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32 minutes ago, Daswulf said:

Das.  aka. Aric Armbruster

Aric not Eric? If so, that's way cooler than what I had in my mind - parents of German heritage who weren't sure if you were a boy or a girl when they filled out the paperwork. Like, you could have ended up as Der and maybe as Die, but they played it safe and chose the middle ground.

Das, you should really have a website of your own to showcase your work and drive business your way. I would like to share some of you work (I know a few people who would just love it) but it's kind of tricky when there isn't a way to give you attribution. I mean, I could say this was made by some dude in Pennsylvania who I know only as Das... but that might not go over as well.

That looks like it was a lot of fun. Very nice tooling too.

Probably a boron steel alloy depending on how old it is. It's tough stuff. Abrasion resistant but not high carbon.

Banking coal around the fire reduces the popping a LOT. And it's not that difficult to break up. A small tack hammer works very well for that job, if you need to do it. A series of fast, light taps usually takes care of it or you can bank it around the fire and tap it with your rake as heat helps as well.

So it changed from shiny black to a dull grey? When using full sized "nut" it tends to burn very slowly and goes through that color change. You can break it up in the fire by lightly tapping it and it will burn more effectively. Essentially, the surface area is so small compared to the volume of the piece of coal that it doesn't burn effectively. Using "rice" sized anthracite more or less eliminates this problem.

You can break it up before you put it in the fire or give the big chunky pieces a few light taps with a piece of rod once they have started burning. The latter method nearly eliminates the popping at temperature, but makes fire management more of a pain. I have had success with anthracite, though it took me a while to figure out its quirks.

Certainly sounds like clinker to me. And yes, it makes for a great walkway! I've been throwing mine on the ground by my forge to slowly build up something resembling solid ground.

It's fun. You get to play with fire and hit things with hammers. Plus there's the satisfaction of making something. 

Tell him that if he wants to do stupid, dangerous things that he should get his own shop. After you tell him to get out of your face. He was wrong, and what's more it was the kind of wrong that can lead to serious injury. If you are paying to use this shared space then you have a right to work in a safe environment and it's the responsibility of the management to remove idiots like that from the premises. Really, it's the management's responsibility even if you aren't paying, but I'll assume you haven't found free space like that.

On 2/6/2016 at 5:06 PM, JHCC said:

Smallish ( but practically new) drill press with a set of small Forstner bits and a handful of other specialty bits. Fifty bucks.

A small drill press is handy to have, especially if you find yourself needing to drill very small holes. The big floor model presses just don't give sufficient feedback and it's too easy to break a bit. You made out better price wise than a trip to Harbor Freight and probably ended up with a better machine too. Nice.

I like the plastic bucket with shims for an anvil stand. That's one I never would have thought of myself which is what's great about this place. The photos may dissapear and posts might be occasionally devoured by the IPS gremlins, but you come across ingenious problem solving if you hang around long enough.

I would probably go take a look at the Vulcan, if it was around here at least. Not being sure what the anvil market is like in your area I can't offer advice to you but that wouldn't be a bad price in these parts. Take a large ball bearing with you and test the rebound to see what's what. Vulcan isn't Fisher, but my understanding is that they were decent anvils in their time.

The second is a bit dodgy - and the similar wording between posts would make me somewhat apprehensive about the Vulcan. Either way, unless they knew what they were doing during the refurbishing the price seems very steep. At least it's not one of those rare step-faced anvils that pops up from time to time...

The bottom line is, if you are interested and want to have a look then check them out. You never know, even if both of those anvils have been damaged, the seller may have another that they are getting ready to "refurbish" and you can save them the trouble of doing so. Might as well ask since it seems like the guy has a stack of anvils somewhere.

3 hours ago, Charles R. Stevens said:

Grew up north of Phoenix AZ. Iron wood trees are not pretty but the hardwood is certainly hard and dark. Don't recomend hand tools...

I've heard that stuff is tough on power tools too. According to one story I came across a circular saw was throwing sparks trying to cut the stuff. Not sure myself how believable that was, but he claimed it was ironwood and not a hunk of petrified stump he came across...

1 hour ago, Ethan the blacksmith said:

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think those small vices are fore sharpening saws too.

I could be wrong Ethan, but I doubt they would be much use for sharpening a saw. Unless, of course, you are talking about a very narrow bladed saw like a hacksaw. All of the saw vises I have seen are very deep to accommodate the width of the plate with wide jaws to secure the length of the saw for filing.

Now that I think about it though, a jeweler would have tiny saws in their shop and could well have sharpened them. I have never heard of sharpening a jeweler's saw, or any metal cutting saw aside from some band saw blades... maybe. My memory seems to be going along with my eyesight.

Tedious I'd imagine. I've sharpened my 18 tpi dovetail saw and would be hard pressed to work on anything smaller. There are certainly better craftsmen out there than me though! Hopefully someone here will be able to chime in and correct me if I'm wrong.

You'll notice that the fire is cooler than it should be and if you place a piece of stock in the bed it will feel... different. I'm not sure how to describe the difference but once it registers you will know. The big ones can usually be hooked and pulled out fairly easily. If they break on the way out a pair of narrow tongs comes in handy to grab the small ones. Killing the air for a minute or so helps too. When clinker is screaming hot I find it breaks more easily.

I might just try a similar pattern for a hammer I'm in the process of rehandling. As the collection grows - my trips to the ReStore have yielded a bountiful harvest of cheap second hand tools lately - I have the opportunity to try a few interesting designs. If it doesn't work for me I can look still forward to a few raised eyebrows when visitors drop by and have a look at the hammer rack!

Great looking hammer by the way. It looks like something to hang on a wall, though I'm sure it would be a terrible waste of a fine tool to do so. 

What's the purpose of the handle shape? I like it but haven't seen one quite like that before.

I had one of those days on Monday. Round to square consistently eluded me - though the dogs dropping "toys" under my feet might have had something to do with it - and I would up mangling the piece of stock beyond all recognition in frustration. Grrrr...

I've heard some good ones in my time but that probably takes the cake.

Is it listed in the auction? I'd try to contact them and find out what it is. The fact that the object in question is covered with other tools leads me to think that they don't intend to sell it and are using it to stage the other tools for photographs. Could be a steel block but I'm inclined to think it's a weight of some kind and likely cast iron. I've never seen one quite like that but I certainly haven't seen them all.

The pritchel hole might not be a pritchel hole either. The second photo shows what appears to be a black dot. That could be a hole, or it could be a sticker or a smudge that you want to believe is a pritchel hole. Without some depth for reference it could be any number of things. 

2 hours ago, notownkid said:

I owned a new car dealership and had to remind my Mechanics. I'm sorry Technicians, of it on a regular basis and it was often the case of simple problems.   

As a kid, I remember watching a guy beat on a tractor tire for almost forty five minutes trying to break the bead. When he finally collapsed from near exhaustion someone walked past and suggested he let the air out before he had another go at it... worked like a charm.

When something isn't working the way you expect it to, it's often something simple but I've found over the years that people often jump to more complicated or physical solutions without thinking things through. It's bad when it wastes time but it's absolutely terrible when it wastes money. Especially a customer's money.

Maybe they're trying to show off their analytical skills or physical prowess but I don't really know. Sometimes I guess people just have to learn the hard way. It's a shame, though it can be fun to watch!

Here's to hoping you had a good service writer at the dealership. They're a dime a dozen but a good one is worth their weight in gold.

Tongs are very easy. Take two pieces of flat bar, drill a hole through both with enough material left for the jaws, bolt them together, heat, and twist the end. And, presto, you have a functional set of tongs. They don't look pretty or last forever, but it's a lot safer than trying to use vise grips or channel locks and will get you going so you can develop the skills to forge a more substantial pair yourself.

Dirt box forge, garage sale hammer, and get to swinging! And a stand of some sort too... you don't want to injure yourself by working stooped over. Nice looking anvil. 

Hello Jerry. You seem to be just a hop skip and a jump north of me. The flea market you run wouldn't happen to be on Jefferson would it? I've been meaning to make the trip there to look for a few tools. I'm not much more experienced than you are and don't make it that way too often but if there's any way I can lend a helping hand let me know.

Your anvil looks quite nice as well. Good find for this area.

50 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

Whats funny is when the old ways are faster/easier/cheaper than the new ways  We generally expect new ways to be faster/easier/cheaper but this is not always the case.  Many times the new ways were developed just so people did not need to be as skilled to do a task; but if you have the skills then you can chose methods to suit your problems.

I had this conversation with my brother about a month ago. We were building two cedar boxes for his house using lumber from a log he had sawn on his mini mill. It was rough sawn and still had the bark, contours, and knots from the tree displayed prominently. He was going for the rustic look. Lots of character.

When it came time to cut the pieces to length he decided to use his sawzall on the first cut and proceeded to knock most of the character off of the slab, owing to the vibration of the saw. I suggested we grab the hand saw from my box and make the next cut with it. He wanted to attempt to make two cuts using a circular saw, as the thickness and shape of the lumber wouldn't allow a single pass to cut cleanly.

So, while he was getting his circular saw out, squaring the fence, and trying to figure out a way to mark the slab on both sides I grabbed my handsaw and demonstrated just how quickly and cleanly we could make those cuts without all the fussing about needed to apply power tools. It worked. Beautifully in fact. Give me a sharp handsaw any day - I prefer the old Disston saws - over power tools.

Heck, I've been sawing up a pear tree by hand just to show a friend of mine that you don't need power equipment to stay warm in the winter. He didn't split enough wood because his hydraulic splitter was "borrowed" when he needed to be getting to it. I pointed to his maul and even offered to bring mine over to help. Now he's sleeping under an electric blanket and only starting a fire when people drop by...