DKForge

Wow thats like $205 US for all of that! Awesome score man. It's like you paid for the tools and got the forge free!

I'll be there Cool Hand. I'm a new member of the Ocmulgee Blacksmith Guild and a couple of us from the Savannah area will be at the conference. The OBG guys are a great group and their meetings are very fun and informative.

I can't be of much help as far as how to prepare as this is my first time. All I have been told is save your money cuz the tailgating is supposed to be an awesome place to pickup those items you might be looking for.

Hope to see you there.

I found this awesome thing on the internets what do you guys think will it work?

Mine would say, "I survived the trip over from England on a ship, the American Civil War, WWI, Prohibition, the Great Depression, WWII scrap drives, the 60's, Disco, the '80's, the internet bubble, Y2K, being half buried in the ground, you found me in 2008, dug me out, cleaned me up and now you proceed to lay hot iron on me and hit me with a hammer". Thank you old William Foster dated 1854.

Jake you and Frosty are enough to make me want to sell it all and head your way.

Take care and enjoy your posts.

Nothing wrong with that anvil, looks great! I would just clean it up with a good soak of wd-40 and start using it. Use if for a while before you do any repairs. To me those marks, dings, chips etc all have a story. While we may not know what that story is the history in that old anvil is there. Personally and this is just my personal opinion, I prefer to see those battle scars vs. ground and welded repairs. Just from the pictures you sent it looks like it is plenty useable. In the end it is yours so do what will make you happy.

Nice old anvil. I love the 19th century London pattern anvils.

This should be posted in the tailgating section.

John welcome and nice shop! I have shop envy! I went to your website. Nice work.

Nice job Larry I'm gonna have to make some of those!

Just my experience having recently learned to forge weld. The gentleman that taught me was pretty insistent that you have to have the whole process and movement right in your head when you do it. That really stuck with me and it definitely seems to work. When starting out forge welding practice your movements of you you will pull the piece from the fire, how you will position it on your anvil and how and where you will have and grab your hammer to strike. When you pull the ring from the fire to forge weld if you think you are moving quick enough try going a little quicker. It does not take long to loose the heat necessary to forge weld between the fire, the anvil and the heat lost when the ring touches the anvil. Moderately powerful taps to forge weld, not too hard and not too soft to make first weld. Reheat to a second forge welding heat clean up the weld. He taught me how to forge weld without flux and I have been consistently able to make strong welds using his technique. The only time I use flux is if the seam is too visible for what I am doing and then the flux easily cleans that up.

As an aside I believe most British smiths do not use flux either. Would like to hear from our brothers across the pond.

Good luck and keep at it.

Looks great! Thanks for the cost breakdown. I am always hearing people say "man I would love to do what you do but I don't have the money." Your post shows how inexpensively you can have a great setup to start blacksmithing.

I also enjoy woodworking but the cost to get started in that compared to blacksmithing is much higher. Think about photography and what it costs for "beginner" slr digital camera. Golf, motorcycling, flying the list goes on and on of hobbies that are considerably more expensive and most of which you don't make things you can sell to offset what costs there are. (Those are all the things I tell the finance department when I want to buy a new tool).

Well today was my wifes birthday and I finished the candle holder before she got home from work. Attached is a photo. For the first one I have ever made I think it didn't turn out too bad. I learned some things and will use them the next time. With the wider stock I think a bending fork deep enough for the stock or a scroll jig would have helped me with the scrolls. I still need to work on my brazing ability as my pans are barely attached enough to the tapers. I saw Hofis method and that looks pretty cool. All in all I am pretty pleased with how it turned out and my wife loves it.

Thanks for all of the replys.

Darryl

Thanks Frosty that's a great idea. That is why I asked cuz I knew someone would have a better idea than what I had come up with.

It's why I love this site.

Ok guys I have done searches trying to find the answer to this in past posts but have come up short.

I am making a candle holder for my wife. I have tapered 3/8 stock to a point and have made candle pans out of 22 ga sheet steel. I am going to make a hole in the middle of the pan to slip down the point approximately 1/2 inch so that the point will go into the bottom of the candle to hold it in place. My question is how do I attach the pan to the taper? I don't have an OA torch so at my disposal I have a Mapp Gas torch and a small AC buzz box. I am not very good at arc welding yet so I don't know that that is even an option.

Can I use the Mapp Gas and use copper to braze it? How else could I do this.

Thanks for your sage advice.

Woodie here is the way I understand it.

If it does not say Solid Wrought on it either in a straight line or in a circle you got a really old one (pre 1850). If it said solid wrought in a straight line it would be 1850-1860 after that it was in a circle. After 1915 they started marking "England" under the word Patent on them as RegionalChaos said above. Nice old anvil.

A lot of great smiths have been mentioned already so I won't repeat them here. Someone I recently met and had the opportunity to talk with is my inspiration. Elmer Roush. His focus is toolmaking using traditional techniques.
Here are photos from the demo where I met him. In the first you can see dividers, axes, pliers and locks all recreated based on actual examples he has studied in museums around the world. The second are locks he makes. The bottom one is a 10th century Viking lock he created based on an actual example in a museum. The other is hand forged combination lock. I forget the era and location where the original was from but it is amazing!

Since I mostly do my blacksmithing at living history type events his ability to create these tools and items using only traditional means and the study he puts into understand and examining the originals are inspirational for me.

If you have not had a chance meet Elmer or visit his site I would highly recommend it.

Here is a link to his site.

ps. His beautiful and equally talented wife Lynda is also a blacksmith. She does architectural work and here is a link to her site.

My finance department knows that I have my "blacksmith fund" which is funded by selling items I have made with my blacksmithing. The fund is also used to buy blacksmithing items or other tools I know I can turn around for a profit by which to further grow said "blacksmith fund." All of my stock is paid for with monies from my "blacksmith fund" in order to keep everything neat and tidy and out of the hands of the finance department. Gifts to the financial director have included a dinner bell, a fire poker, a candlestick and a promise that she gets first dibs on anything new I create before it goes into the "for sale' pile.

Junker let us know where you are. Here is an ad from the Clinker Breaker which is the newsletter for the Florida Artist Blacksmith Association. You can get coal in Barberville.

BLACKSMITH COAL
$35 per 100 lb bag (Pickup only) & details - Pioneer Settlement,
contact the Settlement at 386-749-3353 (direct line to Gudrun
in bookkeeping) or mail your order with payment to PSCA/
COAL, P.O. Box 6, Barberville, FL 32105. Accepted forms of
payment: cash, money orders, checks, MasterCard and Vis

Awesome Brian thanks! That is why I love this site! So many people willing to help each other with what has worked and not worked in past real life experiences.
Thanks to all!

Thomas here are two

Train track

Full text of "Origin and development of the railway rail : English and American wood, iron and steel"

Thanks Mark I believe the original ones were square but round would serve the same purpose. Just may not be authentic.
Thanks for your advice it is greatly valued.

It appears,most rail was rolled iron but some steel rail was imported from England between 1850 and the end of the civil war. This was because iron manufacture invention and resources were more focused on armaments during the war.

Here is a time line I found. Remember Bessemer steel was in England 1850's era so some of that may have come to the states.

"Iron rails 18 feet in length were imported from England as early as 1831, and by 1845 or 1850 most railroads were being built of iron rails. The first Bessemer steel rails manufactured in the United States were rolled at the North Chicago Rolling Mills on May 25, 1865, and by 1880 about 30 per cent of all tracks in the United States was laid with steel rails. At the end of another ten years, 80 per cent of the country's mileage was equipped with steel rails, and by the late 1890's steel had almost completely replaced iron."

Thanks guys that is a big help. I suppose I could try and put 1/4" flat bar in the vise for the last bend.

I appreciate the help.

Right Matt train rails. During the American Civil War the north would bend rail road rails around trees to disrupt the confederate rail system. The south was able to straighten them out so the north came up with these large horseshoe looking tools to twist the rails like a cork screw along the length of the rail making it impossible to return to service. They also did it cold which is even more fascinating.

Thanks I will try bending it over 1/4 stock. The problem is I am finding the wrought iron to be pretty tough to work with from the standpoint of its stability when making sharp tight bends like I need on the ends. I have had it shear off a number of times and contrary to what I have read it seems to work better when it is cooler as when it is hotter it is like butter and seems to just slide right apart. Maybe I need to refine it before trying to make the ends.