George N. M.

YES! Mirror image. It wasn't an issue for me because my touch mark is symmetrical left to right. A, H, I, M, O, I, U, V, W, X, and Y don't have this problem while all the others do. GNM

0welcome aboard from 7500' in SE Wyoming. Glad to have you. Very nice work. I agree with Arkie that you will probably find that you need some sort of a rim to keep fuel from falling off the edges. If you put your general location in your profile it will be a help. This is a world wide forum and we don't know if you are in Lapland, Tasmania, or Kansas. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Depending on your design it is possible to make your own touch mark stamp. I made my own. My touch mark is the Old English rune for G which is an X with small diamond shapes to the left and right of the crossing or the X. The problem is making interior shapes for letters, runes, or any design. If you are making an A the problem is to make the triangle inside of the A above the cross bar. Using a piece of spring as my stock I hot struck 2 square diamonds into the end with the side points almost touching. I then lightly ground the end to get the scale off and drew an X with a fine felt tip. I then removed the metal up to the lines of the X and the edge of the recessed diamonds with a dremel tool and fine files. I used the dremel for the courser work and the files for the fine, final work. The trick is when you get close to the lines of the design not to take too much off. You want the line of the design to have a V shape with a slight flat bottom. You will need a pretty tough steel if you are going to use it on both hot and cold metal. I only use mine hot and it has held up fine. One of the factors affecting how well a touch mark stamp works is how large it is and how much metal you are displacing when you strike it. You can observe this when using commercial letter stamps. You have to hit an M harder to make the same depth impression than an I. Whether this is feasible or not depends largely on how complex your design is. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

FlatLiner, I've been thinking about a reply since I read your post this morning. I agree with you regarding anvils. Anything can be used as an anvil if that is what you have available. Even a block of wood can be used but it erodes pretty quickly and you breath a lot of wood smoke. Some of what gets said in discussions of anvils is affected by the tendency towards tool envy. That is, the inclination of some folk to think that if they just have the right tool, anvil, hammer, left handed widget polisher, etc. that it will magically increase their skill level. So, conciously or unconciously people are always wanting the bigger, better, newer, more expensive tool and have a tendency to justify that desire by depreceating older, small, and less expensive tools. Where I take exception to your post is your slam at some folk who post here. One thing you do not seem to consider is that some of us have been doing this for decades and have picked up some experience and knowledge along the way. The key is not how much forge work a person is doing right now but whether they may have in their head the information that may help someone with a problem, not matter when or how they accquired that information. And, everything posted here is just one person's take on a particular issue. There is no requirement that anyone give that opinion any credibility or weight. That is the fundamental truth of the internet. If someone gave out information that was actually dangerous or dead wrong other posters would be on it in a heartbeat. Although it is something I try to avoid myself some people can be kind of curmudgeonly and irritable at times. Again, that is the nature of the community. And some folk are dealing with problems, physical and mental, which can affect their choice of words or phrasing. Basically, give us a break and the benefit of the doubt that everyone's intentions are good. Also, I do not want to start a flame war about this. If you want to discuss it further I'd be glad to do so via PM. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Scott, thank you. Interesting. Very realistic. I expect the figures to morph into a video and start moving. Interestingly, I see fire, hammer, tongs, and an anvil but no bellows. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

OK, here are a couple of my thoughts: First, I don't think that it is bad enough shape to need repair. The edges are pretty good and the missing face plate on the heel is only 10% of the area of the face and can be worked around. Second, it may be the small format photo but I don't see much sway on the face. Or, not enough that I would want to worry about it. A little sway on part of the face can be an advantage in some situations. Third, if you want to repair an anvil just to have repared an anvil you can go ahead with the time it takes and the materials. The appropriate rods are fairly expensive but you wont need that many. Fourth, yes, you can build up material where the area of the face plate is missing and a bit in the sway area and then grind the beads flush with the face plate. However, IMO, the investment of time and money will not improve this anvil enough to justify the project. Fifth and final, You need to be an accomplished welder to do this correctly. If you are just a hobby welder you need to find one and pay him or her to do it properly. Working on a hot, preheated anvil is not a common project. Good luck and let us know how it goes. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Rollers are an ancient way to move large objects. I have moved large stone blocks that way with my wife and son picking them up in the back and replacing them in the front. Worked a treat. My wife said that we could start guilding pyramids. Very nice fly press. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

One of the major problems with a brake drum forge is that they are too deep. Unless you cut out notches on both sides you will be putting the work pieces down into the fire at an angle and can only heat the ends of a piece. If you can cut or have cut notches they will work as a starter forge. I think if I were starting our I would just use a JABOD until I could upgrade. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Shaina, when we were looking for a new place a few years ago before moving to Laramie one of the criteria was where I was going to put my shop. For places that didn't have a garage or the garage was too small or otherwise unsuitable (e.g. incorporated into the structure of the house in such a way that there would be no way of running a chimney) I was looking at the possibility of buying a prefab building like the ones you see at Home Depot or Lowes and having it moved in or building it myself. The feasibility of that will be dependent on your budget but if you can afford it or can roll the cost into your mortgage I think it can be a serious option. One of the major selling points of the place we bought here is that there is a 30' x 24' horse barn on the back of the lot which I have converted into my shop. So, the issue of acquiring a building did not come up. I agree with Frosty that this is not an optimum time to be buying real estate given the generally inflated home prices and high mortgage rates. That said, if you have to buy now you can always refinance when the rates come down. You and Ashley will know your own business best. We refinanced about a year ago and got 3.2%. If we had been a bit quicker we could have gotten 2.6%. I'd stay away from a variable rate mortgage unless there are provisions on how high it could go. Good luck and let us know what happens and post us photos. GNM

John, as usual, you are correct.

And, you have fallen into one of the common traps of the 21st century, relying on google and other internet sources for historical research. They are only as good as what someone has decided to digitize and post on the internet which is a fraction of what is actually available. Yes, a few key strokes is much easier than grinding through lots of dusty pages but that is reality. To do serious historical research you need to slog through a large university or public library and use Inter Library Loan extensively. It tends to be slow and frustrating. And in analog/printed format language can become an issue unless you are multi lingual. I have found great references on various things I was working on but they were in French or German, which I don't speak. In your case there may not be much out there in any format. Some historical questions are just lost in the mists of time. About all I know about the history of hardy holes is that they became a common feature on London pattern anvils about 1830. Yes, they occurred before and not all anvils had them after that date but that is a general statement. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

I have a vision of a very macho, assertive iron hand holding a very delicate, feminine crochet hook. Maybe interchangable with a knitting needle or lace making tools. GNM

There are a number of monastaries and abbies and other communities, both Roaman Catholic and Orthodox, in Colorado. About 30 miles from here, off the highway between here and Ft. Colilins, CO is the Abbey of St. Walburga, a community of Benedictine nuns. You can go there for a contemplative retreat. They follow the Rule of St. Benedict and farm and raise livestock. GNM

This has been discussed to death over the years but the consensus seems to be that it takes less energy to forge on an anvil with good rebound. Without going into the physics of it, it seems that a high rebound anvil more efficiently transfers the energy ("work") of the hammer blow into deforming the hot steel. IIRC it has to do with energy being reflected back into the work from the anvil. Think of the anvil as a spring. Some of the energy of the hammer blow deforms the work piece but some passes through the work and slightly deforms the anvil. The anvil springs back into shape and this energy rebounds back into the work increasing the deformation. So, a "springier" anvil which has a higher rebound will give more deformation per blow. The rebound energy is only a percentage of the total energy of the blow but it is enough to be noticed in use. As Frosty says, any heavy flat surface can be an anvil, including rocks or any other large mass. I have always thought that a boulder of an amphibolite group rock which has a very tough, fiberous crystal structure, which has be cut flat would make a dandy anvil. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

I once tried to fire clay spindle whorls in my propane forge using commercial clay I had bought at Hobby Lobby. When I checked on them they had disintegrated and disappeared. I had let them dry for a week or more prior to putting them in the forge. I have no idea what went wrong.

Susan, welcome aboard from 7500' in SE Wyoming. Glad to have you. Or, since this is the 21st century, and phone books are a shadow of their former selves, I would try Spokeo in addition to the phone book.

When I showed your photos to my wife she said, "Oh, that is beautiful!" (Probably with the unspoken question of "Can youn make one like that?") One or 2 more questions" Did you make the socket separately and then weld it to the core of the blade or was it all one piece of iron? What are the dimensions, including the diameter and wall thickness ofr the socket? Comment on the cost: The importnt thing is that you learned how to make something complex and beautiful. It is very hard to place a subjective value on that. I'd say that for the result in improved skill and the beautiful result that the totsl cost was very reasonable. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Oh, that is beautiful work! The core plus a twisted layer plus and edge layer reminds me of the Sutton Hoo sword in the British Museum. How did you weld the socket? Did you weld the wrought iron over a hat mandrel? How long did it take you? Or, because it was a class, how long would it take you to do one at home? "By hammer and hand all art do stand."

The Chairman of Rocky Mountain Smiths posted that one person died at the scene and the other passed away at the hospital.

Welcome aboard from 7500' in SE Wyoming. Glad to have you. This is the sort of thing that you would probably need to have made by a blacksmith in your area, whereever that may be. You could have either a pick pont like the one illustrated or a chisel point. I have seen both and both have advantages. Commercially, they are also known as "spud" bars. I would try someplace that sells stuff to the agricultural community like, here in the US, Tractor Supply, Murdoch's, Big R, or the various big box stores like Home Depot, Menard's, or Lowes or even your local hardware store. They are used to place fence posts here in the western US in rocky ground. Also, you might try someplace that sells ice fishing supplies because this is how you make a hole in the ice if you don't have an auger. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Bud, I am not sure what you mean by I intend to use propane on the torch." If you mean using propane as a torch fuel instead of acetylene I think that might be a bad idea because the fuel/oxygen mixture is going to be different and the fuel side of a cutting torch is designed for acetylene. I'm not a welder but this sounds that it could be dangerous. Others who know more about gas welding and cutting will either confirm my suspisions or correct me. You can cut a piece of RR track with an angle grinner but it will take time and you will go through a number of cutting blades. It may be easier and cheaper to take it to a shop with a large metal cutting saw or a plasma cutter and have them do it. The problem with using a cutting torch is that it will give ragged ends but that may or may not be a problem for how you are intending to use it. If clean ends don't matter I would use and oxy/acetylene cutting torch. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Frosty, to be correct, a family with a member serving in the armed forces is a blue star family. A family who has had a member killed in the service is a gold star family. You will sometimes see a small flag in a window, white with a red border with a blue or gold star in the middle. If more than one member is serving there are multiple stars. This goes back to World War 2 and was a way the government recognized military families. GNM

I like that hammer a lot. Are you using a swage block to raise the bosses or a block of wood? And are you doing them hot or cold? Thanks. GNM

I suppose that a lot of it depends on how much grinding you do as a percentage of your time in the shop. I am a blacksmith who makes the occasional knife, not a cutler who focuses on making blades. This is because I prefer to spend my time hitting hot metal rather than all the bench work, grinding, filing, polishing, making guards and pommels, leather work for sheaths, etc.. And I only have a 1x42 belt grinder. So, I do not have that large a problem with metal and abrasive dust. Also, I have a 12x24 shop with a couple attached storage areas (former 12x12 horse stalls. So, there is pretty good ventilation and the fall out area is pretty small (a couple of feet around the grinder). "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

I'd be concerned about 2 things: (1) Like a paint booth, the atmosphere in a restricted grinding area will get pretty toxic pretty quickly. You do NOT want to be breathing abrasive dust (can we say silicosis, aka miners' consumption?). So, you will need a good respirator and change filters often. Also, the dust will get into your hair and clothing. You may want to consider a hooded coverall when grinding. (2) If the grinding area is too small you may increase the probability that you will bump into the moving belt while moving around and catch you clothing or flesh and letting out the red stuff inside. Not a good situation I'd want about 3' between the machine and any wall or curtain. You may want to have some sort of air handling system to pull air and dust out of the grinding area and blow it outside. That would help mitigate the problems in (1) above. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."