j.morse

One other didbit....it never got a speck of rust on it over the several years it lay on the ground.

About 15 years ago my son lugged home a huge piece of steel he'd found on the shoulder of the road along our property. It was 250+lbs.....I couldn't budge the thing, so I am totally guessing at the weight. It was apparently some sort of counterweight for a piece of heavy equipment that had fallen off a low-boy or whatever. It lay in our yard by a tree base for years and I just mowed around it and sputtered about it being there. Keep in mind I was anvil shopping all the time it was there, but I had blinders on and never thought outside the box as far as anvils go. It was 3' or so long, maybe 10" wide, and one side was flat as a pancake. When scrap hit a new high a few years ago it was loaded up with all the other "worthless" metal on the old farm and carted off to the recyclers. I never tried to I.D. the thing by putting a picture on any forum, never even remember any stamping or marks on the thing at all, but now I am kicking myself for possibly tossing out a great surrogate anvil, or worse....scrapping something that was worth enough to by a GREAT anvil! Okay folks....sock it to me, smooth move or just one more of my numerous dumb-xxxx decisions?

RR spike knives are to beginner smiths what mounting a squirrel is to newbie taxidermists (that's what I did for a living for several decades!).....so, being a rookie blacksmith, I naturally hammered out a spike knife or three. I hardened and tempered a couple and tested them the only way a taxidermist could----by using them in my taxidermy shop. As I said in an earlier thread, I completely clean fleshed the hide of my son's last black bear. I was well pleased with the knives' performance. I touched them up on a crock stick every few minutes as I worked. I do the same thing with the "good" knives I own, so I think those knives held up ok for what they were. Someone with much more knowledge of iron would be able to answer this question.........the spikes I used were old narrow-gauge logging RR spikes. They were 120-140 years old, so maybe they were wrought and that acts differently. I didn't notice them having any grain/fiber type texture though.

I wish we had a post vise behind every stump in my area! I had to look for quite a long time for the one I own....and I had to cough up $150 for that one (90 lb. Columbian). I lucked out on the Wilkinson anvil I scrap-yard gleaned for 30 cents a pound, so I'm spoilt as far as anvils go.....but I sure wouldn't have taken that fellow up on his offer of a trade!!

Great gift! Where you from?(location is supposed to be over by your name)

Dunning-Kruger Effect..........yep. Hence the A. C. Doyle quote "Mediocraty knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius".

Hey folks, I have been thinking of having a small stamp made to mark some of my own forgings. Do any of you do this? The stamp I'm thinking on would have to be small(less than an inch long) and have small characters. Any hints, tips, or advice would sure be appreciated.

I believe Wilkinson was in business from 1810 to 1920. Queens, as far as my research can find, was a neighborhood in Dudley, England. I have one that is a basic London pattern. There are guys o0n here that are much more informed than I am, so hopefully they can correct any error I made, or add to what I wrote.

You never know.............day before yesterday I went out in my shop (95% taxidermy/5%blacksmithing shop!) to find a real mess, I'd somehow poked a tiny hole in a plastic gallon of foam resin sitting on the floor by my work bench. There was about 80% of the "B" resin from a $60 urethane foam kit drizzled all over my floor. It looked as though I had dropped a scalpel and it had poked through the jug. I have no memory of when it happened. Stupid part about it........I did the same darn thing about 8 months ago. Foam resins ain't cheap. Its even more expensive when your apparently clumsy and dumb.

Are you saying that you can gauge the anvils weight by the amount of water it displaces?? Would not a cubic foot of iron/steel weigh just a tad more than a cubic foot of water?!....am I missing something here, 'cause it sure doesn't make sense to my pea sized brain....!

Only you the parent can decide if your child is old enough to tackle a task. I encouraged my kids to do new stuff at every opportunity. Things like driving the tractor, running the outboard on the lake, using the various tools around my shop. All that stuff builds life-skills and confidence. My son was safe enough with a gun that I would have trusted him to deer hunt alone when he was too young to even do it legally in our state...at that time you had to be 14 to gun hunt big-game. He had lugged a pellet gun alongside me for many years and I was an old maid about gun safety. If he screwed up he went without the pellet gun for weeks and knew it. I can honestly say that he is one of the safest gun handlers I know. Some kids can't be trusted to so much as mow the grass, let alone run equipment that can kill them (not that a mower couldn't!). Each parent has to decide all these things themselves with each kid. It ain't a "one size fits all" deal. We all know adults that can't be trusted to do many of the things posted on this thread. Maybe if those folks had had a dad that worked with them, they'd have the skill to do it.......and maybe some are not trainable at ANY age!!

Now that was cool.

Bullet, I found out when I started forging, only a year or so ago, that I wasn't a very good shot with my various hammers! It ain't quite as easy as all those Youtube smiths make it look. It doesn't take much pounding to get noticeably more accurate with the hammer. Your arm will get stronger and your aim better. Both, combined with the right hammer and hammer face, will lead to less hammer tracks in your work. Good luck and have fun forging.

I have the same problem finding fuel here. I ordered coke though Centaur and it was great...just pricey at about a buck a pound w/shipping. I ended up getting "nut" coal from the local Tractor Supply store. It was only about $6 per 40 lb bag..........but is anthracite coal. Its greasy, smelly, and dirty, but it works. That corn suggestion sure has me thinking, I might have to try it. I know my Grandad made stuff from corn that burned well.....when it slid down your throat!!

How old does a rail have to be to be wrought? My son found a narrow-gauge rail a couple years ago. It was from the last era of White Pine logging in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. It was from the 1880-1915 timeframe. I myself know of some rail from 100 years ago....also logging rail. I'm curious what it would be worth if wrought, and how would you market/sell it....chunks, pieces, whole rail?????????

I recently bought a RR tool at an estate sale. It is basically a cold cut-off hardy with a long handle. I had no idea what I had until a RR worker on another forum told me. It was used to score a line all around a rail. Then said rail was dropped on another rail right at the line scored. It would, according to the RR guy, snap the scored rail cleanly. I have not tried it.

Thank you!

A fellow on another forum I frequent posted a few photos of an old straight peen hammer. It has a stamp on the front top that is a horseshoe with a large capital "A" in it. Can anyone tell me what company that was/is?

Your like me........anvildextrous!

I believe this new show is filmed in the Ozarks. That narrows it down to only a couple states.

Thanks for the reply. I live a couple state away from the closest coal mine!

Being a newcomer to this forging deal, I simply went on line and bought the coke from Centaur Forge. With shipping it is slightly less than a buck a pound. Where can I save money? $12 a 40 lb. bag would be fantastic.

Ok, I am very new to forging, and I have a question concerning coal and coke. I usually start my forge by first tossing a big double fistful of homemade oak charcoal in the pot, butane torching the stuff in 3-4 spots as the blower is making it all glow.........then after the charcoal is glowing good I add coke to the pot and turn up the blower until the firepot is really going great. Then I add whatever metal I want to beat on. My question is this....why use coal at all when the coke is the goal? It is the same price where I buy it and I guess as a newbie I can see no advantage to using coal at all.

I am suffering extreme anvil envy. I lived in Jefferson county about a zillion years ago (winter of 81-82).

Can anyone tell me what those dots are under the numbers on the side of the anvil?