Daswulf

Very cool. I've never seen egg sculpture like that. Keep up the great work.

Nice knives Theo. interesting idea but why egg shell? Hmm.. How about green egg shells? Some of my chickens lay green eggs. another idea could be sea shell bits. Those would look awesome in there if some of the ridges and stuff showed. Cool idea. I'm curious if this stems back from a thread I saw that was about possibly incorporating loved ones ashes into handle material.

Nice work Heap. Spine and patern look great. Glad your doing well selling at the market.

I've been hobby forging for around 2 1/2 years now and wanted to build a brick and mortar forge like Jeremys at first. glad I didnt because I'm still not exactly sure where I'd ultimately want it in my shop.

Nice work Aus! Neat idea for the gumnuts. A forge darken finish might have been a little better but you can still see the detail in the leaves well. Great idea.

If it's metal and I find it could be useful I'm not one to feel guilty about free for checking the rebound drop a ball bearing or smaller hammer on the face from about a foot and see how high it comes back to where you dropped it from. Gauge it as a percentage. More rebound the better but hey, as long as it isn't cast iron it's not a big deal. get forging on it and enjoy your new tool.

Looks like a nice anvil. How is the rebound? If you want see the lettering better try wire brushing it. If it were mine and it had good rebound i wouldn't care what brand it is. I dig the patina. Wow someone even radius end the edges nicely. Awesome freebie.

Very sad to hear. Prayers for the family.

I have a few old fans but that is a beauty! You have a couple options really. 1 look online for someone who does it and mail it/ the part out. 2 read up on it if you can and give it a go. 3 keep it as a lovely in functional antique. Personally, I love functional antiques but that could even be a looker at my place. If it were mine I'd see what I could do myself without getting too rough with it. Good luck. Hope you can get it going.

Forging, scrap metal art and classic/antique cars? Sounds like paradise!

Thanks Aus. I'll be away for the weekend so unfortunately this adventure will be on hold possibly until I get back. This, like many projects, has been and is a great learning experience. I had a friend laugh at my trying to make a better spoon and taking some time to work on it. She was mostly kidding, but I look at it as more than a spoon. it's a skill, it's knowledge...... and a spoon I'm not trying to perfect a spoon, but to build my skills. and to me, it's fun. Frosty, I am a body man I have hammers and dollies. not much dishing in the business. now the metal is mostly thin enough to use pick rods and such, and with the ultra high strength steels, ins. companies replace panels more often. I'm one of the few that tackle repairing heavier hit panels and take pride in using as little filler as possible.

No worries Slag. yeah not using turpentine and boiled linseed oil as skin moisturizers. Haha.

Slag, no not on hands. OP sounded to me like the smith was using burts bees on forged items? But had a can with hard beeswax. SReynolds, is that what the OP was about or am I misunderstanding?

SReynolds, I don't know the situation you were dealing with there but why not melt the bees wax and after its melted add in some turpentine and boiled linseed oil? I just made a new batch Tuesday. It's 1part bees wax to 1/2 part turpentine and 1/2 part boiled linseed oil. Better to make it in a junky pot on electric heat. I usually pour it in a cookie tin with a lid and let it cool in room temp. Seems to last a while. Good on forged stuff. Doubt it's very good on the hands.

There are any number of shapes and stuff you could it out and weld a spike to to stick in the yard as lawn ornaments. Or wall plaques. Fancy numbers for houses and mail boxes. If you have a plasma cutter that can handle it and some sheet metal and a steady hand there's a lot you can cut out that people might buy. To my knowledge those are for the more heavy duty plasma cutters. Lighter duty ones shouldn't need it.

Good point Alan. No it isn't cheating. I have a garage full of modern tools for a reason. It's just fun to try different methods. I'll have to work on some tooling. Thief, thanks. JP, I'm not trying to be a purist. Sometimes, even if it isn't worth it, I like to try to do things differently. As of yet this is just a hobby for me. I'm learning a lot more on this one then I thought I would. As for the finials I was just trying something different to see how it would work. I think I liked the other way better. I also liked the softer edges of the first set. I'm not against 2 prong forks. The 3 prong fork was just to do it because I like the look. I think with some practice I could get it looking better.

Ok. Tried another set tonight. Spoon ended up better but I cheated a little, cleaning up the flat before dishing it. Now to get some old processes going. After dishing was sand paper then wax. The fork I finally got a 3 prong. While sanding it picked me underneath the thumb nail and I was done with it. As far as the spork, I hate them. My friend was over and really wanted one. She tried to make one but it ended up a butter knife lol.

Yeah wow! Awesome deal. Use it as is, it's fine. The face will clean up with use. The best knowledge you can find out about an anvil isn't really it's history, but what you can learn to make using it.

Thanks CMS. I'm thinking of grinding out a swage block for a negative since I don't have a suitable press. I have been using a lucust stump for dishing but have been wanting to make a spoon swage, just never got bit by the motivational bug. Slag, I really didn't have an exact period in mind, I was just thinking without electric tools. I'm loving all the ideas and info. I have wanted to blacksmith at the Renaissance festival but I think I need a bit more improvement on my forging and knowledge first. Not that many, if any are completely period with equipment but the historical knowledge would be helpful.

Thank you Slag. I looked Scouring rush up and don't think I've ever seen it in the wild in my area. I'll be looking for it now. Also a lot more great info. Looked up a pole lathe as well as I never knew about them and don't recall seeing one. Jeesh... They need to expand history class in schools. Funny enough a few years back I picked up a treadle table without the sewing machine and thought it would be fun to set up as a manual pedal powered Dremmel tool or something. Of course I still havnt got around to it. You all really got my wheels turning.

Thank you for the excellent ideas Alan.

Condolences and prayers for the family.

Thank you for the insight JP. That's a very good point. That's one of my main concerns is how to get it as smooth and clean as possible from the get go. Then maybe be able to dress it with some sand paper after. At a demo one is not likely to have the equipment to buff to a high polish. So what could be the best case finish without electric and in a timely manner?

Welcome to the addiction Cozee. Yeah, there is a wealth of knowledge and good people here.

Could try that Alan.It would deffinately give me a cleaner spoon. versatility is great. I like the idea and It's not bad to have options. I liked the idea of cleaning up the flattened spoon blank then dishing it. that would give me a cleaner surface as well.