Kozzy

Most people can't afford to sell their wares--they just don't bring enough margin to be more than a labor of love. That makes it really hard to price such things as you are always "discounting" from what it should actually cost...basically deciding just how much to screw *yourself* in the process. Think of this from a standard fabrication standpoint...just making steel widgets on your equipment. If you had a fab shop, you'd have to charge (US dollars) somewhere in the range of $ 65-$75 an hour just to do basic fabrication. Materials AND SUPPLIES on top of that. Skilled labor or complex items should normally get a much higher rate. Even that shop rate is pushing things to the bone for a "real" business endeavor. People forget that there is wear and tear on equipment, that drill bits and grinding belts and even pencils need replacing--even that writing up a bill and depositing the payment in the bank adds costs via labor. Overhead (how much is the mortgage portion of your shop plus heat and electricity and building maintenance and water and garbage?) is more variable but adds a lot more than most people think. So...that $ 250+ knife actually sells at "blue light special" pricing (dang, remembering the actual blue flashing lights makes me feel old). Only you can decide just how badly to treat yourself in that under-pricing situation. I suggest that unless you are selectively and wisely spreading work to gain reputation for long term gains (part of a marketing plan), you NEVER underprice by much. Trading dollars is a treadmill you do NOT want to get started on...you always end up going backwards eventually. Or it's a hobby and you take what you can get and accept you are working primarily for fun and a little metaphorical beer money. Nothing wrong with that as long as you understand the notion and aren't fooling yourself.

The sponge is the raw iron bloom before all the slag has been hammered out. Hammering out all the slag is a lot of work and on something big like an anvil requires several re-heats so sometimes on rough work that part is cut a bit short--and leaves a big block like might be used for an anvil a bit more spongy than something more important like the parts you'd be making on the anvil. I assumed that nailmaking at that time would lean more toward what we now call spikes..and it would be similar in that you'd have a separate header which sits over the hole when making the heads. However, I'm not a new-ager channeling an ancient roman smith so might be full of Sterquilinus (google says that's roman for manure).

Ok, I did steal this from another site but it was quite interesting to see and got me pondering what "tooling" I'd want and would be most useful to keep on banging iron.

Wasn't there a recent post about a similar tong profile that was determined to be about pulling steel drum lids? I can't seem to find it on a quick search.

Farrier's clenching tongs. Google search will get you lots of photos and explanation of use.

I'm a bit thrown off by the first photo That appears to be a tube...cast iron surrounding? A quick bit of digging implies they were forged of sponge iron and not cast but that sure does look like a tube was inserted in the photo--maybe it's a distortion from the view? A delamination and not a separate tube? And for those pondering whether they might actually be more modern--here is a known roman anvil that's almost a dead match. The site says it's a nail making hole.

On chinese casting voids, they sometimes drive what looks like a drywall screw in so that the "bondo" doesn't pop right out--the screw giving some purchase when they slather the bondo into the void. I assume they pre-drill a small hole at the back of the void that's just enough for the screw to bite. I've seen it that way a couple of times now on Chinese castings. On one, they snipped the screw head off so it didn't protrude before adding the bondo. That was actually on a pump casting and the screw tip projected into the pump bore. Not sure if that's what you are describing when you mention when you say "It looks like it might be the end of a broken off screw or something" Kinda makes one wonder just how bad a flaw has to be for them to actually reject a casting...

They made spark-gap high freq "injectors" for such things back in the day...could turn any welder into a pretty good tig with HF. Sometimes those show up cheap as dirt because 1) no one knows what they are and 2) they are "old" tech. You can do it without the HF but starting an arc can be...troublesome (trying not to use a swear word). You'll contaminate the electrode and "stick" electrodes to the work until you go broke unless you are really good at arc starting without HF. The new "scratch start" machines without HF do so by lowering the amperage for the initial strike and then it automatically ramps up to the proper setting, allowing you to start a tiny micro arc and pull back to the actual welding position and current. Here's the example I happen to have sitting around of the old HF unit that'd go with a DC machine like yours. It's bigger than a toaster, smaller than a microwave.

If you can handle the weight and power requirements, an older miller syncrowave 250 (give or take) can often be had in that price range with a bit of searching. They are excellent machines that will serve you well for a loooong time. Modern inverter machines are nice but at that price point, you'd be settling for more of a bare bones machine or Chinese offering. Once you use a top quality machine, it's really hard to go back to inferior..and you start to understand why good machines cost more. Still might be overkill if you happen to only use one here and there but you will soon fall in love with the better machine and wonder why you didn't get one years ago.

In my business, we tend to have the opposite problem of "worst case". We tend to get engineers designing and demanding based on " what the book says"...basically best-case...which ignores mechanical components and how they operate a couple of years down the road. Stuff starts to wear. Maintenance is neglected. Cleaning is neglected. Lubrication is neglected. Then the customer wonders why the mechanical parts are failing before the expected lifespan...and we get the blame for making inferior products (because manure rolls down hill and suppliers tend to be at the bottom of that hill). Downtime in my industry costs the customer about $ 15,000 an hour on average so a couple of hours of downtime costs more than the whole product we produce. So...I design for what I call "real world". I include some extra safety factor based on 35 years of experience with the product and the customer base. Even that may be adjusted up if I happen to know the end user or specific industry is particularly bad at maintenance and operation. I rarely go the other way when I know a customer has a top-notch maintenance team but sometimes do. With new customers we often lose on price compared to competitors who cut it to the minimums. With established customers who've been burned by that game, we get the order 98% of the time. Even at that, I always also calculate based on worst-case when designing. That lets me know how close I am to that subjective figure when doing my more realistic "real world" calculations. I did one this morning calculating a couple of chain options, one being 71% of max and the other option being 50% of max (both higher than I would have recommended if working from scratch but they already have existing machines from elsewhere). The 71% is just not enough cushion in my opinion, even though it calculates to be adequate. Although I did give them the both options, I recommended they take the larger cushion option as a better value even though it did increase the changeover costs quite a bit (I make no extra money here from the better option). If they don't understand value gained from those extra costs, I can't make them...and often don't even want that kind of customer.

Tripod is fine---at issue is when the center of gravity gets close or outside the footprint of the feet if things go wrong. A rectangle from 4 feet has a larger (twice the) footprint area from the same leg "splay" as a triangle: It is a hair more stable but only in certain directions of tip. However, the benefits are not all that great in actual practice and a tripod will always sit without the small wobble of a 4 legged system. That mouthful just means make sure the tripod foot-splay is adequate for dumb stuff--because dumb stuff happens.

I don't know all the details of your tractor' hydraulic system so take it with a grain of salt. Mine is HST so the hydraulic pump and tank are a bit different than many. It has effectively a 5 gallon reservoir. Think of it this way: The front bucket hydraulics that would also run off the same pump likely are about 2" cylinders (probably a bit larger even) with about a 24" stroke, and likely 2 of them in parallel. That's effectively about 150 cubic inches at full extension. A 6" cylinder in a press doesn't need that long a stroke...so just for arguments sake we'll say a 6" stroke. That's 169 cubic inches so almost the same as the front bucket would be. I don't see a problem...but again, your tractor might be set up differently and have a totally separate rear hydro system.

Don't get too wound up about the hardy hole being toast. Do a search of this site for the term "portable hole" and you'll find a solution to that lack. A 75% anvil is still better than many alternatives...and as you work, you'll find paths around some of the issues such as learning where the face is a little better for those final clean-up blows. The old girl just needs to be used, otherwise she becomes a boat anchor..so get at the whackin' !

Do you have only the PTO or does it already have rear hydraulics? From my searches, on most modern tractors like a New Holland, it's actually cheaper to add the rear hydraulic package than the PTO pump..and a bit less clunky. You might also be able to just use the quick disconnects on the front loader valve block if it has one as your hydraulic source. Beware some of those PTO pumps as some tend to be pretty low pressure: Not terribly low but you'll need to increase cylinder size. Your return lines will need to be big and there will be some other fiddling in the piping (possibly a secondary pressure relief bypass) because they tend to be big volume pumps--where people are normally trying to do this with too little volume and getting slow cylinder speeds, you might be getting lower press pressures and super high cylinder speeds that reduce control. Otherwise I see no problems. Might not be the most efficient power source in the world but heck, it's there and the parts are available to make it happen.

As TP said, watch the nut. Not everything that looks like an ACME thread is---there are also square threads and some non-standard trapezoidal threads that aren't at the same angle as the 29 degrees of the ACME standard. It's the cost of a nut that kills ya if you can't just scab in something "standard". 1-1/8 - 5 ACME rod x 12" long in carbon steel is a hair over $ 18 USD at McMaster. Simple hex nut is about $ 9 but goes up fast when you get to fancier nut offerings...many of which aren't available in that diameter. 1-1/8" ACME tap to thread your own runs $ 187 so you can see why it's worth finding a back door to making your own.

Instead of potentially ruining the old thing, just make a hardy insert with a flat plate on top when you need a larger flat spot. For example, find a piece of 6 x 6 x 3/4 that can be hardened, weld a square shank that fits your hardy in the middle of the bottom of that flat, do a simple HT and temper below an easy to break hardness--then drop it in when you need better than your anvil can give you. Could easily be modified to 4 different radius edges too...say sharp, 1/8, 1/4, and 3/8 to add usefulness. Offset it from the hardy toward the main body of the anvil if your hole happens to be way out in weak territory. Of course there are some devils in the details...like the weld bead needing to clear the edges of the hardy hole or reducing "bounce" ...but it isn't rocket science and should be an easy project for anyone with a welder. Much better than screwing with an anvil's face and edges in ways that may cause more harm than good.

Although rare to find these days, beveled edge flat bar and the same in tool steels used to be pretty common. Both single beveled edge and double beveled edge were available. There are still some sources in medium carbon flat bars but I was too lazy to search much deeper. You'd typically use something like a double beveled ground piece of tool steel flat stock to make your slide base in something like a 4-slide forming machine...easier to buy the precision ground piece and mount tooling to that than to make your own. So my guess is this is originally raw steel that never got used to make something rather than "something" in itself.

There is also a sub-bituminous coal, usually used for power plants (especially in the western USA as much comes from WY) and not a great grade. It sometimes shows up on the smithing market because it's cheap and available. Below is a photo of the 4 basic types of coal...but be aware that variations in how coal looks are actually quite wide so it's hard to determine from a single photo. For an average joe, anthracite is usually easy to spot because when you break it, it tends to have a glassy looking surface. Bituminous tends to look more grainy when it's broken (again, variations are pretty wide ranging)

Black Jack branded anvil. There's at least one other thread on the site about those...probably more with some searching. There are some references that say they were actually Hay Budden anvils but someone else would have to confirm that.

TIG is wonderful with a superior welding machine, and annoyingly frustrating with a poor one. Don't go with something simply because it's cheap, get something that'll be worth using. A good machine also holds value for resale so is more like money in the bank. I absolutely love doing TIG work--it's like painting art with a fine brush vs throwing paint on a house. You get into a "zone" with TIG that doesn't seem to come with other welding types. My MIG (Miller 251) gets the most use by far though so I'd recommend a good MIG machine first over TIG if you are doing mostly simple fabrication and don't really need TIG's abilities. Used machines are highly variable. I've seen junk that was both ridiculously cheap and way over priced...as well a gems of machines that tend to be more market priced. Better (usually brand name) machines follow market pricing: Junk tends to be hit and miss. With TIG machines, it tends to be all about "features"--high frequency start, automatic post/pre flow, AC/DC (you need AC to properly weld aluminum, DC for stainless), waveforms and balance, etc. You don't need all of that but they sure are nice to have. HF start is the big one that I miss on my personal machine. I have an excellent inverter based TIG machine that's designed for field work...but it is a "scratch start" and that can cause some issues and sometimes even remarkable swearing. Nothing major, just frustrating to screw up a perfectly dressed electrode because you twitched. At the main shop, we are still using mostly transformer-based older syncrowave TIG machines (stainless fabrication). They are heavy but last virtually forever. Cheap these days because of the weight with repair parts also cheap and available. Inverter-based are far better machines now...as long as you avoid the chinese specials. Those work but for how long and at what possible resale? The field TIG mentioned above is an old POWCON 400SMT and it's a wonderful welder except that HF start issue. Multi process machine so is great for stick and mig too (mig with a wire feeder) Those are still available on the used market at fairly good prices but are no longer made. I'd highly recommend one if you can get it at a good price and it's tested and working. I'm buying a high end Millermatic TIG machine in the next month to incorporate in a robotic welding operation. That price is painful. Features cost. So...what's your real potential budget? Expected use?

It'll service beginning smiths just fine with a dressing of the faces as ThomasPowers mentioned. 1 KG might be a hair heavy for some but not too bad. Usually a good starter size is about 2 lbs and 1kg is about 10% higher. Some people even prefer to go a little lighter--somewhere around .75kg until they develop a little more control. It depends on how much hammer practice you have already had in your life--and in spite of how simple it seems, it does take practice: Your body needs to learn hammer control with muscle memory and that doesn't come instantly. If you can get one with a straight or cross peen side rather than flat on both sides (not ball peen), that'd be even better as a first hammer---more uses once that peen side has been properly dressed. Ball peen later when you start collecting hammers and find one cheap in a junk sale. No claw hammers--except as something to forge into something else

Skuze my ignorance...but is there a specific reason or use for those little "hooks" below the jaws? I suppose they might relate to keeping screw-box parts from rotating or something but's usually done other ways on smaller vises. Neat toy that'll be a real gem when re-habbed back to working order.

Is the high jaw sprung backwards a bit in the neck from over-tightening at some point? That'd cause one jaw to be high relative to the other. The fix would be to heat the neck and forge it back into place.

A large brand name fortune 500 factory I work with decided that a "collaborative environment" was the buzzword of the day (orders from the head office in another state) so everyone had to give up their offices. The maintenance supervision crew was given a large conference table with their computers on it and told that's where they all work now. No drawers for supplies or the 100 doo-dads you need to get through the day. Just a table and a computer. The plant manager's office had a huge picture window installed as well as a conference table..they called that the "fish bowl" and everyone got to see whomever was getting chewed out that day get their chewing. So...the maintenance supers who had things to get done started having to find hidden corners to work in when they could...without being caught. At the "collaborative table", the 40 maintenance workers who came in and out constantly to ask questions or request parts be ordered were so noisy and disruptive that work suffered: Instead of just your guys coming in to bother just you, every one from every area got interrupted by every other area. Whole Circus instead of just an occasional side show...all day long. Same when vendors came in to discuss projects. Worse, though, was no privacy. People need a little space of their own that's private...and a place to throw their daily junk. Some maintenance supervisors for instance had to constantly reference a stack of spec catalogs...which had to be piled up on that conference table. If you stored them elsewhere and went to reference them, upper management from out of state claimed you weren't a "team player" and were hiding. Losing personal space/offices felt like a huge demotion to people who had been there for decades and worked their way up from the trenches. It sucked. Moral and work suffered. Things fell apart and they lost almost all of their good and long term people. Corporate claimed they left because they wouldn't "get onboard" with the new system (inflexible) Because the MBAs at corporate always follow the trend of the day, this one never was eliminated after it failed---they just moved on to another flavor of the day and pretended that yesterday's farce never existed. Lather, Rinse, Repeat every few months as some new management fad comes up in the MBA world. The corporate people with all these wonderful ideas had never spent a single day working in a real factory environment, of course--but that piece of sheepskin said they knew it all so they did. Collaboration is great. Forcing it rather than letting it naturally occur where it can be of benefit is idiocy. Oh..and on a side note of "flavors of the day"...you now get 15 invoices free a year and have to pay THEM to send them an invoice for more than that. It's only 5 bucks but as a vendor, it really shows one how much they appreciate you busting your backside for them when the need help.

Now that's interesting...I assume they did the panorama of 2 plates in 2 different shots so he probably moved between. Or he's the resident shop ghost And just because I wondered about the origin of the term and it's use that early on equipment (that was before cats with blades were call bulldozers): " bulldoze (v.) by 1880, "intimidate by violence," from an earlier noun, bulldose "a severe beating or lashing" (1876), said by contemporary sources to be literally "a dose fit for a bull," a slang word referring to the intimidation beating of black voters (by either blacks or whites) in the chaotic 1876 U.S. presidential election. See bull (n.1) + dose (n.). The bull element in it seems to be connected to that in bull-whip and might be directly from that word. Meaning "use a mechanical ground-clearing caterpillar tractor" is from 1942 (see bulldozer); figurative use in this sense is by 1948. Related: Bulldozed; bulldozing.