JHCC

I'm definitely off-brand.

@njanvilman can give you all the info you need about Fishers. Excellent anvils, and if this is in good shape and the price is right (for you), go for it!

I don't think Michael and Lola would like that. Pitbulls generally don't respond well to branding.

No, it's nothing like that. We have a tentative date to spend some time this weekend doing something that she's never done and that we've certainly never done together: smithing! This could get interesting....

Man, you're doing great. Any one of those hunks-o'-steel will do you just fine, and you've got four! There are some good threads about RR track anvils here on IFI. The one main thing is to put it on end, so that the mass of the rail is underneath the hammer blow.

You're welcome! (Although I did apparently make a mistake: I now think yours is a verijero, which is like a puñal but smaller.) About fifteen years ago, I met a fellow in NYC who had his great-grandfather's daga on a shelf in his apartment. Two things struck me: first, that the blade was clearly stamped "CAST STEEL/SHEFFIELD", and second, that it had a regular pattern of circular scratches over the entire surface of the blade, indicating that it had been carefully and regularly sharpened, but with whatever moderately coarse stone its owner had happened to find in or carry into the field. No refined mirror-polish here.

There's a really interesting article about the different kinds of goucho knives online HERE. Your knife, Frank, appears to be of the type known as a "puñal", although the folded-over bit isn't discussed in the article.

As I understand it (and I'm not a gas forge guy), refractory cement to stick the bricks together isn't the same as hard-face refractory to line the chamber.

Especially since most of what gets labelled "adult" these days is actually puerile at best.

That's very nice. I should make something like that for my daughter, perhaps to match the bracelet I made her from the retaining ring inside a CV joint.

Meridianfrost, you asked a VERY broad question, and Frosty (and others) are simply trying to narrow it down so that they can give a good answer. What you want to know may be obvious to YOU, but we can't read your mind. Rather than just broadly asking "What's the best?", give us specifics. You say "knives and tools"; okay, fine. What kind of knives and tools? Machetes, survival knives, and paring knives are knives, but need to perform differently under different circumstances. Hot-cut hardies, mortise chisels, stonecarver's points, and violinmaker's gouges are all tools, but again, need to perform differently and will require different steels. If you can't be bothered to be specific about what you want to accomplish, don't be surprised if you don't get an answer that makes you happy. Being rude isn't going to help.

Oh, and got some blisters. Good times.

I've made four pairs of tongs so far: two from RR spikes, and two from mild steel flat bar from the steelyard. They all work just fine.

Good to hear. Thank you, @Glenn

Destroyed my portable hole. Tried out a new way to straighten coil springs. Made another rebar bottle opener: Had a lot of fun with my son, who did a great job striking with the 16lb. sledgehammer. Ah, youth.

This was all track plate of an unknown grade, so somewhere between 0.15% and 0.85%. I think it's on the lower end, as I tried to harden a bit of the scrap, without success. I think part of the problem was that I didn't bevel the joints deeply enough, so grinding them smooth actually removed a substantial amount of the weld.

Straightening heavy coil spring can be a pain, especially if you don't have a forge big enough to heat the whole thing all at once and a tractor or forklift to pull it straight. I've tried working in sections on the anvil, with a bending fork, or using the hardy hole itself as a bending fork. All of these work, but they're awkward. I was thinking about this the other day, when it occurred to me that uncoiling into some kind of jig could be an interesting possibility. And here it is: This is simply a piece of angle iron clamped in the post vice with a vice-grip at one end. Clamp the end of the section you want to straighten, and uncoil the spring into the angle, using a scrolling wrench for extra leverage. Given the size of my fire, I was able to uncoil about 4" at a time. Alternating between two workpieces, this went really fast and very well. And here are two 18" sections of 5/8", fresh from the jig. Obviously not perfect, but they'll be getting straightened further later on. By the way, these are intended for a pair of Brazeal-style hammer tongs. Note the taper that's already in them; I realized I could take advantage of that to minimize the amount of drawing-out I'll need to do on the reins.

Update: my son and I were upsetting a piece of stock (for a cold-cut hardy), when we experienced catastrophic failure. I guess I hadn't gotten as much penetration as I should have on those welds, eh? Not sure what we'll do with this. I do have an idea for another version, so I may just scrap this and go ahead with that.

It will make the anvil a lot quieter and possibly more stable. Any effect on the performance should be positive.

THERE'S MORE?!?!?

That sounds like a really interesting website. I should check it out.

My Mousehole anvil had one corner up as well, which wasn't much of an issue when I had it on a stump. When I moved to a steel base, I ended up using a lot more silicone in that corner to take out the wobble.

Where has this been all my life? Obviously, I'm depraved on account I'm deprived.

Ah, that makes sense.

Welcome aboard! We have quite a few Texans here, so if you add your location to your profile information, you greatly improve your chances of connecting with someone close. It sounds like you're on the right track with doing a lot of reading, and BYB is an excellent start. Get yourself a large supply of snacks and beverages and read everything that catches your attention here on IFI, paying special attention to information about getting started and basic techniques. Don't be afraid to ask questions, but DO YOUR RESEARCH FIRST! The curmudgeons are helpful, but they hate to repeat themselves!