Judson Yaggy

Historically they were made from wrought iron and worked well for 1000 years or so.  Zero hardness on the blacksmith's scale.  Mild steel (a-36) works just fine as long as you keep your proportions within reason.  

Nice fix!

Lennox 14/18 tpi.  Worth the money!

The reasons not to use a HF press for forging are many.  Lack of speed, lack of stiffness, lack of replaceable parts, no limit switches, no safety shrouds on hydraulic parts (google hydraulic press flamethrower).

So many wide open questions in the original question.  Buy this book.  

By: Randy McDaniel

It's cheaper than a crappy press from HF and WAY cheaper than the mistakes, down time, injury, or worse from using the wrong tool.  

Score!  You are going to love it!

Anvil and rooster circa 12 years ago.  Both are long gone, one was tasty and the other profitable.  

Oh no, not another one!  I'll let the gang know , and thoughts and prayers for Andrew.  

 

A friend of mine lost an eye to a nail that hit a knot and turned into his face. The nail was bent and was only able to do that trick because it was a C nail for furniture with a very small head. ... and because he did not have safety glasses on. 

When I go onsite or walk into the shop, the first thing I do before even getting out of the truck or turning on the lights is put on a good set of safety glasses.  Second thing is put on the earplug necklace.  Only then am I ready to face the day.  

3/8" is ok, if no drill press try punching the holes hot.  Lots of instruction here on IFI about hot punching, search and read.  Have fun!

 

 In my experience pins are the only way to be sure the handle won't come loose so the glue becomes more of a filler so it can't wobble on the tang. 

Yup.  

But thanks to the laugh you gave me above I'm going to try and make you a knife tomorrow with a bunch of bent over Paslode nails as pins.  

 

I am so glad I have a safe job, I am an Electrician. no nail guns for us

Yes, what could possibly go wrong in your line of work? (grin)

Do you have a drill press and the ability to drill 1/2" holes in 1/2" plate or bar?  You could fab up a mount pretty quickly with some holes in angle iron and some bolts.  Or, if you are a blacksmith, you could hot punch the holes and skip the drill press.  

You didn't get ripped off (going by the photos) but it wasn't the deal of the century.  Respectable midrange price these days.  If you are going to make money with an anvil the price rapidly diverges from the value.  YMMV.

Here are the best pics I have of the idller arm on mine.  Will try and remember to snap some more when I go out to the shop later.  

Nice spot Mike, Paslode 16d. 

Frosty, the shadows were from the ring of 5 guys all clustered around taking photos with their phones!

Sounds like a design paradigm issue.  If you don't like epoxy, try a diferent design.  Barbs on the tang, rivets, screws, one piece entirely forged knife...  thousands of years of knifemaking under our belts before we invented epoxy.  

I'm just an architectural smith, but I try to keep epoxy out of my shop, smells like cancer to me.  

Nice.  I've seen ones like that before, but not with maker's marks.  Good score.

Last NEB meet a 5" post vise missing the spring followed me home for $35.

When I don't have smithing work I do timber framing projects and project manage residential construction gigs. Sometimes that means putting on a tool belt and leading a crew.  And sometimes bad things happen.  Be careful with ANY power tool folks!

The ER doc (after looking at the x-ray) said I couldn't have shot myself in a better place.  Missed the bone by 2mm, missed the blood vessels, missed the ligaments, missed the nerve.  I was back to hammering the next day.  The nail riccoched off a knot and skimmed off a stud, flew 14.5 inches across open air, and found my thumb that was NOT in line with the original shot.  Sometimes even if you are being careful bad things happen!

Assembly of the next handrail.  No welding.  

Those smaller calipers look very well made.  One piece arms and bow?

More pics and stop grinding please.  

Pics square to the sides and each way along the long axis, and close ups of the sides and bottom would help with ID.

A wire wheel on an angle grinder will just clean rust and highlite maker's marks.  An abrasive (grinding) wheel will remove identifying marks and degrade working surfaces.  

Jenifer, I had a headsmack moment when Lou told me about your quench/hammer scale popping trick.  Duh.  How many times have I seen that effect without planning it into my process?  Too many.  Thanks.  

Justin and Leigh Morell's shop is probably your local repository of NEB castings.  If they don't have one on hand you could pick up the prize (If I heard correctly that you won) at the spring meet in NH or contact Bob Menard to work it out.

Lou, anyone willing to be prodded by me into working with a stranger on a suprise project with loaner tools and a deadline in front of a crowd gets some serious respect.  Most important part of the evening was having fun and learing something, and I hope you did.  Hats off to you.  

Old style Little Giant probably 50#.  

It was a ton of fun to see everyone.  Jenifer, I think? you won the casting raffle.  Thank goodness Dale wasn't there.  (grin)

Here are my pics, mostly of the forging competition.  Teams of 2 had 1 hour to make a trivet.  

Final pieces.  

Pics of works in progress.

Lou making a forge weld in the competition

Prizes.  First place got  European hammers, second got butcher's block brushes, third and fourth a shiny ribbon and a hug from a sweaty blacksmith.  

What a teenager looks like after something like 16 hours in Green Coal.

For steel AND steam!  Guys that own big hammers say buying one is the cheapest part of owning.