Rich Hale

But no mention of Springy farriers anvils eh?

Hopefully that response should move me forward in my apprentice program.

Let me see if I understand this correctly...You do not wish to spend any of your time nor money on this but ask us to take our time to do the research or draw from our vast wealth of carefully gleaned stores of knowledge and sit and type it for you?

And in typical Iforgeiron fashion many have stepped up and given you some thoughts.

This anvil was made for farriers. It has the same size working suface as the same they sold in 125 lb wt...but less mass to cut weight. It did that as planned. I carried a swedish 105 lb anvil when I was shoeing..and even it got heavy lifting it in and out of truck all day.

I also prefer a more rouind horn than the first model they had/

About that spring from farriers anvils..I hope Gijo can let  us know wot that is as the only spring I have seen was directly  a result of light weight springy anvil stands..that were easy to fold up and put in and out of trucks.

Bottom line is if you like this anvil and want it then you shouild have it...My gut feeling is if you work long at smithing you will replace it later on....

Per wot I said above...4140 has a man tolerance range of .28 to .22 carbon content...From wot i believe that puts it less in carbon content than some rr spikes. Site also said the hardest after tempering would be 36 on the rockwell C scale. i recently tested a commercial pair of knives and they had failed horrible in field testing on big game..each of them tested 42 on Rockwell C scale. draw your own conclusions on that. But for my extensive use of knves on game tha4t low of a RC scale upper limit does not work...

4150 specs i found through google showed carbon content of from .48 to .53..seems to low for me for a blade so for kickes i googled a popular choice of some for knves. 5160: It ranged from C of .56 to ..64. If you

made a blade from 4150 that was at high end of C content scale..and another one from 5160 from low end of scale they wouild be so close to each other in carbon content only that I am not sure I could tell the difference. through shop testing or field use.

And while I was at it i looked up two common knife steels"

 1084..one of my favorite has C range of .80 to .93; 1095 is from .90 to 1.04. Againt he lower and upper limits tend to over lap..and again i do not see a lot of difference in the shop or field tesrting of blades from these two steels. And a reminder I am only comparing carbon content in these cases..not the other parts of the formulas that Steve speaks of in the heat treating sections.MAke your own conclusions...your shop your rules. I know wot works for me and some of wot does not.

Keep in mind production tolerances. I'm of needs more than 50 pts carbon for me to use for a blade. I also believe that most steels may be higher or lower carbon than you may think from the label. So one batch of 4140 may test higher C than another batch of 4150.I have seen some tech data show how much variation is allowed or required. IG we use some proven methods of shop testing steels it will provide data for that piece of steel.

So let me get this right: If something is illegal.....no one can have it;   but then there are drugs, illegal weapons..etc aren't there?

Tomorrow morning before breakfast I will take a small pile of knives and assist them  in migrating first to California..then to wherever they wish to reside. i do not plan on doing a follow up paper on this but I suspect this migration can take place with minimal heat.

If you learn to forge weld really well..then you canmake these items well everytime...

G,  my guess is that alot of these folks on here that either say they make knives,,or actually do....Started in a similiar manner that you have. I know I did anyway.  I am impressed that you not only made something,,but youi tossed the results in here for us all to have a shot at. I am also impressed that you have been given so much information is such a short time to possibly help you along youir new path. Keep forging and learning...and enjoy the site.

And did you do your burners exactly as the plans say? or did you change things?

Not alot for us to go by here..wot kind of steel is it,,? Did you grind to shape? did you forge it,,,how did you heat treat it...?

Why do you think it is too hard?,,help us help you...

I think the  key here is it works good splitting wood......

This thread reminds me why I always suggest that  when building a gasser..select a proven design and follow the instructions exactly..do not change anything.......Buiild acoording to cu ft needs and select numbers of burners for that size...it is really so easy I did it.

May want to rethink water quench also.....

We had  some great visits...good memories...

Some alloys will crack,,find out wot you have and see if it is one of them...pieces marked T6 will break

If youir forfge is a two buner whisper model with a sheet metal door..they are deisigned to ehat horshoes for shaping...not any of them that I have seen or used are hot enouigh for forge welding...The other models,, like the whisper mama and whisper daddy work really well.

Are you sure it was at forging heat?

Most tool steels include that information in their data sheets.

Guess it is not a big surprise that Frosty would be current on oils that work well in sub zero temps........

Outstanding offer!

I guess the reason I thought it ESS chrome plated is because you told us that in chat last evening.

You may have forgotten to mention...it is a mystery metal. Which you say is chrome plated. Not likely ss.

Looks  like you are going to turn true artwork into trinkets