JHCC

Great minds think alike! (...and so do ours....)

Bienvenue! Welcome!

That's a really pretty knife, @rhitee93. Speaking as a user (and not as a maker; my knifemaking skills are nowhere near yours!), I would only have one suggestion: if you were to continue the rounding of the spine all the way to where the bolster curves up to meet the spine, it might be a bit more comfortable under the hand, especially if one is given to choking up on the blade. That's just going on the photo, though; it might well feel just fine in the hand.

Don't worry; we're here for you.

Also, do a web search for "electrolytic etching" or "salt water etching", which you can do with a battery charger, a stencil (commercially made or cut from a piece of tape), salt water, and a Q-tip.

Looks like it would make a decent drill press vise, if you're looking for a practical use.

You're quite right, @gote, although I would say that the speaker/writer has the absolute right and freedom to choose within the range of standard (i.e., commonly understood and practically agreed-upon) meanings, but that while they have the further right to express what they mean through a non-standard usage, they have thereby imposed upon themselves an obligation to make that meaning clear, especially in cases where they are using one of those words (like "Traditional") that need a context (as you rightly pointed out above).

Hey there, HuskerDave, and welcome to IFI. Without knowing where you are, it's going to be hard for the folks here to answer your question. We have members from all over the globe, and knowing if you're in the US, Argentina, Poland, or Australia just might make a difference on figuring out your vise's origin. (I'm guessing that you're from Nebraska originally, but even that doesn't tell us if you live there now or if that's where you picked this up.)

Thanks for the detail. Without better pictures, it's really hard to say, and pretty much anything we put forward would be little better than your own guess. That said, I can think of any number of possible reasons for a hook being embedded in the rock near the mouth of a cave. For example, if the cave had a large population of bats, the hook could have been for hauling out their guano for use as fertilizer or for making saltpeter (an ingredient of black powder). You said in your comment on your other posting of this photo, "It looks like a civil war Blacksmith bored a hole in the rock and mounted something in the hole. I am thinking that there are lead shavings on top of the rock." What is it that makes you think that the hole was bored by a Civil War blacksmith (as opposed to, say, some local farmer or stoneworker)? Did you save any of those shavings and test them for lead? As I heard an archaeologist say once, we have to be very careful about distinguishing between the story we want to be true and the story that the evidence tells us. All we have for evidence right now is a blurry photo and your recollection of what you saw. If you were to dig in the hole and find (for example) parts of weapons and other military supplies marked "CSA" or that were known to have been used exclusively by the Confederacy and if you were also able to find some documentary evidence of Civil War activity in your area (which we still don't know, because you still haven't put your location in your profile settings), that would be, as they say, diagnostic. Is there a college with an archaeology program near where you are? You might be able to talk a professor into doing a proper excavation as a student project.

"Having the right tools to hold your work will make you better way faster than having a sweet hammer or anvil will." -- @Lou L

Which is only possible if there is substantial agreement on what the standard meaning of the word is, which is not something the person using it gets to decide.

The galleries left by the feeding larvae have a characteristic serpentine pattern.

That's actually quite nice. You obviously have a good eye, and it's just a matter of bringing up your skill level. Practice, practice, practice.

Well, I can tell you right off that the stump is from a tree killed by the Emerald Ash Borer.

To whom.

Not at all. Your example only works if there is a shared understanding of what "honorable" and "gentleman" both mean individually, how the expression "honorable gentleman" is used in political discourse, and how irony can be used to convey the precisely the opposite of words' literal meaning. If I were to say "honorable gentleman" and wanted those words to mean "heat to critical and cool slowly in vermiculite" -- well, it wouldn't matter what I wanted those words to mean: no-one would understand.

More roadkill: a 16 foot tow chain, with hooks.

Well, what are you planning to do? I assume solid fuel (since this is in the solid fuel forges section), but what fuel, for what kind of work, stationary or portable, what? We need specifics to give you a decent answer! (Oh, and since this is your first post on IFI, please READ THIS FIRST.)

Rowan Taylor has a great series of YouTube videos about forging an auger bit.

It's not, so thanks for posting the info to search on.

Just realized that I passed an interesting milestone a couple of weeks ago: I now have more tongs that I made myself than tongs that I purchased. Six of one, not quite half-a-dozen of the other. (Not to say that the ones I made are particularly good, mind you. Still solidly on that particular learning curve.)

You're the one who said Mousehole! It's right there in the thread title! There wasn't any such thing as a "farrier's anvil" per se at that point in history; they developed a bit later. Looking forward to the new pics. Pro tip: take the photos without flash, with the light at a low angle to the surface. That will help us see any markings that might be on the anvil.

As far as I can tell, there's no pritchel hole; that would make it pre-1830-ish at the latest.

Not necessarily. The essence of a word is to be the vehicle of meaning, and if it fails to convey what the person using it means to the person hearing or reading it, it has failed its essential function. Therefore, words represent not simply what the user intends them to mean, but what the community of users of that word agree that they mean. A big part of that agreement is the past history of that word, the inheritance of how it has been used previously. Certainly, words can change meaning over time, but that inheritance carries significant weight, especially for words that have been used consistently for centuries. Studying that history can help one understand both how a word was used in the past and (perhaps more importantly) if it will adequately convey what one means to express in the present. I wouldn't dream of suggesting such a thing!

It's a little-known fact that the secondary objective of the St. Albans raid was to destroy as many anvils as possible.