Jack Evers

A common fix in some instances is to push some crumpled newspaper into the vent and light it in order to get the vent warm and starting to draw air.

Fortunately I have a ranch with a new ranch house kept to the wishes and standards of the lady and the old ranch house that my dog and I can enjoy as our own "man cave". An anvil, even a forge would be OK over there. It's a solution. Buy yourself an old ranch. Build a new house if necessary, but keep the old for man things.

Two things to consider. A farriers anvil has a disproportionate mass in the horn. Most shoe work is done there with the face used for flattening and punching nail holes. For this reason, it needs to be solidly attached to a base with some mass. Secondly for heavy work it should be quality steel to stand up. I have no doubt that NC is quality. I believe somewhere on this site were guidelines for anvil to hammer size suggesting about 10:1 max but I could be wrong. I think an 8 pound sledge would be OK. You could call NC @ 800 365 8202 and get their opinion. Or you could just ship it to me, I'll refund the $20 and you could look for something else.

By the way that may weigh 75 on a scale, but NC marketed it as 70.

I've seen some stuff textured with an arc welder, think I can find pics.

If you know or can find a farrier, he will have used rasps that are still quite good for wood working. Probably uses 20 or 30 per year.

Dew and/or frost is a few times a year here. There are pluses to living in the desert.

correct spelling is Gunter.

Thanks for the ideas.

A hobby blacksmith I had rented a house to left this behind. is there a use other than heavy duty hold down??

I made some bars for a load equalizing hitch from some. Just normalized, lasted for years.

I'm new to smithing and need a hammer (something between the 1 lb ball peen and 4 lb small sledge I have now). There is a local farrier supply that carries a 2 lb Bellota cross peen. I used a similair weight cross peen in my recent class. I was wondering if anyone has an opinion on the brand?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000SDGV8E/ref=aw_d_detail?pd=1

I've only known their rasps, but they make a good rasp and have been in business a long time.

I would think Exel a bit of overkill, but that's me. It's just a proportion The width of the gate (W) is to the Rise in the gate ® as the spread of the hinges - center to center (S) is to the offset (O). As Bigfoot says, you need the line between hinges perpendicular to the ground.

R/W = O/S or O = R*S/W.'

I don't have a Forgemaster. but this time of year is when I have trouble with plugging orifices Don't know why, but  follow Dave's advice.

Best answered by a professional physical therapist or masseuse, but a while back when I had a professional massage, she commented that I was amazingly symmetrical for a farrier. I tend to do symmetrical exercises, barbell vs dumbbell, pushups, that sort of thing.. The strong side can loaf while the weak side catches up. She also asked if she could use her elbows rather than her hands since my muscles were so hard. A lack of symmetry can lead to structural problems.

You say you like input from horseman, I am a couple months shy of my 75th birthday, Only about four of those years, army, first year of college, first year out of college. etc have I been without a horse. I have also competed in the sport that you are portraying and you, Sir, have done an unbelievable job. That is amazing.

Quote from Frank Turley

I worked once upon a time with Tex Shively in Oregon and he was a farrier who quenched nearly all of the toes of his mild steel shoes at a bright red heat in water. He didn't perform any tests, but he swore that he got more wear out of the shoes when compared to non quenched.

Frank, your friend was probably right. A simple qualitative test is just the moment required to bend a bar. This is linearly related to the tensile strength and the tensile strength is related to the hardness. so stick a bar in a vice with a constant amount sticking out and the pull required to bend it is a measure of both the tensile strength and the hardness. I found some old data where I took a length of 1" by 1/4", cold rolled (probably 1018) clamped it in my vice, hooked a spring scale 24 " from the vice and measured the pull to bend it. As received it took 32 pounds, heated and quenched in water, it took 52 pounds or about a 60% increase in both ultimate tensile and in hardness. Heated and allowed to cool slowly as the gas forge cooled it then took 24 pounds. If as Wayne says, those were keg shoes of A36, the result would likely have shown even more difference.

On 1/8/2013 at 10:54 AM, Rich Hale said:

 

I believe Shaklee basic is no longer made, now it's basic green or something like that. Wasn't the original Basic I with the "I" for their industrial version?

All sounds like my experience. Wonder if they had a batch with faulty or missing ingredients.

When I was in Grad School many years ago, we were next to the nuclear engineering group and they were working on the idea of how to break up the vapor layer to get continued rapid cooling. The superquench did come out of Los Alamos Labs and was based on that idea. It works for me.

The recent and active thread on "first anvil build" gives a link to some test data on hardening both mild and tool steel:

http://paaba.net/Pro...ZWeekendMet.htm

These data state that superquench had no effect on mild steel (1018, I suppose since it was stated as about 0.2% carbon) and was no better than brine on tool steel (4140).I do not have a hardness tester, but when a high mileage horseshoeing client of mine was asking for hardened shoes (she was wearing regular shoes out in about three weeks) I did harden some 1018 with it and have it tested. Don't remember the exact numbers but seem to recall mid 40's rather than the reported 18 in this paper. I also had a second test on a worn out shoe to see if the hardening had penetrated - it had.

In several years of hardening shoes and getting good wearability, I also noticed that the nail heads on hardened shoes would wear below the metal of the shoe, something that rarely happens without at least quenching the shoe. i.e. the nail heads wore faster than the shoe even though somewhat protected by the shoe.

Anyone care to comment on either hardness measurement or experience with superquench and low carbon steel.

The neutral axis (center) doesn't change length. I want a 6' circle from 3/4 ' wide stock, the center of the stock forms a 5-1/4 inch circle so the stock length would be 16.5 inches (Pi times 5-3/4"
Jack I have not tested your formula. However I  have made a lot of horseshoes. I can take a piece of 5/16" x 3/4" that is 11 inches long and turn a shoe that will grow on the outside curve almost two inches in length. 
As I change it from straight to curved it thins along the outside and thickens along the inside. A shoe needs to be mor flat than that and in fact hs to be thinner in some parts that others. that requires more forging,,,if the shoe is fullered it gains leength and punching nail holes also causes it to grow.

I know it grows even if not fullereed or holes punched.

My message here is not about shoes or formulas..simply that as you work steel and change shapes metal moves. How much or where is dependant on the smith and that is somewot dependant on skill level. If yoiu can change the shape in a minimum of heats with a minimum og work it will change less.

If you are going to do a run of pieces the same size you can find a starting point with math. But then a test p;iece will let yoiu know how close you are. As you repeat that piece and get the moves down yoiu may find a difference in first to last ones. If you are improving and use fewer heats you will also lose less to scale. Shop notes help this a lot.

Actually, Rich you have tested my formula. My formula would suggest that the perimeter of a full circle using 3/4 inch stock would be Pi*0.75 longer than the original stock or 2.3 inches longer. Since a shoe is about 3/4 of a circle, you might expect 0.75* 2.3 = 1.7 inches longer for the perimeter, but we bevel the heel more on the inner edge (heel check) than the outer and we push a little steel to the outside and get the 2 inches you mentioned. I also get about 2 " for a plain stamped shoe, about 2-1/4 for a creased shoe (when I don't bump extra into the toe). And as you say - that's the starting point. Your own forging habits will modify it. Pencil the heel, emphasize sole relief, etc.

An interesting experiment that I did was to form a half circle  (180 degree bend, both ends of the 3/4 inch bar are pointing the same direction) and a mushroom, (both ends of the bar pointing the same direction, but quite a few contortions in between). The stretch on the perimeter was the same for both cases. The extra length gained in doing the mushroom head, was nullified by the reverse bends into the stem. 

Good advise, doesn't matter how much you hit it, the volume won't change. A true cone has a volume 1/3 the base area times the height, while a cylinder volume is the base times the height so a rod drawn into a true cone would be three times as long. I suspect your next question would concern curves. The neutral axis (center) doesn't change length. I want a 6' circle from 3/4 ' wide stock, the center of the stock forms a 5-1/4 inch circle so the stock length would be 16.5 inches (Pi times 5-3/4).

 I was in shoeing school many years ago (40 years) and when it came to forge work, the instructor would demonstrate but not explain. He said the typical good blacksmith of the day was secretive. If you just stood around, kept your mouth shut and observed he was likely to tolerate you. Start asking questions and he was apt to keep his body between you and the work. Associations changed that attitude and now forums like this have speeded the process. As Ptree said  "Virtually everything on this forum was a trade secret at one time."

There's are infinite geometries to what you're doing, but some reasonable geometries using the same steel area say 0.25 inches squared  or equivalent in weight to a 1/2" by 1/2" bar shows that you're proposed approach could make the reins perhaps three to five times stronger in bending than a square bar even with the reins being 3/4 inch wide or conversely the reins could just be lighter weight and be as strong. Personally, I like the "C" section for comfort and it seems like it would be easier to do, although I never tried.

Good luck with your experiment

Jack

Why are many rasps case hardened? For a number of reasons, Farriers often just drop a rasp on the ground as they reach for another tool. If a horse steps on one that is hard clear through, it's apt to break and $25 or so is quickly history. Bellota is or at least has been hardened clear through. Haven't used one in a long time. Maybe a manufacturer would give you info on the steel. Wouldn't hurt to call and ask.

It's all compromise, wider reins mean more hand comfort (less pressure), deeper reins mean more bending strength, but increasing both while keeping the same cross section shape means more steel, more weight, less comfort. Going to more complicated shapes such as a "T" or "C", means more work to make. Add springiness (high strength steels) also allows the weight to drop, but increases the cost. I'll try to run some numbers on the "T" shape later today.

If I'm working larger sections where I really need a grip, I usually reach for the Vice Grips.

All that said, my favorite hoof nippers under most conditions ( a bit light for dry spells and hard dry feet) were custom made and have the reins forged to about 1 inch by 3/16 near the end (slightly thicker toward the rivet). and wrapped into a shallow "C" shape. Mid rein they would have steel equal to about 3/8 square stock while the nipper considered by most farriers to be the "gold standard" for mass produced would represent about 1/2 inch square stock at mid rein. This gives reins about 20% wider, and 40% lighter than the commercial ones, while being nearly as strong. Very comfortable to use. That nipper also cost me $250 when the top commercial ones were about $100.

EDIT By the way my decription of "forged out and wrapped" is just descriptive. It was done with a swedge and fuller. Might also say that nippers are normally used with two hands and need good bending strength.