Eli Taylor

I came across the following editorial article in "The Blacksmith & Wheelwright" (Volume 37 No. 1 Jan 1898). I know the topic gets some airplay now-a-days and liked how the skeptical reply of Mr. Schmidt echoes the wisdom we still hear today. Thought I'd share: Several years worth of this periodical exist online and it is often an interesting read. Additionally the many ads (just as bad as trade journals are today : ) are great to look at and imagine what it would have been like to have access to such a plethora of tools from many vendors.

Know I'm late to this conversation, but that looks an awful lot like a looooong pipe wrench sans the top jaw and frame.

This is great, I have dreams of machining my own castings or forgings at some point, like you I like the whole process as much as the destination. Great problem solving and man I really want a mag drill there's been one on cl locally for 6 months now but I just can't drop $500 on a single tool right now. Keep learning and sharing!

Mine is cast so no ring, however that didn't stop me from wrapping it in way too much mooring chain 115lbs of chain is definitely over sized for a 95 lb anvil but I couldn't resist setting how it looked for a couple minutes!

Not quite the same, but these guys videos (they have several) they use some cool shapes of large tongs

These are awesome, think about how many pairs of tongs you could make from those tongs TONGCEPTION!

Would I be wrong in assuming that you cannot really estimate a scale loss % (by volume) due to the fact that it depends (in no small part) on the number of heats?

$8,000 will currently net you a 990lb German Anvil

Interesting, I never knew a difference. I wont claim to understand all you wrote, however it now makes sense why I see L-Lysine on the bottles. LOL I can think of a lot of movies that would have ended a lot quicker if the defending force had access to Shaped Charge Recoil-less Rockets! Who knew what kind of expertise was lurking on the smithing forums Now off to lookup Great Bellows plans for my and my son to build!

Ah yes, the "Grey Goo" scenario! Seems to me Michael Chrichton addressed this in Jurassic Park with the Lysine Contingency. The end of the novel has the escaped raptors seeking out plants that are rich in naturally occurring Lysine I cant bring myself to quote Jeff Goldblum...but you know the phrase

This is how most Sci-Fi horror films start... Innocent solution to a problem, not fully thought through. Bacteria with plastic eater gene gets released into the wild, and within months all plastics/polymers are in a state of heavy decomposition. All electronics as we know them are now inoperable...a side effect is that the Blacksmith is now back in demand as we've regressed 150 years

aka "cold storage"

Yeah, I actually didn't know what they were called either, just knew they were slim chisels Expanding is dangerous, that just means more empty space that will be filled at some point!

These are great and simple (hand-in-hand), good idea! I might also wrap a portion of the bending mandrel with some sandpaper to give the insides a quick polish (since its a bright finish) Definitely stealing the idea

Yeah, I'm excited about the rasps too. There were actually some cold chisels and wood augers in the same pile we picked up. Also, I don't think I posted a pic of what was in the "misc barrel of star drills" we picked up last week, but here it is all laid out:

A local machine shop was having "the scrap guy" come to pick up some older equipment, I hate seeing good tools go to the scrap yard so I picked up 6 of these monster 3 Phase Delta drill presses at scrap price. Yesterday my son and I went to a local scrap yard (we are lucky to have 3 within 20 minutes of us). This one is a U-Pick yard with vehicles, so we scoped out some old tow trucks for their rigging equipment. We picked up a goodly number of D-Rings (2 Ton) and some hooks (one swiveling) We also found 2 good lengths of chain with hooks on them, one has a swiveling chain (was from an old winch) We had our eye on some chain with 4" long links, but the scrap guy stopped us and said they were for their use....I'm supposed to call him back this week and see if hes willing to part with it at scrap price : ) Then my son spotted a file in the dirt which turned out to be a farriers rasp...it cleaned up nicely and is plenty sharp Then he found an 8" C Clamp right next to it buried in the dirt Then he proceeded to find 35 more Farriers Rasps in the same pile! And as if this wasnt good enough, someone had dropped off a 5' Disc Harrow on top of the steel pile which we've been wanting for a long time now It needs new bearings on one gang and some weld up on the two front axels, but that makes good practice in casting and welding I finished the day with cleaning up and reassembling the old vice I picked up last saturday in my barn pick A very satisfying day overall

I've had good luck with this several times by walking in and just saying exactly what you are up to. I've been on several very cool 'shop tours' via this method (one a fabrication shop).

Thats great, do you know what it is (wrought, steel etc)?

Yeah, i was really lucky to have the seller sell me that for $300 and for watching his Chicken/Goose/Goat while away for a week He also gave me a Van Norman #12 Vertical/Horizontal milling machine as my "commission" for helping him sell some equipment! And if you like that drill, you might like some of the pics from where I volunteer from time to time (a line-shaft machine shop)

Ok, that was my suspicion, thanks for the reply. I'll probably pick one up at some point so we can have a traditional setup for travel and shows etc. However in the meantime, I've got one of these which should do the trick

I know for some things like a Post Vice say, there are some specific attributes that make it a good choice for smithing over modern variants. Are there similar attributes for a Post Drill that better suit them to smithing or were they just the predecessors to modern drill presses? I have several modern drill presses already however a Post Drill is listed locally, wondering if there is some merit in it other than the nostalgia.

One of my favorite bands Blue Highway has a song 'Born with a hammer in my hand ' with both of these references in it, i was just listening to this the other day John Henry was a steel-drivin' man You could hear his hammer ring across the land But before the steam drill came, John Henry knew my name Cause I was born with a hammer in my hand The bossman tries to break a good man's back It takes thirty men to lay eight miles of track If the shaker holds the line, they'll be thirty miles behind I was born with a hammer in my hand

It's a Champion, 5" jaws, with a real wide mouth (18" in I'd say). There are some marks on the inside of the casting but I haven't looked up a model # yet. Ive actually never really known what they were (have a bunch from various sources over the years). How are they used? For metal? There were three types of tongs there best we could tell for Hay Bales, Ice Blocks and Log Skidding. The Hay ones were wider and thinner, the ice tongs had their bite perpendicular to the tong and these which we assessed for logs have a very aggressive bite back in again themselves. We could be wrong on all accounts but it was our limited archaeology

Like a moth to flame I'm drawn to old barns with piles of old over-built tools rusting in the corner, and so it is that i came home with a pile to put in the corner of my barn! A nice champion vice A very cool hand forged log skidder I love how the links were bent around and peened A bucket of mostly star punches with some drifts and rr spikes A big pair of bolt cutters, 36" and 48" pipe wrenches, some axle stock, and a couple of misc hammer heads And honestly I'm not sure why I have this but I couldn't turn down what appears to be a 10 Ton chain hoist (which we had to lift with the 1 Ton chain hoist) I also picked up a couple 3 jaw pullers, some manure forks and 40' of heavy chain. All in all a good days haul And I forgot to mention; a 100lb anvil!

Went picking today in the barn of a local farmer who is selling his property. This is the same guy I bought the wrought iron fence from last week. The anvil is 100lbs and definitely smaller than we're looking for long term, but it was available, has a good face and was a reasonable price. We hit it with a twisted wire cup to clean the crud (we'll add or own crud thank you and to see if there were any markings The only I could see were on the bottom 1 1 1 8 which indicated to me that it likely has a cast iron base (as the letters are raised) I soaked it up real well in 3in1 Oil (my go to) and will let it drink up as much as it can before rubbing it in again and wiping it down. It was interesting to see that the table and top of the horn both appear to have a hard face as well...i somehow didn't know they did this on anvils I scored some other cool stuff as well but I make a different thread for that. I welcome any info anyone might have on this little guy.