bigfootnampa

The style looks very useful. As I am sure you know by now, the shape makes sharpening a bit trickier... worthwhile balanced against usefulness though IMO. Your tempering temperature seems a bit high to me. I'd have tempered it at more like 250 degrees centigrade. On this type of blade/tool I'd like to fit the lanyard at the front of the handle (preferably a strap) so that the hand can be strapped into the grip in such a way that control is practically never lost... sort of the way that ski pole grips are set up. This seems to help as fatigue sets in and sweat makes everything slippery. A powerful blade like that swinging about near your body is a significant hazard.

Well I'll just let you know that the material is quite likely to exceed your budget for the whole thing. Even if you could find a piece just about the right size it's likely to cost you over a hundred plus tax and shipping BEFORE you pay anyone to work on it!

Hey! Good info Lein, THANK YOU!

Phil; Usually the method is to turn a lip at the top of the spring that keeps it from sliding down and to curl the bottom corners of the spring inward so that they keep it centered on the arm. Not sure if this will work with the spring that you have but if you make a new one allow enough material to do it this way as it works well.

I wired in a plug at my shop and went to plug in my fan and it sound funny like it was running to fast. I thought it may have been the fan so I pluged in a cheap knock off dremel and POP it blew up.
I'm guessing maybe I used to heavy a Gage of wire, is this possible.
It's wired to a 40 amp breaker.

The whole project is quite inspirational... very artistic work. As I view the photos I find that I am a bit put off by the colors though... I believe that it would look considerably better if you did it in black and red and left out the stainless. The shiny stainless seems to clash with the black and detract from the effect of the red buds. I can see it in my minds eye all black with the red buds gleaming here and there... and WOW! I also really LOVE the upsets on the newels! The meandering flow of the fence is very interesting and I find the height variations exceptionally attractive too! I like the gate design quite a lot!

I have no experience with them but note that they are somewhat thin at the heel (something that farriers want). They do NOT seem cheap to me... Centaur has a 150# at $960.00 (which is $6.40/pound). I just bought an old Peter Wright 151# for $300.00 ($2.00/pound). I would say that they seem typical of new farrier anvils to me.

All good advise, I used much of it today. Cleaned the screw box with mineral spirits, pulled apart the pivot and scraped out all kinds of funk. When I was done I ended up tweeking the spring a bit on the anvil, cold. I put the end in the hardy and gave it a good whallop. I added about 1/2 inch of deflection. Most springs are mild steel according to what I have read.

I should have grabbed the spring with the vise instead, but it worked well, and the vise was on the floor again... would have taken about 2 seconds to put the wedges in.

Phil

Here's an idea for you; I have bought lots of small pry bars for a dollar each and some big ones (3 foot X 3/4") for three bucks each. I get them at flea markets or even antique stores. The same markets often have RR spikes and usually around a dollar each. The small pry bars are equivalent steel content to about 4 spikes and will make much better cutting edges (most of them anyway). The large pry bars have more steel than a dozen spikes. Personally I would rather not spend my forge fuel and my own valuable forge time working with the spike steel when I could have much better material to work with. I get lots of old riding mower blades for free or traded for an item made from one of them and that steel is excellent for cutting edges (in nearly all cases). Check with the service manager of a mower dealership. Most of my mower blade stock seems to be about 1080-1090 steel... similar to old file steel. I often get old files for fifty cents to $1.25 each too and at antique stores as well as flea markets.

Tong #4 is for gripping flat bar stock. Grab a piece of 2" X 1/4" bar and you will see how it works (though it may be intended for some other size... can't tell dimensions from the pics).

I'd go with slot punch myself; a band setter should be offset to one side so you can get close up. (just made a couple dozen band nails last week for a cooper)

Here you go (quick synopsis): Monel, is hard as XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Really it will test your power forging tools... just a bit TOO MUCH for hand hammering unless in small diameters. Seems it might be softer considering it's ingredients... NOPE! It is used for forming dies because it has long-wearing properties and is extremely resistant to corrosives. The long-wearing properties are derived from great hardness and stiffness... not so good for forge working properties. My Anyang groans if I even TOUCH a bar of that stuff!

My guess would be a creasing tool for horseshoes... just a guess though.

AAAUUGGHHH!!!!

Where is Grant (AKA Naked Anvil)?

I do not have enough expertise to help much here but I would like to point out that SOME smiths DO use boric acid (AKA roach-proof) alone as a flux.

WOW! WOW! WOW! WOW! Amazing work Brian!! The pentagon is very interesting! This knife is only a moderately complex design but the incredible precision of your execution is a wonder to see!!!

Charcoal making has traditionally been done in mounded earth ovens. I have read lots of historical accounts. It's a rather tricky business though and lots of experience is REAL helpful. Best I can advise is to read/study and then try in smallish batches building toward larger batches as you gain experience and confidence. I have NO experience... just the reading part. Not that hard I think as it is a very dirty and somewhat dangerous job... few elite thinkers are involved... but not that easy either for beginners. BTW it does take patience as the old time charcoal works took several days for a mound to be converted and cooled enough to harvest.

I agree with Thomas Powers that this steel is an excellent stock for hammers... just about the right size too. Don't get in a hurry to cut it... try to get all the work that you can done while it is long enough to use the cold end as a handle. Hammer shapes are relatively challenging to grip firmly with tongs and there is no such thing as a "short heat" on a hammer sized chunk of metal. Operations like slitting and drifting, and rough shaping and sizing, as well as peen shaping can usually be done while you have a long billet to work with... and 3 feet is a pretty convenient size to work with.

The most applicable method that I can think of would be to cut rough (or smooth) discs from thick flat stock and then hot punch the middles out. You'll need a mandrel to refine the shapes and a sizing mandrel. You could also make some by forge welding strips or bar stock but if you could do that you probably wouldn't be here asking for advice. You could also experiment with some open ended designs that just wrap the finger or some that twine together to make the ring. Wrapped wire, brazed or silver soldered is another possibility. Slices from medium to heavy wall tubing are a possible way, though you'd have trouble making that up from pattern welded stock.

If I were you I'd start with the open ends designs... they are not very viable in non-ferrous but steel is SO STRONG that they are reasonably durable designs if you keep the end tapers decently chunky and (for safety and comfort) softly round the tips. I have taught beginners to forge them in a few hours.

Leg/post vises don't resist twisting regardless of how they are mounted. Leg vises are for hammer work, machinist vices are for twisting.

Sam I have seen them but not often. I think they would be properly called box vises... but you might see them called most anything. Here is a link to a pic of one that was sold as a "chuck wagon tongue vise". Take a look at the photo... it seems to me that the easy way to get one would be to alter a regular post vise by making a more robust mounting (because without the post the mount has to resist ALL the twisting and pounding forces) and cutting off the post leg. It looks fairly simple to do and you'd likely make a better one than you could buy.chuck wagon tongue vise

That shape seems fairly common to the farrier anvils. Not ideal for most standard smithing purposes but most of the time you'll only use a small section of the anvil and if you choose the section over the main body it will perform pretty nearly as well as a standard shaped anvil anyway. Put on some good shooter's ear muffs and RING IT till you get a little crowd. Then you can take the muffs off and work on the quieter portions of the anvil while they watch. The shape IS SEXY looking!!!

big foot napta....
what was the first intended use of D2 tool steel?

and i love my vise grips!
I reckon a good exercise would be trying to make one's ones

alec

Have you tried California Metals: 800-707-6061 or Rickard Metals: 909-740-3933 or American Special Metals: 305-551-4215? If none of them have it they can tell you who would. Should be plenty available as the aerospace industry probably uses lots that would serve your purposes.