JHCC

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.

My old coworker Ed was firmly of the opinion that the longer and harder you looked for something, the greater the chance that you would find it just after asking someone else if they'd seen it.

On loan. However, one of the advantages of being on staff is that they let me take the art deco book (which is normally library-use-only) and even extended the one-week loan period until December. These are also from our own collection, not ILL.

Some books from the college's Art Library, and a box of lead X-ray foils from my son's dentist.

This is why "traditional" is practically useless as a description of blacksmithing -- unless you're talking about the tradition of constant innovation and of seeking technical and mechanical improvements to accomplish more in less time! Personally, I'd be a lot happier with people describing themselves as "period blacksmiths", but only if they were really, really specific about what period (and what place) they were supposed to be emulating. (I predict our resident medievalist will have much to say on this. Over to you, @ThomasPowers!)

I've never seen "The 13th Warrior", so I looked it up online. The Wikipedia article contains the following howler: "It stars Antonio Banderas as Ahmad ibn Fadlan, Diane Venora, and Omar Sharif." I know that Antonio Banderas was a talented actor, but three roles (one in drag) in one film?!

That they do! Our standard go-to procedure for most non-porous objects (including a lovely Japanese helmet, btw) was to vacuum off loose dust, clean any significant grunge with diluted Murphy's Oil Soap and Q-tips, allow to dry, and give a light coat of Renaissance Wax. There were more specialized cleaners for particularly delicate items, but we went through a LOT of Murphy's!

Hello, Wynn, and welcome aboard! If you haven't already, please READ THIS!

I was joking.

Linear C.

Can you post a better picture? It's really hard to make out anything in this one.

I'm not a casting guy, but if the imperfection and burnt-in grain is what you're after, why not make your pattern from wood, char and wire brush it, and make your mold from that?

That's a great idea, aus, and it's nice to see your setup.

And what precisely do you mean by "restore"? Return to like-new condition? Repair damage? Stabilize corrosion and other progressive deterioration? When I was working in the art restoration studio, we did all kinds of different work, depending on the client's wishes. For example, private collectors often wanted their pieces repaired in such a way that they looked perfect and often could still be used. Museums wanted repairs done in a way that showed (in a minimal way) that the piece had been broken and repaired, as part of the record of its history. Moving companies wanted things to look like they'd never been broken!

The trick to using the internal search feature is to go to the top page of the community (https://www.iforgeiron.com/) and search from there. Keep in mind that this will return the most recent results first (not necessarily the most relevant), so just searching on sugar will also get you @ThomasPowers and @Frosty talking about their respective blood sugar levels.

Worked on raising a small bowl, for a project to be described in detail later.

A non-smithing friend shared the following video with me, but the thing that really grabbed my attention is the little machine in the section that starts at 6:56. It basically holds the blade in a carriage that moves back and forth, taking much of the effort out of hand sanding. Anyone here made or used anything similar?

Most of the monastery bells came from Taylor; is that where you worked?

That comment wins the No-Bell Prize!

Now that I'm home, I've checked and found that the interior dimensions are actually 3.5" x 3.5" x 9.5", for a total volume of 116.375 cubic inches of lead, which weights ~47 lbs. Throw in the weight of the steel, and that hammer head is going to be upwards of 50 lbs. This raises an interesting question. The anvil and stand weigh about 300 lbs, which gives a hammer-to-anvil ratio of about 1:6. If I'm only planning to use this for punching, chiseling, and the like, is that ratio going to be an issue? Or would that only be a problem if I were planning to be drawing out, fullering, and swaging heavy stock?