ausfire

A fine looking hammer, sir.

They are all going to be better than your piece of pipe! I would go for the first one, especially if you have to move it and if dollars matter. The HB is obviously going to set you back a small fortune. Let us know the outcome, and good luck with your first forgings.

There seems to be a lot of material about how to make a ram's head and bull heads but very little about other animal heads. I find them useful for bottle opener handles, poker handles, billy lifters etc. I am often asked 'Can you make a horse's head?' and recently one visitor wanted a lion's head poker. Has anyone had any success with either of these, and are there any other animal heads which are possible to forge? How about a forum 'Show me your Animal Heads'??

Here's the one I made with the stirrup. Works great.

It's a great day when you can bring something as nice as this home without even having to pay for it! Guy phones up and says he has an old anvil he would like to donate. It's been on his father's farm for about 100 years and it needs a good home as the farm is sold. He said it was heavy, and that was an understatement. Had to winch it from the ceiling beam and drive the trailer under it. Gave it a rub with a wire brush and could just read the words Peter Wright Patent, England. The numbers look like 3 - 0 - 21, which if I am correct would make it 357 pounds. It felt every bit of it. We have installed it on a stump (replacing a smaller anvil) and here it is:

Thomas - harrows. Thanks for that. I have been wrongly calling them scarifier points. I have made quite a few botle openers from them now and I like the heavily pitted texture. I don't know anything about what steel it is, but I know it's not wrought iron. It doesn't split or fray.

I use the ouside shapes on my swage block only rarely and like Dognose, I can't see any practical use for the inner rectangular and square holes. It makes a fine place, handy to the anvil, to place my box of punches and drifts.

Thanks for the link, Neil. Amazing stuff. The guy making the sheath - bare feet and razor sharp chisels! And not a pair of safety glasses in sight anywhere. We have acquired a nice collection of kukri - all with sheaths and the smaller knives attached. In writing the labels for them, I have wondered what the small nick in the blade near the handle is for. Research reveals a number of theories - from representing a sacred cow's udder, to allowing the blood to drip off the blade. No wonder a fearless Gurkha wielding one of these things was considered a formidable opponent.

A wonderful old forge. The Buffalo logo is really cool. Thanks for including the pdf of the Buffalo catalogue. Great reading. Helped me a lot identifying these things.

I think you have a great antique there. Good to see you intend to use it and I believe it will serve you well. You're lucky to have a mate who can weld cast - a valuable skill. No doubt there'll be a few beers heading his way.

What's OP, Andy? While this does work adequately, I'm going to make one for another anvil with a stirrup attachment. That sounds like a good idea as it allows a lot of pressure to be applied if necessary and it is also light to lift quickly with the hammer in hand. Gotta try different things to see what works best.

Trust an Australian to notice the snake. I didn't realise he slid into the picture. It's a red belly black snake forged from one-inch reo bar. (I like reo for snakes as it already has a scale pattern.) I leave that one around the smithy. I've had one visitor race off up to our reception to say there's a snake in the forge.

Very nice. The wood block worked well as a swage block. Something else to make for the shop.

Thanks for the info on the chain hold downs. Here's one I put together for a spare anvil - I know it's a bit rough but it works really well. It's holding a rail spike here very firmly. The monster D-shackle makes a good weight. Going to make a more refined model for the shop anvil next.

Like this one Vaughn? It has a handle which operates a ratchet set up to turn the blower mounted underneath. It's the only one we have with a blower there. I can see how it would be a very portable device for on-site work.

I think the dumbest thing I ever bought for the smithy was this big steel ball. I thought it may have been a good former or something but I have never used it. The hammer bounces off it quite nicely though. I saw it at a garage sale and the guy said I could have it for free if I could lift it over my head. No way - so I had to pay him $2 for it. It measures 9 inches in diameter, so I reckon at about 1/4 pound per cubic inch that's about 100 pounds. It was probably a dumb thing to buy, but for two bucks who could leave it there??

Eye candy. Congratulations. Seems a shame to put a hammer near it.

Thanks Jimship. It does seem possible after all. I will give it a try but I doubt I will match Miss Farmall's skill.

That's really nice work. Great texture. I have studied the pic but I must be missing something - how is that done wth one piece of steel?? Doesn't look possible.

Ah, thanks Vaughn. We do have one of those forges you describe with the blower mounted underneath and an arm to activate it. Not mounted like this one but the same principle. I'm glad you've given it a name. I will now be able to label it a riveter's forge. Perhaps it was used to heat rivets for steam engine boilers. Maybe I'll find a few old rivets to display in it near one of our steam engines. Thanks.

I found an old horse drawn implement which had been out in the open for some time. I think it's a scarifier of some kind (?) and it has straight tines about 6 inches long. It had long since fallen to pieces. Here's a picture of it: I was thinking of what I might do with it and thought the tines would make interesting bottle openers. Some of them were in good condition like this one: And some that had been in contact with the ground were rusted almost to extinction. Some of the bars also had suffered from a countless years in the weather: It seems to me that the heavy pitting on the worn away times and bars was quite attractive in a weird way. I mean you just couldn't replicate the texture that a hundred years of weather has created. So I reckoned that with minimal effort I could make a bottle opener with some character and a sense of history. Anyway, I cut off the two pieces in the pictures above and made the openers below. Compared to some I've seen, these might be a bit plain and not to everyone's taste, but I like them. They feel good in the hand and I'm pleased the scrap dealer didn't get them:

We had the scrap dealer at our place today removing some old stuff and I save this thing. It is obviously a heavy cast iron forge tray but I don't know what the arm attached to one side does. And I guess it would have had a grate of some kind over the hole, the blower being attached below. It would have been higher than this - legs have been amputated. Any ideas what the attachment is for?

Mate, that is a terrific find. I envy you that swedge block. Good to see these things are still about in Australia. Not many up north here though.

I have a big block of lead (formed in an old biscuit tin) on which to punch holes in leather. (It is also very handy to test eye punches and the like to see how they look before using on hot metal). BTW, you got some really good deals there - and that Swedish anvil is an absolute gem. It will serve you well. (And, no, don't paint it! Use it!)

Wow. Great vid. I'd give that striker a job anytime. Think what he could do with a sledge. Puts an interesting perspective on things.