Frank Turley

Some years back, I was told that some of the Japanese bladesmiths start their rice straw on fire by double striking a small piece of iron. The rice straw then goes to start the prepared forge fire. Nice little ceremony and it saves matches.

Is it a French style? Questions arise. Do the French ever forge weld the barrels as the Brits did in our Colonial period? My research shows that the Colonial Dutch and Pennsylvania Germans did not weld the barrels. The Dutch nearly always forged the circular shape, but closer to the barrel than the one shown in the video. Also, the Dutch shape was flat without the median ridge. Johathan Nedbor specializes in Dutch hardware and went to Holland to check out their work. The smiths there were still doing the circular shape which they called a "pancake."

The work of Doug Wilson of Little Deer Isle, Maine, He gave me this as a present a few years back. It is carefully forged with the blade and octagonal finial at right angles to the flat of the handle. Overall length 9.5 Inches.

Some of the Swedish anvils have "ledges."

I like my Fontanini "Rathole". If the horn is to my left, the upsetting block is on my side of the anvil; therefore, handy. The horn has some belly to it, American style. I turned my anvil upside down and ground/sanded the underside of the side-shelf to a sharp end; makes it useful for drawing fork tines and suchlike. It's mounted in a box of sand which deadens the ring somewhat. You can have too much loud ringing. Cast of H13 in the U.S.

Thomas, No, it was a small buggy manufacturing firm that sold a few tools on the side.

A little more to add. Picture enclosed of my travelers. The larger 24 inch one I purchased a few years ago from an Amish supply place in Ohio. Sorry I can't recall the name. It is probably cast of an aluminum alloy and perhaps lathe turned for accuracy. On the reverse in raised cast letters is, "Pine Creek IN 83850." The small brass traveler was made by noted smith, Tom Bredlow, of Tucson, AZ. Tom showed up at the 1976 ABANA Conference in Carbondale, IL, with at least a half dozen of these to give out as presents. He told me that his grandfather was a tinsmith who made a traveler as part of his apprenticeship, and Tom inherited it, so these that Tom made were apparently duplicates. The traveler is a 12 inch one, very carefully laid out numerically and with what I suppose are etched marker lines. If the lines were chiseled, it would have ruined and distorted the circumference. My traveler is signed and dated on the back. I treasure it. I've seen a few old, manufactured 24" travelers of cast iron. Of course as noted above, many old travelers were shop made without the numerals. You simply counted the rotations and partial rotation. The term we use for the median line of a curve is the "neutral axis." This means not to run the traveler on the outside or inside of a curved length, but rather to run it on the neutral axis to get the length.

Wood turners also used the double caliper.

Another route. I've seen a couple of fireplace doors where the handle was intentionally heavy and the keeper was upside down from that shown above. Gravity on the handle holds the latch bar in place, and one lifts on the handle to open.

Yeah, and on a household entrance door, the hinges are on the inside 99% of the time, because the door opens inward. If they are good looking hinges, nobody sees them from the outside, so what happens? The home owner buys and installs "dummy hinges" on the exterior. Large church doors will open outward, so the hinges can be seen from outside unless the doors are open turning the hinges off to the side. I was in the Chihuahua, Mexico, plaza once and walking toward the 18th century cathedral. One huge wooden door was open and its mate was closed. I couldn't see any strap hinges on either door. When I got closer, I saw that there were four snipe hinges on each door and they were in working order. I estimate that each was forged from 5/8"D round stock.

I like to make hardware, but I also remember what Francis Whitaker is reputed to have said. "If it has moving parts, charge more."

I have an old bellows that has the original nails and hardware, but to use the thing, it needs to be rebuilt. It's in a storage shed, but there's so much heavy stuff in front of it, I couldn't get to it to measure, so I'll give you a photo and a guesstimate on measurements. The bellows itself is about 5.5 feet tall excluding the tapered nozzle nose. The nozzle is of sheet metal about 4"D at the base and 1"D at the end. It's about 12" long. Although the bellows is old and well used, there is no fire damage to the end of the nozzle, so it was inserted into some kind of tuyere opening that protected it. We assume that there was a hearth and that the old fires were side blasted, not bottom blasted. I once corresponded with Ken Schwarz, master smith of Williamsburg, Virginia, and he figured that at Williamsburg, the nozzle went into a huge cast iron block that was cast with a tuyere hole through it. The iron block would have protected the nozzle and would have provided a somewhat heat resistant tuyere entry to the side blasted fire. Not everyone of that period would have had access to a cast iron setup, so there were other methods of entry to the fire.

It comes from the steel maker annealed. If you heat it and forge it, you have undone that anneal, and it needs to be annealed again after forging. The annealing refines the grain structure and makes for a stronger tool in the long run. The order of heat treatments when working hot is 1) forge; 2)anneal; 3)harden; 4)temper. If you keep asking these basic type of questions, I'll refer you to The Curmugeons.

I've been using the 250 # Rathole for over five years, and I like it. The one thing I miss is the "London pattern" anvil step which I formerly used for concavo-convex work and some bending.

I don't know how you grind an eye, because an eye is a hole. Anyway, we punch and drift the eye hot. Forging temp is 1950-2050F (bright orange bordering on lemon). Do not forge below 1700F (bright red). This bright red is above the cherry red ranges. Annealing comes next. You can't normalize, because S7 is air hardening. I have trouble annealing properly in my shop, because the specs say to take the steel to 1500-1550F (bright cherry red) and slow cool it losing 25F/hour down to 1000F (faint or dull red). Then air cool. My shop is too "primitive" to follow those instructions, so instead, I take it to bright cherry red and cool in lime or wood ashes down to room temperature. To harden, go to 1700-1750F (full bright red bordering on orange) and air cool on a non reactive material like a fire brick or a pile of coke down to room temperature. Tempering is done immediately after hardening by heating to at least 400F for a cold work tool. 428F is a light straw surface color, for example. For hot work, temper to 1150F (dark red), an incandescent heat, and cool to ambient temperature on a non reactive material. *These temperatures were abstracted from an old Earle M. Jorgensen catalog.

Some of my anvils are in steel sand boxes, but are tightened down with two strap irons, fore and aft on the base. Allthread is welded at the proper angles on the box exterior to enter holes in the straps, then washer and nut tightened. If this is not done, the anvil will "swim" in the sand and take odd angles.

Francis Whitaker told me that he always drilled the holes when making tongs.

Your search engine will show that the brass gauge is still very much in the marketplace and is desirable. There are other models like Ward & Story, but the brass one is still popular. I bought mine in the late1960's. Post Script. I never used the length bar on my gauge to determine toe length. I used dividers which I felt were more accurate.

We use a lot of 1/8" mesh hardware cloth. It comes in large rolls at most building supply places. If it comes galvanized, it can be painted flat black.

Yes, it is a hoof gauge or angle gauge used before and after trimming the hoof to check the angle you're seeking. I always carried one like the one pictured. They're made of brass. In my experience shoeing, I found that front feet averaged about 52 degrees. One must be circumspect when measuring however, because some hooves are "dished" (incurved) as viewed from the side. The dish is undesirable, so the shoer must guesstimate where the coffin bone is located within the hoof capsule. The envisioned coffin bone will give a more true measure than does the gauge when applied to the dish.

Brings up the subject of shoemaker vs. cobbler. My understanding is that shoemakers make shoes and cobblers repair them. Maybe both used a set of sized lasts. We often hear of a cobbled job, meaning not good or something went wrong. I wonder if the term in that context meant that the cobbler tried to make a shoe from scratch and it went haywire. I knew a farmer from Washington state whose wife called him Captain Cobjob.

This response won't help too much. Steve Fontanini of Jackson, WY, has his 'Rathole' anvils cast in the U.S. of H13, but that would be a different animal than hot rolled H13, In any event, you can find Fontanini's website and read about his anvil offerings, Rockwell hardness, etc.

His name is Fred Moore. Some of the anvils are for sale. The collection is in north central New Mexico near the town of Mountainair. I have visited the collection and it blew my hat in the creek.

>Horses can't breathe through their mouths, only the nostrils take in and expel air. >A horse's front feet are more fuller and rounding than the hind feet. >A foal's legs at birth are as long as they ever are going to get. FALSE >Horses are not very bright, but they are cunning. TRUE or FALSE depending on who's doing the talking. >Behind, horses can kick. In front, they can 1) bite 2)strike 3)rear, Which end is more dangerous? >A horse gets a full set of permanent teeth at five years of age. >'Thoroughbred,' capitalized, does not mean 'purebred.' It is a breed of horse. >A horse has to a large degree, monocular vision, and to a smaller degree, binocular vision. That is why trainers often train a horse from both sides. >The primary reason for shoeing horses is to keep the feet from wearing out faster than nature supplies growth. >What is a Quarter Horse? Why, it's a horse with two bits! That's a yoke son. >The trot is a two beat gait meaning that all four feet have touched the ground after the sound of two beats. During the trot, two diagonal legs work in unison. For our purpose, let's say that near (left) front and off (right) hind hit the ground in unison. Then the horse springs forward and the off front and near hind land together. A pace occurs when two legs on the same side move together. Then the other side moves together...sometimes called side wheeling. It is a two beat gait. The gallop is a three beat gait. For our purpose, say the near hind leg moves and that foot touches the ground. Then, the two diagonals off hind and near front hit together. Lastly, the off fore leg moves and its foot contacts the ground. The walk is a form of "broken pace." Say the off hind moves and touches. Following that, the off front moves. Then the near hind followed by the near front. The walk is a four beat gait.

I don't have an example to look at, but I keep trying to envision what you're after. I think that I would make the straps meet together like the leaves on a modern butt hinge. For example when butt hinges are installed, gains are chiseled the thickness of the leaf. Each leaf is inlet into its gain making the leaf flush with the face of the wood. In case of the chest, the gain would be chisel cut into the bottom edge of the lid and the top edge of the chest back thus allowing the lid to sit tightly in the closed position; ie., no daylight. I assume the bends will be right angle ones measuring from the barrel to the wood thickness. Say the wood thickness is 3/4", then the INSIDE CORNER of the hinge bend would be 3/4" from the barrel. If clinch nails are used, they would be in the main strap and tail strap. You're not going to be nailing into the edge of the wood, but a countersunk, flat head, wood screw could be used. Make pilot holes for nails and screws.