Eli Taylor

On this note I recently restored a rusty post vice (wire-cup and oiling). I was told to hit it with a torch to "force out the remaining water". I was hesitant because I don't want to alter any potential hardening, however it made sense. Short of heat, anyway to force it out?

They are cast it turns out. I looks like they were shrunk onto the ends of the posts. Presumably you would do that by heating the finials and hammering in the cold posts and letting the finials shrink on tight?

Yeah a similar amount of fencing (albeit repaired and powder coated) was listed yesterday for $6K locally. I had hoped just to cover our costs (couple of hundred) but repairing it a bit as a forge project could be interesting. More skill needed before that though!

I've not dissected one yet, but I do know they are not one piece with the posts. Actually looking at the construction of this yesterday had me wonder how one would go about constructing one of these big sections...more reading in my future it seems

I brought home ~23 sections of 5' x 4' wrought iron fencing today. Each section was easily 100lb so we were definitely over the 1Ton mark. Don't think I've loaded her down like this before We (myself, son, nephew and seller) hand loaded it, so was happy to have the tractor to unload it There are a couple of sections which are in good fence condition which we'll probably use our sell as they are. Some of it is in not so pristine shape and is destined for the forge. I tested it beforehand and it truly is the good stuff (vs steel reproduction) There is about 20' of 1 1/2" square, 5' of 2" square (heavy!) and an immeasurable amount of 3/4" and 5/8" round. Down the road (once skill is improved) I think it would be cool to make an old school iron short sword and try to caseharden it. For now it's just an addition to 'the pile'

Were just outside of Centreville in MD. I know of a couple of guys in the area but haven't signed on with any of the groups yet. We typically have little time (always tons of projects going on our small farm) so I'very been hesitant to get involved with a group just to be a missing-member :/ You're the second to recommend this recently and we do have a plethora of steel waiting to be repurposed as well. I guess part of smithing for us is a bit of a historical venture to do it 'the way they used to' so my mind goes to wrought iron but when you hear the same advise repeated twice in as many days...it's worth listening to Thanks

And I even read that in the "Read me" thread...done and thanks!

I've been interested and dabbled with Smithing for years, however when my 13yo recently got interested I decided to do something about it We're still in the 'kitting up' stage and preparing shop. Recently picked up a Post Vice (which cleaned up nicely) and we are going tomorrow to pick up ~100' of Wrought Iron fence for use as stock (contains Square, Round and Flat stock) We're cleaning up the inumerable old tools I've had over the years and getting them ready for use...MANY more drifts, punches, chisels and files where that came from....lots of cleaning in our future! James cleaning the surface of the work table We've also identified the area that we want to put the forge once we clean the barn. We're going to go old-school and go with a coal-fired forge powered by a great bellows (we're making ourselves) and starting by working in Wrought Iron. Just wanted to pop in and say hi. Not sure how much posting we'll do, but were making a go of it