jimdad07

You're bringing back the 90's, Futurama and Star Trek. Both good characters by any standards. Beer and safe production seldom go hand in hand.

Star Trek no less....I shake my head in sadness.

Thanks guys. First floor will be for all my metal working stuff and hopefully a nice forge setup, second floor will be my woodshop. I have five videos on the barn up right now and hopefully more to follow soon. It's been a great project. You should hang your head in abdject shame for that pun!

That is impressive. Nothing better than building something to last! The timber frame I'm building is what got me interested in smithing. Been reading about it for a few years no and now I have to try it out. Here's the barn if you are curious. If it looks like shameless spamming I'll be happy to take the post down.

Good advice and thank you. I do tend to over think and over build when I'm new to something. I'll give it a shot after I clean it up a little more and see how it goes. I do have another small piece of track I can mount on a stump with the radius still on it. If you think this is bad for over thought, you ought to check out the new shop/barn I'm building. If you're interested I'll send you a link, I'd post it but it's off topic and I don't want people thinking I'm spamming them. Wooden pegs and 10x16 timbers make for some over engineering, especially when you're building totally solo. Thanks again for your thoughts.

I didn't flatten it out on the outsides, I was working on the middle. If I was only using one piece of track instead of two pieces put side by side I would have just ground one edge square and rounded over the other side. When I put the two pieces together, it left a deep valley down the middle that I filled in with 7018 after welding the track together using 6011. I did find that I had to heat the whole shooting match up pretty good before welding to get good penetration. Set it over top of a little forge I made to hear it. As to your question, I'd like a full penetration of possible, I don't want any voids under the plate.

I did a lot of reading on it first, and my initial plan was to do a few butter layers with 7018, pound the xxxx out of it grind it flat an then go over it with hard surfacing rod. That was the plan until I came into all that 1080 and thought it would be better than grinding down the hard surfacing rod. I planned to weld it on as two parts with a chamfer down the middle on both sides while grinding out the hardy hole before welding.

Top is about 6" wide and 2' long. I have 12 pieces of 1080 steel, 1/2" thick, 3 to 6" wide and 4' long. I was thinking on getting a nice, flat surface.

I put a layer on it to level it out. I'm putting a 1/2" piece of 1080 steel on top of that, ignorance at the time is also part of it. Hoping to buy a proper anvil in the fall, but I wanted to try my hand at making one first.

Thanks Frosty. I'll get in there and add a location. I live up on the Canadian border in NY.

Ah...a common sense guy....you are absolutely right. I'm looking to make tools i.e. timber framing chisels, bark spuds, mortising chisels, axes and hatchets down the road. Not planning on doing scroll work or anything ornate but more strait forward hammering. I do plan to make socket chisel instead of full tang. The other plans include a hydraulic forge press down the road but not until I finish the barn I've been timber framing. I do understand that a track anvil is not ideal but I'm hoping I can make it work until I can afford a proper anvil or scrounge enough 1.5"+ plate steel to make an anvil.

Guess I had it in the wrong section. When I'm shaping my horn is there any advice you guys have on the taper of the horn? Meaning long with a gentle taper to a point, or short with a dramatic taper?

Hello all. Brand new here, I've browsed in here from time to time and wanted to share with you guys my journey into a new hobby. I'm getting into this mostly to make my own tools. Right now I'm working on a track anvil that has a long ways to go as you can see below.