JHCC

I built my anvil stand from I-beam.

I don't know what your farrier supplier is charging, but I see that TFS has the 300 lb blacksmith's anvil listed on their website for $1,432. If memory serves, Holland Anvil (IFI member "foundryguy") has a 190 lb anvil for a couple hundred less than that (plus shipping). The price-per-pound is a lot more, but you're getting H13 tool steel rather than ductile iron.

Cannibalize the parts from a trashed shop-vac! Attach it with duct tape!

Check the forum for reviews of TFS anvils. I'm not a big fan of ductile iron anvils, but others may have different experiences.

Very nice. Like the fittings.

Welcome to IFI! If you haven't yet, please READ THIS FIRST!!!

There's a place out here in Ohio that sells industrial surplus, and they've got quite a supply of used robots. I can't post the link because of the TOS, but if you google "hgrinc.com" and "robots", it'll get you there. Let's make this happen!

Welcome to IFI! If you haven't yet, please READ THIS FIRST!!!

Made by Fisher, if memory serves; if so, an excellent anvil.

I've never had this problem, but my JABOD had a metal bottom (made from the housing of an old oven).

Try it out and see how it works, modify as necessary.

anvil is talking about the amount of burning fuel under the workpiece, not the height between the tuyere and the top of the forge. If you have an inch and a bit below the tuyere, 3/4" of the tuyere itself, and then 2-3" of fuel to the top of the forge, that gives you about 4-5" of fire under the workpiece. Remember that a certain amount of air will circulate around the bottom of the firebowl -- even below the tuyere -- unless that space is completely filled with clinker.

Looking at John's setup, it occurs to me that one could make the air intake from the filter holder from a shop vac. That way, the filter could be easily removed for cleaning and/or replacement.

Cool idea. How well does it work with hot steel?

My pleasure.

Blacksmiths' and Farriers' Tools at Shelburne Museum: A History of Their Development from Forge to Factory is a good resource, as is Eric Sloane's A Museum of Early American Tools.

The key is in this paragraph from the top post: In other words, the cross section of the flue and that of the hood should be approximately the same, and the area of the opening should be about 65-70% of the flue's cross section. So, if you're planning to use a 12" diameter flue (recommended), make your hood from one of the propane tanks, with a 10" square opening. If you are going to use a 10" flue (as I did here), then use the expansion tank and make an 8" square opening.

Okay, now go make a different mistake!

You'll learn more from making and fixing your own mistakes than you ever will from trying to research the "perfect" solution beforehand. Get out there and mess up!

Unless you're talking mass production by a company that's making these by the thousand (and therefore can afford to have handles and heads made to the same shape), fitting a new handle is always going to involve some degree of fettling.

Welcome to IFI! If you haven’t yet, please READ THIS FIRST!!!

Fascinating story about this portrait. Pat Lyon (1779-1829) was a British-born blacksmith in Philadelphia who rose in business and industry and became a wealthy man. However, in earlier years, he was unjustly accused of complicity in a bank robbery (he’d made the locks) and imprisoned in the Walnut Street Jail, whose cupola is visible in the background. When he sat for noted Philadelphia portraitist John Neagle, he reportedly told him that he did “not wish to be represented as what I am not—a gentleman” (as he associated “gentility” with the unjust treatment he’d received previously from the Philadelphia bankers) and insisted that he be depicted with the source of his fortune rather than with the glittering trappings of success. https://www.mfa.org/collections/object/pat-lyon-at-the-forge-34216

Of course, the motto of the college where I work is "Learning and Labor", and my salary here gets me my daily bread.

Oh, wait; it wasn't Hendersonville per se, but on Hendersonville Road. They'd lived near downtown Asheville when they retired from missionary work in Alaska, then moved to Deerfield (just south of Biltmore Forest) when they couldn't really live independently anymore. They're buried at Cavalry Episcopal Church in Fletcher.

The Benedictine motto is "Ora et Labora": Work and Pray. Similarly, the litanies of the Eastern Orthodox Church contain petitions praying "for those who labor and for those who sing", who are clearly not necessarily the same!