Kozzy

That's an interesting subject which I never thought about. On the "Oregon trail", what you wanted was oxen, not horses. Most movies show horses because those are easier to wrangle for Hollywood but horses are less food-efficient on the trail and if one gets loose, you are searching for days whereas oxen tend to stay pretty close to their starting place. You wanted 4 or possibly 5 to start and if you were lucky, you came out the other side with 2 or 3 in the worst years. I have a friend who goes on recreation wagon runs on the trail (or similar wagon runs) every couple of years--but with horses. They have a blast but of course the whole thing has a ton of support vehicles and plenty of cold beer. They had to be re-shoeing on the trail..unless they left them barefoot which doesn't seem likely.

It's a bit of a side trip but you might take a tip from the various restorers of old stuff--cars, gas pumps, etc that they want to stay looking old while still proving new protection. Auto clear-coat tends to go bad after a year or so on such things and is virtually impossible to renew without destroying the piece and ruining the original patina. What they use is actually old school "Future Floor Polish". It lasts 1 to 2 years, doesn't affect the actual piece, and can be renewed easily. You just spray it on lightly in a couple of coats. It doesn't leave an obvious goopy finish like some other coatings. I have a friend with a dozen collector vehicles with original patina (he grabs the weird stuff--old moving vans and delivery vehicles) and this is what he uses...also on his gas pumps tin signs etc. There is some online referencing to this which might be worth a little digging. Not sure what the actual coating goal is but if it's just getting through a shorter period of outdoor exposure, this might be an option.

Leading poorly behaving grandkids around by the nose, of course

Just tell people they are toe straighteners--convincingly, of course. Used on the old days of "hand-me-down" shoes to make your next youngest rug rat's feet fit that old pair by moving their toes around. Now that I am an old geezer (give or take) Iv'e decided that every oddball tool needs a much better story than its original intent. How else will I earn my "crazy old man" moniker?

The coating you end up with on steel or cast iron pans is polymerized oil. It's a bit of a complicated reaction but oxygen in conjunction with a bit of surface iron which acts a bit like a catalyst basically turns the oil into a tough high temperature form of plastic. Too hot and it carbonizes and breaks down, too cold and it just stays sticky. The worse the oil is for your health, the better it generally polymerizes. Healthy oil bends really suck when curing a pan--lard works a charm. Soybean is interesting: In processing plants which use soybean blends in their fryers, the vapor deposits on everything and the inside of the plant starts to look like it's been shellacked. That coating is really hard to get off the walls, conduit, electrical boxes, controls, and everything else. With healthy oil blends becoming the rage, many food processors are battling with sticking problems now. The healthy stuff just doesn't cure as nicely as the old school oils. It's also harder to get a good coating on stainless steel (especially passivated) because there is not the abundance of free surface iron available to get the reactions rolling well. Carbon steel is nothing but a marketing term. Even "High carbon steel" is darned fluffy. I've seen anything higher than "mild steel" called "High Carbon", even if it was only the equivalent of 1020. In my (food processing equipment) industry, we usually call anything 1035 or above high carbon as the generic term when the actual spec isn't stated.

Vermiculite mining from sources that had asbestos content was stopped long ago. The current sources are tested asbestos free. Now the old stuff----don't be snorting that dust akuz you never know.

Do it once, do it right. There are no savings in short-cuts. Johnson forges do (or did) use vermiculite as an insulator--but as a layer below the actual hearth. I've seen pizza ovens do similar where the hearth and canopy was done in the proper high temperature materials and there was an air gap that was filled with insulating vermiculite..and then standard concrete over that for the canopy and final exterior shape. Even though the oven temperature is only about 1000F, the fire used to bring it to that operating temperature is going to generate a lot more localized heat. You likely want a floor that can eventually be replaced because they do degrade in the long term--so I'd personally go with a tile layout of appropriate materials. Ovens like this are swept in use anyway so I doubt you'd have ash issues due to tile gaps. Set up the opening for more than pizza--they are perfect "beehive" bread ovens also if you make the opening and volume an acceptable height for a rustic loaf.

The wording "advanced" is a bit fluffy--yes, you can go for the gold and get a combo CC/CV pulsed AC/DC welder that includes sequencer programming features for post/pre flow and ramping at both ends of the cycle for keyhole filling with a wire feed, push pull spool gun, etc. It's wonderful...and expensive. If you are talking MIG only, just get something tried and true..an example is a millermatic 252 that can run both a spool gun and standard wire feed. 252 allows both guns to stay connected and you just choose the one you are using that project. One trick is to research spray transfer mode. It varies with the gas used but if you can cross over to spray transfer mode (pretty high amperage required), it's like the welds magically become cleaner and easier. If your welder can handle the amps and voltage requirements for the chosen gas, you might find that the existing machine suddenly performs like a $ 10K fancy welder for the kinds of work you tend to do (not thin stuff..has to be a bit heavier work to handle spray transfer mode).

Broken gear teeth can be a serious issue. Though some gears that can still be purchased have the same diametrical pitch and tooth count, a lot of this old stuff used pitches that are no longer standard so are nearly impossible to get these days. One option in something like this can be to weld back material where the teeth are missing and carefully file that back to a proper tooth profile. Because these kids of gears aren't pushed to their limits, that can often get you by. It's not "great" but it's better than throwing more $ into a blower than it's worth. Cast iron gears can usually be filled with stainless material and not have the cracking issues of welding cast iron...with care. Stainless isn't as wear resistant but it is adequate in most cases.

Now c'mon. That first photo has to be fake because the clamps sitting behind are actually neatly organized rather than spread all over the shop :-) If I had a do-over on mine, it'd be bigger wheels. Small ones seem to always find that one little piece of gravel on the floor which makes it like hitting a brick wall when rolling the cart around.

I'm no vegetarian zealot and still bend for meat once in a while. It's just after not eating it for a while, it becomes a lot less appealing and unimportant. A good ham sandwich once in a long while is enough to remind me that I'm not really missing anything all that important. I've mostly gotten away from animals and won't replace the goats when they reach their normal end. However, seeing the cows develop personalities and relationships and even play..heck, even the chickens developed relationships and had personalities, it was easier to see that meat just wasn't that big a deal to me relative to the pleasure live critters give me. But I've been craving a really top quality steak of late so I'll probably bend and have one. Haven't had red meat for a few years now so we'll see if it's worth the hassle. Some goat porn:

Goat makes great meat for Mongolian Hot Pot meals too--sliced really thin. But I can't--I just love the little buggers too much. After a few years of raising farm animals, I got to the point where I am 99.5% vegetarian these days. Only 3 pygmy goats right now but dang, they are never in a bad mood and always happy to see me. If I could just get them to mow the lawns instead of the stuff I want to keep....

Most chains are hot dip lubed in the factory and remnants of that non-conductive coating remain virtually forever, even if they don't seem to be there. Chain is really hard to clean via electrolysis anyway due to the many joints involved so when you add a bit of non-conductivity, it becomes a losing battle. Even chains that we boil out in hot caustic solutions still have traces of grease in the joints after several hours of boiling (while moving--so the joints are articulating). This is with easy to remove food grade oils too. With some oils they also polymerize with long term oxygen contact--basically turning into what is effectively a layer of "plastic" which won't conduct and is virtually impossible to remove with any chemical. It's similar to the coating one puts on cast iron cook-wear but to a much greater extent and toughness.

I'm a big believer in the seller setting a starting point. That saves the buyer AND the seller wasted time if the item just isn't in the required range. Going further, I find it downright rude to not provide that simple courtesy to buyers. Where this issue really chaps my earlobes is in job listings. For anything other than entry level, the employer should at least put a general range. I've seen high end CNC machinist jobs where they required all sorts of programming experience which turned out to be in the $ 15 an hour range..ridiculously low for the required skill level. Similar with some welding positions where they expect certified welders doing advanced stuff to work for peanuts--but one only discovers that after wasting time. Fortunately I haven't been job hunting in 35 years..but once in a while a friend is in need so I try and do some extra footwork (well, web-work actually) for them--and rude employers who don't give a rough range are a red flag to me that they aren't someone you really want to work for anyway. However, lack of information seems to be accepted practice and a hard system to buck.

Do NOT let pnut's comment about claying this forge slip through the cracks. I recently saw a post from a guy elsewhere who did his first firing without claying and almost immediately heard "boink"--put a huge crack across his similar forge. That hood has a super cool factor. Just keep your fire well controlled as it appears to be galvanized sheet in the photos. Age is a tough one as the years of riveted structures were quite long so people were still using them well into times when welding was more common. Yea, photo of the blower section would help.

Standard intercom system should work with the old phone lines without too much monkeying around. Many places are still disposing of old Radio Shack stock so I'd bet it can be fond on e-bay or similar. The local pharmacy in my tiny town...a former RS distributor...was recently selling much of their back stock at about 20% of the list pricing just to get it the heck out of their back room. Or...the old magneto crank telephones can also be tweaked to work like that--they're actually pretty simple machines and give you that cool retro vibe. There is some information on the net regarding that but the phones do set you back a bit of cash. Quite often in "the good old days", farmers would use the barbed wire fence as their phone cable to the neighbor's or farm hand's shack--why bother stringing new wire when you've already strung old?

Power pole holes used to be hand dug--to about 10 feet deep. They used a modified shovel with the blade slightly more horizontal and a bit more scoop shaped--and about 12' handle. A "pike" with a steel point would be dropped down the hole to loosen things and the scoop-shovel then cleaned the loose stuff. Lather rinse repeat...for what was likely a really long miserable day. We've got a set for that donated by the local power company at the museum here. On days when my job seems hard, I think about those. On a side note they also donated a fully beautifully restored 1941 Dodge pickup used in the early days in this county so it's not like they were cheapskates

If you have very few rocks and if those rocks aren't like loose gravel, I'd do the hand auger style from a tank or similar. I find this style to be faster and easier than others in my primarily rock-free soil. Typically for fence posts I also go about a meter deep. These hate certain types of rock and loose gravel is a gigantic pain with them. Therefore I also have the clamshell style handy to help when heeded. Since my soil has quite a bit of clay, it turns hard as a rock when completely dry so mid-summer, it helps to wet the area well a couple of days before digging so there is some moisture in the soil. I also have the power auger for the tractor but if I'm doing less than 6 or 8 holes at a time, I still prefer hand digging due to the ease in my soil here. I prefer a design that is a bit more flat bottomed than the image because It is easier to set posts...or I use the 2 handled clamshell digger to make a flat bottom. Edit: I also usually start the first 6" of the hole with the clamshell style digger---it's easier to get the location exact with those and the twist digger then starts brainlessly. Edit again--roots are terrible with any digger. I use the clamshell to cut them when using the twist digger but the real solution is a style like this one--very heavy and cuts roots way down at the bottom of the hole. I absolutely love this style but they tend to be costly and not as easily available. My danged brother borrowed mine and never returned it...20 years ago.

With a work backlog so deep that I may never see daylight again, at best it allows me to catch up with .01%. In my office, I generally work alone anyway--and the main plant is a critical operation so isn't shutting down. So basically it's business as usual for me. Same hermitage, different day.

Prime candidate for a variable frequency drive. Being able to slow the RPM improves the danger level but they are still dangerous machines. Not a great machine for smithing but one thing that can be done with it is to use the nylon bristle brushes that have a bit of carbide grit en them--one brand is "Nylox". Those can do some nice finish work on some items. Polishing head is what it's designed for--things like polishing out bumpers before plating. I'd personally pass it on to someone who needs that kind of thing...or start your own polishing business :-) The MUCH smaller buffer (2 HP) I use regularly will grab a part, rip it out of your hands, and slam it on the floor faster than you can blink. I have to be super careful to work on the right segment of the wheel so that if it does grab, it goes down rather than across the shop--so you NEVER work on the bottom (with smaller parts) because it'll fly horizontally and NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER work on the top of the wheel where the part can be thrown at you. You also have to be super careful to develop the habit of a light touch. You do not want to cram the parts into the wheels--the surface does the work and cramming it against the wheels with high pressure is a recipe for disaster. I deburr complex machined parts using 12" Nylox bristle wheels.

Tough question due to the current market. In good condition one could expect somewhere between $ 5 and $ 6 a lb in the current market for the PNW in general. It isn't actually worth that but people are paying ridiculous prices and if you wait long enough, a deep-pocket buyer who just *has* to have a "real" anvil seems to come along eventually. In pretty bad condition like that, I'd probably call it no more than $ 2 or $ 2.50 a lb in the current market--it might push a little higher in big-city limits. Too much risk that the damage will progress (assuming that it's properly checked for existing delamination and is still ok). Anything above that and you could find better options with a little patience. Again, that's not what it is worth---that's what the current market stupidity is allowing things to sell for with time and patience. The wise buyer will take the time to beat the brush and keep looking as reasonably priced anvils are still out there: Not everyone tries to milk their iron for every last penny someone with "anvil fever" will pay. Obviously your mileage may vary.

Going back to the O. P. photo, there are also a host of different similar stake anvils in the sheet metal world. They often get specific names related to the job like "teakettle stake" and "candle-mold stake" but most are more generic. Here's an old example of only 3 (plus bigger stakes)...but the range of these small insert stakes is so broad that they are probably more common in the sheet metal world than the smithing world. Round tops, oval tops, hex tops, square tops, rectangular tops, etc. Most have a square post similar to an anvil hardy tool.

I start with a small pile of 6 or 8 standard BBQ briquettes. Once those get going well (starting with regular BBQ lighter fluid), I add the coal and turn on the air. A few minutes later and things start heating up well. Part of the secret with this stuff is careful air control--too little and it dies, too much and it seems to blow so much needed heat out of the fire area that it also dies--the high air-flow actually seems to cool the fire. There is a narrow sweet spot in the middle where you get the fires of Hades.

I don't have time to do a real drawing so I'll fake it with a text emulation for now 3 point hitch adjuster end (without top link) -------------------/------o Wheel That makes it so you adjust the cutting height (fine adjustment) wit the 3 point control arms but the tractor itself doesn't affect the planing action as much. The wheels near the blade/rippers make the whole unit act as an independent plane so you actually smooth a road. This is not for earth moving...it's for planing and flattening things like road and field surfaces. It'll move a bit of dirt but it's not a dozer like a normal box blade being pushed backwards or dragged forward. The wheel end should have some height adjustment..or the blade being able to adjust upward...so you can tow it around without dragging. This is what the US Forest Service uses around here on it's backwoods trails and roads that are too small for a full sized road grader. For smoothing gravel roads and parking lots, the blade gets replaced with a rake which lets some of the gravel pass through when smoothing. Here's an old school version to give you an idea but typically you want a bit longer beam for better flat grading. Again, this is not a dirt mover, it is a grader. If you are stsrictly trying to emulate a dozer, a standard box blade from the implement store will do the job...sort of.

Is there are specific reason not to buy one of the already made "chinese" models? They tend to be so cheap that you can't build one yourself for the cost--and because they are so simple in construction, they tend to be quite robustly built over there, using quite heavy plate (steel is cheap in China due to being highly subsidized so they often build a lot heavier than other places do). The rippers can help if you are talking about breaking and rough-leveling hard-packed surfaces but they do not work that well on existing gravel and such--they aren't the best leveling tool on a standard 3-point hitch because their level and angle is far too dictated by the tractor itself--back tires hit a low spot and the scraper digs in (a few feet behind the tractor, making a new low spot)...hit a high spot on the tractor wheels and they leave a hump 5 or so feet back. Without remarkable care in use, they actually tend to make surfaces more UN-level, causing the road defects to be emphasized and not removed.. For good leveling you need a bit of a different system--much longer framework that isn't affected the same way by the tractor's frame position. It's basically more like an independent trailer than an attachment. But if you really want to go through the motions, they aren't that hard to build. For the actual hardened scraper edge, I'd find a supplier of pre-made units and see if I could buy only the blade as a replacement part. That blade is a bit tough to make due to the slight curve, edge geometry, and the fact that they are usually a less commonly available high-manganese steel for the abrasion resistance.