Kozzy

Just a warning for folks who love the look of spalted maple (or other woods) but are not very experienced in it: To get to that spalted look, it's generally exposed to a nice and aggressive rot fungus (both naturally and sometimes artificially). So...the wood has started down the "rotten" road pretty significantly. Not a big deal if you catch it in time but if you don't stop that rot process in a timely manner, areas can start to get punky. It's a balancing act to get enough of the spalted look but not let it go so far as to degrade the wood structure appreciably. Because of this, I would recommend that one never buy the stuff online or site unseen--if at all possible, be sure and physically inspect the piece before you buy. It's expensive (retail) and you don't want to discover you are paying a premium price for punk* Or...if you live in an area that has hardwood forests, it's a wonderful way to spend a day if you go on a treasure hunt for "found" wood. It is a true treasure to find a hunk o' downed wood that is still structurally solid but also beautiful--like natural field spalting or bluing or sometimes even burl. Good family activity too...if you can get the kids to not point out every rotten log they find and ask "is this good?!?" Hard to tell them their treasure is trash. There are some remarkable finds hiding in most forested areas if you search. Obviously with permission/legality. * Punk can be stabilized using a process similar to other stabilized wood, such as impregnating with clear epoxies, but it's not something people usually want to set up for at home. It's best to use a pressure/vacuum process to make it happen although there are other ways.

Not sure how it is in Italy but in these parts there are a ton of companies doing lightweight carport canopies. If you shop around, you can find the versions that are a bit stronger and will last. Although you do have to shell out a bit of money, they are not that much more expensive than doing it yourself, plus they do all the engineering and it usually goes up in about 1 day. Sometimes a bit more money is worth dumping a project on an experienced company. Looks like the Chinese are making full kits too..and some look really nice with arched roofs for strength.

Looks on first sight to be a geared head drill press. Those are far and above most belt driven presses, especially if you are one to actually use the right speed for the right drill bit. In any case, around here you could flip that for not only what you paid for both pieces of equipment but probably the cost of moving them to your shop also. Might be a more common thing in your area but not so common around here.

First step is tramming everything so you know the head is square to the table. That's a tedious process that shouldn't be skipped. Also check run-out and backlash with a dial indicator to see how worn things are. Bearing noise, etc should all be at least looked into. Nice little machine and handy to have. Looks perfect for CNC conversion which is not cheap but not horribly expensive these days. Mach3 is a cheap and wonderful controller for homebrew cnc. Works great for most people. What can you do? Well, it's a milling machine. With the right tooling or fixtures, you can do smithing things like the slot in guards and obviously drill holes. You can also do fullers with a little care and set-up. Add a rotary table and you can start doing some fancier stuff like flutes in lathed parts for handles. This is more about imagination than anything else---unless you go CNC, you need to imagine what you can do with clever set-ups. As you do more, you'll learn a ton that will open up other avenues of what you can do. If you get into casting aluminum bits, you can take them further from the rough cast...for instance cast half a handle in 2 halfs and machine the rabbit to fit your blade. And of course it's good for surfacing things to a good flat finish if you have the right tooling.

There are road dust control products in approximately gallon containers that can be purchased retail (even available on amazon- just saw $ 60 for a 5 gallon pail of pellets to spread). One common ingredient is calcium chloride, which can be liquified in water and sprayed on using a simple sprayer like one you use for garden spraying. Others have fancier ingredients like cellulose polymers. Typically they tend to agglomerate the dust particles as you walk or drive over them (more traffic = better dust control)--I have customers who use them in volume in their dirt parking lots. Visually you can't even tell it's on there after it dries for an hour. Anyway..might be a path to look into for a dirt/gravel floor situation because it's so easy to apply...and seems that about $ 60 USD would be enough to last the typical user years. The dust in my barn is so fine and powdery that just about anything will send it air-born. I guess I should consider a topical application too.

One problem with a lot of commercial oil finishes these days is they use a lot of artificial dryers (curing additives) as an addition--people don't have patience and want instant gratification and dryer additives tend to give that by allowing quick build-up. The finishes can thereby come out mediocre. With oils, it's often best to avoid the name brand big box store offerings because of this--assuming you want a high end finish and not just to get the piece out the door.

Clear is subjective. Some people like the slight yellowish tint that certain oils and shellac can give. I tend to lean toward the true clear water-based poly floor finishes because they are tough as nails. A good one can also be musical instrument lacquers because they are slightly flexible when hardened--good for a knock-around knife that gets used. True lacquers tend to give you more of that look of depth in wood but can be a bit more finicky to apply. When done right, it feels like you are looking into the wood and not just at the surface. Catalyzed lacquers can be remarkable finishes but that's a whole new can of worms. For glass smooth finishes, it takes a little more work..you might even look up "french polishing" if you want to go crazy on it. In any case...many thin coats, not fewer heavy coats. Prep both before and between coats is also key. Finishing voodoo is one of those wood subjects where everyone has an opinion...and they all tend to say their opinion is the "right" way and that others just haven't learned yet. Take research with a grain of salt when poking around. Edit---I should mention that shellacs are alcohol soluble so if you every get alcohol on a shellac finish, it can ruin it (along with some other things). The benefit of shellac is that it's easy to re-finish if something like that happens.

Aniline dyes. SOP when coloring wood with weird colors. They are VERY concentrated so be sure and use sparingly...plus test on scrap. Here's an article from Wood magazine to start but there are other and possibly more thorough resources out there if you search. https://www.woodmagazine.com/materials-guide/finishes/aniline-dyes

We have all the old records for the local BS shop in town here and I looked that up about a year ago. Depression era it was about $ .50 USD each in quantities of about 3-6 here and went up to about $ 1.50 each briefly after the war. I suspect that much after that, most plows were using replaceable parts so sharpening services dropped off steeply---sharpening services don't show up in the records past about 1948 (or they did them cash and never put it on the books). Post war was also when the size/bottom count of plows jumped as tractor HP quickly climbed. Most farmers went to Cats in the fields around here post WW2 because you needed to work a LOT of ground to pay the bills in this wheat-land. Quite hilly also and cats in low gear do better on that (especially side hills where a regular wheel tractor can get scary). There was also a bit of a switch to mostly disc plows.

I'll second this...there is a big difference between new, 20 years old, and 50+ years old on these. Variations in size also come into play. Size for size, those old ones tend to be a LOT stiffer implying much better material. That being said, all you can do is give it a shot. If it works, great: If it fails, you learned something useful about T posts and can move on to using them for more appropriate projects. Because of the non-useful (as in annoying) initial shape, my general vote is to scrap the surplus and bent ones and use the $ to either trade for or buy more appropriate material. T posts are great for fencing and mediocre at best for most smithing projects. How much fuel cost and time will you be wasting trying to get them into a usable shape in the first place? I know smiths often feel like salvage metals are "cheap" but sometimes they are a huge loser when you add in time and fuel.

The problem is there are too many "right" answers. A breaking plow is going to be different than a dry-land plow which will be different than a muck plow and any 10 farmers will give you 15 answers why they are all wrong and they know best. Any plow is a compromise anyway...for instance, the soils around here are like cutting warm butter when there is any moisture and like cutting concrete when dry so what shear geometry is right? Pick something common in your area after eye-balling a couple of dozen local plows. That's about the best you can do. At least with that, you have some back-up when half the customers tell you that you got it wrong and why they know better :-) We have a local event coming up in about 3 weeks where we horse (and mule)-plow about 12 acres and plant beardless barley. In talking to the many teamsters there, they always debate the minutia of why their rig is superior to the other guy's...but it still gets plowed and seeded at the end of the day. The only thing the all agree on is how rocks are the bane of their existence...and use some choice verbiage to express that.

That's about as close to a brand new anvil as one can get in the used market. The edge chips are no big deal. I don't see a closer photo of the horn damage you mentioned and the one which shows it doesn't seem to be more than superficial. There is typical cutting damage on the table but that's what the table is there for. But...that's a lot of anvil for most people. Way more than the average guy needs. $ 5 a pound is pretty high..up there toward some new offerings. The real questions starts to become whether the money saved on a lesser anvil can be used for other smithing stuff and if that gives a greater benefit than the offered anvil at that price. I'd personally lean toward a lesser anvil and more other toys unless I was diving into smithing whole hog and already had every other toy I could want. In this area, that anvil at that price would likely find a buyer pretty quickly. It's quite high but all anvils are high now...and some areas quite high is becoming a new normal. I'd pass at that price, but if you choose to bite, it probably wouldn't be a foolish move in *my* area (location location location!) as it's possible to resell at about the same price with some patience.

Stone sledge or mason's hammer. The same pattern has come up before on this site. Here's an old "Iron City" ad with similar but there were variations by manufacturer

That may have been mine. Steel tripod stand with flat-free hand truck wheels. Tilt it a bit and pull the axle and wheels off for use. Takes about 15 seconds. Unscrew handles when not being used, otherwise move like a wheel barrow when needed. If I were to do it again, I'd have put the wheels on a wider stance. My 270ish pound anvil puts the center of gravity a little high for the narrow front wheels, being that the handles are a bit close together too. Or the handle mounts (simple pipe couplers welded to the frame) could have been at an angle for a wider handle spread more like a wheel barrow. Hasn't been an issue as it's rare to move but it could be on uneven ground or slopes. I would also do the wood a little differently if re-making but I used what I had handy in the scrap pile at the time.

There is no single answer. Typically a cold saw for ferrous runs pretty slow speed, and that's usually based on blade diameter. However, there are now a new class of higher speed ferrous blades out there---designed to run about 1500 RPM for the typical saw and much higher for more specialized cutting. We run nonferrous saws on aluminum tubing at close to 7000 rpm with specialized blades that cut nearly burrless. So, as you can see there are more exceptions to the rule than there are rules. Except don't make thermite always applies. Many nonferrous saws are also built much lighter because the stress various parts typically see is lower--so you want to check out the differences before you assume you can cut 2" chrome moly shafting on that saw designed for aluminum just by using a lower speed or cutting more slowly.

If it's your true first forging, start not with "what to make" but what to do. Taper an end and try not to end up with "fish lips" at the point. Cut that off and make a couple of inches of square--trying to keep it actually square and smooth. Do a reverse taper. Make a nail..even if it doesn't have a head. There is a ton of beginner stuff that you need to do a few times before you move on to making "something". Try those simple tasks again, but doing it even better. You'll be gaining muscle memory and hammer control skills with every blow. After you practice a bunch of basics to get the feel of things including heaat control, then make a simple S hook--the goal being to make the S bent into a pleasing symmetrical(ish) shape...that is actually not as easy as it sounds when you are speaking of putting the material into a nice shape that both looks and feels good. Then you can make one that has fancy ends---maybe a tight tiny scroll for instance or the flattened whale's tail scroll. Make a keychain based on those same skills. In short, do a bunch of basic stuff--it will REALLY pay off later. Although the TS bar may have been a bit expensive (they get a huge premium), bar like that is actually pretty cheap: You don't *have* to come up with anything fancy from it. I know there is a strong pull to make something fancy or more difficult, but save that for later. You can have a ton of fun with that 3/8" round bar and smaller things and at the same time, gain a lot of REAL skills you need.

Most aren't set up for lathe threading--they are for repetitive operations on whatever bar is chucked...bores, shoulders, counter sinks, etc. I see there is a die-head insert in the turret but that is not the same as being able to properly thread on the lathe. It looks like this one doesn't have the leadscrew so I assume there are no provisions for threading. It's also not set up ideally for a toolpost---there is some stuff that is missing to give you that ability..no proper cross slide or compound. It does have a cut-off slide so you could partially fake it but it won't be the same thing. So...if you were making 10,000 of exactly the same bushing, that would be a wonderful manual lathe to have (though virtually everyone would do that CNC these days). However, as a shop lathe, this one isn't what you really want. In short, this is a useful and great machine for someone who has specific use for such, but it's not a great "all around" lathe for what most people would do. The collet set-up is also extremely accurate and a great thing to have...again, if you are making only parts that this machine excels at. I'm curious if you know the asking price. Since my work actually often could use such a thing, I might bite somewhere between $ 500 and $ 1000 depending on the included tooling but it's not worth much more than that to most people..and a lot less to someone looking for an "all around" shop lathe. FYI, they also used to make these with a hip actuator instead of the crank handles---there was sort of a wide forked thing that stuck out at hip height and you'd use your hips to move the slide--keeping your hands free for other tasks on the lathe like loading and unloading quickly...sort of like having 3 hands for making a zillion of the same parts. Bet that made you walk funny by the end of a long day. I should add..those old rockwells are a great lathe and not junk--back in those days they were built to true industrial standards, not like the "rockwell" brand of today which tends to be nothing but a brand stamp they put on some homeowner tools.

Adding in a bit more localized information (I'm more toward Lewiston ID), that price is not ridiculous for the area. There are a few "collectors" who will pay just about anything for just about anything and that seems to be driving up prices in this region to levels they shouldn't be. That's too high for this anvil though, just from a sense that you are a user and not a "collector" and that it's a bit beat (not badly so, but enough to add that into the equation). It might be in the consideration at more like $ 3 a pound for the general area but with patience and the TPAAAT (look it up on this site if you don't know what that stands for) you can likely do better. Were it closer, I'd consider biting at about $ 2.50/lb assuming it checked out well, casually ponder at $ 3, and generally pass above that. There are actually a lot more anvils hiding in barns around this area than most people know....so with TPAAAT and patience, you might be able to shake something better loose. Oh..and once you plonk your money down and get one home, someone will let you know about the 300 pound gem they have which they would have sold you for $ 200 if they had only known-- It just works that way .

Cavpilot--it isn't always that simple. For "here and there" minor craft kind of sales, a ton of people tend to just skirt the law and never get caught but that's a risk which needs to be weighed for every situation and location. Many states have really cracked down due to funding reductions (without going into political gobblydegook) Some have cracked down remarkably hard...I'm sure you've even heard the odd story of things like kid's lemonade stands being hammered. It actually happens if your attempts to be covert fail. But there is also another issue that wasn't mentioned yet which bites HARD. Property tax. The language in most states specifies that a business must pay property tax on the equipment that is used in a business. Even if you are just an average Joe that happens to be using your own tools for business purposes, theoretically those tools can become subject to property taxes just like your house (in most jurisdictions). This one gets highly ignored but if you happen to run afoul of some over-zealous county official, they can nail you to the wall for not only current but back property taxes. This is most common with "real" businesses that ignore the situation and have valuable equipment..like that guy with a fancy personal bulldozer who happens to use it for contract work once in a while. I just got the property tax filing for my small business here...4 pages of equipment with depreciated values that the county wants their property taxes on. The State pulled my filing for audit last year also and even checked up on me to "prove" out the list and show that it was honest. As to sales taxes in other states, It's a nightmare: There are over 7000 taxing districts in the USA and you are theoretically responsible for keeping track of it yourself. Within that it can be even harder--for instance I have some California customers where one side of the block is subject to an RTA special tax in addition to the normals sales tax but the other side of the block isn't..and it's MY responsibility to suss that out. In the "good old days", you were subject to out of state sales tax only if you had a "nexus" in that state and nexus was fairly clearly defined..for instance, traveling to that state more than once a year for business purposes. That has all changed and the rules are impossible to figure out in many cases...CA even tried to say that placing advertising in literature (a simple small magazine ad for instance) which was distributed in the state constituted a nexus for sales tax purposes. So....the best advice is to get legal from the first day if you plan on actually conducting business. It's a horrible pain in the neck but the real problems come when you have ignored the law for a while thinking you were flying under the radar...and some over-zealous official decides to make you an example to scare others into doing following the rules. Some distribution websites take care of all those state sales taxes for you so are well worth the hunk of change they take to list your product--but the other state taxes can be important to keep up with also. So states do have "hobby" business defined also..or at least ultra-micro business. Check your State's website to see if you (anyone) is thinking about selling...and you can often design around those rules to be legit with a bit less hassle than a bigger business. Or...take the risk but be aware that you ARE taking a risk that may have a severe downside. It's akin to not having fire insurance on your house. Sure, the odds of a fire are pretty slim, but if you have one the downside can be pretty large.

The only thing worse than not getting all the information is having it trickle in one drip at a time. Clients here are notorious for that. "Didn't we mention that it's not just 1200 degrees, sometimes we run at 1500?" with a new drip the following week that again changes the necessary specs.

I run into many similar issues of people compartmentalizing their portion of designs and just letting the next sucker try and fit them in...and on down the line. In my business, that results in things like bolts that don't have enough clearance to be inserted or get a wrench on or no way to get a machine to the location it needs to be installed because something else (someone else's portion of the job like steam piping) blocks the path The "not my problem" thing is strong fu in many companies. In terms of the stacking error problem, I battle that in the fabrication and assembly end (outside fabricators). For instance, There may be a series of holes to drill...say, 30 on 12" centers along a length. Someone who should know better will measure 12" and mark, then another 12" and mark down the line rather than marking them from a fixed datum point. By the time you get to the end of the string, those holes will definitely be waaaaay off. Similar with aligning parts like cross braces or pulleys--they measure from a framework on the left side and set, then measure from the frame on the right and set--you CANNOT assume that the machine is perfectly symmetrical in fabrication left/right: You need to do all those alignments from a fixed datum or you will definitely end up with wonkiness. The real gripe here is that many of those who are plenty smart enough to understand the why of this just don't seem to "get it"...the notion that nothing in the real world is square or level or of an exact size and precise location so you need to lay out from a defined perfect start point rather than the work from something that is worked from something else that was worked from something else....lather rinse repeat. It's a form of willful ignorance so that they can pass the buck.

Don't quote me but IIRC, the center can be used to twist the initial materials into the "string" that will be used later to make the rope. Basically putting two strings together into a twist and that now doubled string becomes a stronger cord to do the actual rope twist with later. There are also some ropes that do have a center core piece as shown in the attached photo. Not sure how their twist relates or is able to be added without the poor results you saw. If you have a rope maker, you now need a "rope walk" to use it properly. Time to set aside some serious space in the yard :-)

Since that motor appears to be a set up with an integral spindle, I'd leave it alone. It'd be nice to do a swap to 220 if it was a standard frame motor but I doubt that's possible. Many of those integral spindle systems get really touchy to keep things balanced and smooth. Look deeper, though: It could be labeling hype with no more than a standard frame motor bolted on. The control is where the questions come in. Is that transformer being used to drop one leg of the 440 to 110 (as it's marked) and the actual relays are running with that? If so, you have to consider a little more deeply what your phase converter is actually doing--you might be able to separate the control from the 440 line which would allow the VFD to give you the benefits of variable speed. Otherwise a VFD would be nothing but a glorified phase converter: It'd be fixed to 60hz to feed that control transformer what it wants instead of being useful for the spindle motor. YMMV...photos only tell .1% of any machine's story and I'm just another internet "idiot" with opinions. Oh..and once you go VFD, you'll never want a rotary phase converter again. Even if you have to throw more money at the VFD, you'll not regret it. Looking closer..that motor says 550V...is there another transformer hidden in that iron somewhere?

Save that one for a nice garden ornament. As TP said, doing it even remotely right will cost more than a decent used comparable anvil. Sometimes you have to live with just the memories.

There is a short thread on this site about someone having one I see someone posted a catalog pic...you might be able to contact that old poster and see if they can help. Interesting that Mechanics Machine Company ended up being part of the start of Borg Warner.