Michael Spaulding

Oh, I was aware going in that I probably wouldn't walk away with an anvil yesterday, but I've got my phone number and intention out to a while lot of folk. Maybe one will yield results. And thanks again for the advice to join my local group. I'll be in touch with them.

That's a good idea. I'd already planned on joining, but I just put in my first annual due, and I'm reaching out to them now. I figured any of them would mark up an anvil pretty heavily, but it didn't occur to me they would use it as an effort to get new members more involved. Maybe I'll content myself to a nice 80-90 pounder for now and shoot for a full #150+ in the long run.

Stuart, that is a story, all right. I've been keeping a keen eye on craigslist and $300 in my pocket. I'm in a job that I can actually leave early on little notice and go chase down an anvil. I am 100% ready to move like a mongoose.

Well, today ended with no anvil. Not even a strong lead. It was, however, an interesting day with lots of networking and stories. We began at a little hardware shop, who gave us a lead on this weird gun shop emporium about 15 miles away that had just an insane amount of guns, and in the back, behind their repair counter, I could see a power hammer and a bunch of other tools I didn't recognize. They admitted to having a couple anvils there, but none they were planning to let go of, but I gave them my mini "wallet" flyer and they said they had a couple people they could inquire to. Then I stopped at an antiques shop, who were using a little 25 lb railroad anvil (beat to crap) as a door stop. They had a really huge, what appeared to be iron crucible on a huge handle. The crucible was about 12 inches across the top, and maybe 18 in deep, and the handle was 6 ft. Clearly made for pouring, but beyond me, otherwise. Found two sets of working bellows, and a horse hoof clipper, all tools of a potential farrier, but no blacksmith hammers, tongs, or anvils (aside from the doorstop). They gave me info on another antique shop (that wasn't showing up on google maps) that's run by a group of old guys. The first three times I asked them, they tried to sell me stuff, but the fourth time (in an hour long conversation) they admitted they had a couple friends that probably had some anvils. "If we find one, we plan on buying it, though. You'll have to buy it from us!" That's what I get for dealing with antique dealers. I did purchase a bench vise for $20 in really outstanding condition, however. It's called a Versa-Vise, and doesn't close all the way (maybe a 1/4 inch short), but should work fine for anything I need it for. The whole reason I got it, was because you can remove the vise off of the base, and put it back on sideways, which should prove very useful when I get to the final stages of finishing a sword, or knife, and need to peen the tang. Finally, we went driving through the countryside for a few hours looking for likely suspects and decided to go knock on two doors. The first had an antique riding style grinding stone in the front yard as decoration and my heart soared. There has to be an anvil on this property, right? Wrong. The lady who answered the door said she had no interest in selling the grind wheel at all, and that they didn't have an anvil on the farm at all. I did get a peek in two of their enormous sheds, as they were open, and if there was an anvil hidden in either, there's no way she'd know. They were packed with junk. I purchased a dozen eggs, overpaid for them, and left my wallet flyer. The second had a ton of antique farm equipment displayed, most of it plows and tillers that were clearly intended to be horse drawn, which got my hopes up. In this part of the states, anyone who has an anvil, it's with the intention of farrier work. This seemed like a likely candidate. I met the most adorable golden retriever (about 10 feet past the"Beware of dog" sign) and his owner and we talked about antique tools, and he said it's entirely likely there's an anvil on the property, but he wouldn't have any idea which shed it's in, or where in that shed it might be. Or maybe he scrapped it 20 years ago. Who knows. I can't really argue with that, and the longer I keep him standing in the cold talking about it, the less likely he is to be any more forthcoming, so I let my wallet flyer, and made sure I left while it was still a pleasant experience for us both, and it was. He was a very nice fellow, but I got the impression I was keeping him from something. After that, we stopped at a couple kitschy garden decoration stores (in very different towns) and talked to a few people and gave out more wallet flyers. Posted a couple actual flyers. Overall, met some cool people, hung up some flyers, heard some stories and talked a lot about anvils. And I think the biggest lesson here, is that no matter how far out of the city you travel, when you ask someone about anvils, there's a good chance you're going to be told to check craigslist. Was I talking to the wrong people?

My military service left me with a bad back. I'm in pain most of the time, but I'd probably lift a newly purchased anvil if the call came. Would I help someone lift an anvil, yeah probably, but give me a couple years after all that anvil lifting and I might have to stick to my guns. I'm a fit dude, and by all appearances look healthy, but my back is wrecked. just goes to show you never really know what someone's been through. Great story, though!

I'd be afraid to use Thermite, personally. I'll keep my eyesight in tact, if possible. I don't plan to get too experimental with the stuff, just test the limits of the variable materials noted in historic wootz steel, and things like cooling time and forging style. I'll leave adding new materials to the experts. I'm certainly not that yet.

afrtist, I plan to create my own crucibles using fire clay and grog (with some other stuff, maybe. Charred rice husks? Sounds like fun to try) so my investment in crucibles will be minimal (compared to buy clay-graphite crucibles for one time use) I expect the crucubles to be destroyed when the metal ingot is removed. In fact, I'm sealing each crucible before firing, so destruction will a vital part of the ingot removal process. And I'm not sure my intention is coming across, here. I want steel to work, sure. But working steel isn't my only intent here. I'm in this for the scientific and archealogical process. I want to recreate a historical type of steel, and test variables to determine their effect on the outcome. I'm as much in this for the scientific results as the resulting steel. I'm in this as much for the failures as the successes, because I want to see which variables I can change, and how far I can change them, before Wootz steel either becomes unworkable, or no longer Wootz steel (or, more accurately, modern Watered steel, and nobody seems to know exactly what wootz steel was, even historical documentation varies greatly on what they identified as wootz, so calling anything wootz steel in this day and age is inherently flawed, as we're only guessing.) If I just wanted to hammer out steel and make some stuff, you're right. I could avoid making a furnace at all, but that's not why I'm here. Having a cool metal to work onto knives and eventually swords, is certainly part of it, but I'm here for the science, and I'm willing to spend "a fortune" to get it. Though, I am starting a kickstarter campaign for my scientific endeavor. To see if enough other people are interested in the science, and furthering it, to support my idea. We'll see, I suppose.

So, for a blower, I've been looking around at my options, and I think the most economical would be a whirlpool/spa pressure Blower like the one here: http://www.pool-spa-supplies.com/index.php/air-supply-of-the-future-blower-max-air-1-8hp-110v-9-0a-2518120.html?gclid=CjwKEAiAyMCnBRDa0Pyex-qswB0SJADKNMKAu8qGid9p_SxeCUgy-cHGQvwTbsA089Uh1dNtbmNtxhoCayjw_wcB I cant get any info on how Much air it actually moves, or under what pressure, but I don't actually know how much air or pressure I need to achieve the temperature desired (1260c) and that would be dependant on the design of my furnace, which I do plan to be pretty large, fitting four crucubles and enough charcoal to achieve the desired temp. It may require some trial and error, which could get expensive if I start with an inadequate blower.

Hey, guys. I just wanted to qualify my statements a bit. I know it's a different world now than when many of you, and many of the people you know served. I never meant to insult anyone, or imply that there are sociopaths among us. I was speaking specifically from my own experiences. I find it uncomfortable being thanked by strangers for doing my job. I felt called to serve, and so I did. I did my job, and then I went home, and I've always found the instances when I've been thanked uncomfortable. Dislike is a strong word. I do appreciate that we live in an environment that people DO appreciate what soldiers are doing, which wasn't always the case. My statements came from a place of experience instead. I have known people in the military that "get off" on having people they don't know "owing" them. They felt the thanks was not only welcome, but expected, and demanded. Behind closed doors, I've heard people complain that the thanks and handshakes they've gotten either wasn't enough or wasn't genuine enough, and that they deserved more attention because of their service. My statement was specifically regarding those people, who I believe probably are sociopaths (there's other telling evidence, but I'm no doctor) and not regarding the hundreds of thousands of vets over the years who have legitimately gotten far too little appreciation, no appreciate at all, or far worse. Please understand that I didn't mean to insult or offend anyone here, and if I did offend, then I am very sorry. Also, those are some good ideas! I'll ask family about the local church. I know they're involved, so they may be able to ask around for me. I'll have to scout out the rest. Thank you for the input.

Please excuse typos. I'm on my phone

Hey, folks. I'm Taking my first anvil trip Saturday. My wife has family down in a little farming town called Faribault, MN. She had ferriers in the family even, but nobody knows what happened to the anvils from generations ago. So I've formulated a plan. Set up a Craig's list wanted ad (there's 3 or 4 up aside) Print off a flyer (with a pacture of an anvil) to put up around town Head down there. There's 5 places I want to go specifically. The seed store, hopefully put up a flyer and talk to the horse farmers around. Two antique shops, flyers and chat, and two backwater on the lake restaurant/marina/boat gas station/regular gas station. Sort of the go to talk shop for all the old folks in town. The place is almost impossible to find unless you grew up in the area. Lucky me, my wife will be tagging along. once we hit all 5 spots, if we've had no luck, I plan to be asking what part of town all the ferriers are, so I can just go driving through the dirt roads and look for post vices leaned up against sheds and hope I get lucky. As far as farming tones go, this isn't a small one. I'm sure there have been a few anvil hunters through already. So I don't expect an easy ride, but I do have a couple things going for me. My wife mentions her last name, and suddenly we're buddies with anybody in town, it's that sort of town, and second, I just seperated from the military, and my wife and I are looking to finally settle down after 8 long years. If there's one thing that can make older folks instantly amenible to you, it's service in the armed forces. I really dislike getting my hand shaken and a deep thank you for my service, just like every soldier who isn't a sociopath, for reasons I don't want to get too far into at the moment, but if that's the discussion topic that can get people talking to me, then I Will make use of it for an anvil. So, have I missed anything? Of you were me, what else would you go to raise your chances? And don't worry, I'm bringing $300 in my pocket, and a checkbook otherwise, and I'll be posting my success story, or failure lament, Saturday evening.

That's the plan!

Well, I've reached out to my local city code officials, and was put in touch with the assistant chief fire marshal for my city. So now when the cops show up because I'm blacksmithing and my neighbors freak out, I have a email traffic with the assistant chief fire marshal showing that my furnace is considered, officially, by the city a "Recreational Fire" which I can easily obtain a yearly permit for. That was comforting.

Thanks for all the stories! I'm learning that I need to start driving around in the country more often!

Hooah

Interesting. As I said, I'm less familiar with the process than the people making money off of it, so presumably they've got it figured out. On another note, an old friend of mine just brought up a good point. Do I need a building permit for a foundry? I mean, as far as I'm concerned, it's an enclosed firepit. A glorified bbq grill. Where would they even draw the line between an in-ground BBQ and a Forge or Foundry? And do any of you experience issues with noise complains when you spend all day at the anvil? I've only ever done it at a local workshop, with ear protection, indoors. So I have no sense of how loud it would actually be in the open air. I only have one neighbor I'm really concerned about with proximity, and they're agreeable folk so I'm sure we can work it out, but if it's not an issue in the open air, then I may not even bring it up.

I did send two back your way, receiving the same error message both times. Let me know if you did not get them.

Charles, that's really interesting. I might give an app a try, but I imagine lighting would be troublesome. Presumably they've given that more thought than I have in the last 2 minutes, so hopefully they've got more solutions for it than I do. Thomas, I'm noticing these books do tend to run high. ILL will definitely help a lot, but I've got about 12 floor to ceiling built in bookshelves (three entire walls) in my beautiful, finished basement that need filling. Unfortunately, I've got a lifetime of books waiting for me to purchase them. Luckily my wife and I are both book nerds, so we've got... a third of the shelves filled already (That's a lot of books!) I just have to save a shelf for historical mettalurgy So that second to last line of yours, Thomas, is nonsense to me. I'm not sure what you're trying to say. And no, I am not on the Archeological Metallurgy mailing list. Is there such a thing? I am interested.

I have an etsy shop XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX My suggestion? Use your energy elsewhere. They have some screwy software that controls where listings show up in their searches. What it boils down to, Etsy wants money, and they make more money from people who post more things, and the people who post more things are the people selling items. So the more popular your shop is, the higher your priority in the search function. I've been selling for... three of four years? Really high quality stuff (some of the highest quality chainmaille out there) at better than competitive prices for the quality of niobium and sterling silver jewelry, professional photography, "Whimsicle stories" for each piece, plus advertisements, and treasuries (which is an entirely different animal) and everything else that the "Etsy success stories" recommend, and I made more sales in attending 3 craft shows than I have in the years I've been on Etsy. That isn't to say I don't get sales, but maybe.. 2 or 3 a year? For all the effort, time, and money I spent setting up and upkeeping that shop, to include photography and advertising, I spent less building a couple table jewelry stands and selling in person, with much more success. Ultimately, it depends on what you're selling. Chainmaille is a saturated market, and saturated with very inexpensive, low quality products. I can't grab people by the collar and explain that my stuff takes 10 times the effort to make, and is made with high quality materials, and the pictures can only do so much. If you have a unique product, or can market it like a unique product, then you've got a chance, but there's no way to search for any form of "chainmail necklace" that doesn't result in 30,000 pieces. Search for what you're looking to sell, look through shops "sold history" to see what of their items do and do not sell, and try to create yourself a niche. Do the best you can with non-professional photography, and don't waste money on the "Etsy Advertising" If you have a product people want, they'll find you. Good luck, and I mean that. If you can get the ball rolling on Etsy. 20 turns into 100, and 100 turns into 2000. Go look at some of the shops that have been open for 6 months with thousands of sales. You can make it, but don't bank on it, and don't put any money in it unless things are looking promising.

Thomas, Man, I never even knew that was an option. I will be spending a lot of time on MNLink tonight tracking down books. Any other suggestions while I'm at it? Charles, It's mostly my being stubborn that makes me want to recreate (as far as reasonable) the methods used. I do plan to seal the crucibles to reduce uncontrolled variables, but something about a charcoal fueled furnace sounds particularly romantic, if difficult. The biggest concern I have is temperature. After some discussion, and gem of a suggestions, I'll be using an industrial blower, and the AC Motor equivalent of a Dimmer Switch, which allow me to dial in a particular amount of air moved in a given amount of time. From there, the old rebar test to ensure the furnace is reaching the correct temperature, and to dial in that nice golden yellow (1260c), mark the position on the dimmer switch, and always add the same amount of fuel, and we should be looking at a more consistent temperature between my batches, than any two blacksmiths of that age could get between eachother. If I run a couple batches and we need to adjust the temp a bit to get everything to come out right, that's part of the scientific fun. Does anyone have a suggestion for a way to determine the temperature of a furnace of this sort in the 1200c to 1300c range that's more accurate than sticking a long bit of rebar in there and seeing what color it turns?

Thomas, Thanks for the frank answers. I don't plan to remove the crucibles from the furnace before they're cool. I'll be testing a few different cooling times (between 30 minutes and several days) to test the effects of cooling time on the creation of the dendritic structures in watered steel, but I'll be doing that by batch (I plan to have a large enough furnace to run multiple sealed crucibles at a time, between 2 and 4, will require testing) so I wont need to remove any before the furnace, and the ingots, are cool. I plan for the vent to be in the back (compared to the air intake) and not the top, so removal could prove difficult that way. Though, the idea for sectional pieces is perfect, and is probably what I'll shoot for. Instead of a cap on the entire thing, just one quart of the cap is removable. Reduce the size by a factor of 4, and still leave me enough room to get a tons in there and pull out a crucible. Home-Made crucible = one shot deal. That's what I figured, and expected, but was curious if there were anything I could add to mix to increase life span. If not, I'll plan to making multiple crucibles. I've seen you recommend Steelmaking before Bessemer before, and I've looked into it, but $150 isn't an insignificant price. I'm hoping to find a deal on it at some point. I will look into Dr Feuerbach's Thesis, though. I'm very interested. I hold two things closer to my heart than anything else, and that's Reading, and the Scientific method. So expect lots of documentation and even a dissertation on my findings when I get things up and running!

These stories are a trip. I could read AA stories all day, I think. Thank you for sharing, guys. Looking forward to reading more!

Hey folks! I just finished 8 years in the US Army, and bought a house with a big back yard so I can finally build the forge and furnace that's been bouncing around my head for the last half decade. I'm building a closed clay and brick crucible furnace. The plan is to fire iron and pig iron to make high carbon steel (along with some vanadium, Molybdenum, and some other elements) let it cool with the furnace, and then remove the solid ingots the next day. I have no experience handling molten steel, or any other metal, and don't have any intention of starting now. I'm not particularly interested in casting, and if I wanted to cast anything, I wouldn't be starting with steel. I do, however, have experience forging (though it's been a few years) but I'm very interested in the science behind the different types of high carbon blade steels we see in history, and I want to try my hand at recreating them. So, on to the questions! I plan to make my own crucibles of fire clay and grog, which is rated for temperatures upwards of 1700c (I don't plan to get any higher than 1260c) so it should handle the temperatures. Are there any considerations for using a crucible like this for ferrous metals? Is there any likelihood that a given crucible will survive having an ingot tapped out of it, or should I expect to have to smash each one? Any materials you'd suggest adding to create a crucible with higher survivability, or for any other reason? I'm also considering making a removable lid, to avoid having to rebuild the top half of my furnace every time I want to use it. I'm not too worried about heat loss, as I'm not trying to capture the entire 1400c capability of a charcoal furnace is capable of. I'm more worried about devising a removal system. I don't know what sort of strength fire clay has, but I imagine any removal and replacing of a clay lid will cause wear on something that large. I'm considering adding two holes across the top of the lid, to insert rebar and lift it off the furnace, but then I'm requiring a smaller amount of the fire clay to bear the weight of the majority. I could incorporate rebar within the clay lid to act as "handles" to run additional rebar through and lift, but then you have heated rebar within the structure of the lid, and I don't know what effect that will have on its longevity. Any ideas on a good method to ensure easy and repeatable removal of a lid of this sort? Is there another material I could consider that would do the job of a lid, but without the longevity concerns? I see what appear to be concrete lids on a lot of propane crucible furnaces, but the highest heat rated concrete I can find is FireRok, which is rated to intermittent temps of up to 1000c, and sustained of 300c, which do not meet my needs. What are these lids made of? Okay. Lots of questions, I know. I still have more and I'd love to pick your brains, but this will put my on a good start towards putting the finishing touches on my design. Thank you!

Hey folks! I'm new here, and I've quickly discovered that my favorite thing about this site, is hearing the story of how you acquired your favorite anvil, or your favorite story. I've read a few in the "show me your anvils" thread, but most posts over there are just stats. Weight, price, size, location. I want the story. I apologize if there's already a thread for this. Searching various terms didn't yield anything. Let's hear the stories! Michael

Hey, folks I'm new to blacksmithing, located within the MN Metro, and looking to meet people of the craft. I know this subforum has been inactive a few years, but hopefully that doesn't mean it's dead! If there's nothing planned for this spring/summer, is there anyone interested in getting something put together? Even if we don't get more than a dozen people to show up, I'd love to just pick someone's brain and talk shop. Take care!