ausfire

Now there's an idea. I'll find some more old nippers and do both.

I found a bottle of 'Powdered Graphite' in our old chemist shop. It's very finely ground. No idea what it's medical use was, but perhaps it would be a good punch lube???

Well, Black Frog is half right. It didn't happen. One minute you own a nice anvil, 12 hours later you don't. We accepted the guy's eBay 'Buy it Now' price, arranged secure payment through Paypal, arranged for pick up and delivery to Ohio - deal done. Then another guy arrives with a station wagon and a better cash offer and the seller backs out of the eBay sale and sells it to him. Questionable ethics, but there are people like that. I don't know if eBay works the same there as it does in Australia but it seems to me he will still have to pay the commission on the eBay selling price of $1300. And here, once you hit the "Buy it Now" button, the seller is under obligation to sell. I think some negative eBay feedback is heading his way. But anyway, that's history now. The anvil has gone north, not south. We'll put that behind us and continue the search. Our friend in the U.S. was angry about the whole thing, and I believe he let the seller know. He told me on the phone this morning he is more determined than ever to source another quality anvil for export to Australia. He says there are still some out there. Anyone know of a mid size PW or HB for sale? The closer to Ohio the better.

Ha Ha. Love that Roadrunner. Co-incidentally I had one of Jim's 'drop everything and run' days as well and it resulted in a new anvil for me. Albeit the 'running' was done by phone to the U.S. End result - a 300# anvil heading to Australia. I posted more about it in 'Anvils'.

Anvils are a rarity in North Queensland, Australia, and I have been looking for one for some time. I've been using a pretty ordinary, well-worn old thing at my home forge. (Got a good Kohlswa at work) I bought a nice one today. From New York! A 302# American Wrought in good original condition which was advertised on U.S. eBay. At $4.30 a pound it seems a good deal, especially compared to what is available here. So it's in for a long overseas journey. Fortunately we have a container of vintage tractors coming over from Ohio later this year so the container will have a stowaway. The American Wrought is about to become an Australian citizen. I am greatly indebted to an American friend who sourced this for me. Don't know a lot about American Wrought; I believe it was an off shoot of Hay-Budden. Anyway, it's a quality anvil and I hope I can do it justice by forging nice things.

That nail header you bought sounds like a monster! More of a spike maker. If you look up Tubbe's post in 'Tools' you will find his clear diagram of how to make a nail header and an excellent video of how he uses it. I made mine from an old bolt and it works just fine.

ACME! Isn't that the anvil that Wylie Coyote is always trying to drop onto Roadrunner??

Thanks for the ideas. I used a .22 barrel as the crosspiece for a squatters chair. I have a couple more in the scrap pile waiting for something to be done with them. Cut and drilled for different sized nail headers perhaps.

Hmmm. I feel a bit bad about remaking them into tongs if they are a perfectly good pair of special nippers. Still, I have no use for them so tongs they will become.

Thanks Tubbe. Really like the way you turned that square bar into round. And what a great way to forge flawless spigots. You not only make a very useful item, but you also put a very professional finish on them. Now I guess I will just have to make one.

Mate, I'm reading this in Far North Queensland - just up the hill from you on the Tablelands. And you are so so right, finding any blacksmith gear up here is near impossible. All the good anvils are a long way south and you and I both know what freight companies are like. It's nice that you know the history of your Peter Wright dating back to the early days of Cairns. We do have a Peter Wright (3 - 0 - 21) and it's a hefty piece of gear in very good shape. Came from a farm in Tolga and was donated to us. I was unaware of your shop in Cairns. Perhaps I could call in and say g'day sometime. I was in Cairns today too!

Thanks for the link to this thread. I like the idea of reshaping nippers to make tongs. I have found a couple of pairs that look like reasonable candidates. I would like to make bolt-holding tongs and my plan is to reshape the jaws usng a piece of stock the size I want to hold. Hope to do this without removing the rivet. This pair of nippers is the usual type and should work well: But this pair appear different. I first thought they were broken, but it seems the ends of the jaws could have been cut like that for some (mysterious) purpose. I'll cut them level, but I wondered if they were meant to be that way. If so, anyone know what they were for?

Jamie, I would like to see a pic of your shop bought header. I made mine following the ideas Tubbe gave in his posting. Just wondered what a bought one looks like. Does it sit in the hardy hole or pritchel hole? Perhaps you had to order it to suit your anvil.

Hmmm. I've made 23 nails now. All in a tobacco tin. I have a way to go.

You can use a lot of your mild steel scrap bits for nails. Depends of course on the size of the header you have. I use mainly 10mm round bar, square tapered to a 75mm nail. I have used light rebar with no problems.

Not a real classy looking tool but I reckon this is handy enough to bolt to a stump in the smithy. I was looking around the scrap and found some old engine blocks from Fiat Bambino wrecks. light enoug to lift onto the bench easily enough, but heavy enough to make a useful swage block. The far end has a perfect right angle and the studs on the near end are pretty good for bending too. And pritchel holes as well. Not sure what the cylinders could be used for.

A pet rustball. That's an interesting thought. There were some old kerosene drums in my scrap yard and one seemed unusually heavy so I cut the top off. It was half full of horse shoe nails. The water had got in and the whole thing was a solid mass. Cut down the edges and this block of nails fell out.

Another piece of masterful Swedish engineering. Now I just need to know what you would do with it!

Sometimes it's hard to decide what is scrap and what isn't. I am lucky. I have all the scrap steel I can use and people keep giving me more. My place is full of stuff - from things too heavy to lift to bucket loads of bolts, horseshoes, leaf springs, coils, axles, etc. And a lot of wrought iron which I find useless because I don't know how to forge it. I just hate to throw anything out - even though I know I will never use much of it. And there are no blacksmiths near me to share it with. The thing is steel scrap is commercially worthless here. Brass, Al, Copper, Lead you can get some return on but steel is not worth a cracker. We have sent hundreds (literally) of tons of steel (old bulldozers, tractors, old engines, boilers, etc) to scrap for nil return. As for shop scrap, I keep anything that might be useful for my junk sculptures. I chuck out anything cast iron. My place looks a bit like a scrapyard - just as well we have understanding wives, eh?

Cool! I like the little welder guy. Rail spike body and reo limbs. Very clever.

Great stuff. We anticipate pictures of this lovely thing when it is recovered. I would be back there sooner rather than later.

Well I'd say you did OK. Some farriers' tools there?? That light cross pein looks very useful. They seem quite rare, at least here. There would be a hundred ball peins for every cross pein hammer you see for sale. Now, let's see what you can do with them.

Welcome fellow Australian. (Queenslander??) I am not experienced enough to offer you any advice on your hammer making but I congratulate you on your computer skills. You young fellows are awesome.

Thanks John. Yes, I should have tried that ... form half first then quench that part and form the other. I would be interested to see how you go about the guillotine set.

I want to make a fuller to form a 1/4 inch groove. As a starting point I decided to make a bigger guillotine type fuller. This one has an old wheel brace (about 5/8 inch diameter) for the bottom part and a lump of flat bar shaped to the same profile on top. It sits quite firmly in the hardie hole and works well enough. It should be handy for decorative bottle opener handles, etc. This is a feature on a light poker shaft made with it: Now I need to make a smaller version, to make 1/4 inch depressions. I'm thinking it would be good to have one of these with interchangeable dies. Something to work on. Any guidelines from the experts would be most welcome.