Jack Evers

It has for me Frosty, but I'm the local horse branding expert and my technique isn't the same as the cow branders. I clip the hair short, then use a very hot iron with a get in and get out quick technique. The cattle branders tend to burn down thru long hair and I think that's when the heat buildup becomes a problem.

Easilyconfused I'd ask the client how they want it. Look at the M that I show burned into wood on the branding iron thread under nonmetalworking. I don't think it's a problem with a good notch.

Here's some of my branding iron work - the one on the left is my personal brand - I call it a keyhole E, but the state considers it to be a C lying on top of an E (a keyhole would flare out at the bottom) If you'd look it up in the Wyoming brand book, it would be found under "C", One rude wag even asked me if it might be the elephant butt brand. Actually the handle could be heated and used as a running iron. Real rustler running irons, though, would fit in a saddlebag. The Sigma brand was probably intended for human branding - the guys that ordered it had too many questions about hygiene and caring for a brand site. Anyhow they never came to pick it up and all I had was a cell phone number so I still have it. The last brand on the wood is an iron that I made for some friends in Pa. Just thier initials - Jim and Maryanne F--. Not a registered brand, but someting to decorate woodwork around their farm.

Be one up this evening, Frosty.

O/A is really what you need for all but small decorative iron. Forge would be OK, just not as handy, especially when you're just starting, but you really need a red heat. Bernzamatic just won't get you there on bigger stock.

IMO, Grant you need heat (a torch is probably better than a forge) to get consistency. A hot corner can be adjusted a small amount much more readily than a cold one. To be honest, I can't think of an actual animal brand that I've seen with adjacent letters such as BUSH. One letter above the other, one or more on their side, one backwards, separated by a bar, just not in an even line.

The western states still have registered brands and brand inspections All livestock crossing a county line here in Wyoming, must be inspected by a state brand inspector (you can get a permanent brand inspection for a horse, so you don't need to find an inspector everytime). We still have grazing leases on BLM land and Forest Service land where a number of owners may share the same range so brands are necessary even W/O rustlers.. Freeze brands do not scar the hide but cause the hair to come in white where they are applied. OK for a horse, but on a cow a swipe with a dye rag would hide the brand and the animal could be slaughtered, before anyone knew. A hot brand and the resulting scar would remain visible even if dyed. Good easy to apply single iron brands, W/O a lot of heat concentrating corners (see other thread) are hard to come up with today, so some older brands that meet the criteria sell for thousands of dollars. (the registered brand itself, not the branding iron). I've had mine for nearly 60 years and will will it to my kids.

Had someone tell me once that when he was contemplating a new tool, he usually bought a cheaper version - If he wore it out, he knew what to replace it with. If he didn't wear it out, it was good enough. Seemed like a reasonable approach on less expensive stuff.

[quote When I was shoeing, I used primarily Diamond-brand shoes, which are mild steel. BUT...sometimes they'd have to be drilled and tapped (say, when I made a hospital plate shoe or installed removable caulks). And sometimes...I'd hit a hard spot in a quenched shoe that simply wouldn't drill. I figured it was just a matter of inconsistency in the smelting process that let so me random alloy slip past into the finished "mild steel shoe. Sometimes I used Izumi shoes, imported from Japan, and they were perfectly consistent, never exhibiting this tendency (in my experience). They were uniformly soft and oh, boy, what a breeze to shape, hot or cold!

If you're around farming country, implement dealers will carry them.

Thanks for the kind words.

These are first pictures of my work. I'm more a farrier than a blacksmith, but the first picture is a door handle in our bunkhouse, the second is actually a structural plate. Someone was renovating an old (pardon me -- historical) brick building for an art gallery and upscale apt when they discovered a place with the bricks bulging outward. The normal fix is a steel plate with a long threaded bolt run to a solid structural interior member. This man didn't want a plain square plate on his art studio so this was my solution - the first blacksmithing piece I actually sold. The third and fourth pictures are the door to my shop (a 1930's milk barn). When I told my better half that I had to put in a new door, large enough for horses, she said it couldn't look new so here's my new old door. Comment's?

When I first started to shoe horses (50 years ago), I aquired a piece of mild steel about 3-1/2 by 2-1/2 by 18 inches. I cut a horn on it with O/A, welded an I-beam base on it to bring the weight up around 50 pounds and for about 10 years of mostly cold shapeing horseshoes, it was my only anvil. It held up OK. I finally gave it to someone who was starting out. As a side note - the mere thought today of cold shaping shoes on a 50 pounder makes my wrists hurt.

The number one book of the trade is "The Principles of Horseshoeing" by Doug Butler. It is in it's third edition (P3) and unfortunately is quite expensive (around $160 I believe). You might find a deal on Ebay or Amazon for a used copy of a first or second edition, and either would serve your purpose.

I don't know if it would apply to a firepot, but machinable (high nickle ) rods do not stick well to an automobile manifold. The cheaper non machinable cast rods do better. Whether it's the repeated heating and cooling or some chemicals from the exhaust gas, I do not know. I have welded some cast iron bath tubs as you suggest with decent results - plugging the holes for use as a livestock water tank.

Try this link plus do a search on here for anvil repair restoration: Anvil Restoration

Let me take a stab at it. Irnsrgn is starting with the height of the cone and the diameter at the bottom. Smokeman has listed the height and apparently the circumference at the bottom (19 inches round?) although I'm not sure. If I'm correct, Smokeman's cone is about 6 inches in diameter. 19/Pi (3.1416) equals 6.05 inches. In step 3 the horizontal bottom line should be the 6.05 inches (or the actual diam of the bottom of the cone). The vertical line is 12 inches and the AB line is the actual sloping length (square root of 12 squared plus 3.025 squared equals 12.4 inches.)The half circle is then equal to one half of the 19 inch circumference or 8.5 inches. By breaking it into six short tangents, they can be measured and transferred twice to the curve in figure 4 as 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,6,5,4,3,2,1. The result is the template minus any overlap if you plan to overlap and rivet rather than weld. That should be the original 19 inchs. If on the other hand the diameter of the cone is 19 inches ( a more realistic slope and dimension for a bird feeder). The side distance would be 14.7 inches and the length of the arc in fig 4 would be 59.7 inches or about five feet.

Air cooled is as hard as you'd want to get it. I made an antique door handle last year for our bunk house - just grabbed a piece of steel with a comfortable cross section, but it sounds about like what you have. I don't know if it was spring steel or just high carbon, but I finished, air cooled to well below black, cooled the rest of the way with water and started to drill some mounting holes. After trashing a drill bit, I annealed it in wood ashes and all is well. My first attempts to make tools from known spring steel resulted in breakage when I used either oil or water to quench from non magnetic. In some former University work I did lectures about heat effects and welding on high pressure oil field tubulars. I kept a leaf spring in the classroom that had been heated and quenched on one end, annealed on the other and untouched in the middle. I would flex it first to show students that it was truly a spring, then use a hammer and anvil to cold bend the annealed end and to break pieces off the quenched end. Clearly this was a single piece of steel with vastly different properties, depending only on the heat treatment. The point I was making was that the lower grades (55,000 psi) could be field welded, the 80,000 psi intermediate grades required an expert and some controllable conditions, like not out in a cold wind, and the 110,000 psi stuff was not suitable for field welding, period.

I had no intention of doing it, just asking a question.

I recently talked to a blacksmith who had rebuilt an anvil face with thermite. Anyone ever do this or hear of it?

I've made a number by drawing out one heel of a horseshoe (I'm a farrier and have lots of horseshoes). I call it a cowboy corkscrew. They worked fine with real corks - the steel might be a bit soft for the plastic ones, but most people just hang them on the wall anyhow. The horseshoe handle is a bit awkward in a kitchen drawer.

The reference I have says that Columbians were cast, then the face was machined and hardened. i.e. no plate.

I have a 280 pounder that my wife gave me about 20 years ago. It had been used as a rest for oxygen/acetylene cutting and the edges were trashed. I built them up with 7018 rod and it's served me well since. Somewhat soft, but good for what I do. I'm more farrier than blacksmith so my smaller truck anvil gets a bit more use than the big shop anvil.

The key is that the centerline of the stock remains unchanged in length. If you want a ring of 3/8 stock with a 3" ID, the centerline of the stock will form a 3-3/8" circle. Length = Pi times 3.375 equals 10.6 inches with a bit of variance for the way you forge the weld. Basically as Grant said above.

i have one set on a concrete post buried in the ground. I can take a picture if you want.