Rainbows

Bigger workspace, cause it wouldn't be much good getting a 100lb power hammer or any other tool if you don't have a place to put it.

Big yellow bouncy castle blower, £15, never used from a car boot sale. Could have bought new new for £30. Usually place it a bit away from the tuyere inlet to reduce the airflow. 

The tang goes right through and is visible at the bottom. The original pan was to have a bit of brass at the bottom which I glued on but I didn't let it cure long enough before shaping it so it fell off and I thought I might as well let it stay off. 

Not exactly blacksmithing specific but

for £1000

Clearly there is money to be had in making old tools that look like they are old 

Thought I might as well post the first knife I made, in ten years time I might hunt this thread out and then I can see how far I have come after (hopefully) improving.

O1 steel blade with a walnut handle and brass inserts.

It was supposed to be a stock removal knife but when heat treating it I pushed it further into the fire to heat the entire blade the tip hit the base of the forge and the knife bent at the point where it was already hot so there is now a tiny amount of forging that's gone into it to get it straight again.

The design is very loosely based off my grandfathers scout knife, a camillus 1007, which snapped in half a bit before making this one.

Blade also has a weird texture in it after heat treating, before quenching it it was a perfectly flat bevel to the best of my knowledge but now it has tiny bumps and stuff, when sharpening it post heat treat the top of the bumps got polished and flattened leaving black in the deeper parts which I thought looks kinda neat so I didn't grind them out all the way.  

Thanks for the offer but making a railroad anvil would probably be more effort than repairing the heel of the anvil and most railroad anvils I have seen don't have a good hardie which is what I need most.

Boxing it in and welding plate to the end seems to be a common idea so I will be sure to do that as soon as convenient. I like frostys idea of bottom tooling with the end of it, gonna give that a try. Dunno how long a mild steel hardy that thin will last but the fun of it being free is it can be an experiment. 

Frosty do you have any images of those clips/ horizontal hold fasts? I think I know you mean like but it never hurt to clarify.

Maybe I could cut a hole in the middle of the web and flog it on ebay as a antique vintage rare bridge anvil 

Would pouring lead into the cavity between the plates and the beam work to give it better rebound? I got one of those lead workers ladles sitting around  somewhere. 

Don't trust myself to be able to weld it well with my minimal skill and budget welder, local professional fabricator says he wouldn't know how to weld genuine wrought iron.

My current plan without the I beam is to have tools with an L shaped handle. The handle goes into the hardie as usual for keeping it in place but then the business end is offset to be above the centre of the anvil so that no stress it put on the heel. Dunno how well that would work as a tool or as a way to prolong heel life but I might try to make one.

I can't double check now but I think the I beam is too small to mount my current anvil on, would probably be a better material than the current stand if it did fit. The large, flat surface might be good for straightening long stuff out as jnewman mentioned, its a fair bit bigger than the face of my current anvil.

I doesn't work as well in this font, I,looks better.  I do have a wrought iron anvil of similar weight, the thing is the heel is still on it but is cracking off. If I could turn the I/H beam into cutlers anvil of sort, no horn but pritchel and hardie holes, it might save the heel falling off entirely on my current anvil.

Got this I beam free from local steel supplier, I think its thanks for buying beer for them at christmas.

Would it make a good anvil? It weighs ~40kg (~100lb) and measures by 622mm long, 200mm wide and 215mm high (24.5x8.125x8.5"). 

Failing being an anvil if anyone has other suggestions for what to make with it feel free to suggest them. 

No use for any blacksmithing? 

Someone is selling this on ebay, they are presumably dyslexic considering their spelling of fly press. However their spelling error means it doesn't turn up when someone searches "fly press" so it might go for cheap.

Could someone more knowledgeable verify that it is indeed a fly press? I am no expert at fly presses but I have only seen them with a solid cast iron frame while this one  has what looks like a table that rides up and down.

I have seen shop presses, those flimsy often bottle jack propelled presses that you can buy for hundreds of dollars, used in the forging shop, but I do not recommend them for forging. They are too slow and the framework is not meant to withstand the power exerted in forging. There are exceptions in everything, but the common shop press usually will not work for forging, so it’s okay to “run away” from those.

How powerful does a press need to be to be useful? I was vaguely considering getting a 6 ton bottle jack press for £60 off ebay until I saw this.

£3000? Those schools have too much money to burn. I see one used for £200 and I have seen them go for less previously.

There is a gas flame at the bottom to heat stuff up and I think you put the work on it them cover it in the ceramic chips to keep the heat in or something like that. 

I have been seeing a few of these flame fast chip forges on ebay, sometimes for very low prices. Has anyone used these? Do they work well? 

Rainbows, i have a copy of "Metalworking" by Paul N. Hasluck. In it he shows plans for, and descuses small ferneses for casting. I realy looks the sort. Withe the adition of a telescoping chiminy to increase draft small castings, such as jewlry and hardwar are well with in its capabilitys, do bolt it down, hot coals and molten metal spilling as you upset it opening the top would be very bad as Frosty would say hell on earth"

"Metalworking: Tools, Materials, and Processes for the Handyman"?

Found a pdf of it and while there are a few furnaces described none at the start of the book look much like this one. They are all tubular going upwards rather than horizontally or made of brick.

edit: Don't know why the  font has gone blue

8" in diameter and 6 1/2" deep on the outside. All the refractory on the top half crumbled out.

Picked this up from auction as a "vintage metal casting mould". 

Pretty certain it isn't a mould. It has some sort of refractory lining in the middle. Also has a hole in the bottom

Anyone know what it is?

Depending on whats available you could weld together an anvil rather than forge it

Is the step ornamental or has the maker welding a toolseel plate on top?

Browsing through ebay for anvils and found this unusual one (images linked due to size)

Ebay links removed

All going well I plan to go check it out in person since other than the lack of horn it appears in pretty good shape but does anyone know what the criteria of a good horn are? The long round section means I get the feeling the maker didn't really know how a horn was shaped.

The problem is getting a cheap welder more than acquiring skill. The times where I have some money spare and the times I think about buying a welder never coincide.

I have been casually looking around for fire clay, with the plan to make the backyardmetalcasting refractory, in nearby places cause I don't want to pay postage for bulk stuff like that but to no avail. In one place that was half DIY/half boiler components they directed me to fire cement which gets used on flues and boilers and such. Rated up to 1250 C. For use as refractory should I add perlite and sand or since it is ready mixed do I apply as is or is it unsuitable for the job?

Do you know how to change the tooling on yours? Don't want to rupture something on mine trying to prise it off.