evfreek

Hmmm, Bob S. I don't understand a lot of these terms. I surfed around, and did see some information on gibs, dovetails and linear slides which are kind of overwhelming. It seems that there are something like 5 tumbler depths over the span of about 0.1 inches, so the accuracy required is below this. Constraining the motion to xy without allowing rotation with end to end accuracy better than the lock tolerance is what is required, but I don't have an estimate of the attainable accuracy of the slide mechanisms.

Hi. Is there a simple way to cut a Ford double bit sidewinder key? This is the kind of key that is cut with what looks like a tiny milling machine with a prod to trace the template key. There is an unlocked x-y slide table whose axis are parallel-perpendicular to the prod-cutter axis. Is a utility cross slide vise accurate enough to act as the cutting table? I have a full blacksmith's shop, including power hammer and strikers, available. I also have fabrication equipment (press, shear, oxy fuel cutter, TIG welder, etc). No mill or lathe. Is this doable?

Have patience. Be willing to spend small amounts of money to move toward your goal. Be very picky, especially with Ebay. Garage sales are great, but not for anvils. Pretend you are looking for an anvil, but don't do it seriously, else you will be 15 minutes later than the anvil collector every time. If I had waited to buy an anvil, tongs or forge, I would still be waiting 10 years later. But, I did fine two great vises, one of them an inexpensive Wilton bullet, all kinds of inexpensive steel (much better than scrounged), enough A2 bar to Ebay off and buy all kinds of stuff that I really needed, and so on. Make your own forge out of junk, scrounge a steel block at a scrapyard or somewhere for cheap (these don't attract anvil collectors). Forge your own sets of tongs. Do not make a hammer. It isn't worth it. Get one with a broken handle for cheap at a garage sale. Garage sales are great, but not for obvious blacksmithing tools. Some kind of gremlin is snapping these all up. I have only seen two good garage sales in years. One was an old blacksmith liquidating his stuff. He did it during a citywide garage sale, so he did not advertise. Most people did not know what he was selling. The other was a slick auction that was heavily advertised. By the time the bidding opened, there were old men shoulder to shoulder shouting and jostling for deals. Never seen so many come out of the woodwork. If you are really intent to pick up a cheap anvil at a garage sale, get a cheap welder instead. A welder can be used to create an anvil, but an anvil cannot create a welder in a reasonable amount of time. Believe me, I tried. It works a lot better the correct direction.

All a forge is good for is testing clay samples for firing. I had a similar problem to you. But in my case, I needed to test a clay sample to see if it matured properly. I made several trial pieces and warmed them up in an annealing oven. Many of them shattered when the water boiled out. You have to go really slow at this point. One of the survivors was then tossed into the gas forge. The end nearest the flame was overfired. The end near the opening was underfired (chalky). The part in the middle was just right. I then was able to commit a full load for bisque firing and I had a 100% success rate in the electric kiln. After learning from this experiment, it was time for a little web surfing. The information is out there if you look. Raku only survives because of the design and the clay mix. Use thin walls, perfect construction, and heavily grogged clay. Even then, expect some failures. Also, 1700 is a little low for maturing the clay. This ware will not be food safe. You are well ahead of the general public when it comes to experimental kiln construction. My suggestion is to build a quickie Raku trashcan kiln, and traverse the two critical temperature points carefully (de-water and quartz transition). Learn the concept of candling. Also, do not let your flame go out during the early warmup stage. This provides unique hazards, unlike those faced by blacksmiths. Learn about "purple peepers". Be very careful about leaving the homemade kiln unattended during the initial ramp-up. Don't just say OK, OK and wing it.

Waste of time and gas. You will need to wait for the welder to cool between passes, and you'll blow a lot of gas. It's not even fair to do with someone else's gas. Although I know those who would do that. This is an ideal job for a big stick or mig welder. The amount of filler you can lay in with a 650 amp 3 ph stick welder running iron powder rods is just awesome in comparison to one of those little 120V MIG's.

I have done some challenging welding jobs, and preheat has done great. This is a must. Admittedly, I have never welded up already hard dies with tool steel filler. It certainly can be done. As for your job, another suggestion is to clean up the weld area. Do not weld over dirt, scale, rust, cracks, etc. Grind down to clean metal. If you cannot find clean metal, well, than that's the risk you take when buying an anvil in that shape for $100.

Brian, these are indeed excellent concepts, backed up by both experience and theoretical grounding. You have made a notable contribution to modern blacksmithing and have had an impact on the way I,,and certainly many others, think about forging. The Easy Smith and block anvil are not only technical innovations in their own right, but they significantly lower the barrier to entry for a beginning smith beset by overpriced anvils.

I have also had difficulty with this kind of weld. Somebody on the web said that spring steel, especially with the higher amounts of chromium, can be difficult to weld to itself. Some people suggest XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX :) Seriously, though, I salvaged an unfortunate situation by cutting a section from a food can (tin plated steel) into the shape of the weld, flattening and sanding it, then sliding it into the gap. Then, proceed as usual. Seemed to stick. I recall reading of a technique called Lafitte plate which does a similar thing. Note, except for the weld, none of these are first hand experience. I don't even know a blacksmith who has tried Lafitte plate. But it seems to make sense. Mod note: dangerous advise deleted for safety

1045 Cross check with a comp on a piece of mild steel and known 1045 from heavy shaft or ebay.

Nice video fellas! It helped me see what I was doing wrong the last time I was making a hardy. As for naming, that name seems as good as any. Anvil block is understandable as well. I just think of it as the kind of tool that Thomas refers to when he instructs the owner of a newly purchased anvil with broken down edges to make one. Sometimes, a nice sharp edge is useful, such as for a lap weld scarf. Thanks for making it. Nice shop too.

You can make nice tight bends with a u-shaped bar of 1/2" round held in a vise. It doesn't even have to be a post vice. Search for "poz tongs" on iforgeiron (from yahoo or google, since poz has only 3 letters in it). Your tong jaws are kind of large. The poz tong technique will give you nice bends.

There is some info on the other thread. Do you have access to a large cupola. It sounds like you will be participating in an artists group pour. Forgive us for the assumptions, but your post is short on details. Sometimes, the raw material used to charge is selected based on its ease of processing, and may be surprisingly weak in an anvil application. The saddest thing I saw was a fisher top welded back on with nickel rod. About $300 each in consumables and labor, and the top popped off. The owner said that he couldn't face a re repair. You think it could not happen to you? I am not that brave.

Once upon a time, it seemed that LA had moderate prices for anvils. But not any more. Be careful about grabbing that one for $800. You might find out that although it is impossible to find one under $800, it may be equally impossible to sell the same anvil for $400. Especially in a bad economy, there may be a large spread between bid and ask. I see that these days on Craigslist. Hard to get a good deal, either buying or selling. My dad, who lived through the depression, told me of when the Mississippi River ran red. Farmers couldn't take their pigs to market since they could'nt get a decent price. So,they would slit the pigs' throats and dump them in the river. Meanwhile a few miles away, people starved. In a good economy, you can count on getting your money back for good tools, but not now. There are a couple of choices. That $400 difference will amortize to very little after a few years of good use. Or, do what a lot of folks here do and make a fabricated anvil to get by until that deal comes along. You may need to wait a while.

How can you tell it has been weld repaired? It just looks corroded and cleaned up.

Interesting, comparing the risk of smoking with working at the forge. I would suspect that the risk is a lot less, because smiths try to stay out of the plume and do not actively try to inhale. My worst day at a smoky wood-laced fire is nothing like a few days in Beijing. The smog there will cause you to cough up disgusting things in the shower for weeks. Although, I try not to inhale when I go there, it is difficult to avoid. I have been told that it is like a 2 pack a day habit.

Don't worry about "cheatin". If you wait until you do it right,it will put the task on the critical path, and you will take forever to get going. Grant could have set me back quite a lot with his half hour hardy tool. I did try making this, but I didn't allow it to be placed on the critical path. Recently I showed it to someone at a conference, and he asked me if it took me four months to make. I replied, yeah about that, but it was hard to admit that it was more like six months, and that was with help. He told me that the job should take no more than a week. I told him about what Grant said, and he said that doing it in that time will require special tricks/skills.

This is a high initial price for a small anvil in that bad of shape. I suspect that there is not a very good supply where you are located,and it will just take a while. Our local scrapyard sells steel for something like 0.60 per pound, but charges double or triple for RR track, since they know "blacksmiths want it for anvils." Everybody on Craigslist seems to think that anvils should be $4-5 per pound around here. So, prices do vary. Your job looks pretty good. It seems that you have some experience with arc welding. 1/4" is a little too thin to start off with, even with your clever trick of cutting it into thirds. Too much flex if there is an incomplete weld. At least it looks like the edge is well done, and that is the important part. I have worked on two weld-repaired anvils, and the edges were where the weld job failed, not the center. Blacksmiths with more experience smithing than welding tend to overestimate the costs of arc welding, both in terms of electricity and consumable cost. Lincoln's excellent educational texts have sections on cost estimation, and they are a good starting point. The main cost is labor, which in your case is probably pretty low. I once saw a blacksmith demo in which the demonstrator showed how to make all kinds of tools and jigs out of welded junk. The welds had that pecular stepping globby look that was pretty familiar to me, so I asked him "garage sale rods?" Yup. Those rusty 6011's with the flux flaking off do not run continuously, but they sure are cheap.

If you are one of those kinds of people who says "but I can't do that, because I don't have a welder," then get a welder, if only to stop the whining. As Bob said above, Thomas's suggestions about forge welding may not work out that well for you if you are doing something big or fiddly. I have done hundreds or thousands of forge welds, but I have not been able to piece together an anvil. I did try a couple of times and ended up wasting a lot of fuel. It is not straightforward. On the other hand, I have successfully welded together a lot of fabricated anvils with a stick welder, and two are fairly decent substitutes for the real thing. Also, I welded one of the broken ribs back together on my umbrella without taking off the nylon cloth. I'm sure that an excellent blacksmith can forge weld this (without taking off the cloth), but I am not interested in doing that task. It is kind of silly. But, it is natural for a micro-TIG welder. My favorite technique is to see if you can do without and just sit and wait until one comes by on Craigslist for a decent price. Or borrow one from a friend and give it a try. Make sure to return it, though.

Wow. There sure are a lot of anvils with broken off heels. I saw one for free on Craigslist. Makes me afraid of upsetting a hardy tool in the hole. Those heels must have broken off somehow.

I really appreciate you making this video. It was clear and well explained. Did the drawing take much longer than the welding?

You are right about that Thomas. I spent years without a real anvil at home. Eventually, I think I got the fourth try right on a fabricated anvil. Unfortunately, I never use it. It turns out that number three is fantastic,and I occasionally still use number two. Then that big Hay Budden came along at an irresistable price, so I had to buy it or I would end up kicking myself. It took four homemade anvils to eventually attract that one!

Are you able to test for stickyness with a coat hanger? The feeling is unmistakeable. Also, forge welds are very weak to prying them down the seam. They seem to be much stronger when the bar is pulled or twisted. This was how a marginally welded pair of tongs behaved. The weld could survive being bent double, but it could be popped apart with a sharp chisel hammered against the seam.

I recognize that picture. This is a good idea if you like welding and chipping slag. You can probably make a functional but not as attractive of one with less internal structure.

Thank you for the wonderful video, Brian. I also appreciated Technicus Joe's and 99's. All the important details were very clear. Drawing out 3/4 stock is pretty intimidating for me, though. Never seem to be able to do it in one session.

That was a good deal! This opens up a lot of possibilities in blacksmithing, especially for making tools. Welding up anvils is no fun. The first one I made was terrible. It was only good for getting someone hooked. The second was decent, and the third was excellent. Oddly enough, the decent one is good enough. The welder will also be good for making things like jigs. This welder would be almost as good. http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/tls/3266121390.html Either will be better than a small imported inverter or cheap wirefeed.