JHCC

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!

Good. How's the rebound?

So, does the anvil's elasticity change as it absorbs heat from the workpieces over the course of the day?

Okay, now let's talk about that ASO. Cast iron, I assume? Strongly recommend that you get a chunk of decent steel instead. It doesn't have to look like an anvil: Japanese swords were made on a basic steel block, and lots of folks have had good luck with a chunk of railroad rail or a truck axle stood on end. Even a big sledgehammer head set in concrete would be okay.

You don't need a weatherman to see which way the wind blows. Besides, any way the wind blows, doesn't really matter to me.

Preferably before mounting it on a stand.

Hard to see in the photo. What is it that's stuck in there? I'd be cautious of anything that might spoil the temper of the hardened steel plate. If this were mine, I'd hit it with penetrating oil first, then see if punching can dislodge it. If not, drilling and punching out the fragments might be a good way to go.

And the three legs are essentially identical (apart from needing different beveling on the flanges), so easier to mass produce. If you have a flat top plate instead of I-beam, you can simply cut that to shape, weld it on, and drill bolt holes to mount the anvils in place.

If it's rancid, it's not seasoning; it's just leftover oils. Scrub vigorously with hot water and a little detergent to get the unpolymerized gunk out. If you want to remove the seasoning, oven cleaner (such as Easy-Off) is good, especially if you seal the pan up wet in a plastic bag after spraying and let it sit for 24 hours. Sandblasting also works well. I know people who've put their cast iron in the oven and run a cleaning cycle, but there's some small risk of warping. Whatever you do, I always recommend sanding down the bottom of the pan. The smoother the surface, the easier it is to season and the slicker the seasoning layer will be.

I believe California artist-blacksmith Heather McLarty (one of Alfred Habermann's students) forges out of a teepee as well.

Thank you! (And to think folks accused me of overbuilding....)

There was a thread last May started by a guy who had a very thick top plate into which he'd milled the tool holders. Check it out, especially the photos in the first post.

The top of my stand is a piece of the same I-beam, notched in the corners to fit around the anvil's feet. I don't think it's superior to angle iron, certainly, but it certainly made a difference in fabrication, as I could run welds along the entire width of the legs' flanges and webs where they intersected with its underside. (And given my significant inexperience with welding, that was a very good thing.) That gave the whole thing a lot of resistance to torquing under load.