Mills

Great Score! My thoughts on it are to use belt sander with 120 grit to smooth the bumps and pits a little. use the nose to radius the edge dings and then run it. I would be pounding on it in an hour or so. After you have some experience that would be a good time to start looking at improvements. This is what I have done with mine. As for the horn, it looks about right, if you want a tighter circle, make a bick for the hardy. need a square sharp corner? hardy tool as well. the hardy hole probably got that way from running stock through it cold in order to bend it. Saw a farrrier do that when he didn't want to light a fire. mine is the same way when I make hardy tools it indexes them so they only go one way. That is kind of a pain sometimes but the hardy hole itself is not straight so if I made a tight fitting tool it would still only go one way.

The holes in it are for porter bars, to handle it as it was forged. It looks as if it may be a hay budden or a peter wright. But i am no expert.

With all of that said there is some good procedures on welding up an anvil that can be found on this site as well as others. Irnsrgn has a blueprint on how to do it and Hofi posted his method a day or two ago. An internet search will turn up Rob Gunters method. Bear in mind you are dealing with a tool NOT a hunk of steel to cobble around on. Modifications to any tool need to be made from knowledge and understanding of what you want that tool to DO not just how you think it should look.

I have some very cheap wrenches and screwdrivers that I will bend hammer or grind into a particular shape for a specific function in MY shop. I have tongs the same way. Go to any shop where a lot of work gets done and you will find examples of tools that do only one thing, carefully camoflauged as scrap iron. happy hammering with your new find and keep it hot.

I would put in here that there exists an alternative. Since hdwarner already had this anvil and wanted to improve it, it turned out well. If you were to start from scratch why not get a decent anvil ready to go? For the cost involved take a look at Jymm Hoffmans anvil. When I get the money I will surely get one myself. Or Thomas Powers seems to attract good deals on large, useful metallic items, he can, will and has given pointers on aquiring stuff, cheap.

Our club bought one of those Russian anvils and for the money I think it is a deal for starting. What I am suggesting to be avoided is to buy a Yugo with the intent to make it a BMW. but I am opionated.

24 x 20 2 car garage, with too much stuff in it. but the commute to work is dynamite!

I have used one of Jymm's anvils and like it the best of any anvil I have worked on. but that doesn't make me an expert just opionated. :)

First thing I do is do a full size sketch on craft paper. office supply or packing supply should have it.
for bending what I have done to accomplish this is to buy a harbor freight bender. please no groaning from the audience. You can then make nice smooth repeatable bends (with practice). That is only the start though. you will need some bending forks and a way of supporting your work. do you have a way of anchoring some angle iron to something so that you can pull and push against it? I have a piece of 2 ft square 3/4" plate that I can weld to. make a bending fork oput of some suitable med carbon steel and heat treat it. 4140 is nice stuff to work with as is grader blade. You will need a couple of sizes of forks to work different radi. 1 should be large enough to to go over the stock and the angle iron brace then you can use another fork to put it in the right place. Every so often place the piece on your full size drawing to check for accuracy. The first is pretty quick, the second takes about three times as long cause you are learning to match the curves. After the second one you should start to get the feel for it and the pace will pick up.

That is the best I have.

what Ron said you need a CROW BAR, we called them that in west texas cause a man looked like a crow using it, hopping up and down. 1 1/4 -1 3/4 rd about 5-6 ft long in 4140 should do the trick.

I made a tool rack for a portable forge with that forge. It had a 4" square firepot. I heated a piece of 3/8 rd and hammmered flat then twisted. I wanted to do the twist all at one time, so I ran th bar back and forth through the fire til I had about 20" at a high orange. It takes time and lots of patience. After that I understand the value of working smaller sections and being consistent from one section to the next. it is faster too.

Ahh I get it, for some reason I was thinking ... never mind. I appreciate what you do. BTW very seldom are you unclear. It is as easy to follow your posts as about anyone else.

I really enjoy your posts. I am tending towards more heavier forgings rather than ornamental and am fascinated by how you do things.

The cutter that you show, do you still use it? and what are the three steps?

I made some stock supports for high up on the wall 20 ft lengths go next to the ceiling and up to 14 ft lengths are about head high. The chop saw is on sa shelf below that. Anything under 8 ft will go between garage doors. less than 2 feet in an old steel mop bucket and scraps in a steel 5 gal pail. I use the steel so that when I cut off a piece I can get it in there and not worry about anything burning.

I am using the coil spring off of a GM pickup to make center punches out of. It isn't dulling unless I try to use it hot. From the looks of the picture you will be cutting away what you don't want and then welding it together. The (flat) spring stock will be fine once you harden and temper. The plasm will likely daw the temper so you will need to heat treat. If the temp stays below ~400F clean up with a grinder and careful welding may produce what you seek. Slow cool the weld area of course. Try a piece and see.

Cooter can you get a piece of the plate you intend to use? maybe a drop from the steel company or something? If so, the best bet would be then to do a little run on the methods you expect to employ. There are many variables in heat treating. If you have a heat source that can get the steel to its quenching temperature to harden it, can you use that same source to temper? Do you have enough oil to quench in? Do you need oil to quench or is it water or air hardening in the size you will be using?
I suspect that if what you are refering to is similar to what a friend uses for concrete drums then cutting the shape is all you will need to do. Since the points are dulling a small gas forge is easy enough to construct to do the points and can do double duty for tempering. I have no idea if water or oil is a good quench for it though. That is something to try out.

LOL Irnsrgn.

If it were mine, then I would weld this one up.

Since we are here, let me add that Cr6 or hexachrome is bad news (Erin Brokavich stuff) We regularly test for in waste streams and the respiratory danger when cutting, grinding orwelding is high! Having said that heat chrome plate enough to burn it off is when you will CREATE Cr6 as the stable plating is Cr3 very benign stuff. Forging an alloy the Cr stays in solution so even tho you have the heat Cr prefers to stay where it is at in the alloy. Excessive heat over time may allow it to slip out. Let the IH's weigh in with more specifics if needed.

If it were mine, I would leave it as is and make a square hardy that has sharp edges and a flat top (has anyone actually ever done this?).

Why yes as a matter of fact, I have. and I can turn it in al four directions for work to hang over the edge as well. Also if the mood strikes I can file a dimple or build up the edge or just forge another that is closer to what I am looking for.

Alan, Thomas is always getting anvils for scrap or less. Irnsrgn has a procedure that will work if you really want to change what you have.

Thus comments the man from DALLAS!

the finish hammering is done at a low red into black heat. You are only knocking down high spots. Do not over do this as you will split your stock and cause pieces to break off.

Kallsme'n Uses tongs nearly this size in some of the forging pictures he has posted. There is also a view or two of how the chainfalls are rigged to be able to use tongs (and stock) of this size.

Congratulations, Sir.

Well I have been tracking my machine down on the net while trying to get near enough to the dealer to stop in. I do have a Miller 35 made in '78 with a 15' tweco gun, but what is a mini gun? and what is involved in cutting back the liner?

I ask because the man behind the counter says, with a great deal of confidence, that I have a bad gun. OOOOoooooooKK! Why? cause it don't work (with perhaps an implication that if it was a Miller gun it would) OooooKK! how can that be diagnosed? Bring it in as well as the machine. MMMMmmm I did not hear an answer I don't believe. (little humour there guys,, very little)

The upper drive roll shaft and bushings are pretty worn. They did not even give that acknowledgement. The drive rolls them selves SEEM to be ok but I'll buy new top eliminate them if necessary. I do think it is in the Gun about 1-2' from the end.

So back to the previous questions, what alligator are in the water I am about to dive into?

Oh yeah tensioning on the drivers would finally get it to feed but at the point of doing as Tgold said. Leaving an impression in the wire. Even at that it still didn't feed well.

A problem I have found with my newer tombstone vs the old one in the shop is that the leads are soldered in a very inacessible place inside rather than bloted on lugs. I was going to put 25' leads on mine like I had done for the shop. When I saw the machinations needed to do that I put on an extension cord and wheels.

Nifty Idea, Mr Smith.

Good stuff, thanks to all of you.

I believe I'll need some new drive rollers as I switched one with another that was used as well and I am back to welding finally. But it is very finicky now about the lead having much arc in it. It is a combination of troubles it would appear. I am able to deal with it now after getting so much good advice.

Wonderful stuff. Definitely need a new tip or several I suppose. Yes I have installed a scotch brite pad with a clip for wiping. Cleaned the liner with kerosene and brake cleaner, have it running again. It takes some false starts to get it to weld, that may be a bad tip issue. Will be getting supplies and trying new parts.

Thanks for the help. Will be posting some pics when I get this railing done.

I am always amazed at how fast and on point smiths are.

I have a Tweco 16' lead. Liner placement, I will be reinstalling today and see what happens.

Feed rollers: Yes, they are turning. I have cleaned them w scotch brite pad and scraped some gunk out of the groove with small screwdriver. I have retensioned the spring that holds them together. It feeds just fine till the last couple of feet then things start going south.

End of the gun: Didn't realize the nozzle would ground the tip. I guess that explains the insulation it sits on. I definitely need to replace nozzle and insulator. And that MAY be the cause of at least part of the problem.

Electrical: I have been through the whole gun when I got it, tracking down a short. Replace spade terminals and cleaned contacts, etc. I have used a Scotch Brite pad as a preroller wiper I may use a clothes pin to give it a little more bite. Good to see that it is a sound idea.

I have run .045 wire through the liner to push out crud but it stops at various places like it is bulldozing more and more crud. That doesn't make sense to me. Is it possible that one roll of wire could build up that much in the liner? Yes it was a dirty roll from sitting, but after the top layer it was bright and shiny. It had been in the machine with the cover down so I discounted the top layer.

One other thing I noticed is as I ran wire through back and forth checking roller action, etc. is that I could feel a roughness near the gun end. But back feeding the .045 wire though resulted in nothing that I could feel.

I am about convinced in reviewing this that I have a liner problem and I should run some brake cleaner through it next. No compressed air, darn it.

Another question, when do you replace the tip? I have seen this become egg shaped. I have ground it back some in trouble shooting to see if that had an effect.