Jack Evers

Yep, that's him.

I believe it was, The owners name was Rob Edwards. I know he regularly served as a farrier for the Tevis Race, so he was likely in that area. I'll go look at my dusty archives and see if I come up with anything.

I had a lifetime subscription, and Rob sent me a username and password after it went digital, but that no longer seems to work either. It did a couple years ago, but no longer. Guess there is no longer any maintenance on the site.

Used to work on oil rigs. One was in an area notable for herds of feral burros, A rig crew headed to town one night got a young burro blinded by the headlights, They jumped out and wrestled him into the back seat Once he could see again he was not kind to either them or the crew car. They were happy to get a door open and let him escape.

You list Stuebenville, Ohio as a location. The Steubenville, Pittsburg, Morgantown area has a lot of oil activity. Can't help with Maryland.

You are correct. API (American Petroleum Institute) sucker rods are available in 1/8 inch increments from 5/8 to 1-1/8 inch diam, but 5/8 is not a common size. Very shallow wells. Likely 1000 feet or less.

In reading these threads, I often think about my early kayaking days. I was in love with the traditional wooden paddle. Sleek, beautiful, a work of art. After breaking a couple in higher class rapids (at least an adrenaline boosting if not life threatening experience), I realized that I was paddling a fiberglass boat, perhaps a fiberglass paddle was OK. If your clients are willing and able to afford traditional joinery by all means give them what they want, but there is still the shop work, jigs and such, that you might as well do with a welder, and perhaps gifts and such or other useful works that are much appreciated even if welded. Yes, I can forge weld an aluminum bar shoe. I'd rather do it with O/A. One of my common Christmas things is a trivet made by forming three of a client's used horseshoes into spirals and welding them together into a trivet. Much appreciated even if close examination of the bottom side does show some arc welds.

Don't quote me as an expert, but as long as the hardy shank isn't a press fit into the hardy hole, I wouldn't worry too much . I think much of the risk lies in hammering on a hardy that is a tight fit. That said, a 1" hardy hole in a 4' wide anvil does weaken it by 25%. I have shaped a bunch of cold horse shoes in the hardy hole W/O problem and that was on a fairly shallow heeled anvil.

Low-voltage Lighting and Lamp Cords 10 Amps 18 Gauge Extension Cords 13 Amps 16 Gauge Light Fixtures, Lamps, Lighting Runs 15 Amps 14 Gauge Receptacles, 110-volt Air Conditioners, Sump Pumps, Kitchen Appliances 20 Amps 12 Gauge Electric Clothes Dryers, 220-volt Window Air Conditioners, Built-in Ovens, Electric Water Heaters 30 Amps 10 Gauge Cook Tops 45 Amps 8 Gauge Electric Furnaces, Large Electric Heaters 60 Amps 6 Gauge Electric Furnaces, Large Electric Water Heaters, Sub Panels 80 Amps 4 Gauge Service Panels, Sub Panels 100 Amps 2 Gauge Service Entrance 150 Amps 1/0 Gauge Service Entrance 200 Amps 2/0 Gauge Power = amp*voltage Normal open circuit voltage on a buzz box is about 40 volts and will drop some as you weld. Assuming 40 volts though means 40 times welding amps equals 220 times line amps so line amps is about one sixth to one fifth of welding amps. To meet code with a 225 amp welder you would need about a 40 amp breaker and 6 gage wire although I ran a 225 lincoln for 20 years on a 30 amp circuit (8 gage wire). I rarely welded at more than 115 amps. Once I ran a 100 foot extension cord of 10 gage wire to repair a drain under my barn (now I use a generator) I got the weld, but every time I struck an arc, I could hear the fan in the welder slow down so I was not doing my equipment any favors. A 15 amp circuit isn't close, particularly with 12 or 14 gage wire. That first part was a table that didn't make it through the IFI forum editor. Here's the link http://electrical.about.com/od/wiringcircuitry/a/electwiresizes.htm

Here, I buy from a couple of welding shops and it's pricey. If I have much to get, a 60 mile drive to the city will about cut my price in half, but I need to be getting a fair amount to justify the drive. No one in this area has ever charged me to cut 20 ft pieces in half tho. In fact the last I got, I said "I'll be cutting 5 ft pieces so make sure to cut the 10's accurately" and he went ahead and cut five foot pieces at no extra charge.

Interesting about the cows - Their neighbor, Nepal, has a way around it. In 1997, I visited both, India, where even a "hamburger" was ground chicken and Nepal. where I had no problem getting a steak. It was water buffalo rather than beef, but suited me and kept their conscience clear - it wasn't cow meat.

Sorry, missed the diam correction. 4" is about 43 pounds/ft or 64 pounds for 18 inches.

3.5 in diam equals almost 3 pounds per inch of length (actually 2.7 pounds) or 32 pounds per foot. Close to 100 pounds there.

My Trenton (1900) says "solid wrought" on that circle. There's a picture in post 7 here. http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/28073-101-pound-trenton/

Beautiful work. Won't show you mine. Actually I have faux hinges on mine. The door opens inward. The forged straps on the outside of the doors aren't real hinges. I was lazy.

Some years back I made a display board for the viewers of a farrier's forging and horseshoeing competition . No art intended, I just said (in a poster) there are a limited number of operations in forging: bending, upsetting, drawing,punching, welding, brazing and twisting. Then using six inch pieces of 3/4 by 1/4 I just bent one over, drew one out to about 10 inches long, upset one to about 3 inches of 3/4 by 1/2, took two and forge welded the ends together, then bent them into a circle and brazed the other ends together and punched nail holes in another. I said that for shoers the twisting wasn't really used until the end of the day and I made a corkscrew of the last piece. These were all on a display board with emphasis that all had started as straight six inch pieces of 3/4 by 1/4 and such a piece was also displayed.

Remember watching an interview with Francis Whitaker on his 80th birthday. One question was about bad things that had happened to the trade. He said the worst was the arc welder. He also said he used it to be competitive, but only where it wouldn't be seen.

That's what I was talking about.

I have a 280 pound Vulcan that I repaired with 7018 over 20 years ago, but the damage was only to the plate (careless cutting torch use by a previous owner). I did not have to weld to the CI. It's held up well.

My calculations would put it at 204 pounds. Jerry's steel would have been about 110 pounds or about $50.00 for 200 pounds. I was thinking 30-40 cents a pound or $60- $80, so somewhere in that range. Start at $50.

Make a nice trivet.

Sounds like the Pferd Hoof Plane. I haven't tried one, but the prices are dropping - now only 2-3 times a regular rasp and likely worth it. I may order one.

I just finished a somewhat similar project - my better half saw a picture of some jump cups (support for the rails in horse jumping competition) that she liked. No real forging, just some complex bends on 3/8" stock. She wanted 16 (8 pair). Asked if we should order at about 20 bucks a pair with shipping or have me make them. I said about $2 each for material, the first two pair would take about an hour each, the next six pair about an hour total. Time estimate was about right - I was getting good at the end. Another 8 pair would be fast. The only jig I used was a section of 6 inch channel to form the cup. They were identically similar.

Adjustable anvil stands are impractical but I think ideal anvil height can move up or down with the work and the tools used.Fifty years ago when I was a farrier doing all cold shoeing my anvil was higher. I wasn't hitting anything more than an inch above the face. As I moved into hot work and had punches and drifts, etc that were 8 or 10 inches or more long in order to keep my hand above the hot steel, my anvil got lowered and is now at knuckle height. Sounds like much of your present work is near the anvil face and a somewhat "high" anvil wouldn't be terrible, might even help. Another consideration is to keep shoulder, wrist, hammer and elbow in line. Don't let the hammer head move in to where you're twisting your wrist and forearm and moving the elbow out to strike.

Frank, They're now Heller Red Tang - don't think there was any change but the name. Many years ago Simonds bought Heller so they have owned the name a long time and I guess decided to market it again. Several years back I went out to our local frontier theme park (It's in conjunction with our old territorial prison where Butch Cassiday was a guest) to shoe their draft horses. I was making the shoes for crowd enjoyment but with 1-1/4 by 1/2 steel I do like to have a striker so I went to the park Blacksmith shop to see if anyone would like to strike and the smith was happy to send his helper. They were of course always getting asked about shoes and were clueless so this was a chance to at least learn a little.about making and applying shoes. Enough to answer some questions. I remember though how astonished the helper was when I started to hot rasp. I explained that I went through about a rasp a week in my normal work so I always had a supply of used rasps for hot work. Didn't feel my Makita electric hot rasp was appropriate in a frontier park. Besides, I was working a long way from electricity.