Eric Farrar

I have had a lot of luck with coil and leave springs for my tools too. If you are looking for some thicker stuff, try your nearest heavy truck repair shop or even better, suspension/spring/shocks shop. A rail spike letter opener got me a trunk full - some 1 1/2" diameter coil springs and some leaf springs with the shortest ones in the stack being about 1/2"T x 4"W x 18"L - used the hydraulic press to upset a chunk via the diameter to about a 1 1/2" square which then forged down to a nice hardy. As for annealing/normalizing - everything other than mild steel that I work on gets one final heat then goes straight into a 30 gallon drum of vermiculite at least over night.

I love my Blackberry..... Anytime my wife sees me playing with my phone, she asks if I do anything with it other than look at "blacksmithing porn." Nice jack-o-lanterns! Carved one last night and got one more to go.... She wants it to be a cat... It just might turn into an anvil!

Question is how does he keep from burning that fine beard when working the forge? I can't even keep any hair on my arms or hands.... If I leta beard grow that long I know I'd loose it just standing near my forge!

I have a fabbed anvil with the base being some 8"x2.5" forklift tine I found on an Iraqi air force base my 3rd tour in Iraq. I built her in the middle of summer where nighttime ambient heat is over 100F - I guess that helped to slow the cooling so I didn't get any cracks in my welds. My question on pre/post heating: after welding she'd be at a high heat already, so how about packing the whole anvil in a 55 gallon drum of vermiculite to slow the cooling down instead of thinking about any special kind of post-heating? I am considering welding on a plate of 1" O1 to the top of her and this might be what I have to do when welding her.

I have wondered about many of the low to moderate quality/duty tools that still boast their cast iron bases - grinders, drill presses, saws, etc..... Anyone got some pointers about where I can do some reading about cast steel vs cast iron in modern production? I had kind of figured that cast iron was pretty much replaced by steel for most modern applications.

My wife finally let me build a roof over the area next to my shed that I had turned into my smithy. I had a bunch of 2x4s and a few sheets of 3/4" exterior plywood so all I had to buy was 2 12' 2x6s, a couple 4x4s and half a dozen bags of concrete. The general dimensions are 12' x 6' and the roof is 6' high at the lowest point (the cross beams are about 5'6" - I'm short so I don't have problems hitting my head).

They look great! Better than my first 4 pairs!

Looks pretty cool - not too difficult either. I would start off with the partial diamon/pineapple twist: take a slitting chisel and incise a line on all four sides from the head of the spike to about 2/3 the way to the tip. Then heat again and twist as tight as looks right. What that opener side looks like to me is cutting off the tip then a punched and drifted hole (perhaps 1/2") near the tip then cut the excess portion of the hole with a hacksaw to make the opening. At $19 each those look like a good money maker.

Thomas, thanks for the info! I kinda like the nostalgia of knowing the history of my tools... Tim, that's pretty much the idea I'm going to go with... Just don't expect quite the result that those two made... For starters, my welder is a POS from harbor freight I picked up for cheap at a pawn shop... 90amp max that can barely handle a 3/32 rod! I have the hole re-threaded to 3/4"x14tpi and have a 6" grade 8 bolt 1 1/2" deep in it that I'm going to weld to a piece of steel plate for the foot - then it is going to get added to my anvil stand after I extend that another 18"...

Bob, Seeing this vice made me scrap my mounting plan for the vice in the other thread - threaded hole instead of a leg..... LDW, I get that her primary purpose here is striking - either with tooling in the vice or for upsetting stock placed in the vice... How does she do with the other things we do with a vice (bending, twisting, hack-sawing, etc)? I was getting ready to mount my vice on the same stand as my anvil until I saw your setup. Eric

Frosty - please do look me up when you visit your sister! Grant - I did think about using a plug to get the exact TPI on the threads but they are so stripped out that there's barely anything left to try to measure. Callipers gave me the 3cm or 11/16" I'll post some picks once I get her operational - hopefully before my move.

Definitely cast... raised letters gave it away for me... Gotta re-tap it to something usable... since I don't have any 11/16th it's gonna have to be 3/4"... I've got some 3/4" 1045 that needs to be put to use before it rusts away.

Heading back home to Boise now that the Army is done with me an says I'm too broken to stay in any more... Been blown up too many times and trained too hard... Hopefully I'll be able to get a job fixing the machines that make microchips at Micron Technology since civilians don't have many missile systems to fix.

So, A couple weeks ago I was going to a pawn shop to sell a bunch of excess tools (the wife says I have to lighten up SIGNIFICANTLY before we move back to Idaho around Thanksgiving)… and of course I had to walk around a bit and see what was gathering dust… I saw a post vise (note: I don’t have a post vise and have been keeping my eyes open for over a year for one in the area…) Okay… so the leg was missing…. Appears to have been sawn off then a hole drilled and tapped in it’s place… I can’t quite get a match on the TPI, but it is 11/16ths of an inch or 3cm… The screw box just needed a little cleaning – it looked pretty good in the pawn shop and even better after cleaning... Jaws are 6” and there is just a little side-to-side play. The screw is in great shape too... Since the pawn shop was just being plain stingy with their cash, I traded for the marked $150 on the vise instead of taking the $50 they were offering me for over $600 worth of brand new tools. I took her home and cleaned her up, where I found a few markings… 6LV5 on the main leg, 6LV2 on the moving leg, and 6LV13 on the mount… I’m assuming that means 6” Leg Vise, part 5, 2, 13… I flipped her over and found what may be manufacturer markings on both legs: "JB" Anyone have a clue about this manufacturer? Doesn't matter too much cause it is stout and will meet my needs but I wouldn't mind to know. She cleaned up pretty good and now I am just trying to figure out how I want to mount a leg to her… I was thinking about tapping it to match some ¾” threaded rod I have or use a ¾” grade 8 bolt… The mount plate is 19" from the missing leg and the total current height is 24" - I'm pretty darn short so my anvil is at 29" .. only need to raise her up about 10 inches for where I want it. My question… What would YOU do to mount it?

I gotta say that the rental unit is my preferred outhouse - 3 tours in Iraq and I have deposited my opinion of the country in/on every imaginable type of place out there in every imaginable type of weather. Next on the list is a chemical camping toilet then the wonderful portable folding toilet seat with a pack of trash bags... Good luck to ya whatever you choose! Note to self: when I build the new shop, include a bathroom...

The mount runs at 170 rpm - thus making a spare tire of any significant size run pretty slow..... The mount casting is pretty stout and I think it could be used with a v-belt after welding on a pulley or using a flat belt with the mount's OD. The motor housing has about a dozen 1/4" threaded holes around it to mount it nice and secure. The spindle of the stripped-down motor is, I believe (gotta double check the picture) a 3/4" round with about a 1/4" recessed drive mount point. I don't believe I can find any way of mounting to this other than straight into it with a drive shaft on a couple pillow blocks with a pulley on the other end of the shaft. The only reason I would even care to use the buffer mount/planetary drum is as a simpler drive system. Space doesn't seem to be an issue in my shop as I just found out that my medical retirement from the Army means the wife wants to move back to Idaho.... The hammer build may be put on hold for a while... What else could these motors be used for effectively at this ridiculous 170 rpm?

I know how much we all love pics - I browse through the forums just to look at pics of others' projects - I love my blackberry - lets me get onto IFI any time, any where... and it takes darn good pictures too, so here we go... First - The circumference of the buffer mount housing... Second - where I took a wire wheel to remove paint and then did a spark test... Third - Diameter of the buffer mount and housing... Fourth - If the planetary gear/buffer mount housing is completely removed, this recessed spindle shaft is all there is with a straight cut through it. The connection from this shaft is actually a piece of PLASTIC. I figure if I really want the 1700-ish RPMs of the motor, I can have a drive shaft stick right into this rectangular hole... Fifth - a decent profile shot of the motor with buffer mount housing... Sixth - who dares submit pictures of a motor without a picture of the data plate????? So, as I mentioned before, I have three of these puppies - one that I have gotten rid of the buffer mount and two that still have it.

I've been collecting parts for my first power hammer build for a couple years now, and what may be the best motor I have come across is a floor buffer motor... Here's the skinny: I have 3 buffer motors- each is 1.5HP 1750 rpm 110V (~12 Amps) and each is mounted directly to a planetary gear (buffer mount spins the opposite direction of the motor spindle) that reduces it down to 170 rpm. The diameter of the buffer mount/planetary gear is about 8" and the majority of which is fairly smooth around the circumference and might work well as a tire hammer if I could find a 6"-9" diameter tire so it doesn't get much slower. The mount is cast iron and I guess I could weld a pulley onto it and use a tension driven system. What would you do if this was the motor you had to use for a hammer build? I have materials for the tire hammer or rusty style... The material I have for the ram is a 3.5"x2"x42" medium-carbon chunk weighing in around 45# - (two of these chunks followed me home last summer......)

Last Christmas I got 2 copies of Alex Bealer's The Art of Blacksmithing. If anyone is interested in a copy for cheap, let me know!

Okay... So we are looking for a pulley for a 4" flat belt with 3/4" shaft and 3/8" keyway, about 3" in diameter... Most of what I have is for v-belts but I will sort through the box for anything for flat belts.

What size is the shaft on the motor and do you need a motor pulley with setscrew or woodruff key? If woodruff key, what width? Reason I ask is I am working on building my first spring helv and bought a box full of pulleys a little while ago - I have a couple dozen motor pulleys and could mail you the one you need (I'm pretty darn sure I have one that will meet your needs) - all I'd be interrested in return is postage (small flat rate box is what, $5?) Eric

Okay... I am new to forging blades (still finishing up my first blade of 5160) and I have a question about cable knives... I have been around a large variety of equipment with a wide variety of cables. I have yet to come across any cable that isn't galvanized, and I'm sure that bladesmiths aren't immune to heavy metal poisoning... Where does one get UNgalvanized cable? Eric

On a good note about aluminum and acid... During my 3rd tour in Iraq I burried some coax and network cable a couple inches down after running it through some thick walled aluminum square tube (tanks driving over wires have a habit of ruining communications...). The dirt in that area was very acidic and we were close to a sewage pond so the dirt never really dried out. After 15 months of exposure to this weak acid, I pulled up the tube when we were pulling out - the acidity had made some beautiful patterns of pock-marks that was accented nicely with a fine wire brush cup on the grinder. I'm not suggesting sending aluminum work to get buried in Iraq - just than acid can be used to "age" aluminum and gives some unique finishes. Just be sure to be safe and use all necessary PPE.

Beautiful work! I will be retiring from the Army in a few months and my wife has been bugging me to put a shadow box together... Yours sets a pretty high standard for me to follow. Thanks for sharing!

I love the plethora of information gained via collaboration! Glad my regulator is certified for 'all fuel gases' but these are great points to take into consideration for safety!