasons. Soon things will be back to normal and I hope to find another anvil within range that I can afford

I live in Central Alabama and travel is limited for me at the moment so my search range is rather small. I've only seen two anvils in this county ever and I've never met anyone who knows where any are. The two that I found are at my work and the boss refuses to sell them because they are antiques and it's his retirement plan. He had them hidden just not well enough. It only took me about three months to find them lol. I've asked everybody I know and nobody has ever seen one around here. I'm sure they have they just don't remember it. The closest I've found one was an hour away and I bought it even though it was cast iron because it's the only one I had ever seen. I've been dealing with antiques for years by the way so I know all the hot spots to find the best stuff within my home range. I also am not rich so $500 is a lot to spend for a 100 lb anvil that's new. I work at a scrap metal yard so anyone throwing one out, I've got the word out to come and get me immediately. As of yet it hasn't happened. About 50 miles is as far as I can go at the moment to do anything and there is nothing within that range. I hear a lot about people paying $2 or less a pound for them but most of the ones I've seen for sale on Fleabay and craigslist are mostly closer to $5 and up although I have seen some cheaper ones. New ones must be made out of diamonds as some of them are higher than $6 a pound and almost all of them are higher than $5 a pound. I'm sure that anvils are common in other places but here, they are rare to non-existant. As I've said, I've been rooting around every antique shop within 100 mile radius and never found but one and I bought it.

I have contacted the AFC but am waiting a reply. They're suppose to send me some literature or something. There's a chapter south of me about an hour and the two gentlemen you mention are almost 3 hours away. Hopefully I'll get the info soon, I'm really interested in building up my tools and getting everything going. Like I said, an anvil isn't an absolute must since I have a cast iron one (not Harbor Freight by the way) and two pieces of RR track. I'd just like to have one. Really like to that is lol

I too have had an impossible time finding an anvil. I've only seen two in my life around here and I saw both of them last week hidden on a pallet of cast iron where I work. They are both good anvils (one is a Fisher and the other says M&H Armitage Mouse Hole on it.) but they belong to my boss who won't sell anything that might be an antique because he's saving them for his retirement. Other than that, I've never seen an anvil around here. Money being tight like it is, the expense of an anvil is ridiculously out of my league as the price on most of them are comparable to a used car. Most of the people who have spares want to hold on to them. I've got railroad track and I've got a cast iron anvil that I had to drive an hour to find but I'd like to have a real honest to goodness steel anvil with a decent horn and decent edges. Something with a pritchel hole would be nice too. It seems to me that somewhere out there there should be an anvil manufacturer that produces decent anvils at an affordable price. I know I'm just spittin in the wind but it would still be nice to find someone out there that realizes anvils are made of steel and not gold.

Bill, forges can be made out of almost anything that can withstand the heat. The simplest forges are nothing but a hole in the ground with air supplied by people standing around the fire blowing through reeds at the fire. I started out using a brake rotor and a hand powered air mattress pump but I have since added to it and it works great. I've successfully forge welded in it and it's cobbled together with parts that would sound ridiculous to most. All the parts were free, scrounged from local sources. That being said, drums and rotors do work, but they can be aggravating since they hold very little fuel, there is not much room to work in, and it doesn't look very nice lol. I am building a new forge so the old one is officially retired right now. I'm welding a firepot together and hopefully will be done this afternoon. Then I just have to add a table and a reliable source of air and viola! The thing to remember is, all you need for a forge is something to hold the fire, some way to inject air into the heart of the fire, and something to bang on. Not a difficult concept on the face of it but sometimes a little tough to find all the parts. Take a trip to a local junkyard, mechanics shop, hardware store, and any other place you can find scrap metal that you can use. Here's a great video that gives some great info on the brake drum forge that might help you out... YouTube - Part one The Brake Drum Forge

The simplest is a hole in the ground, cost, $0. I've seen a guy make one out of a shovel before, it's on one of the other forums if your interested in seeing it. Really neat little design. Check with the local scrap yards. If they buy old cars, there's sure to be drums and rotors laying around. Also check out the washtub forge (Lively forge?). Lots of things will work, it's just a matter of seeing it from a different perspective.

I have two pieces of track, one small gauge and one large gauge. The big piece weighs in at 98 lbs and the small one is probably around 30 lbs or so. They both work very well for me and as far as the size of the work area is concerned, I've always figured that it only has to be as big as the hammer face that's hitting it. I could be wrong but it seems to me that that's the only part that is being used anyway. Neither of mine have horns although the smaller one appears to have been cut so that a horn could be added later. I picked up the only anvil I've ever been able to find (it's cast iron I believe) so I'd have a horn to work on. For the record, the only thing I've ever used is the pieces of track and they work great. Really loud though, the ringing is bad enough to hurt my ears!

You could try welding some nuts on the bottoms of the legs and run bolts up through them so you can adjust them for any terrain. You can also weld some plate on the bottom of the bolts so that the feet won't sink in the ground. Just a thought and it might not be the best idea but it's something I've been thinking about doing for mine unless there is something that I'm overlooking

Thanks for the welcome friends and I'd like to say that I have learned a lot from reading the posts of some of the greats on this forum. This is one of the best resources out there for someone interested in the craft and the blueprints section... whew! There's a month's worth of reading right there, and worth every second. For the record, you folks have pretty much negated the use of the search function for me since your posts are so detailed (and many times way over my head lol) that further research is unnecessary. There are also so many different ideas going on all the time that I rarely can think of something that isn't here already! The members of this forum are way ahead of the curve on all fronts and I applaud you all!

Thanks for the reply Frosty, although I have to apologize to you and everyone on this forum. I spoke out of turn and I said some things that seemed like a good idea at the time but after having had time to reflect, I was wrong in posting what I did. I gather this isn't the first time an issue has arisen with this particular member but I must admit ignorance on that. What I was trying to say was that if someone new came to this site looking for info and this happened to be the first post they came across, they might get the wrong impression. I know that this is an isolated incident but I have been reading for awhile. As far as the links, I understand both sides of that issue. I noticed that lots of people posted links (really great info too) to sites dealing with the original question but it seemed to me that when the original poster replied, he was only defending his position as far as why he couldn't find the info in the first place. Of course I could be wrong and I certainly hope that the issue resolves itself to everyone's satisfaction and maybe the OP got the info that he was after. In the end, we all say or do things sometimes that we regret and this is one of those times for me. I should have known better but emotion overrode common sense and I apologize for the post. I hope that I've not offended anyone and I certainly hope that this matter will die a peaceful death with all in attendance being well fed at the wake (I am in the south after all). Forgive my impulsiveness and I've asked that my original post be removed since it was not part of the solution. I hope that this matter will be forgotten soon enough and we can get back to what we're all here for, education!

I think pretty much everybody missed the first part of this statement. I know I don't post much but I enjoy reading the topics most of the time. This is one of those occasions that I just can't understand. Someone comes in for help, tries to explain that he went through the proper channels, yet everyone treats him as if he has been caught selling crack at the elementary school. I'm a member of several forums of various description and I've seen this on one of them before. I no longer go to that forum. Something that people seem to miss the boat on is that the search function is not infallible. I've used the search function on here many times and about 99% of the time, no matter what I type in, the same posts come up and it's usually a very close approximation of the new posts list. The people who have been here for eons know what to type in to find certain things because they've already read the post and more than likely can remember key phrases that will make it come up. My point to all of this is, if you get tired of hearing a question, and believe me I understand that fully, why berate people if they don't know the answer? Why try to make them feel stupid because they don't know something and you don't feel like answering it again? Is there some reason why people expect the search function to work 100% of the time with 100% accuracy, even if a person doesn't know what to type in? I can understand getting tired of answering the same questions over and over again. I got tired of it myself on several other forums. Did that give me the right to be rude to those that ask again? No it didn't. I just stopped replying to those threads. By the way, not once have I ever told someone to go find it themselves. If I didn't answer their question it was because I didn't reply. All in all, there are some great resources here. There are lots of very knowledgeable people with a lot of education to spread around. I enjoy the information I get here very much and I hope to continue to do so. I simply think when something is a bit off, someone needs to say something about it. I noticed a lot of posters replying giving this guy a hard time for not reading what people posted but I noticed also that every one of those people griping about him not reading the posts did not read the first line of his post which I will quote again for those that missed it the first time... Not one person has come in to say they saw this and understood that he did try. Instead, there are 6 posts out of 10 berating him for not reading after he posted the above quote. I'm assuming you've had problems like this before but I don't know, I only saw this thread and what appeared to be a bunch of people ganging up on one person for not being able to find what he was looking for. I don't think that anyone on here has took the time to think about what new members might think if this is the first thread the look at when they come here. For the record, it's a public forum and you all have the right to do whatever you want. There is a responsibility though to try to keep things a bit more dignified than what I've seen in this thread. If there have been problems in the past, take it up in private. Just a suggestion. It doesn't embarrass anyone and it doesn't hurt the forums image. If you don't feel like answering the same questions over and over again, don't. It takes a lot less effort to not post anything than it does to jump in and berate someone publicly. One other thing, I know several people that have learning disabilities and none of them approve of their legitimate handicap being used to slander others. Some of them are even sensitive about the fact that they are different. With the millions of people on the internet, I can only hope that this is not the first thread that someone with a disability like that encounters here. It's offensive to some and rightly so. My whole point is, there is no reason at all to publicly display this argument other than to prove who has the bigger one. It seems that backing out didn't even end this mess for the original poster. I'm not impressed and I really don't care if my posting privileges are taken away because I've irritated someone who has the ability to take them away. It's a good thing everybody doesn't have that ability or the internet would be blank. Thank God that right is reserved for the elite who know what opinions are worthy for public consumption. This has left a poor taste in my mouth and I think that some time should be spent actually reading the original poster's posts in this thread. I know that several people quoted him but none seemed to have read the words. For the record, the search function rarely works unless you type in very specific terms and I've found that to be the case on every forum I've ever been to. They work maybe 10% of the time and the rest of the time they just bring up new posts. For example, "steel types" brings up 154 pages most of which have no relevance whatsoever to the different types of steel. Unless you knew that there was a chart for the different types, you might not think to type in "steel chart" which by the way turns up 34 pages. If you don't have the patience to look where you know it is without crawling someone's xxx, then how can you expect them to have the patience to dig their way through thousands of possible pages to find an answer that might not even make the list? With that I am done with this post. I certainly hope that this is not indicative of the type of treatment every new member can expect, otherwise membership will soon suffer. That being said, I do enjoy the site and I gain a lot of good information from here, I just hope it doesn't eventually turn into endless pages of question with the only answers being "look it up". Many of you have the knowledge, and I assume you came here to share it, what's the big deal?

I've used both on antiques that I've tried to restore and I've found that lemon juice works as well as anything. I usually let stuff soak overnight in it and it works pretty good

I understand the 'learning pile', in fact, that's the first thing I'm building lol. I think I can put that together fairly easily. right now, I'm trying to figure out what to try first. Tongs and other tools would be great, but for now I think I'll just learn how to work the steel. Maybe draw out some bars, reshape some oddball stuff, that sort of thing. I don't want to get ahead of myself at the moment. steel isn't easy to come by around here. It's about an hour drive to the nearest friendly scrapyard. Right now I'm just banging on stuff I've found in my yard and RR spikes.

I'd love to make some tongs but I'm not really confident with my skills just yet so I'm just beating spikes into submission. I've been using coal that I dig out of my yard but that supply is dwindling and more is hard to find. I might have to switch to charcoal. Like I said, I don't know much yet but I'm slowly trying to get the feel for it

Thank you. I'm hoping to learn a lot more before I actually start working with decent steel or upgrading my equipment. I would like to know that I can make something useable and attractive before I go throwing money at something. Of course, it would probably be easier with the right equipment, but if I can do it with what I have then I can do it with anything.

I'm new to the world of blacksmithing but I have made a few knives (stock removal only) so metal is not entirely foreign to me. I have built a homemade forge from a brake rotor and a pipe stand from an old diner table with a hand pump that works but it is brutal. I've read a little here and there and been fascinated with the level of craftsmanship I see here and on other forums. I'm hoping that one day I'll be able to produce items as superb as the ones I've seen so far. I know that my setup is not ideal, probably even for a beginner and I'd like to work on something better, but right now I'm learning and I just want to take my time and figure out the process before I upgrade to actual equipment designed for the purpose. I have many questions that I am scouring forms to answer and so far, most of my questions have been answered many times. I would like to know if there is a reference to the various types of steel available (as in, what do the identifying numbers mean?) and if there are any tips or advice that I could gather from those far more experienced than me. Right now, money is tight, so my entire setup was free and so is all he practice metal. Mostly RR spikes till I get a feel for it. I'd like to know what I'm doing before I mess up good metal. I'm also very curious about gas forges, though at the moment I don't have the means to acquire one. I'd like to set one up in the future. For now, coal dug from my backyard will have to suffice. Thanks in advance for any advice/tips, and I love the work I've seen so far. Really beautiful. You folks are truly artists of the highest calibre.