JHCC

Fond memories of soapstone footwarmers in old New England farmhouses, heated in the fireplace, wrapped in a towel, and put under the covers at the foot of the bed!

Makes sense.

I inherited a 24" stand fan from my late mother-in-law, and it clears the smoke out of my garage smithy like nobody's business. Keeps me cool when the weather is hot, too.

Or at least, downwind.

I took my son to the pediatrician today, and we got to talking about blacksmithing (surprise, surprise). He posed a question to which I had no answer: he and his wife had been at a historical recreation site down south somewhere, and he noticed that no-one was wearing any kind of eye or ear protection, even the teenage apprentices. He was wondering, do non-profit educational/historical demonstration facilities have different rules for workplace safety than industrial, for-profit facilities, or is it just a matter of time before OSHA comes crashing in? Anyone with experience in this particular field?

Well, at least you'll remember it now, so let us all sing with Bob Hope: "Tangs For The Memories!"

"These violent delights have violent ends And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, Which as they kiss consume."

And a hierarchical society that can put all the agricultural etc. labor into one part of the population and free up the rest of the population to work on those projects.

Good plan!

I have just discovered that a 16 lb. hammer held one-handed is great for one specific task: a single hard hit on my touchmark.

Today, Bubba made his first S-hook. And I made a nice scrolling wrench: And a support for longer stock in the forge (shown here supporting a 42" length of torsion bar). As you can see, this is just a bent length of rebar that fits between two of the boards in the pallet that make up the underside of my JABOD. It's held in place by torsion, gravity, and the elasticity of those boards, and can be adjusted in-and-out and side-to-side (but not up-and-down) as needed for different lengths and weights of stock.

Good point. Another advantage of a larger bearing is that if it leaves a dent, the face of the anvil is probably too soft. Some image searching online shows me an identical anvil made by "Neilsen", but I haven't found anything to reliably indicate its material or quality.

I agree with this. The design is very nice, but the level of finish on both blade and handle are in an uncomfortable middle ground between kind of rough and highly refined. Since it's too late to stick with rough, I'd suggest taking the blade to fully polished and the handle to sanded completely smooth, with nice crisp edges.

Sure, come on over. I was planning to make nails and rivets, but why not?

Riding my bike over to the mechanic to pick up my van, I spotted a piece of 3/8" round lying in the gutter, about 2 feet long. Never would have seen it if I had been driving, but tossing it in the back would have been less awkward then carrying it on the bike.

3.1 miles and 6.2 miles.

Sulfur dioxide (SO2) + water (2H2O) = sulfuric acid (H2SO4).

You're welcome to try out The Mastadon (l) if you're ever up this way.

If the ball bearing is magnetic, it's not going to bounce very high!

Does the humidity affect the eddies in the magnetic flow?

No. Yes, that's right. The easiest way to do this is to hold the ball bearing at the 10" mark, spot the measurement of its bounce, and multiply by ten. So, a 5" bounce = 50% rebound, a 7" bounce = 70% rebound, an 8½" bounce = 85% rebound, etc.

Like these guys?

The standard test for rebound is to drop a ball bearing from a known height and measure how far back up it bounces. To quote @Frosty, "Use a ruler if you're not good at eyeball guesstimating that sort of thing. The higher the % rebound the better, below 65% is pretty poor. 90% and up is outstanding. In between is decent to good."

I burn anthracite in a JABOD with a vacuum cleaner blower myself, and a single 3/4" tuyere gives me all the fire I need and more. Good that you have a way to control the blast, although some vacuum cleaner motors require airflow through them to keep cool and you may find it burning out. Some way to alter the airflow between the blower and the forge is a good option; check out the pallet wood gate valve I made a little while back.

Another good reason to have a large scrap pile: as a magnetic field damper!