John R

Shanghaied from a rival forum:

Mine goes up to 650 degrees F, thermostat controlled. I have thought about using it for drawing knife blades. Mine holds up to 400 pounds, a little much for my hobby weld shop, but the price was right. 50 pound ovens are available for much less. I need to bump the thermostat up a bit, ideal temp for 7018 is 250 degrees. The rod manufacturers have guidelines for proper temps for 7018 and other rods. On craigs list here for $80. If they were not in Surry B.C. Canada I would have bought them yesterday. Complete with rods.

I like 7018. Burned a lot of it way back when I worked in the Maintenance Dept. of a large paper mill. Most rods do not need to be in an oven (6011, 6013 for example) but for the best welds the low hydrogen rods like to be dry. Keep your eyes open if you want a rod oven, they appear often on the local ads. Took me over a year to find this one after I started looking.

Phoenix Rod Oven. New cost anywhere from $1200 to $1800 depending on where you buy one. I have been wanting one for a long time to store my 7018 Low Hydrogen rods. I live on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State, out in the foothills, and the atmosphere is always high humidity due to the Maritime Climate. Moisture and Low Hydrogen rods do not get along well. Got this one for $250 near Seattle. In new condition. Gent that had it was getting out of welding. I added the thermometer on the front door. The thermostat is on the rear.

A nice piece of American Industrial History. Around 400 pounds of copper and iron laminations. Found it in our local classifieds in the newspaper: The ad said "SureWeld welder $20." I thought it was one of the little yellow SureWeld buzz boxes and headed off to buy it for my nephew, whom is learning welding. I already had a DC machine, a big AC machine, and a TIG unit. So I got there and saw this beast: Could not get it into the truck. Back to my shop for the ramp and two helpers. We barely got it up the ramp and in the bed of the truck. Darn thing works too, welds nicely for an AC machine. I m guessing it was made between WWI and WWII. When I lifted the top cover to blow out the rats nests I noticed three huge capacitors. Must be for arc stabilization during the AC swing. Next project is to remove the covers, a little body & fender work, sandblast and paint a proper welding machine color: Red. And polish up the brass name plates. And a new amperage indicator. Marketed by national Cylinder Gas, sadly no longer in business. Some of the gents on another welding forum say it was made by Miller. Oh, that stainless steel 5 gallon beer keg in one of the photos? Future vertical quench tank for blades.

Yep, mad money. I always have a good stash of green available for those good deals! Strike before anyone else gets to the hot iron. Later I will make a post about the ancient AC Arc welder I found three weeks ago for $20: 400 pounds of copper and iron, and it works. I got to his front door before the ink was dry in the classifieds. Three of us barely got it into the back of my truck, it is heavy. Already have a DC welder, a TIG welder, and another AC unit, but this one was a beautiful piece of American made history. I could not resist.

Nothing wrong with either one. Although I have 4, if they were within a few hours driving for me I would dig up a coffee can and hot foot over and buy both. This is what the mad money is for!

Another view of the Soderfors: What I used to do: Nothing fancy or artsy, just good 'ol working and hunting knives. The four in the upper left are patterns. I am anxious to return to forging blades!

Here ya go, photos of mine. It has been stored in a shed since about 1991, the last time I operated my forge and made knives. I would say over 100 knives have been across this thing. For knife making I like it more than a regular London pattern anvil. It has incredible rebound, it is either cast or forged steel. It is not a die, it is the bottom anvil. It mounted in the base of the steam hammer and was held in place with tapered wedges. Removable so special die shaped bottoms could be inserted in the Steam hammer. The shop had a lot of special dies that actually clamped on the top of the anvil, so the job of changing out the anvil for big 200 pound plus dies was avoided. I actually ran the big steam hammer back in the 1990's, it was a brute. I would love to have something like it but it just was too big and too expensive for a hobbist to run on steam or compressed air. There was another one in the plant converted to compressed air. Likely consumed 100 HP of air when it was running, it was fed with a 3 inch air pipe at 180 PSI. I could forge out a big knife blank in a matter of minutes. Note the two lifting rods I inserted in the holes, just for the photos: It is mounted on a length of 12x18 creosoted timber. This one has dovetails on both sides, note the 2X wood stock that is holding it down: The 2X stock is tapered to match the taper of the anvil dovetails. When I complete the new forging shed I will clean it up and mount it close to the forge, along with my three other anvils: 100 pound Vulcan 150 pound American Star, this one has been in my family since before the Civil War. The family was poor dirt farmers in SE Georgia. It was originally used to keep the horses shod and maintain farm implements. And the prize, my 196 pound Soderfors:

I have a similar one that weighs 200 pounds. It is the bottom anvil for a steam or air hammer. Mine was a spare for a large hammer that was still in operation in a paper mill. The two holes in the ends? For sticking a piece of round bar about 2 feet into. Then the smith and his apprentice could lift the bottom anvil out of the drop hammer via using the rods as handles. One man on each handle. The slot on the bottom front was likely used for a key that indexed the anvil to the machine frame and kept it in place, the angled cut on the bottom back was for driving in a tapered wedge to hold the anvil tight.

Nice thread. I have a DC motor on one of my drill presses. Nice for those difficult drilling jobs. I can read the writing on the chuck when I have the speed controller dialed down to slowest. Dwell: A best quality drill bit may be easily ruined if allowed to dwell at no or minimum feed, especially if no coolant is used. Then, all one will accomplish is a bunch of noise and a dull bit. Spindle RPM is very important. Match the speed to the material being drilled, the size of the drill bit, and the material of the drill bit. The more difficult drilling jobs go to my vertical mill. Speeds from zero to 3500 RPM. Also has a DC drive, in conjunction with the 8 speed belt/gear head. And a pumped coolant system. Adequate feed is important, especially when drilling tough materials that like to work harden. Back to the OP: Machinery's handbook has several paragraphs concerning heat treating and forging HSS. Not an easy job in the average blacksmithing shop. Like Patton said, "read the book".

High Speed Tool Steel. HSS for sort. High speed means for use at higher cutting speeds in the lathe. Usually M2 or something similar. I have a lot of it, some up to 1/2 x 3/4 square by about 6 inches long. Not a good steel for blacksmith forging. One of the older posts asked about the usefulness of Machinery's Handbook ("The Bible"). Take a look, it should have the properties of HSS. When I get back to the shop I will take a look at some of my reference books.

Yea history in hand. I have an old Engineer's handbook from around 1900 or so. It contains several chapters on shop practices, including how to pour and machine babbitt bearings and how to make & fit cast iron piston rings. Like Patton said: Read the book!!! Below is my pre-CADD drafting system. I have T-Squares and Triangles also.

Dial indicators: Important items required for accurate set ups. High Speed Steel (HSS) and Carbide. Back to Basics: Some of my first tools, passed on to me from my Grandfather. Note the year of publication for the book. More books from the good old days: A more modern book, from the 1980's. Anyone read machinist books these days?

Level, level, who is on the level???? Athol Massachusetts to the rescue. Thank you Mr. Starrett! One of my cherished possessions. This is not the average carpenter level. Shop floor is 8 inch thick concrete full of rebar and fiber mesh. Machinery bases are bolted to the floor via Hilti Quik Bolts. Note the precision leveling shims. Just as important as level is removing all twist from the bed. You can be level and still have twist! Properly leveling and removing twist is an old school machinist procedure that takes a good bit of trial and error checking.

Another view of single point tooling. Carbide, roughing cut and thick cutting oil to pull out the heat. Smoking! Getting to final diameter: Finer feed, less depth of cut and the follower rest. The follower prevents deflection of the work piece in order to hold a constant diameter.

Fly cutter tooling is very cheap compared to end mills . Do it right with coolant and you have a very nice finish.

If the above fails, then:

A mill??????????? Made in my shop:

I really like the stock storage under the work bench. I am rebuilding my forge area now and will incorporate a similar rack under the long bench.

Well I could pound on the keyboard for hours on the uses of a lathe in the shop. But I will remain silent on this subject for fear of being smitten.

Well gents this forum is a little to high handed for me, a lowly peon. I will log out and let all of you enjoy the forum without my interruption.

Lighten up Thomas, a little mix up in my wording. I realize you gents have a lot of experience but you do not have to take the attitude road. I went back and read Steve's writings on fluxing. Build the stack, heat, apply flux, then more heat and forging. Ah Ha! Now I see says the blind man. Sometimes I skim written material instead of paying attention. Thanks to all. Now JClonts reply is exactly what I was looking for! A dust coat makes sense. I will avoid the molten borax method, sounds like trouble.

My question was: Is borax applied to the stacked layers on the first heat, before forging? Seems to me that a little flux drawn in by capillary action would be a good thing. I understand fluxing as you go when bending and forging. Searching? Yea, I know how to search, but a proper search and reading may take days. I just wanted a quick answer from guys than know, to get my thoughts together before running through the archives which I intend to do. "If you're talking about forge Welding, it doesn't work like that. You don't "place" flux between layers, well most of the guys don't, you apply it at low orange and it is drawn between layers by capillary action, just like blood between microscope slides. You then bring it to WELDING heat with enough soak time to make sure the billet is to welding temp all the way to the center. Set the weld with dead blows from a heavy hammer. Do NOT hit it hard you can shear or bounce the layers apart." Yep, my thoughts exactly. "I'm not blowing you off, I'd really like to see you succeed and there are things that will make it a lot easier. " Yea, a guy that speaks my language. Great site here guys, I see myself spending a bit of time in the archives. I am putting the forge shed plans together, so it will be some time before I actually start back into blade forging. I have a forge, 4 anvils, dozens of tongs, dozens of hammers, and about 400 pounds of good coal just waiting. I took a long break from blacksmithing due to a divorce, a move, job changing, and all the time consuming thing you divorced guys know about. Now I am retired and have time to play with the tools.