JHCC

I've been thinking about nailing three bits of tire sidewall (about 1/2" thick) on the bottom of my anvil stump for the same reason. I'll let you know how it works.

When my grandfather was about four or five, he was jumped by a pack of sled dogs in the Alaskan village where his father was the local Episcopal priest. After one of the men beat the dogs off (saving his life), my great-grandfather knocked him out with ether and cauterized all the wounds with a red-hot poker. When I knew him, his whole head was covered with old scars. He was a tough old bird, though; died about twenty years ago, five days shy of 99.

Stake anvil.

He also really liked the photo I showed him of the bracelet I'd made from the retaining ring from inside a CV joint.

Addendum: my mechanic was thrilled to pieces. And has invited me to come pick over the scrap bin any time.

Especially in, oh, Bradley, OK?

Develop that relationship as much as you can. DSW is right; when the time comes for him to get rid of the stuff, you want to be the first person he thinks of when he asks himself the question, "Who's going to make best use of this stuff?"

And here it is!

Charles R. Stevens, I totally get that. However, switching from charcoal to anthracite has changed things up considerably, and this setup is working a lot better than what I was doing previously with charcoal.,

Aaaaaand the leaf blower crapped out. Switched to the shop vac.

Since I don't think I'll need as deep a duck's nest for coal, I've carved off some of the extra clay.

I decided to try some inexpensive anthracite from Tractor Supply Company (as discussed here), but discovered that the hand-pumped blower wasn't giving me enough of a blast to get up to forging heat or keep it there. Then I remembered the electric leaf blower... Total success. Plus, the look on my wife's face when I told her I'd decided to stick my blower up the ash dump was priceless.

Now, if it were a turnip truck, that would be a simple identification. Potato truck, no way.

Oh, that's been taken care of. Trust me. Oh, and I finished it with Minwax brown paste wax.

Basically, yeah. This anthracite is behaving differently than soft (bituminous) coal; more like an incredibly dense charcoal. Unlike soft coal, it doesn't expand and meld together into a mass of coke. It's more like the rocks just start glowing, and the more air you put on them, the brighter they glow.

Oh, forgot to add: they only had the nut coal at my TSC. Most of the lumps were about walnut-size, but the occasional larger one needed a whack with the corner of a cross pein to break into smaller bits. No appreciable coking. Come to think of it, I didn't see any coking at all.

Progress report: as expected, tough to get lit. Very smoky at first, but clean burning once the oily coating burned off. (I suspect the oil is to keep the dust down.) I had a hard time getting a forging heat with the hand blower, but then I realized that I could put the nozzle of my electric leaf blower up the ash dump and keep a constant airflow. Success! Burned hot and clean. Little clinker. I wasn't watching at first and burned a corner of the metal, so getting to welding temperature shouldn't be hard. Overall, very happy. Here's the rivet forge with the blower:

Well, here's my very first bottle opener. It's made from the center shaft of a collapsible steering column (hence the universal joint at the end), and I'm going to give it to my mechanic as a Thank You for letting me pick through his scrap bin. The shaft has an interesting cross section, with rounded edges and a groove running up each side. Looks nice twisted -- especially considering that I don't have a vise!

Similarly, if you want to quote a post that contains an image, delete the image from the quote. We all saw it the first time, and that's a really unnecessary gobbling of bandwidth.

neophite, I'm not seeing any of these pictures.

In the words of Chris Rock, "Just because you can do it, doesn't mean that it's too be done! You can drive a car with your feet, but that doesn't make it a good ---ing idea!"

It's not as durable as wax, though.

Lanolin is an oil produced by glands in the skin of sheep; it's what gives wool its water resistance and typical smell. You can buy pure lanolin in pharmacies and natural food shops. It's used as a moisturizer.

Well, I got a sack of the nut coal. The sample that they had sitting out showed chunks two or three times the size of a Brazil nut. I figured that I can always break it into smaller pieces if I have to. To be honest, it looks and feels to the hand a lot like the last sack of blacksmith coal I had a couple of decades ago. I'll let you know how it burns if I ever get a spare minute to fire up the forge again.

Don't know, but I've had a wicked itch in the middle of my back that I'd like to take it to.