Jackdawg

It will still be pretty hard to work, it is a large lump of metal!

looks like it would easily repurpose for the Zombie apocalypse, bet you could sell it to a prepper for a pretty penny!

Thank you for sharing, Jim sounds like he was "good people" few and far between these days.

Here in Australia, rebar has a different pattern on it for different grades and the plant it was manufactured from. (differences in the little dashes added to the bar between the ribs) You could have a look at manufacturers web sites over there and see if they use a similar system, that might help you determine where it came from and what its original use was intended to be.

notionally reinforcing steel has a minimum strength is is supposed to exhibit for the application it is designed for, Specified strength ranges from 250Mpa (basic mild steel plate quality) up to to about 600Mpa. But be aware if they cold draw it, (basically if it comes on a coil rather than lengths, it will definitely be cold worked) work hardening is actually what provides most of that strength, so as soon as you heat and beat it, it is back to mild steel strength.

Anzac day here in Australia, dawn services to remember the fallen Australian and New Zealand troops at Gallipoli (Turkey) in 1915.

Looks like a 10 pin bowling pin! It is a bewdy, your grandfather must of had arms like popeye if he was swinging that regularly!

When I was a kid they tied my right arm behind my back in grade 1 because when I got tired using the left hand to write, I used to swap to the right hand. This was only a couple of years after they stopped forcing left handed kids to write right handed, so I suppose they were overreacting, didn't want anyone to see them having a left handed kid write right handed! So, likely I am at least partially ambidextrous! But over the years as I have got leg and arm injuries, I have had to "swap" took me a little while, but heavy stuff like swinging a hammer or kicking a ball didn't take long to become proficient, but never could match the dexterity. Finer detail work though with the hands, left is my dominant, and I find I am just not able to do the finer stuff with my right!

Also be fun to watch the drunks try and use their forks

London to a brick it all screws together, those holes are for inserting the breaker bars to loosen or tighten. Looks like the old extruders we used to use on top of jacks.

very nicely done.

I mostly forge with wood. I started turning the hardwood in to charcoal, but the wood works just as well for me and I dont have to muck about making the charcoal! Works as well as charcoal for me, dont know about coke / coal, (also have found it is not available here). All my wood comes off my property, it is heavily treed and the odd storm makes for plenty of fuel. Rider being as I live in Australia, our hard wood is really hard, burns slow and hot and is full of flammable natural oils. What I mostly use is what we call black wattle. It has such a high eucalyptus oil level that when you throw a green branch of leaves on a fire it explodes like you have thrown a can of petrol on it. So your mileage might vary depending on what wood you feed your beast. And it is a hungry beast when your feeding it wood, I use lengths of about 3 inches long, cut an inch or so square. When ever you pull the steel out, throw a handful of wood on top, turn your air off or right down at the same time and it all works well. (If you dont turn the air down, it just burns more wood, doesn't affect it otherwise) I dont generally need to worry about waiting for the wood to turn to coals, at that size it is a rapid and continuous process and there is always plenty of hot coals in the bottom of the pot.

The show is so delayed here, it runs about 6 weeks behind what you are seeing - I can never work out which episode people are going to be in.

Certainly not cheap, but a lot less risk of a failure. The go to supplier here in Oz has some beautiful stuff available, and it is in stainless knife grades, they source most of their steel from the US, so you will have access to it there for sure. Here is the link to the Oz Supplier if you just want to drool, if nothing else you might be able to search the local suppliers easier if you know the name of the grade. . (scroll down a little, the top stuff of for bling, not blades, that is lower down) oh, and make sure your sitting down before looking at the prices - price is per centimetre of steel......as I said not cheap! https://www.artisansupplies.com.au/product-category/knife-making-supplies/knife-and-blade-steels/damasteel-premium-blade-steel-and-damascus/

Nice looking anvil you have got for yourself.

Down ankle length boots is always fun. I am very particular about making sure my jeans cover the tops of my boots these days! V neck shirts also give similar fun at times!

I'm going to have to google that one, it sounds intriguing! http://www.oldandinteresting.com/sugar-nippers.aspx well there you go, it was intriguing! something I never new, sugar has only ever been granulated sugar to me! Wonder why they didn't just crush it.

All a flash back arestor is, is a fine mesh like what is in a davey miners lamp. unless you hole it by sticking something through the unit, they never wear out. If you think they are necessary to have on a fuel source, then you should run them on propane as well, their job is to stop flame traveling back to the fuel source if something goes wrong. If it also incorporates a non return valve to stop gas moving back up the line, that is a different story.

yeah I fired up the forge on the weekend, first time cool enough to really get going since christmas. Actually got down to 15 degrees (Celsius) last night. Didn't kick the dog off the bed when it snuck on at 3am

There was a huge amount of damamge in Northern New South Wales as well. When what was left of the cyclone turned inland, it passed over Brisbane and in to northern new south wales. Brisbane got a good amount of rain, mostly 10 to 12 inches - In the Gold coast / northern NSW zone, (50 - 100k south of Brisbane) some areas got 3 foot of rain overnight. Biggest floods in over 50 years. Bloke at work is a volunteer firefighter down in the bad zone, he spent a week helping hose out businesses etc. He says locals say it is the worst they have ever seen it. Starting to hear some stories about grub insurance companies refusing to pay out on claims, always happy to know you come premium collection time, otherwise dont want to know about you.

Check what you can get for it before dismantling any of the less pristine pieces. That is the sort of period stuff rich people will pay through the nose for, and repairing it might be a lucrative option.

Nice shape. very nice for a first attempt. Look like you're a bit wild on the hammer, from those small deep long dents. Particularly those in your ASO! Need to elevate that anvil I think , help you hit with the hammer face horizontal.

Starting to see some pics of damage to the road network, politicians are going to have to put their hand in our pockets to pay for it all.

I was in Rocky in the 80's when we got flooded in. No nice big elevated road in like there is now. 2 weeks cut off. Fuel rationing, milk being helicoptered in for babies and infants, not a tin left on the shelf in the local supermarket. Pretty much ate rice and soy sauce for a week!

Cheers Ausfire, we are ok. I'm north of Brisbane, we got about 250mm only. A few trees down, nothing important. Mates in Qmac living on south side copped it. One got power back this morning, others will be monday at earliest. Some still flooded in, yeah a few in New South Wales died by the look of it.