PCornett

Walmart does NOT carry it. I was surprised and a little tickled considering my feelings about that establishment. Were you able to get welding temps with traditonal charcoal?
Thank you all for the encouragement.

Beth, yes on the baby and making the wife happy. I tried making a horseshoe heart but ended up cutting the middle to much and then tried to work too cold. Then tried to correct yesterday by forge welding, it didnt work. (BTW, Ilmarinen is a Danish Legendary smith of old who forged the Sampo. A statue similar to a horn of plenty)

Drewed, Just not enough heat. Fine for some small working but not for large pieces or welding. Coal might improve the situation but the drum is so deep I dont know. Thanks for the words of encouragment from you all.

Got to start a fire today but found out I am not going to be doing any forge welding with this setup any time soon. I was using charcoal but even so I dont know that coal would give me much more in this setup. Dont know, will have to try soon.

Ok guys, some of you are getting too upset about the lack of realism of these commercials. Just realize this is how MANLY the world looks at us. Can we help it if they are just so impressed and intimidated that they create these myths about us? Accept it for what it is, a very strong crush on our masculine skills.
:rolleyes:

First tweek will be to buy land where I can build a shop. I am renting a house in town right now, till the wife and I can find a house with land included. I dont intend for this to be my permanent forge. Just the forge for right now....

Those of you that I have talked with know that I am whining about being on a TIGHT budget. So I have scrounged and rescued and garage saled, (is that a verb?) and now have my own forge to work with. I will be lighting it up on Friday morning with regular charcoal (yes I know its not ideal but I have a bag and a half already) and very likely again on Saturday while my wife is at her baby shower.


The BBQ is rusted out and so was free from a couple of friends of mine who were moving. Wanted a kettle style but hey....
The brake drum was free from the mechanics shop, the disk underneath it was free in some scrap metal I was given...
The pipe and cap that are the air flow added up to like 13 bucks if I remember right...
The inner tube was free from the local bike shop (had a hole in it )
and the air source is the blower from an Inflatable Christmas lawn ornament Free also for me.

A local smith who has been very helpful and accomodating let me weld the pipe at his shop.

The vice I bought at a garage sale for 5$ along with a Railroad spike hammer also for 5$ in another post.
The anvil was the most expensive part, its a Fisher 58 lb.er that I got for about a buck a lb.
So we will see what it can do tomorrow. I am hoping to make a horseshoe heart for my wife to justify my time involved in this...
Thanks for your time...

Not to beat a dead horse but as far as the galvanized tub, I think you are fine as long as you watch the exterior of your tub. If it ever looks more like your charcoal chimney than your trash can next to it then walk away. Ok nuff said.
I wish I had seen yours before I made mine, You have definitely shown another way to do it and that just means more ideas for me to steal for my own. :)

Glenn and Jerry, Is there a BP of the touchmark floating around? I would love to see that.. Thanks guys I am now going to have to start buying the lug wrenches I see at sales... A lot of ideas...

I found one in my random parts box. It is by a company named HILLMAN and is listed as a 4" Threaded Post w/ Screw out of Aluminum. I am going to go by Fastenal today and see if they have these in stock.

Not only do some go to local scrap yards but also there are companies that all they do is salvage RR scrap. Here in Joplin they are right at a major conjunction of tracks. All of it is at scrap prices so you might look for those places.

Looking forward to seeing the pics of your project. Any ideas on what style of knife you are going to make? Skinner, kitchen, dagger, etc?

Need some help here. I have read in David Boye's book "Step By Step Knifemaking" that you can use brake shoe rivets as pins for knife handles. (p145) A female 7 and a male 5 fit each other.
The problem is that I have gone to Oreilly's and Fastenal and neither has or know what the product is. They have what I call pop rivets but its not even remotely the same thing.
I still owe the guys in my wedding party the knives I promised them so any and all help will be very appreciated.

It is on Youtube. You can catch up that way. Look for E3P1 Mastercrafts - Blacksmith

When I searched on Youtube for "Mastercrafts - Blacksmith" it came up with four parts and with Realplayer you can dl them. This is only suggested for shortterm viewings only of course. Copyrights and all that....

I hear these stories and all I can say is "When am I gonna have the great find fall in my lap?" Glad for you anyway....

Fair enough. I know the base products in Teflon are EXTREMELY toxic.Thought maybe in the pan they would just burn off. Thanks for the info, its trash as of tomorrow.

So has anyone found a use for Teflon skillets after they ware out. My wife and I have been married a year and a half and even taking care of the thing it has worn out. Well I've taken care of it.... Any thoughts from the crowd?

Sounds good, and I got a few ideas from that too. I would love to see a pic of one of your stake anvils. When you use a tank for a concave dishing form do you reinforce it on the bottom? or just brace it down on your bench...

Well this afternoon I broke the vice free just using WD40, a hammer, and elbow grease. It will now have to sit outside for a while now as it is braced to a bench but there is no room for the bench inside at the moment. This does however allow me to start some other work.

For example, I used to work in a carwash and I repatriated some aluminum blowers. I can now bend the sheets for a cutting face sheet to save my anvil.

Steve, not being able to use a grinder at a garage sale to find the GOOD steel files, whats the most you will spend for an unknown file? I paid 5$ for the spike hammer thinking it was worth it and another 5$ for a huge 50lb. or so bench vice that I still haven't gotten broke free. I figured the salvage value was still worth it.

I wanted to find out what everyone had done as far as re purposed old tools/junk into new tools for smithing purposes. I am currently redoing a Railroad Spike Hammer into a stand alone bick like in the popular book "50$ Knife Shop." Last month I took a 8 lb. splitting maul and cut it inhalf and redid the wedge into a hot cut hardy for my small anvil, using a Railroad spike (-head) as the shaft.
Will post pics in a very soon post.

Well planning on doing some sort of bick when I get the time. Any ideas or previous attempts, or what not to do?

Thank you to all who replied. I really do appreciate it.

Now I took one of those spike driving hammers and *made* and anvil from it. Using another smiths big powerhammers (200# Chambersburg and 100# LG) I forged a piece of 2.5" Sq Stock into a shaft about 3' long with a 9" spike on one end and a tenon that fit the eye of the RR spike hammer.

I hot formed it using the eye as a shaping tool and then trimmed it and hot riveted it on and cooled it off before it drew temper on the ends of the spike hammer. Long range plan is to weld over the top of the eye making a small flat pad for forging and thus getting a medieval/renaissance styled stake anvil to use at SCA events with my hornless Y1K anvil.

I've got a couple more of them; but have to wait on hammertime to make another (this time with a smaller shaft for use in armourmaking.)

I got this "hammer" this weekend as at a small sale. I went hoping to find an anvil and two guys walk out with one as I get there. I went ahead and looked and ended up getting a huge bench vise as well as this hammer and a coal bucket and shovel. Please take a look and let me know what you think. I am leaning towards some sort of RR spike hammer but as usual could be wrong. If it is a RR spike hammer I am considering repurposing it to a hardy tool somehow.

Ilmarinen
AKA Philip Cornett
Joplin, MO

I have used several online identities in the past 18 years and most of them I still use in different situations, but Illmarinen is the Nordic Blacksmith Hero of legend. Creative, Intelligent and usually calm headed. Id hope to represent this as well so I took that. Philip Cornett is too long to type anyway.