Lou L

If you put the railroad track on it’s end you can grind a radius into the center section and use that as a fuller. That will handle the number one use for the bick on an anvil. I hope you have bracing inside that long, flat section or it will deform. It’s going to be loud too!

I think you should start with thin stock (like 1/8 - 3/16”) and do some faggot welds just to get a handle on temperature and color. @jlpservicesinc taught me how easily thin stock welds. Try to make the weld before it starts sparking. Once you get that working consistently you can try out making some scarfs and welding thicker stock. Check out Rowan Taylor on YouTube, he has a great video on scarf welding and he is highly talented. Denis Frechette (DF in the shop on YouTube) has a great project making a “squirrel cooker” that I did as my first project requiring a scarf weld. Mark Aspery also has a great video on “scarf theory” you can’t miss just by searching for his name and the words in quotes. Thin stock will get you success. The thicker stock will lead you to inevitable but necessary failure. Good luck. Thomas’s response was 100% on, though. Forge welding is very situation specific, so you lack of detail in your question would lead one to believe you weren’t ready. Follow my advice and you will be. How do I know? I’ve been through it relatively recently. Lou

In my opinion that is a perfectly usable and beautiful piece of tool history. Those colonials often have a weird tilt to them. I have an old English anvil with deformities as well. Personally, I would keep that beauty for the long haul even after I picked up other anvils. Then again, I have a thing for history. Some may come here to tell you that the ring isn’t enough to judge it by and you should do a rebound test with a bearing. Do it if you can. Don’t grind it no matter what. If you must wire brush it then go for it. I would too but the chances of finding its provenance are low. The most important thing you can do to it is to use it! Congrats on your anvil, Lou

My childhood passion for Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner insists that I, one day, own one of those Acme house brand Trentons.

Well, I went ahead and copied...kinda Didn’t check back at the picture today and just went for it by memory. Just looked at yours and I missed! I had some tong issues and would need to make something new to hold the work. Being easily distractable, I chang3d course when I went into the shop because I saw a leaf I had made on the end of a piece of round stock. So I experimented with a different design first. These are my first corkscrews and I’m actually relatively proud of them as such. I learned a lot today.

Nice Das! Did you temper it in the oven? Did you draw more temper in the shaft? This is something I must do one day for sure. It deserves a thread of its own because I’m selfish and want to know everything

Egos, I love your forge as well. Question: How long does your clay last around the air pipe? I read a while back that smiths in England used to use a clay tuyere but expected it to be replaced sometimes daily. They would have an apprentice get clay each day, shape a new one, and dry it by the forge overnight.

My usual “yes, but...” is that I have too many little projects half done and can’t bring myself to finish them because there are other things I’d like to learn...and to do new things I need to make new tooling instead....but I don’t have thick enough tool steel...oh, wait, this auger drive shaft is perfect, but I’d have to cut off the section with the hole in it...I’ll have to hot cut it because my portaband will choke on this stuff...but darn my forge blower is too anemic and it’s a pain to keep the fire hot. I’ll go back inside and keep searching for the just right blower. Ten minutes later I’m reading some random website and/or being dad. But, I JUST set up a new blower that turned out to be amazing and did a test forging. Now, with this new blower, I have to redesign my forge back into a true side blast style with a sand/ash base. I find I’m at my best when I have a specific goal, a design, a drawing and someone expecting it to be done. Otherwise I am scattered...but that’s how I am with life in general.

@Ranchmanben, I really like that design. I’ve been practicing doing corkscrews and am ready to make some useable versions. This design is exactly what I was looking for. I’m hoping to make a few before the holidays. I hope you don’t mind my theft

I’m with Frank on this but didn’t chime in because my experience base is less personal and more theoretical. A36, by spec, has between 20 and 40 points of carbon. Having spark tested a lot of it I find that it tends to be toward the higher end. I have compared it to 1018 and it hasn’t even been close most of the time. Still, it won’t harden appreciably. Heck, it is spec’d for structural properties that are just as desireable in tongs. Maybe I just like it because I can get it in any shape I desire for a decent price!

I’ll sadly have to retract my support for Duluth Trading. My wife just attempted to buy me more of their stuff for Christmas and she couldn’t find them. Apparently they stopped selling most of their stuff in 36” inseam. One more blow to to tall guy community. She called customer service and found out they only have one type of pant in 36” inseam. The service rep documented the complaint and said they may bring them back if they get enough of them.

No lie, I was considering posting one of those lazy "someone just tell me exactly what to do" posts about building a had forge. Honestly, there is just so much good information that sends one in different directions that it is hard to pick one. This post is perfect for me as well. Great idea Krylok, and thanks again Frosty

I will second @SLAG with the Duluth trading suggestion. Not everything they make comes in 36" inseam though. You have to look at the big & tall stuff. Honestly though, once you wear them you won't want to subject then to the forge. They are, by very far, the best pants I have ever climbed into. Avoid the firehose flex stuff in the forge as well, because they have a small percentage of flammable stuff in them. I'm 6'6" and wear 36x36 pants. I swear I expected this thread to be about anvil and work bench height! Lou

Funny, thanks. My wife give me a piece of coal every year but it turns out to be fake coal. The plastic would just cause chaos in the forge.

Glen has some unorthodox approaches to heat treating that work for him because he has been experimenting with it for years. I envy his efficiency and precision but I don’t think I’d ever try his quick dunk in water heat treating style. He does it because he is on the balcony of an apartment in a city. I don’t think he wants to play around with flaming oil. The video of the double quenched hammer was quite convincing and I’m certain I would ruin a number of tools trying it before I got the timing right. I don’t think it would work at all on thinner tools or a knife. Post a link to it for the curmudgeons...they would be interested to see his results I think. Then again, some of them have probably already used the same technique...

Joe, not too long ago we debated in a thread the meaning of “traditional” in blacksmithing. No consensus was reached. You have basically resparked that discussion here but with one addition: it’s your life and your personal decision about how you practice this craft. No one can argue with you there. To be honest, I think there was some fear you were just leaving blacksmithing entirely. No one here wants to hear about someone who has lost the passion

I made the basket twist to learn. Hadn’t made one from square stock yet and I wanted to see how that Forge weld went. My previous baskets welded fine with round stock but delaminated when I would draw out the ends. It took one reweld but I was able to draw this out pretty well as one piece of steel. The point of all of this is that I put all that effort and learning into turning that basket into a stupid bottle opener. In the end I always end up making bottle openers for friends. I need to make about eight more for next weekend. My other projects always get pushed back for bottle openers....

Had some fun time with my son today. He forged his first hook out of 1/8” round stock (he’s five, give him a break). To his credit, he did every two-handed swing with the hammer. All I did was heat it in the forge and hold it with the tongs at the anvil. He told me when his misses were my fault because I moved. Then I knocked out some gifts for friends I will be seeing in two weeks at our annual hangout/memorial for a lost brother in our crew. I know it’s boring so I tried to make bottle openers interesting. I used my first railroad spike to make something.

One has to give him some credit. He clearly did his homework on constructing a forge. There appears to have been some informed decisions made with insulation and using chokes for his burners. And, his channel does appear to be about being “extreme” in his builds. I would say his propane bill will be extreme..so, well done! My main complaint is this: It seems like everyone who has the spare cash for a mig welder gets delusions of grandeur and posts videos of his amazing welding. The video would have been very different if he was stick welding. We was dropping welds mindlessly like my seven year old with a bottle of craft glue. Being a guy with only a junky stick welder...this annoys me.

The object lesson here is this: Start out your marriage with some seriously time intensive hobbies so that, by comparison, forging seems acceptable when children are running around the house. It’s all about desensitizing your spouse to your habits. Bringing hands forged gifts for the hosts of parties also helps. I just brought two bottle openers to a party this past Saturday and they were the rage. My wife was more than happy to brag about the time I spend hammering away.

I use an decommissioned military ordinance case. It is about 20” long and maybe 10” deep. It seals tight and won’t leak. I paid about $20 for it I think. I’m certain there are larger free options available but mine locks shut so I don’t spill and works for me.

So true. My Ace 350 has been in dry dock for a while. I used to seek out old settlements in the woods and find all sorts of old metal tools and such. I also found the remnants of an old railway, some mills, etc... So much fun to do the historical research and find out who built and lived in the settlement. The oldest place I’ve detected was built around 1650 but reached prominence around 1680. I have some wrought iron I dug up there. That’s where I found the hames (bridle part for a carriage horse) that Charles identified for me. Sadly, that hobby takes me away from the family for long hours and the wife is never happy with me when I return with a load of “junk metal”. She is much happier having me around the house at the forge.

This thread could be turned into an anti-new age life coaching book easily. Heck, I’d buy it. Great wisdom from the curmudgeons being laid bare. Das, I’m remembering the first time I saw my daughter in the delivery room. She’s seven right now and sitting here on the floor in front of me playing with the cat and a toy horse (he’s not into it). She should be in bed but she’s a night owl and there is no school tomorrow. Seven years ago I saw her for the first time and my knees buckled. Weirdest feeling I’ve ever experienced. I was 38 and thought I was ready. I wasn’t. I can’t wait for you to have the same experience. It is amazing.

I guess I don’t go to the right flea markets...or, Connecticut is a tong desert. They are hard to find and, when you do see them, people add blacksmith to the tag and charge big bucks. I am psyched to see a pair of $15-20 tongs. I usually don’t buy them because I’m cheap and idealistic and tell myself I can make them (starting to feel confident with tongs). BUT, having solid, recent memories of being totally new to forging, my worst memories are all about dealing with the wrong tongs, feeling unsafe and having simple things take way too long. I still argue that everything else in forging can be done on the cheaply to great effect (hot fire, chunk of metal anvil)...but tongs done cheaply is dangerous and kills your learning curve. There are still projects I won’t do because I lack the tongs. When I make the tongs for them I know I really want to do the project!

Good luck, Das! A newborn baby will test a man like nothing else in this world. Rely on the scientific method for all things. Determine the important variables, experiment, repeat. Keep it analytical and focused...the mother has no control, the baby has the power to use her emotions against her. Your job is rational prob,em solving!