MarkDobson

So due to having to help relocate my dad and the shop i havnt been able to get my forge set up for the last couple months (in the process of putting in a 4000sqft building with my dad). This leads me to the issue of hunting season being around to corner and my dads rifle in need of a new trigger guard since i broke the plastic one. Now i could have ordered a metal replacement for $30 and been done with it but why order one when you can spend way more time and money trying to make your own lol. I ended up starting with a 7/8 thick plate and drilled/ filed out the hole, i never liked how small the original guard was so i decided i might as well make it bigger whie i was at it.i used the metal badsaw at work to cut it to a rough dimension and got it home only to realize that it was way to thick and had to bust out the angle grinders and cutt off wheels to thin it out a bit. I ended up making a countersink bit for the screws to sit flush and used some cold blue to finish it off. Its not perfect and took way more time than i thought but im pretty happy with it

Nice find, looks like a good vise and shouldnt be to hard to put back to work. the older vise i cleaned up not to long ago had that same slot in it. it had a wedge shaped piece of metal in it. i ended up reusing it since i didnt see anything wrong with it and it works well, now the tang style mounting bracket that was broken and welded onto the vise was a completely different story.

looks cool, id of brought it home just to have it. it looks like it would come in handy since it mounts with a clamp which would make it fairly portable.

ive seen anvils with the entire hard face missing being sold as "pristine" "perfectly flat" "great using condition" up here for 500 to 1000. people that arnt in the know have no clue and the people that are selling it probably bought it at a penny a lb because of it

Normally you would here something along the lines of "use it as is untill you figure out its flaws" but id say in this case you would be better suited to repair the anvil and get her back in serviceable condition. i fear if you tried to use her as she is then you would only mushroom the wrought iron and make it worse. Look up the gunther repair method as it will be the easiest way to repair an anvil. this involves preheating and hard facing the anvil. If you wanted to go the way of making a new top plate then you will need to fully weld the new piece of steel to the face. I have seen this done by people adding a spacing block say 3/8th" (may need larger on a larger anvil) and welding from the center out. if the top plate is only welded on the radius then it will still be a dead anvil when your done. As for the horn, if you want to repair it, you may be able to machine a new cone shape and weld it on but the waste from machining a horn would be massive. maybe you could fix the face and then have a couple guys come over with sledge hammers and forge a new one. Could put your repair to the test Take note at the lack of pritchel hole as well

my HB anvil has similar damage only the edges were chipped instead of rolled over. cold shoeing (at least IMO) can be fairly hard on an anvil over the years. this is the picture of mine when i first brought it home. the top is a little more polished now

i really need to stay off of craigslist and marketplace lmao, found this 10in south bend (w/ the larger spindle size) about 15min from my house on craigslist. came with a 3 jaw bison chuck, 4 jaw chuck, quick change tool post with probably 10 different tool holders, taper attachment and a whole drawer full of collets along with some other misc parts and tooling. Now if i could only find a place o put it in the shop.... time to do some cleaning lol

if i was feeling more greedy i would have also brought home the 226lb peter wright that he had but i let the other guy i work with buy it and the cast iron portable forges that were in my bosses barn i figured if i let the other guy i work with take some of the stuff i could A. save some money and B. have someone to forge with (aka i could have a striker) .... oh did i mention that i got all this stuff from my boss? he had all this stuff in his barn that his father had collected looking to get into blacksmithing as a retirement hobby but sadly passed before he ever got around to using it. Unfortunately the fisher has some pretty deep pitting on the main part of the face directly over the front feet but ill see if it polishes out with use or if its even in the way, the working surface on this guy is huge so im sure i can find a spot to work on it lol. i had a piece of 1" plate burned at work to make a tripod stand for it today so hopefully i can get around to making that soon. cast date is 1912 and the foot has 27 cast in it which im assuming is the rough weight since its about 270-280lb

Brought all this stuff home the other day. ended up with a 90lb columbian anvil, 280lb fisher. 6inch columbian post vise, 4in post vise with the old style mounting bracket. a cast iron forge and champion 400 blower along with a random assortment of tongs and scrap. the strange pipe vise thing from a larger piece of equipment and an old locked up bench vise( i took this just because i want to see if i can free it up since it was burried in the dirt for who knows how long). To top it off all the ~1 1/4 hex stock on the pallet was thrown in. im going to cut a piece off of the hex stock and take it to work to have it hit with the xray thing we have to see what type of steel it it

alright my friends, im stumped on this one. i was at my bosses house looking at some of his blacksmithing stuff ad he had this thing sitting in his barn. Neither of us have any idea what it came from but it appears to have a set of interchangeable pipejaws. my first guess was it was just a pipe vise but then i flipped it over and saw what appears it be a track of some kind underneath. Anyone have any ideas as to what this goes to? i would have to guess the size of the jaws are maybe 1in to 1 1/2in. the screw threads go opposite from one another so that both sides of the clamp open and close at the same time

why not just have a hammer in with the police once they show up and find nothing wrong, im sure that would get him fired right up lol. just get some coffee and food and have them bring the whole department with them. Wow that ship wheel looks awesome, cant wait to see the finished pics

sorry, i was thinking dc since the motors we wire up at work are 90v DC. any of the AC motors we wire are 460v and have three wires.

is there a box on the side of the motor those wires come out of? if so here should be a screw in the box for your ground (its usually green). it shouldnt make a difference which wire is hooked to which since they arnt marked. if it doesnt work or it sucks instead of blows switch the wires

i like the floor pockets idea thomas so i hope you post pictures when you get it done! i wish i could just bury stuff but we are still terraforming down under the barn (aka the never ending project) so if i bury anything it will either be lost forever or ill have to dig it back up. not really the end of the world since we have a backhoe i guess lol. i have probably 30ft of i think 6x6 box beam guard rail that i could cut up and bury as a socket in the ground for a post now that i think about it. this is what i had originally thought of but even if i weighted it down i thing it would still move. maybe i could mount it to a plate to stand on

correct me if im wrong, but wouldnt you have to either match the old screw perfectly or replace both since they are chained together? also, how are those gears connected to the screw?