Kozzy

I noticed the V belt in place of the original flat belt. Although it's a bit bigger investment, on the re-hab of a C. 1910 keyseater that was designed for a leather belt I used a wide flat cogged belt instead. It requires a toothed pulley on the motor side but acts as a flat belt on the machine side. Seems to work extremely well, perfect tracking, and looks a little bit more like it was originally intended to. Just passing it on in case you're not happy with the current belt and think spending a few dollars is worth it.

Taking this on a bit of a side trip....go to Mcmaster.com and search on "slitting cutters". These are essentially thin kerf saw blades/cold saw blades that can be had in diameters similar to the abrasive wheel that's on the current iteration of your machine. You'd need an arbor adapter (probably) as most use a 1" bore. What you've done is create a typeset-saw. These were very small table saws from the old days which were designed mainly to cut up bits of typeset for fitting into larger advertising blocks. If you can ever find a real one, snap it up at any cost--super accurate and well made. Although type material was generally soft metals, they will work like a super accurate (and stable) miniature cold saw on many harder metals. Nice tool to have around if you work with small stuff like dies. Since the VFD is already on the machine so you can dial in any speed, the only thing in question seems to be rigidity. You're 80% to a cold saw/typeset saw so it might be worth the fiddle to test a slitting cutter. Here's a commercial typeset saw:

Update: I ended up with that anvil. Good looking piece with nice ring. Hasn't been used enough yet to see if it has negatives. I didn't have any large bearing balls to test with but an 11/32" dia ball from 24" bounces back to 17" and from 36" bounces to about 26" Indication is that the material (listed as a proprietary stainless steel) isn't bad/brittle---but it'll take a lot more blows to tell the whole tale. At this point, it doesn't look like a boat anchor...

Thanks for the photos. The stop block will not be a problem to make: I have a C. 1905 Boynton & Plummer shaper that I can use to put the proper V grooves on the back of the block to match the grooves in the casting. All I really need is to know what the block originally looked like so I can repro it as closely as possible. It's a bit hard to see the details of construction in the old ad photo I posted. I think your photo gives me enough to come close on the foot pedal. It broke off right at the point where the wide part of the pedal itself is so most is there, at least giving a good start. I'll check the current jaw hardness--wouldn't have guessed the fixed jaw was hard from the look of it. Thanks again. Oh...is that red a repaint or do you think it was an original color?

Ayup on the locale. Since you are from this neck of the woods, do you ever do any snake river fishing? If so, I'd like to poke you for some advice about shore fishing locations. Need to find a place with good disabled access, reasonable results, and not elbow to elbow California style fishing.

Yup on the rocks...another hobby that I don't have time for. Just got a second 20" slab saw for 25 bucks. Now have one for each hand. It's been a while since I got out rock pickin due to wife's rheumatoid arthritis but the trip to glass butte OR a couple of years back was probably the most fun for us. Scored well on rainbow obsidian and oolitic agate near Burns. Reminds me I need to crank up the tumblers.

Thanks. That was basically the plan. You only need something that big when you need something that big. I've been poking around for plans regarding smaller propane forges and have a line on a pretty good old coal forge also. Just waiting for inspiration...and gumption.

I moved my whole fabrication shop to the middle of nowhere in the southern palouse area of WA state about 6 years go. For about 50 years I've itched to do some smithing and had only worked up to a bit of fiddling here and there as time allowed. The itch never went away. So here I sit in a metal fabrication with my lathes, welders, cnc mills, and all those goodies of modern times dreaming about banging hot iron instead. I seem to be turning into a luddite, slowly learning to hate the CNC forming machines I have to build and similar modern technical metal working. I'm affiliated with the local agricultural history museum and the local school donated their propane forge in hopes someone could use it: too expensive for the school to run and school shop is a dying entity anyway. Since the museum couldn't really use it--their display is primarily a coal forge and that era of stuff--they sold it to me at a price I couldn't refuse because it needs some re-hab and fabrication. Step 1 to iron whacking. Then a really good 280 lb anvil fell into my lap. Step 2 to iron pounding. This week I literally tripped over a farrier's calking/heading foot vice in a friend's field of cast off junk. Same with an antique foot pedal 20" grinding wheel/stand in reasonable shape . It's starting to look like some star alignment wants me to beat on hot metal. I'll be filling out other smithing niceties and they fall from the sky (looks up in case he needs to duck for cover). Here's a link to some of the Museum's smithing goodies..just noticed that the propane forge I now have is in the photos also. It'll be brought back to life soon. http://www.co.garfield.wa.us/Garfield County Plow%2C Woodwork%2C %26 Blacksmith Shop If I get even hack-level good over time, some smithing demonstrations would be something the museum could really use. Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. I'm kinda going old-school on the smithing thing and maybe it'll make the new-school of the fabrication shop a bit less stressful. Time to stare at the computer/solidworks for a while and design a multi-axis cnc wire forming machine for a new part we are making. You can bet I'll be distracted by the call of the anvil, though. Koz. Oh...and hello :-)

While doing some weed-diving in the brush of a friend's orchard, looking for usable "junk", I tripped over (literally) a Wells Bros foot vice that was in reasonable shape. On the truck it went, and it's sitting in my second shop waiting for a quick re-hab. Sorry, didn't bring the camera phone in today so no photos..yet. I see there are a couple of references to the vice on the forums but for some reason, I can't get to any photos. I can't seem to find photos of a complete one on the internet. If anyone would be kind enough to post a photo of a complete foot pedal (mine's broken off and couldn't be found) as well as the adjustable heading stop/adjuster end for it, I would be grateful. Photos of alternative heading jaws (mine are flat jaws) would be nice too. Also it would be helpful to hear some information about welding the caulks (calks, corks depending on who you are talking to) onto the shoe. I notice that the V grooves in the swage are open on one side and closed on the other---rather than being a V all the way across. You can sort-of see this in the attached advertising photo. I have to assume this served a purpose when doing caulks so if you have info it'd be helpful. I can't tell what the original finish was but there are hints that it was originally "japanned" as most cast iron of that era was to hide casting flaws. I can't tell if the hints of green are original color, someone's re-paint, or just old bug guts. I'd like to restore it to original if possible. Thanks and sorry to throw such a large bucket-load of questions out on my first post.