George N. M.

Dear Steve, since these were unavailable for so long they kind of dropped off my radar. Now, that you are resurrecting them so fast it is like drinking from a fire hose. It will take some time to process them. There have been a few, e.g. the mystical things to do to ensure a successful forge weld, that I now recall reading years ago. Again, thank you for all the effort. These are a good resource. Also, are you accepting any new ones? GNM

Very interesting. It would appear to me that on the barrel the iron secured a large hole, maybe for filling, and the smaller hole below may have been for a tap (faucet). I have no idea why such a substantial bracket would have been needed. The church piece would have take a LOT of repetitious work to fabricate but the end result is very impressive. I assume that this is inside a museum. GNM

Hatriot, I hope you've done some reading on how high to mount your anvil. If you haven't, about knuckle high is the classic level but some folk like theirs a bit higher or lower. You want your hammer face to hit parallel to the face of the anvil. A sand box base makes it easy to adjust by adding or removing sand. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Welcome aboard from 7500' in SE Wyoming. Glad to have you. Everything in the photos looks great. I might have made the fire pot a bit smaller but that is personal taste. Now, get it all set up and start hitting hot steel and making stuff. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Oh, and one more thing: I keep two notebooks. One is my demonstration notes. If I go to a demo I sketch each step and write commentary beside the sketches so that I don't have to rely on my memeory when I get beack to my shop. I've gone back to notes I took 25 years ago and been able to follow them. The second is my bench book where I write down instructions for my future self. It can be the steps to make X, measurements and calculations for Y, notes on quenching and tempering Z steel, and similar sorts of information which I think my future self will need and may have forgotten. They both have their own value and I use them regularly. Fortunately, I'm pretty good at sketching, probably from my years as a geologist and in the military making terrain sketches, maps, block diagrams, etc.. Not everyone has that practice. If you have a hard time sketching try sketching one of your own projects as you make it. Like the rest of blacksmithing you get better the more often you do it. And, IMO, it is worth the journey. Blacksmithing has been a part of my life for the last 46 years and it has made the good times better and has helped me through the bad times. GNM

PS In response to your reply to Army, don't try for speed, try for accuracy. You will make a lot more mistakes if you try to do something as fast as you see in videos. On some of them I think they are really doing multiple heats and making it look like one through editing, the steel cools too slowly. Speed only comes with experience. You just gradually get quicker as your muscle memory grows and reinforces. You are learning. Everything has a learning curve. You don't expect a teen who just got their learner's permit to drive in the Le Mans or to play at Carnegie Hall soon after you start an instrument. Why should blacksmithing be any different? GNM

BMTU, we have all been there. We were all beginners and we are all still learning. I started out in 1978 much like you. I had an old rivet forge and an anvil I had bought at an auction, some books from the library, some really nasty slaked (weathered) coal, and lots of my own mistakes to learn from. I didn't meet another smith until 10-12 years later. For projects, I suggest working on things that are simple and that you can use around the shop, e.g. a coal rake, racks for tools, and J and S hooks to hang things in your shop. Try variations on the S and J hooks such as different finials and twists. Once you feel you have mastered a simple object move on to something a bit more complicated. A lot of learning to be a blacksmith is hand and eye control, knowing where and how hard and at what angle you should hit a piece of hot steel to get the desired result takes time and a LOT of mistakes. It is a lot like learning to use a video game controller or play a musical instrument. Rather than making an X you can just practice on random pieces of steel different techniques, such as different twists, drawing out a thick bar to a thin one and then coiling it up into an open spiral, turn shapes into different shapes, etc.. Also, get some modeling clay or Play Doh and work it in your hands to get a feel for how to change one shape to another. You can also so something like making a clay bar and then using a small wooden hammer to change its shape. If the clay gets too soft you can harden it up for awhile by chilling it. Good luck and keep at it. Post some of what you do here and let us comment. I wish you were closer than 1800 miles and 26 hours away or I'd ask you to spend some time with me in my shop. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand." If you can find or buy some railroad spikes you can make various things from them fairly cheaply and if you mess something up you don't loose much when you toss it out.

Welcome aboard from 7500' in SE Wyoming. Glad to have you. Post or leg vises have two advantages for blacksmiths. First, because of the post they are designed to be hammered on, the post carries the force down to the ground. Second, the screw is "faster" than most bench vises, that is the jaw advances or opens further per turn of the screw. This is important when you are putting something hot in the vise and you need to "strike while the iron is hot." With a fast screw you spend less time securing the piece in the vise. Post vises are generally mounted lower than a bench vise (which is traditionally mounted about elbow high). "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

FMM, since modern pewter is often lead free to avoid contaminating anything ingested do you see much older pewter which is a tin and lead alloy? IIRC, lead was replaced in the alloy with antimony and copper. And how do you get 500+ pounds of metal from Florida to Pennsylvania? Truck freight? Is is still worth it when transportation costs are inclusded in the equation? BTW, I've never considered Wyoming winters to be that hard but they can get awfully long. In April you can drive down to Ft. Collins, CO (about an hour drive south and several thousand feet lower) and the grass is green and the trees are starting to leaf out but when you get back to Laramie (7200' downtown, 7500' at our house) it is still iron winter. GNM

I've done only a bit of casting over the years but I would expect that it would be done as a lost wax casting in a closed mold. It is complex enough shape that I don't see it being done in a split mold or an open faced mold. GNM

Here is a link to a different article on the same object. Not much additional information but some different photos. https://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/69734#respond G

Paul, if he is gone you may be able to access his service records through the VA. I don't think we ever crossed paths. We were all trying to do our best at a very difficult job in impossible circumstances. GNM

My wife grew up in Plant City and Lakeland. Most recently taught in Sebring. She thinks that Wyoming is a little piece of heaven. When I told her that the all time record high is Laramie was 94 degrees and that she would never see triple digits on a thermometer again unless we traveled it really messed with her paradigm. Summer temps here are typically in the 70s and low-mid 80s with low humidity. Also, no hurricanes and a lot fewer bugs. GNM

You said a mouthful. My wife has taught in Florida and her father was a Florida educator. She and her late husband had lived in New Mexico and there were teachers (teachers!) who thought that New Mexico was not part of the United States. GNM

Actually, tin does occur in the US including Alaska, Virginia, and as an accessory mineral in porphyry copper deposits in the Southwest US. But it is not economical to mine, compared to places like Malaysia, mainly because there are no US tin smelters. IIRC the last one closed in the late '80s or early '90s. Tin is generally mined as a placer operation rather than a lode deposit. An exception is Cornish tin deposits. Also, tin is often mined by lots of small operations rather than big mines. FFM, I'm the local IFI geologist, that being my career prior to the oil and minerals crash in the early '80s. Not wanting to go to work at Burger King or 7-11 I went back to school and became an attorney. I still describe myself as a recovering geologist. If I ever feel an urge to hit a rock with a hammer or make a map I call someone up and they talk me out of it. GNM

Multi Level Marketing, one of the classic scams.

FMM, you have just pointed out the problem I have had with investing or keeping precious metals as a hedge against economic problems. If I buy at spot plus X% and I can only sell at 70% of spot I have to hold until there has been a 30%+x increase to break even financially. The real issue of holding gold or silver seems to be how do you convert it back into a medium with which you can buy a loaf of bread or a gallon of gas. So, for an investment vehicle it doesn't look very shiney. If a person is looking for something that will hold value in case of an economic collapse the that is a different equation. GNM

Well, 1018 is just about mild steel. So, you can use it for about anything that doesn't require hardening. You may be able to get a little hardness out of it with super quench but you'll never get it hard enough to skate a file. It may work for hot tools which can't stay hard because of their exposure to the hot metal they are working. I think a hammer made of 1018 would mushroom over pretty quickly. It would work fine but you'd have to redress it more often than something made of a tougher steel It is still a good score for $8. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

RE charging batteries: Back in the '70s I had a friend who lived across the road from the National Bureau of Standards antenna farm for WWV, the short wave station broadcasting the time signal for setting clocks. This is a BIG operation just nort of Ft. Collins, CO with 8-10 large masts and can be seen for miles at night. He set up an antenna (IIRC about 6-8' of copper wire) and was able to capture enough energy to run a battery charger. I don't think I would have wanted to live 24/7 in that powerful of an EMS field. GNM

Welcome aboard from 7500' in SE Wyoming. Glad to have you. Although brass is generally much more available and common than bronze I seldom work with brass. Besides the issue you mention with zinc a lot of brass is an alloy that includes lead, to make machining of the brass easier. However, that means you cannot forge brass. When it is hot and you hit it with a hammer it just crumbles because the lead is already in a liquid state because of its low melting point. And, of course, we are now talking about lead fumes as well as zinc. Heavy metal fever is a BAD thing. Bronze can usually be forged unless it is an odd alloy. Bronze brazing rods are a good source. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Das, it was said in jest, that's why I used a ;-) afterwards. It was in response to Mothman's slightly sarcastic jab. All in fun. G

Das, true dat. The only "combat" photos I took were of the quad .50 because while we were in contact I was pretty busy directing the platoon and calling in artillery and air strikes and talking to my higher ups. Any photos were taken during quieter times. I also have a bunch that are more "touristy" which I took later in my tour when I was a Brigade S-5 (196th Light Infantry Brigade, part of the Americal Division) up around Da Nang. The bush photos were taken about along the border of II Corps and III Corps area at the southern end of the central highlands. Looking out from the fire bases it was as flat as Florida or Kansas in one direction and in the other the terrain looked like an unmade bed. I guess that I'll carry the shame of being an officer to my grave ;-). G

Mothman, I have always had an appreciation for scout dogs and their handlers. They kept us out of a couple ambushes and once allowed us to ambush the ambush. Also, when not working the dogs were friendly and were a bit of "The World" (home). IIRC the boar was very tasty and a nice change from C rations and LRRPs. The quad .50 (aka the popcorn machine) was working over the area below the firebase because movement had been spotted. We did get one secondary explosion in the area. So, the NVA had been planning something. I either don't recall or was never told if subsequent patrols found any bodies or other evidence. When I look at myself in the photo and then look in the mirror I realize what a long, strange journey it has been. And I always remember the guys who weren't as lucky as I was and didn't get to come home, grow old, raise a family, become a blacksmith, and be posting to IFI. RIP, shoulder brothers*. GNM * The Anglo-Saxons called the man who stood beside him in the shield wall "shoulder brother."

In soil science the name of the soil, in this case, Crockett, is the name of the location where it was first described scientifically. It is the same as with geologic formations, e.g. the Mesa Verde Sandstone, the Oglalla Formation, or what I am sitting on and get my well water from, the Casper Formation. So, this soil type was first described near someplace named Crockett (not surprising in Texas). The soil type will vary geographically. Hence, in your area it is fine sandy loam. A mile down the road it may be somewhat different, maybe coarse sandy loam. GNM PS I just mentioned this to my wife, Madelynn, and she raised the issue that if the clinker breaks down under use and becomes dusty that the dust may pose an inhalation hazard. This might not be a problem if it solidifies when moisture is added but it is probably an issue that needs to be addressed. I'm less concerned about this material because it is made of carbonates than I would be with something like coal clinker which is mostly silicates which break up into very sharp particles which can result in silicosis ("miner's tuberulosis"). G