Kaylee

If you have a hard time reading the above image, the same chart is on page 14 of "Metallurgy Made Simple" here: https://lists.man.lodz.pl/pipermail/odlew-pl/2010/04/att-0000/02._20Metallurgy_20Made_20Simple-_20Metal_20Identification_20Ready_20.pdf

I chortled when I saw it, and was snuffed that nobody had brought light to that one.

Of course not. The steel will be upset, not the smith.

There's another guy from Missouri, just a bit south of you who introduced himself on Monday. There's probably a few more of the IFI group that are fairly close as well. Welcome!

@CoyoteGear I have a tile saw that cuts stone and brick like butter, and I can curve the edges if needed for future bricks or other projects... as you know, we're not far apart.

Sparkly vampires was in reference to the Twilight series, which took place in Forks, WA... and the guy I got my anvil from lives in Forks.

I think my anvil and yours must be sisters! Mine's 1941 (200 pound? I haven't been able to weigh it yet but it has the 20 on the foot like this one) Fisher. They really look a lot alike... I haven't done work on mine yet as I'm just getting my forge set up, but I already know the neighbors will love it too. 90-92% rebound. I got it from a guy in Forks, WA but it doesn't look like the sparkly vampires have gotten to her yet. Sadly I don't know her history. I'd definitely recommend a Fisher, the guy didn't know about testing rebound, so he had grabbed his 10 pound sledge, and swung at the face as hard as he could to test for rebound... and luckily the face is still good.

Ooh, the rubber mat sounds like a perfect solution! Thanks Frosty! Nah, I name all my cats after dragons, hence Tiamat. My girlfriend named our other cat, Luna (like the moon), and Stryfe is the roommate's. Oh, and I love puns.

Thanks! I was super excited to find it... and it was linked to me on Craigslist by another user here, we had just gone to the local tack sale and rotary auction / garage sale looking for one, but struck out. The stand seems to put it a tad tall for me... but we'll see better when I start hitting hot steel... the face is maybe half inch above the wrist joint. I'm 5'9" so fairly tall for a woman, but it's definitely something I've thought about how to compensate for. I'll probably make something for me to stand on, a fairly low platform that goes around all sides (like 2 semicircles). Haha I didn't even notice she got in the picture! That one's Luna, and we have 2 others here. Tiamat and Stryfe. Stryfe is the "grumpy old man" as we call him, the other two are girls. Once the mustang drives again (reinstalling the transmission I rebuilt), then that's an option.

It did indeed come with the stand! 23.5 inch long, 9" outside diameter, 1/2" wall thickness pipe, welded to half of a (tractor???) wheel. The pipe weighs in at 86 pounds based on some math... and I'd wager that the wheel is pretty close to the same, because of how thick the darned thing is. The anvil on the stand has got to weigh almost 400 pounds, it's definitely a bit to move it around.

Just picked up (figuratively speaking) this Fisher yesterday. The guy I bought it from also gave me a bunch of steel from his equipment (he's got 3 excavators, a couple dozers, etc). Got it unloaded and cleaned up the face a bit to better test the rebound, and it's just above 90%. Being that I'm in a residential area, I'm thinking the neighbors are going to really appreciate me not banging on a piece of rail road track... which you can see behind the anvil stand. The stamp on the foot says 20, and I didn't have a scale to weigh it, but it's 200 or better, plus the stand.

Another decent makeshift anvil is an excavator pin. I just bought a Fisher anvil yesterday, and the guy had several just laying around. Any construction company (or other company that owns heavy machinery) is likely to have some large pieces of steel that are hardened, such as those pins. He gave me (no extra cost after buying the anvil) probably another 150-200 pounds of steel parts, excavator track, cable, and even some unused stock and plate. We just got to talking about interests, and he offered to give me a lot of this extra stuff.

Ok, finally got some pictures taken (or sent to me) from my original projects from "back in the day"... the tongs are from '94, and the sign was made in '95. The bend in the sign frame is from a tree falling on it and taking out the post it was mounted to and landing on the sign. It's not very visible, but in the fuzzy picture of the tongs, I figured I'd pick something up with them, and the only reasonable thing I found was my railroad track anvil (weighed it earlier today at 65 pounds). I'd never really tested to see if things would slip out of them before, but I guess probably not.

They were talking about and working on reopening the Empire Mine, there in Grass Valley starting probably 4-5 years ago. Not sure what the current situation is down there, though. Yeah, if I was going to live in California, that's about where I'd like to be.

That school is in Grass Valley, a town west of Tahoe... so north a few hours. I grew up in Sacramento / Folsom too.

This was in California... and they spared no expense in that metal shop for the tools (or the wood shop / auto shop for that matter). 3 lathes, 2 mills, a plasma cutter (early '90s, they were far more expensive than now), a Pirahna ironworker, 2 mills, several stations for welding, and a large handful of other things. It's possible it was a Vulcan, but based on the pictures I've seen looking around, the waist and tail shape for what I remember make me think it was a Fisher. It was in beautiful condition, either way, and was an absolute joy to work on.

Thanks for the information, Rashelle! June also has June Faire for the SCA, June 3-5 in town where I live, as well. There might be a smith there, there have been a few years we've seen one.

Alright. Well, the sign that I made for the ranch went with my dad when he sold the place and moved. It's visible on google maps if you know where to look on street view, but I don't need to be giving out addresses like that. I'll upload a picture when I get one, my dad said he'll take a picture for me in the morning. Tongs... they're easily accessible, but my work makes me have no camera because of security, so when I switch out phones for the weekend tomorrow after work, I'll grab them and snap a picture. I don't have any kids, but I get what you mean! @swedefiddle As for the NWBA, I actually found them today, and saw that same information, thank you very much for the confirmation (I wasn't sure I found the local ABANA chapter because the listings are kinda cluttered on the page I found). Longview is just over 2 hours drive for me, so I'm thinking that I will go. Will you be there? There's another newbie smith in Bremerton that I saw make a post in the tailgating section... maybe we can help each other out!

Hey, I remember Mr. Wizard... does that make me old by definition? Anyway, yeah I wasn't shunned from shop type things. I do most of the maintenance on my truck, just finished rebuilding the transmission of my mustang, and have a few years experience as a mechanic in the Navy. If anything, the instructors throughout my training (and teachers in school) helped put that love of the sciences, mechanical, etc. into me... and that was a few years ago.

Hello smiths! I'm just recently getting back into the art, and have very little equipment of my own. I took 2 years of metal shop in high school, from 1994 to 1996. We got to learn stick welding, MIG (TIG if you were around the third year), lathe and mill work, oxy/acetylene welding/brazing/soldering, sheet metal work, and a few bits of forging. Looking back on those years and having looked into anvils for the better part of a year, I have to guess that we were working on a late Fisher anvil, as there was no chain around the waist to reduce ring, and it still didn't go crazy with the ring. We had a propane forge, and over the course of those two years, what I got to forge was a pair of tongs (which I still have) and a wrought iron style ranch sign that I gave to my father, which he still has hanging outside. I've loved metal working ever since then, but my work brought me elsewhere - nuclear power. My favorite smell is hitting steel with a grinder. So here I am now, just recently been given a piece of rail track (who can argue with free?) and asking myself what's stopping me now, as there are tons of plans for making a forge from a brake drum or various other things. I noticed in another post that there's another IFI member that's in Bremerton... I guess it's high time to say hello! Oh, and as a point of curiosity, I wonder how many other females are around here. I know it's a predominantly male driven trade, but I know a couple female artist blacksmiths. Kaylee