Kozzy

I'm assuming you mean corrugated roofing... but there are other forming patterns that might work for some things and not others. In all cases, if it was galvanized (which is likely) put an exclamation point or three behind that "...Bad bad bad." mentioned above when speaking of heating it. I'd save such a thing for alternative projects rather than smithing. Here are a couple of examples of planters.

Here's an iron city ad showing a couple of similar sledges for masonry work so I would tend to agree with others--splitting rock/brick/concrete block kinda stuff.

Here's one video of something similar for those who might need more information. I am intentionally displaying it only as a link for 2 reasons: For one, they tend to make large clogging posts and this is not that important. Also, I noticed a lot of videos with similar tricks as the youtube "suggestions" and some of those might also be interesting to people. Definitely in this case the blade tabs project into the handle. A handle that rotates even a little on one of these would be a nightmare to use. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi43JA2ULKc

Here ya go. There are 2 double bladed versions and one single that were commercial "antiques". The double bladed blades are .030" thick on one and .027 on the other. The single is .08" thick at the fat end. All were made quite sharp...one still has the plastic tape on protecting the edges that I never got around to removing.

To clarify...this is an agricultural history museum focusing on the area's (northwest USA) wheat farming and cattle ranching which typically means from about 1850-about 1950's for our stuff. The "blacksmiths shop" we have is a gathering of some equipment from the town's main shop. it's heyday from about 1900 to 1950 when it grew toward being more of a fabrication shop to meet the times. Early vice history doesn't really apply. This is more about smithing roughly C. 1900-1920 era.

In my quest to add some explanatory text to some of the items in the blacksmithing area of the museum I volunteer for, I was about to type something up on vices and decided it'd be wiser to ask the "experts". So, to that end I have a few questions to make sure I choose the text wisely. (has to end up short...although books could be written on vices). 1) I see the term Post vice and Leg vice used interchangeably these days and even in some older references. In a historical sense, which one would be "proper"? 2) Our current example is 7.5" across the jaws. Most on the farm were more like 4.5 or 5". What is the largest standard post/leg vice that was sold commercially and commonly enough to warrant a mention? Any idea what size one would have usually seen as standard (if one could call it that) in a commercial smithy? 3) I had assumed that standard for these vices was forged construction so they could take the hard blows of smithing. Was anyone selling enough cheap cast versions to warrant a mention so that visitors who might be shopping for one themselves might need to take heed? Obviously there are a TON of cast bench vices out there, often in wild styles (we also have that example--interchangeable "variety pack" jaws)--speaking specifically of post/leg vices in this case. I know my own answers to these questions but I'd be a fool not to take advantage of you folks who know a LOT more than the snippets I have picked up. Thanks for any comments you might want to make--or any ideas of what I should include in a "one page" sign. 98% of people never read this stuff but I have noticed enough people who do that I'd like to get it right and useful.

That prompted me to look up some photos of old ulu knives. The radius variations are rather broad but a lot did have tighter radii--especially the old polished slate versions. Remember, these were essentially "skinning" knives used for many aspects of butchering--and meat tended to be cut from the bone in smaller "eating size" pieces/strips rather than large roasts. A tighter radius would probably be of benefit for that use. For a standard kitchen, I'd agree that larger radius would probably be more workable---and there were several "western" versions of that made years ago. I have 2 commercially made "antiques" that are double (parallel) bladed to use as an arm powered meat grinder basically. Very sharp and thin bladed. Handy for home made sausage.

A toy that is well worth it for anyone doing more than occasional stick welding. A downright requirement if you live in wetter parts of the world. Looks to be in remarkable shape. Many (most?) rod ovens I see at auction look to have been tossed in a cement mixer at some point in their life. For anyone considering one, they do come up at industrial auctions fairly regularly---but pricing varies from pocket change to quite high depending on whether there are 2 people needing an oven or not. Point is, there are bargains still to be had if you have lots of patience...and decent deals if you don't. They can make a huge difference in weld ease/quality.

Thanks. Anything helps. We're going to use a pencil torch with a gas lens and it won't be handheld. I had already considered the issue of keeping the tungsten clean and consistently sharpening for repeatable results---something I have to get the crew to keep up on if this is going to work. The welds are so small that slight inconsistencies in process will bite me. Biggest shop problem I tend to have is inertia: People resist changes quite strongly..and when finally onboard, complain "why did you force me to do it the old way for so long?"

If I used a variac, I'd only do it on one of the sale-priced harbor freight grinders. You are going to be generating a lot more motor heat if you slow that down and you don't want to kill a good grinder. As to those cheap HF grinders...they sound like the gearbox is full of rocks but once in a while they just won't die. I've been trying to kill one my Dad gave me for years and the darned thing just keeps going no matter how badly I abuse it. I much prefer using my good grinders but it's nice to have a knock-around to drag through the mud without worrying.

It's better than nothing but only by a little. Way (say that louder!) underpowered. Far less rigid a frame than it should have to work well. If it was super cheap, I'd pick one up because there are things those are handy for--like a quick deburr on the end of cut material. If it was more than about a 20-25 buck offering, I'd pass and keep searching...but again, if you have nothing now, it is better than that nothing in terms of a beginning. You'll outgrow any knife work that can do VERY quickly if you forge more than every couple of months. And for knife work it's lack of power WILL be frustrating.

Yes, they work harden quickly so hand-setting can be a pain. Commercially we use an orbital riveter because it results in much more even rivet heads than any hand riveting we do. When trying to simply cold rivet in a straight press, we had problems with cracks showing up at times (300 series stainless tends to be less consistent from the mill than carbon steels...more hard and soft spots) On those press experiments, we used a powered 75 ton press which a stroke travel of about 1 inch per second (and lower for experimentation). Just didn't like the results or the control vs the orbital riveters. You also need to start with a little less material forming the head than you would with mild steel when doing SS. As the head is formed by multiple blows, the tensile strength is going to climb likely well over 100Kpsi from the work hardening so too much material to begin with doesn't improve strength and just means much more HARD material moving..or no moving at all and ugly rivets if you start with way too much (plus brittleness--the more you move, the more brittle it will be when complete). Cold headers for stainless nails do so by making one SUPER FAST hit--that plasticizes the material differently than a series of hammer blows but would not be duplicatable in the average shop on the cheap. VERY high pressures involved. What we are riveting is 5/16" dia round bar. We also hot rivet thousands and thousands of 3/16" round--this one is fully automated and uses resistance to heat the heads. We have a 4000 amp x ~1.5 V set up where the plunger contacts the end of the rod at low pressure, hesitates while resistance brings the SS up to about 2000 degrees, then increases pressure to make the head. Even with that we get a few cracked heads (but not many). On my list is to see if we can induction heat instead of resistance heat the heads--problem is, the area that needs the heat is so limited that it might be hard to control (don't want to heat the clamps or other parts near the heading operation). Obviously YMMV.

Interesting and sorry I missed the post when it originally came around. I am looking into exactly the same thing for a semi-robotic TIG application I need to do. Unfortunately, I have to do it on the cheap so will end up using the crappy Chinese versions of the wire feeder. Hoping that it works out---will be using a brand new miller welder for the power supply (can't go cheap there) Instead of a running bead, I need to make a series of tiny spot fillet welds along a 3/16" dia T304 SS rod. The guy doing the welding by hand now is actually getting carpal tunnel problems from the repetitiveness of the job--5 or 6 thousand little spots a day. Although I'd rather pay a guy than pay for a robot (work is about people, not just profits), it just has to happen for health reasons. Anything I should know about those TIG cold wire feeders which isn't obvious until you start gaining experience with one?

Ratings are pretty meaningless in slip rolls. Claims are made which are so optimized in terms of starting material that any real-world material you choose might not form readily, though of the rated gauge. That's easy to see on the stomp shears---where the ratings are generally for dead soft sheet and the stated rating is for half-width or (sometimes far) less. A little harder on slip rolls where it's more about finesse and tweaking to form the materials. So...skip worrying about it--just give it a shot with some pieces of varying thickness as you can acquire them. Most likely, it's rated for 20 or 22 gauge as Frosty mentioned. And remember, about every 2 gauges you go up roughly doubles the stiffness (that's not an engineering assertion, it's a broad generalization) so what seems like a small numerical change might be a huge formability change.

I like the notion of "The Reforger"...in the USA that sounds like a comic book superhero of some sort...a grand superhero with the power of upcycling old iron with his (or her!) mighty blacksmithing skills. Normally that marketing campaign suggestion would cost you a couple of hundred thousand dollars but today I'll let you have it for free

Absolutely # 1 truest and most important part of the whole coating process and bears repeating: DO NOT OVER CLEAN! Grungy looking is good as long as there aren't hunks of old food hanging on. Thanks for bringing that up as it can never be emphasized enough. On those big fryers I mentioned, they almost always over-clean and that's something I'm constantly ranting about. SOP is to boil out with caustic for several hours, rinse with clear hot water, and toss in some acid to neutralize any remnants of the caustic...then whine because everything sticks for the next 7+ days...lather rinse repeat. There are several cases where some...we'll call them "poor employee"...opened the valves to the oil and flooded that back into the fryer while the hot caustic was still in. Result - a 6' wide x 70' long bar of soap that takes days to fully wash out

Yup, you don't have to go with lard or "bad" fats...but it helps generate a quality coating with less fuss. In the real world, I manufacture large scale food processing equipment including some parts for large continuous fryers (50,000 lbs per hour throughput for example). In the good old days, they had no problem generating non-stick surfaces--because the oil blends had about 30% tallow along with the bulk oils. They'd store the tallow it in huge heated silos so it would flow (bad day when the heaters went out on those). After the "Mad Cow" scare they all dropped the tallow from the blends because product couldn't be shipped overseas with any beef content. Sticking started becoming much more of a problem after clean-up cycles. Then the push came for more unsaturated fats and sticking got worse again...now they are often adding super healthy oils to the blends and several times a year I get panic phone calls trying to find a way to re-generate the cured oil coating because they can't seem to make it happen, no matter what they try. Although my arteries disagree, my taste buds would sure like to see the tallow come back...and it would help with those stressful panic phone calls about sticking.

Plain carbon steels are actually FDA approved materials for food contact. In a commercial environment these days they limit that to cooking surfaces in general. As to coating, I'd go with the old tried and true oil finish like you'd do on cast iron (or steel) pans. Works best if you heat the item being coated to as close to the smoke point of the chosen oil as you can get. Part of the process actually uses free iron as a catalyst to polymerizing the oil into a coating so you want the part to have a fresh surface...like a light fine sanding or run over with a scotchbrite pad. Oil choice depends on what you have--but the LESS healthy the food oil is, the better it tends to polymerize into a coating. Lard works great. Super healthy oils like olive, less so. Corn and similar about the middle of the pack. People complain now that they can never get a good non-stick pan coating like Grandma had on her cast iron, forgetting that Grandma used animal grease and not corn drippins.

Are you separating storage from shop space? IMO, you need a heck of a lot more space for general storage than you need for the actual shop work--and can use that storage for the rarely used shop equipment if it's set up right. So...my vote is that storage is at least as important as work space. Metaphorically, I could happily live in one of those "tiny houses"...if I had a separate place to store the stuff I need *sometimes*. Does that mean my house is effectively larger or does that space count separately? The one size issue that had bitten me with a small (or poorly designed) shop space is the dangling end of long bars (or boards in a wood shop). You need somewhere for those to go. For the sake of example only, I'll use the notion of ripping an 8' long board on a table saw: That means you need at least 16 feet of clear space somewhere to make it happen. Something similar happens even worse when working with metal in a horizontal bender---you need 8 to 10 feet in at least a 90 degree arc (usually more than that) just to be able to swing the tail of the bends you might put in a longer bar. Point is, the shop space can be micro but actual work space needs to be available beyond that--unless you limit the nature of your work quite a bit and store little in terms of material or lesser used equipment.

Around my rural area, there are a couple of guys with deep pockets who pay steep prices at every auction for anvils that come up. They don't really use them...just park them in storage presumably thinking they have money in the bank or something like that. It's like they are having some sort of (left blank) contest at the auctions. That skews the normal local markets a LOT. Additionally, anvils don't have an expiration date. Unlike most equipment that degrades as it sits...from catastrophic rust, internal dust, bugs, mice eating the wiring, etc., anvils can sit basically forever. Even if they get darned rusty that's usually no real detriment. That means sellers can put up very high "fishing" prices and just wait a long time to see if someone eventually nibbles. Because buyers are quite often childishly impatient or willfully ignorant--that week's paycheck burns a hole in their pocket so they pay up at this out-of-whack pricing. Patience is your best friend when hunting anvils. Lack of patience is the downfall that not only spurs people to buy overpriced junky anvils, but screws the market up for others anvil shopping. Just don't. As others have said, the TPAAAT system does work if you put the effort into it.

I recently did a proper and thorough (all over the face) ball bearing test on the Museum's Vulcan and came up barely over 50% on average...with a couple of tries seeming to hit 60%. Did the Kohlswa at the same time--85+%. Side by side you can sure notice the difference. Makes a great interactive demo for museum guests too---and they seem to start understanding the notion of an anvil beyond simply something heavy with a banging surface: Part of the "toolbox" rather than just a fixture in the shop.

This is from other similar selling but I prefer a sort of _|_ shape where the middle sticks out in front as far as the "fair" people will let you get away with. On the end of that middle is your vacuum display--a showpiece that -sucks- in passers by being so visually interesting that people divert for a look. What the shape basically does is force "casual" passers to be in the position of looking at 2 tables at a time--almost doubling your view effectiveness. You only have about 10 seconds to grab em and you need as much working to help that grab as possible. You can also do similar with a /\ and only 2 tables (point toward the crowd). People go into zombie mode at these kinds of things so you need to break up the view---and since most other people displaying do the usual flat across the front display or U into the booth or U around the booth perimeter, you must break the trance. Different is important. Hiding behind your tables is nice for you, especially when the day is getting long...but you really need to be in front on your feet showing off your wares and meeting new friends (yes, that sounds like fluffy hippy talk but it actually works) Obviously there are so many exceptions that there is no single answer...and you also have to be aware of thieves so the best display for attention might not always be best in terms of security of items. 2 people working a booth is FAR FAR FAR better than doing it all yourself, especially on multiple day events. Being the only one working a booth sucks the life out of you and you need "breaks" to actually sell your best.

It will do the job...like a YUGO did the job as a car. Some people got their money's worth and it gave them cheap (disposable) transportation when they couldn't afford better. As long as you didn't expect more than you were paying for, a YUGO wasn't a terrible deal. But...if your budget can handle it you can do better for the long run. Don't forget to look at resale value: Sometimes a few more bucks at the input end gets you something which holds much more value if you should ever decide to sell. In the USA, you can often find pretty good drill presses cheap at pawn shops (but you might have to visit several to find one). Industrial auctions are where you can find something really nice (at a cost)...and once you use a nice industrial drill press, it makes it hard to go backwards to a cheap one. Not sure if those sources work the same in the UK. Note that if you have the space and power, a good press at an industrial auction (usually about $ 500 USD here) will hold virtually every penny of that value when sold--it's money deposited in the " National Bank of Iron", not an expense.

Depends on what's missing. In some cases, you can find something similar and scab in the alternative piece. As TP said, finding the original parts is tough without buying a donor..in which case you might as well buy a working donor for a couple of more bucks and skip the missing part troubles. It all depends on what's actually missing from yours. If you can find a brand, do a search of online images for forges from that brand and you can probably get a better handle on what parts are needed. Then you can think out of the box as to what you might be able to adapt (for instance the belt pulley from a junked treadle sewing machine can replace the main pulley on some styles)

The floor mount is more versatile in terms of bend radius--and one can even get/make scroll attachments that fit these. However, they are also not the most accurate in the world in terms of repeating bends or making good (sharper) 90 degree bends. They are pretty light in the material that can realistically be formed. (and yes, I have one) Try and put a fairly sharp 90 degree bend into a piece of 5/16" stainless round bar with one of these and you quickly discover what they are NOT good at. The bench mount would be great for repeatable sharp bends in bars. I'd much rather work with this one for fabricating than the other for plain old bending. It's a better tool all around, just more of a one trick pony. Knowing what I know now, I'd hold out for a used hossfeld bender (a deal which never seems to come around except for someone else) or go with the bench version. The reason I'd go with the bench one is that I have found that most of my work tends to be straight bends rather than the fancier stuff. Your mileage might vary.