outlawvagabond

That's seems like the way to go. The hard part for me is going to be identifying those xxxx motorcycles. Some of them were halfway torn down and then never touched again. Thanks, BGD.

The owner is long gone.

I have a yard full of scrap. My wife and I rent space at a garage that has had many tenants that just ditched their stuff here. For the most part, it's all stuff I can do what I want with. There are some junk 70's Honda motorcycles, a Ford Econoline, Ford Ranger (both late-90's), a couple mopeds. I was thinking that I could scrap it all, but these vehicles were all abandoned with no titles, so in Mass I can't sell them to a junk yard. This stuff has to either get used, or get taken away. If you had no money and nothing but time (as is the case), what would you do with all this material?

Thanks for the suggestion, but I have $0 to my name and no job, so buying anything is out of the question. What I do have is nothing but free time, a yard full of scrap and a few hundred pound of coal. Not to mention, I'm too cheap to buy anything even if I did have money. Can't make things too easy for myself. Thanks for the link!

Thanks for the clarification, Thomas. A truly bad joke. Frosty, are you sure you weren't on the cereal box?

Well, prepare to be disappointed. I'm going to need an explanation. I don't have the slightest idea what's wrong with that statement.

I refer to it as WWII, because that was when it was put in the home I got it from...

Evidently, not enough! Haha. That thought had crossed my mind over the past couple days while getting the fire going. If you look up WWII Coal on here you'll see what my coal looks like. I have broken it down considerably, but I'll have to get them even smaller. Thanks again.

I'll certainly look into ABANA. The metal isn't hot enough. That's exactly what I needed to know. I was using the 4lb as an example of how little the metal was moving. Been using some other, lighter hammers as well. I will say, that I used that 4lb hammer and a long crowbar to break through the 8" of ice that I had in our lot this past winter. Luckily I've kept that aim and at least some of the stamina. Thanks again.

Unfortunately, there is no clean, square end on this piece of rail, so standing it up on end wouldn't really help much. Both ends are pretty jagged. Maybe I'll grind one side down and try it that way. Seen a lot of folks on here suggest that. Thanks, Charles. The size of the anvil isn't the issue. Just that the top is difficult to get anything straightened on, due to the fact that it isn't flat. I made a stand for the anvil out about 30 pieces of plywood screwed and glued together, face to face. Then I put some chains through the holes of the rail and screwed them to the stand. Still moving around a bit more than it should, I suppose. I certainly am chasing it around a bit. This is my first project. Trying to make a coal rake. The scrap bread (not butter) knife isn't doing me much good moving the coal around. Thanks for the help, fellas. I'll be haunting this forum indefinitely, as I am unemployed and there is scrap all around me.

I started up the forge for the first time, yesterday, using anthracite coal I got for free. Feeling pretty confident about getting the fire going to where I want it be, but, as a beginner, I still have some learning ahead of me there. My major concern is the material I'm using. I thought I had a bit of mild steel bars laying around from an old foosball table. Did a spark test on the grinder and it seemed, to my inexperienced eye, to be mild steel. Starting to think it might be stainless. It doesn't seem to hold a heat for very long and it hardly moves when I try to work it red hot, even with a 4lb hammer. Not to mention that I'm using a 2' piece of RR rail to hammer on. That proves challenging to say the least. I can't seem to flatten anything on the xxxx thing. Any suggestions? Tips?

Thanks for the replies. I still haven't forged anything yet, so every bit of information is helpful. Now I have just have to wait for a day where it isn't 97 degrees or raining and I can try to light some of it up.

Last month I was picking something up from a craigslist post for free in Belmont, MA. Along with it they had four huge crates filled with coal so I took it all. The guy who lived there told me that the house had a coal furnace up until just after WWII. I have no idea what type of coal it is, but I'm curious. Anyone have any idea?