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I Forge Iron

GMikeH

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Everything posted by GMikeH

  1. Yeah after more looking around at cast anvils I started to notice some did have the same appearance around the waist so enough conversing over this pile of junk. hahaha To be honest I heard what I needed to hear as I do not need another anvil anyhow.
  2. I agree, so much tells me cast and clearly cast no name as I have found not a single anvil that shares its shape. It kind of looks like a taller vulcan without any of the casting marks or even parting lines. I guess that areas that looks like it was forge welded could just be the result of horrible casting. I have a Wilkinson and Brooks anvil so I am not anvil poor I just figured if this is a 200lb decent anvil I may add it to my collection. Oh man, Your right that is the hardy hole. hahahaha My eyes were playing ticks on me. duh
  3. I could agree with you but what about the weld line around the waist? Also I see not a single raised marking on the anvil and as far as the chipping is that chipping or corrosion? I have a Wilkinson anvil that has similar edges and its not a cast iron anvil. The major cast iron anvils such as fisher and Vulcan do not share the same shape as this anvil although there are some similarities. I think the vulcan is closest in shape but I have not seen a single vulcan with such a long waist as this anvil has. Maybe this is some cheap cast iron anvil, maybe even a harbor freight junk but The biggest question I have is why does the waist of the anvil clearly have what looks to be a weld line and not a casting line in my opinion? Also, would a cast iron anvil have a handling hole in the waist? Maybe some did but looking around at fishers and vulcans I did not see any such holes in the waist.
  4. This anvil belongs to a friend of a friend and only thing I know about it is that it weighs around 200lbs. I have looked around for an anvil that looks similar but I have not found anything that leads me to who the maker may possibly be. I will try to go look at it but its a few hours away. Any ideas? It looks to be a top forged onto a base right?
  5. Well, I had been lurking on here for it seems like years. I have collected a few anvils, hammers, and tongs in the time being but never built a forge due to uncertainty on which route to go and of course getting side tracked with other project. Well i finally built a burning a few weeks ago and to my surprise it works pretty dang well but I did not have a forge to put the burner in. I have once again stalled due to over researching to the point I was not sure what method to use in building my forge. I am border line perfectionist and i will research something to death. Anyhow, I bought a couple large kilns a while back in hopes in using the firebrick and coils to make a small aluminum melting furnace but that too had stalled but, I did put some of the fire bricks to use. I just stacked the bricks to make a little forge and I must say this little setup does impress me for being just hacked together for now. I have no idea what temp these fire brick are rated at but I have enough from those kilns to put this make shift forge together numerous times if the bricks starts to crumble too bad. So now I have no excuses, I have an anvil, hammers, and now a forge to heat some steel in. So yesterday i got a wild hair and figured I am going to the local salvage yard to see what all they had I may be interested in. I ended up getting about 200lbs of coil springs in various sizes, a pair of leaf springs and also a semi axle shaft. That was my first trip through the salvage yard but by far the lightest. I ended up talking the yard owner into selling me a couple HUGE forklift tines. One is 6" wide x 2.5" thick and the other is 4" wide by 2.5" thick. The pair came to just over 500lbs and yes today I am sore from the tugging and lifting of those forks out of the junk pile by hand. I had to go get one of the employees to help me load the big tine as I just not eat enough Wheaties to get it loaded by myself. Now Not only did I have the anvil, hammers, and forge but now I had a huge pile of various steel to cut up and start hammering on. This is my first real forging which started as a .5" coil spring. I must say I was impressed with just how little the steel moves under the hammer. I had really never forged anything of this size so it took me a bit to start seeing how to get the metal to move easier. I do think possibly I need a wee bit more heat in my forge as well but overall hamming out this knife wasn't too bad for my first one. I know the next one will go much faster. You will notice the tang area I did not flatten out as I honestly did not expect to get a decent shaped bade at first but, it started shaping up. I hammered in the bevels and tried to get the blade as close to the final shape as possible. I ended up just using a file to fine tune the profile and honestly I am almost afraid to start grinding on it on my belt sander (belt grinder build is next on my list). So after the file work on the profile I discovered a slight bend in the blade edge but the spine is nice and straight. I also thought maybe I should throw it back in the forge and hammer the tang out for a full tang and i could fix that very slight bend in the edge of the blade. I think if i was grinding the blade down completely the bend would grind out but I want to leave the rough scale texture on as much of the blade as possible. Anyhow, About an hour total forging and filing for my first time and I was already looking at my pile of steel thinking of how much propane I am going to be burning. I am sure there is plenty to critique so have at it. I think a little more time with the hammer and hot steel will sure lead to knowing how things move and in what direction which will result in a much nicer product and I have 700lbs ($46) in steel to practice on. After some file work on the profile Raw forged blade Yep, those forks are solid, haha I figured I would share a picture of my anvil and my temporary forge.
  6. Got my Brooks all chained down and WOW the ring is reduced by a huge amount now. This thing used to ring so dang loud now its very much tolerable.
  7. I have the exact same anvil which I just built a stand for last night. I still have to add some strapping to hold the anvil down and some hammer racks but I can get to hammering on things as it sits.
  8. My John Brooks sitting on a freshly built stand. Next I will fab up a hammer rack and add some kind of strapping to hold the anvil down.
  9. Im going to pass on the Brooks i guess. I tried one more time to talk him down but he is set on his price so I am going to be content with this Wilkinson and focus on getting all the other things I need. Tongs are not going to be an issue at the moment although I may need to acquire a few other types later down the road. I did buy a hammer which is just a 2.5 cross peen made by vaughan. I am not hammer pro but it seems nice and I am sure it will work just fine starting out. What I need is a forge and I need to make my mind up on if I am going to build a gas or coal forge. I like the idea of just using propane but open to coal as well.
  10. Twisted, I like that a lot an I totally agree. I need to build a forge which I am researching now. I have a good hammer but would like a few others in various sizes so my daughter and I both will have something to swing at some red metal. I already have a good many tongs which I aquired years ago. I recall many timing having to move that heavy bucket of tongs out of the way and thought "will I ever even use these tools" hahaha Marc1, i agree with you as well. I think the appeal of the Brooks is the nice clean edges and that perfectly flat top but, my Wilkinson is pretty dang flat and if i need a shape edge I will make a hardy tool to help with that. I kind of look forward to making tools more so than anything else as I have some cool ideas which I am going to explore.
  11. Not sure why but Anvilfire never seems to work for me. I have clicked on a lot of links to that site and the page never loads.
  12. Would you say the brooks is worth $500? I mean anvil prices are mostly outrageous but with the steal i got on the Wilkinson it would almost be like having two anvils for $500. I honestly need to be collecting some tooling but I saw this anvil and it caught my attention. I have always wanted to get into forging and my daughter has been showing interest at just 12 years old so I might as well get setup to do some forging and enjoy the time with my daughter making whatever we end up making.
  13. Out of these two anvils which would you rather work on? First is the anvil I have now which I just purchased last week. Its a 120lb Wilkinson in pretty dang good shape. This anvil was found and purchased for near nothing but its age is condition kind of make me want to just have this as a non working anvil. Second anvil is a nice looking John Brooks which weighs in at 140lbs. The face looks nice and flat and the edges are still crisp. Problem is this anvil is not where I can personally look at it although the Owner claims it has great rebound and of course that loud ring of a cast steel anvil. I can purchase this anvil for about $500 shipped. First off would you pay that for this anvil? Any known issues with these anvils? I had read that they are among the high quality cast steel anvils that are available. Here are some pictures of my Wilkinson and the John Brooks i was looking at.
  14. I went and got my burner back from my dad who had made some lead weights up a while back. I got home just in time for the rain to set in but that did not stop me from firing this thing up and heating my first bit of steel up to hammer out on a soaking wet anvil standing in the rain. Yeah granted the metal was just a framing nail but i can say i have forged something on my anvil now. haha I guess the anvil issue has been solved with common sense so I better start a new thread seeking ideas or info on where to go in the area of a forge. Here is my little burner.. I could not find any info on the setup but it was for sure professional unit and well made.
  15. Marc, the twist is more like .25" although that picture does make it look to be a great deal more. I had cut an old dead tree down a few weeks ago, The trunk was still fairly solid other than just under the bark. I cut a log out of it and set the anvil on it and funny thing is there is no rocking at all. The log was just cut with a chainsaw but it is still pretty flat but i guess the high areas must have just enough room to settle into the log to keep it from rocking. The log is not in the best of shape so i will still be building a nice stand with something like railroad cross ties or something. Check out what I found tucked away in all my junk. I had purchased a lead casting setup from a guy that clearly did not know what he had. Included was a torch with stand, 3 crucibles for melting lead, lead molds, a big propane tank, about 50lbs of led bars, and all these tools for a whooping $100. I have had this stuff for years and just never did anything with it. ON top of all, the guy had a huge plastic container with about 20lbs worth of new and used taps from 1" down to 1/8" that he threw in as I was loading up the other stuff. I was told is was his fathers stuff and he had no clue what any it was and just wanted it gone. I can see that a good many of these tools are going to come in handy if not are pretty much needed for handling the material which i am forging. Now I just need to build or find a furnace of some kind, I Iike the coal type but, i may build a small propane furnace for now being I may be able to adapt the torch that I already have.
  16. Marc, I know what you mean about OCD. I am an idiot when it comes to perfectionism but I am doing much better with that in recent years. haha There is a link to pictures above. Honestly when sighting down the bottom, it almost looks like the anvil is twisted but, I think either one leg is rusted away a good bit more than the others or maybe the leg got bent somehow? Maybe someone dropped it once over the last 150 years it has been in existence? I think I will be able to just level it with the stand I build. I have not had time to mess with it this afternoon as my well pump control box fried for some reason. The pump ohm's out well within specs yet for some reason the relay in the control box was toasted to were my whole 3 acres smells like an electrical fire. Yep $50 but in all honesty, I did not have change to break a twenty so I gave him $60. The add he had listed was getting a huge amount of attention and people calling from all over offering to come buy it. I was glad he keep his word and didnt sell it until I got there to get it myself.
  17. Thomas, I am in South Ga (albany aea). I have the ABANA website bookmarked already but I have not looked up to see if there is a local affiliate in my area. As for where I would get my steel, i have a but pile of scrap stuff I tend to hang onto. I have been dabbling in about all hobbies you can imagine over the last 20 years and my butt hangs on to everything. hahaha I have I bet 100lbs of scrap aluminum i hope to smelt down at some point as well and if I find the time maybe do some sand casting of various items on top of general forge work. My daughter and I have been hooked on many of the popular youtube knife forging channels and we will sit and watch for hours while someone create a nice blade. She is only 12 but is more into shop activities than my 17 year old son who is immersed into teen life more than shop life. haha I hope to build a stand over the weekend and then i need to build a forge which for now may be something temporary and cheap until I have more time to build a proper forge.
  18. Thanks for the replies, I had just read about correct anvil height so now that I know that info I can go get some Railroad cross ties from homedepot and get to making a nice sturdy stand. I tend to agree that being the anvil will pretty much stay in one spot, i might as well make that spot fit the anvil rather than trying to make the anvil fit by grinding or welding. Although I am unsure of just how old this anvil is, It is old enough that I kind of would like to leave it alone as far as modifying it. I went out with a nice straight edge stainless ruler to check to top and it was pretty flat but did have a area in the middle that had a slight dish of about .0625" but both edges were straight the full length of the anvil. I must say if in fact that anvil is 150 years old or so, it is still in pretty good shape.
  19. I saw an old anvil for sale for $50. I contacted the owner and informed him that I wanted it and would be heading to get it soon. It was pouring down rain so i did not even inspect the anvil, just handed the cash over and grabbed the anvil and left while getting soaked. It was not until much later that night when the rain had passed did i go get the anvil out of the back of the truck and started cleaning it up. First thing i noticed is that the anvil did have a decent ring and the first time i struck it with a hammer i thought the hammer was going to hit me back so the rebound seemed to be very responsive. Later after some cleaning and wire brushing i found it was a Wilkinson anvil and according to the numbers is 120lbs with its vintage being in the 1800s according to the little info i could find online. So, I think for $50 i did well but there seems to be a somewhat major problem which may or may not be fixable. At first I thought the whole anvil was twisted as the face and the base seemed to have the same twist in them. After looking it over more i think the face is good although some corners do seem to slope off a bit. Overall the top is good and flat across its length. The Issue looks to be in one of the legs which is clearly bent. The anvil does not sit level and has a great deal of rock. The other issue is that the bottom of the anvil is rusted and pitted a good bit so maybe that leg just rusted away and it is not really bent. The anvil was recently found under an old house so who knows how long it was there in the dirt rusting away. Whatever the case, what should I do to fix the base/leg? Here are some pictures and a video of he hammer rebound it has. I am not a blacksmith but my daughter and I would enjoy learning and playing around with some forging. http://s239.photobucket.com/user/Mhall222/slideshow/Wilkinson Queens Dudley Anvil
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