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I Forge Iron

RobS

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Everything posted by RobS

  1. Glad I didnt make 4hr drive. lol nice haul on the other stuff.
  2. Was that the auction with the Fisher anvil?
  3. Pics would help so people could give better advice. What makes you think it is wore out? Can you see the wrought iron body through the top?
  4. if the rebound is good, that was a steal coming from ebay. Just over $2/lbs. Good score, now put it to work.
  5. I like concrete myself. But then I also have cats, so a gravel or dirt floor isn't the best idea.
  6. The use is basically all same. It is a solid mass in which to beat metal on. This could be a rock, block of steel, or manufactured anvil. The anvil will not necessarily make your projects turn out perfect if your skills are still sub-par. A skilled smith could most likely make a better knife on a block of granite than a newer smith using a brand new popular brand anvil. Rebound is the bench mark of a great anvil. If rebound is equal among a dozen anvils, then it all boils down to personal taste and type of work being done. Do you need a 400lb beast for doing architectual metal work or a 50 lb lump of steel for making small knives and trinkets. As far as brand difference and which is best. It is like cars, what is the best daily driver? Chevy, Ford, or Dodge? They are basically the same, but it is the personal preference for what ever reasons that cause the debate. With that said, Cast iron with solid steel tops tend to be quieter. More popular brands are Fisher and Vulcan. Wrought iron with steel tops were probably the most produced style across many many makers. The more popular brands today are Hay- Budden, Trenton, Peter Wright, Arm and Hammer, Mouse hole. Then there is the Cast Steel anvils. Usually loud as a church bell. The popular brands are Kolwasha, Soderfors, Brooks. I believe the anvils still being made today are also solid cast steel. Such as Nimba, Rhino, peddinghaus, Fontanini. These names mentioned are not inclusive. There are hundreds of brands made over the years. These are just some of the more seen names on the market. So, unless you are a collector, the brand doesn't matter. What matters is Rebound, condition, and then price.
  7. Well if a mechanic says the metal is cast iron it must be. As everyone else has pointed out. (People who own, use, collect, browse, drool over, study anvils.) The signs are there to "define" the anvil. May not be able identify the specific maker of the anvil. But it shows enough to tell it is a pre 1830ish, with a delaminating face plate. It is still a fine usable anvil. Because the weight is unknown, it is hard to say if $350 was to much. At 100lbs I would not pay $350. I prefer to wait for better deals less than $2 per pound, but that is just me. Anvil prices are high these days. If it is your first anvil sometimes it is worth it, if you "need" a "anvil" and refuse to use heavy steel as anvil alternatives.
  8. it is not just the floor you have to deal with. Those wire wheels will stick slivers into your cloths from head to toe. When you go inside the house they can shed from your cloths. Also they can ride through the laundry and attach to other peoples cloths. Your options are 1. shop shoes. Change your shoes when coming in/ leaving the shop. 2. shop overalls. When you are grinding or wire wheeling wear the overalls. When done, take off the overalls and leave them in the grinding area. 3. try to keep the grinding wheeling in one area of the shop. The majority of the debris will be there and less likely to be tracked through the house. 4. if possible keep your shop floors cleaner. Less mess means less stuff to be tracked into the house. 5. Think like a farmer. What would you do after spending time milking cows in the barn? Would you just wipe your boots off at the door, go into the living room and sit on the couch? Cow dung or metal shavings, it doesn't matter. You don't want either in your house.
  9. A vendor that visits my work place every week, happens to be an avid auction goer. He came accross what he thought was antique forge. He thought of me and bought it. When he told me about it later, I felt a little obligated to take it off his hands. I'm glade he thought of me when he seen it anyway. Just hope he don't spend to much on an item someday thinking I will buy it. It is a Bryant No. 20 gas "Forge" I think it was used for heating soldering irons. Not sure what I'm going to do with it, but it looks kind of neat anyway. Will make a nice "wall hanger" for the $20 I gave him for it. A couple overhead door springs at work broke the other day. So when they replaced them I grabbed the broken ones for cheap. They each are dual coil. 3/8" - 90 coils - 6.25" diameter. And the smaller inside spring is 1/4" - 121 coils - 4" diameter. I paid for 184lbs of scrap at $0.10 per lbs. So $18 for 294' of 3/8" and 188' of 1/4" spring steel. Btw - anyone have any idea of the steel grade of oil tempered torsion springs for overhead doors?
  10. There were a lot of anvil makers in the UK back in the day. There is a good chance you may never find a maker, unless you can find their name on the anvil. But... Those are some big stamps for the weight. That may be a specific maker's style. Maybe someone has an anvil with similar stampings and a legible makers name. You may find the answer you're looking for. BTW- 0 x 112 + 2 x 28 + 1 x 25 = 81 lbs. It is Englishh stone weight.
  11. If you had a working forge, large enough... how do you plan on lifting/moving 100lbs of white hot steel? Then after you re-Forge it, how will you quench it? Before trying to reforge the anvil, I would suggest getting a 2" x 2" piece of steel and try to forge it to get the feel for moving larger steel. Also, the horn shape of your anvil suggests the anvil may be cast iron. I have never tried forging cast iron. I hear it does not work so well, maybe those with more experience can explain further.
  12. On 15 liter diesel engine, we spin turbos 60k to 120k rpm depending on engine operating condition. A hot tuned engine will push the 100k to 120k rpm at 1900rpm engine speed and 100% throttle. Thats pushing more than 75 in hg (36psi) pressure out of the turbo. So yeah turbos need some spin to work.
  13. We put down a plastic sheet for a vapor barrier under the shop floor. I don't have first hand experience, but all the guys there said it does stop the floor from sweating. I did not do foam insulation, but again they all said it does help keep the building noticeably warmer. Again no first hand experience, just going on what these guys said.
  14. Load bearing? Like building stud walls on the outside edge of the slab? If so, you need a footer below the frost line or else your walls / roof and everything else will warp as the frost heaves. Cheapest/easiest would probably be a pole barn style addition. Then slab the floor. I poured a 24' x 32' x 4" slab for my pole barn shop. It was $1600 for the concrete (with fiber in the mix for strength) and a 5gal bucket of sealer. For your size it shouldn't be more than $800 unless they hit with a short load fee. Also. My house is a 14' x 60' mobile home with a 12' x 60' addition on one side and a 8' x 60' porch on the other. The addition is 6"x6" larch poles with a crawlspace under regular style floor joists, and stud walls build between the poles and on top of the floor. The roof is built over the entire structure, using the poles floor rafter support.
  15. The recess around the hardy hole may be a blessing, if you make your own hardy tools. If you make your own tools by welding a square shaft onto what ever tooling plate, the recess would allow clearance for the weld bead to sit beneath the level of the face. This would let the hardy tool sit nice and flat on the face of the anvil. If it were my anvil, I'd leave it be.
  16. Our high school had a very good girls basketball program that went to state championships almost every year for like 2 decades. So the school did put alot of resources towards athletics. We have 2 gyms, pool, large weight room, a couple baseball fields, football field. Although football enrollment has been down to like 4-5 students per year, so they have been playing for a larger school a few miles away. Cafeteria? We have one in the elementary school. They make the food, pack in hot cabinets, bus it to the high school, and serve in the gym. They also bus students to BOCES a vo-tech school for things like cosmetology, heavy equipment operating, forestry, mechanics, diesel mechanics, etc.
  17. Around 1990 I got to forge in high school shop. I believe it was a natural gas Johnson forge? looked like a troth with a thick lid on a swing arm for a top. Made things like punches, chisels, etc. and case hardened them. This week, my 14yr old son is using the same forge in his shop class. He said they are making lantern hooks/hangers. This is a small country school. I graduated in a class of about 50 students and I think my son's class is slightly less. This school always had good shop programs. Woodshop, metal shop, CAD, small engine shop, Agriculture were some of the offerings. I guess it is the benefit of living in the country and going to a school surrounded by farms.
  18. Gorgeous! Keep the photos coming. Безумно красивая! Сохраните фотографии.
  19. Before laying it down and dragging into the garage make sure to check the measurements on the arc of the top of the hammer. Depending on the hammer's base dimensions, the height of the hammer may go higher as you lift it up and over the corner of the base, before settling to a lower height as the base lays flat. Make sense?
  20. Does that anvil say Mouse Hole on it? As for the base... do you have any more pictures? Different angles and such. My best guess would be that it is just something someone had laying around and they threw it on the stand for more weight/mass. So you probably won't find any like it on the internet. (at least being used as an anvil stand)
  21. So I'm sitting here watching FIF reruns. I noticed there is a warning before the episode. (Forging is Dangerous - Do not attempt it without extensive training and safety measures in place.) I don't remember seeing it before. But after this indecent burning the city down, maybe I noticed because now I'm watching for it. Has it always been there? Or did they add it after this fire?
  22. Different anvil makers had different processes and styles. The bottom (underside) of an anvil can be a lot like a finger print for anvils. Brands (makers) of anvils can sometimes be confirmed by the way the underside looks.
  23. I wish the photos were present... would have been interesting to see what Jeff was doing. We used to tune our edger saws. Used the sawyers anvil, hammer, and straight edge. I never seen a tension gauge for saws. We always just went by the dish of saw. Sometimes we would tune the 56" saw if it wasn't too bad of shape. The really bad ones we would send to another guy in the area that was really good at hammering saws.
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