George N. M.

It also looks similar to my Harbor Freight metal cutting band saw. I think the general prinicples are much the same no matter what the brand. The details may be different, e.g. what you turn to adjust blade tension or how to adjust the cant of the driving or idler wheels. So, manuals for similar tools of different brands may offer some general guidance. Just don't try to use cutting oil. It gets on the blade and caused slippage on the driving and idler wheels. I won't go into why I know this. I tend to use mine primarily in the upright position. I have plenty of ways to cut off metal but the band saw's primary use is to cut slots, e.g. to make a Fredrick's cross. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

I'm not going to flame you but I do think that it is unwise and unnecessary to mill anything off the face of a decent anvil. If you really need a dead level surface mill it off a piece of scrap from your local salvage/scrap yard rather than reducing the utility and value of your anvil. It is your property and you can do with it as you will but IMO it is illogical and wasteful. I think I speak for most of the folk here who have a collective blacksmithing experience counted in centuries. If you care to ignore that advice it is your choice but that strikes me as being contrarian just to be contrarian rather than weighing other folks' opinions and relevant experience into your decision. I do hope that you reconsider your plan. GNM

I strongly recommend that you look up and join Rocky Mountain Smiths. They are a good group and have good hammer ins and other events. Well worth the dues. GNM

Welcome aboard from 7500' in SE Wyoming. Glad to have you. If someone doesn't respond, yu can go to your local library and borrow Anvils In America through Inter Library Loan. BTW, if you put your general location in your profile we can give you better answers. Many responses are geography dependant. We don't know if you are in Lapland or Tierra de Fuego. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Mammoth, welcome aboard from 7500' (and currently snowing) in SE Wyoming. Glad to have you. The anvil in question appears to have a cast body with a tool steel face, which is chipped in the corner nearest the horn. As a cast anvil it will probably have less ring than a forged anvil but that doesn't really affect its use except that higher ringing anvils usually have better rebound which is important. To test rebound take a ball bearing of about 3/4 - 1 " and drop it from 10" from the face of the anvil. Measure how high it bounces back. 80%+ is good rebound, 90% is excellent. Less than 50%, it is a POS and you should walk away. Some good anvils have been through fires and have lost the temper in the face and have poor rebound. You can do a rebound test with a hammer but if you are inexperienced and don't know how the rebound from a good anvil feels it is marginal if you coukd make an informed decision with this test. Also, if the sound of the anvil varies much across the face it may mean the face plate has delaminated from the body, particularly if there is an area that sounds "dead.". This is a BAD thing. BTW, I've never seen that blunt a horn on an anvil that appears to be as manufactured. I wouldn't buy it unless the rebound test was at least good. A good improvised anvil (see the threads on the subject) is better than a poor London Pattern (this is a London Pattern anvil). Smiths have been using a plain hunk of metal as an anvil for thousands of years. The London Pattern has only been around for 250+ years. If you put your general location in your profile we can give you better answers. A surprising number of answersn are geography dependant. I suspect from the ad that you are in the USA but you could also be in the UK or Tasmania. Again, glad to have you. Tells us about your shop and work. We LOVE pictures. I hope the craft is as rewarding to you as it has been for me for the last 44 years. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

The geology/soil science version of the Peter Principle is "The clods sink to the top." "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

MJ, I don't think that electric arc welding was as sophisticated and reliable in the WW2 era as it is today. I recall reading an account of the Siege of Corrigedor in 1942 where the statement was made was that toward the end of the siege they were running out of welding gases to repair the guns from bomb and artillery damage and had to rely only on electric welding with the implication that arc welding was inferior to gas welding. GNM

Ben, is the forge the gray thing in the far corner with the hood? Interesting that there appears to be an exhaust hood over the work table in the middle of the compartment. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Anvil, that reminded me of the truism that much, much more fiction has been preceded with "This ain't no xxxx, man" and "There I was ..." than ever has beginning with "once upon a time ..." I think that humans are hard wired to register anything looking bipedal as humanoid just as we see a face in anything that has 2 dots and a line in a rough triangle. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Nodebt, no apology necessary. What poked a tgender spot was Frosty's comment about public officials not doing :real" work, not yours. Yes, I know that Frosty was a state employee for many years but that in a sense makes the comment worse. I know he was trying to be funny but it is still a little .... unseemly. It is sort of like an attorney telling lawyer jokes or someone telling ethnic jokes about their own ethnic group. It just kind of pushed my button. But, anyway, we have all had our vent. Good for us to purify the humors now and then. BTW, on the topic of reporting on the local winds and tides it is now 34 degrees here and snowing, visibility no more than 1/4 mile. GNM

In the west many sheriff's departments have posses (aka auxiliaries) but they usually handle things like traffic control, search and rescue, etc.. Sometimes they are called "posse" and sometimes not. Sometimes they are actually mounted. They may even be armed with either issued, Sheriff owned weapons, or their own personal weapons. They rarely, if ever, chase bad guys. But in most states there are still statutes that allow the sheriff to conscript any citizen in an emergency to assist him or her. This descends from the Old English Common Law of "raising the hue and cry" where the whole community was supposed to pursue a malefactor. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Billy, very cool and pretty. I am assuming that the center piece at the top of the photo loops back toward the viewer to make the hanging hook. Correct? "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Army, the principle quality which makes a good annealling medium is insulation. Anything that will allow the metal to cool slowly as possible is good. A secondary virtue is being non-combustible since you are putting red hot metal in it. Styrofoam or bubblewrap are great at insulating but pretty poor at resisting heat. So, vermiculte (a mica mineral) or ashes of any sort are a good, non combustible material to anneal metal. I've even wrapped things in fiberglass insulation batts. GNM "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Nodebt, no, drones are those folk who don't pull their own weight no matter what job they are in. We have all known them. They are the ones who do the minimum work to avoid getting fired but that is all. You never see them do anything more. And, they usually whine about how hard life is. In a sense, they are right, being lazy is hard work, avoiding work takes lots of effort. They are both the guys in ties standing around the water cooler and the guys standing around a construction site watching one guy slowly sweep with a broom. They are the guys who tell you, "Don't work so hard. You're making the rest of us look bad." IMO, almost all work is "real" work whether you are working with your back or your brain. There is nothing special about doing a job that a machine or an animal could do as well and there is no virtue in using your brain to do calculations that could be done as accurately and faster by a computer. If a skill or craft or profession or job is important enough that someone else will pay you good money to do it, it is "real" work. I have worked at enough jobs, including the business end of a shovel, in the steel mills, hard rock mines, kitchens, and the infantry to arguing cases at state Suprreme Courts to know that I would rather work with my brain than my back. That said, I have great respect for the folk who do the "dirty" jobs that need to be done in this world. I've done them and know what is involved. GNM

OK, Frosty, as a former "public official" I'd like to know what "real work" is and how public employees are not doing it. My experience in public and private employment is that there is about the same ratio of good workers and drones where ever you go and at whatever level. I have seen excellent and awful employees and supervisors in both the private and public sector. GNM

Frosty, the Columbia Basalts and the Snake River Lava Plain are both the result of the North American Plate moving across a "hot spot" or plume from the mantle which is now under Yellowstone. So, they are related but not exactly the same. As you say, not as big or old as the Siberian Traps or the Deccan Traps in India but still very impressive in volume and area. Most of the mega flood features from the catastrophic drainings of Glacial Lake Missoula are in the Columia Bassalts such as Grand Coulee, etc.. That is not an area you would have wanted to live during the Pleistocene. Yes, Yellowstone could heat up but it is unlikely. We just do not have the technology or enough eruptive history to make any kind of accurate prediction. It could happen next year but could easily not happen for 10k years. GNM

Frosty & Army, not to mention the Snake River Lava Plain and other interesting geologic bits in the area. "By hammer and hand (and geology) all arts do stand."

John, during WW2 British soldiers from Northumberland and Yorkshire could roughly communicate with the Frisians in the Northern Netherlands. GNM

For those of you who are dealing with 80s and 90s temperatures in May I will tell you it is not a universal problem. It snowed about an 1-1.5" here last night and is snowing now with visibility about a quarter mile. Temperature is about 30 degrees F. Ah, springtime in the Rockies. ;-) So, no work in the shop today. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Army, One suggestion that I have is that when you watch a demonstration live or on video you then go and do it yourself as soon as possible. That develops muscle/kinethetic memory which lasts much longer and is more accurate than just plain mental memory. Also, it helps to know what kind of learning works best for you. Some people are visual learners, some are aural (hearing) learners, and some are kinesthetic learners. Most folk are a combination but some have to have it presented a certain way or they have a hard time getting it. I'd been blacksmithing for 12-15 years before I ever met another blacksmith. Part of that was living in Wyoming where every kind of person is thin on the ground. You might also try contacting local farriers since there is a significant overlap in the crafts. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

MJ, you're welcome. This is a conjunction of two areas of military history for me, artillery and naval history. If the University of Wyoming had had a Naval ROTC program I would have probably gone inbto that service instead of the Army because my father was in the Navy during WW2. The USS Wyoming has been an interest because of the state association. I have drunk from the silver punch bowl (10 gallon capacity) which was part of the silver service given to the ship by the state in 1912. When the ship was decommissioned the silver service was returned to the state and is now held by the State Historical Museum and Archives. GNM

TW, two suggestions if the penetrating oil and sledge hammer don't work: 1) drill out the bottom of the hardy so that there is some "give" in the shank. The more metal you remove the better. 2) heat the body of the anvil with a weed burner to get it to expand a bit more than the stuck hardy and then try to drive it out. I'm not talking about anything hot enough to draw any temper, more like 3-400 degrees F. You can get temperature indicator pencils/crayons at a welding supply shop. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Army, you may be in kind of a blacksmithing desert as far as organizations in the area. For events and hammer ins you may have to travel to WA or OR or down to UT in the other direction. For a multi-day conference I suggest that it is worth the time and effort. Lots of us, myself included have been lone eagles and largely self taught. It is not ideal but can be done. When I started all I had were books and lots of my own mistakes. I prob ably still do some thing bass ackwards because I did not have a teacher or mentor. Today, with the addition of good You Tube instructional videos it is probably easier to develop expertise by yourself. Also, you have IFI to query which is a huge resource both immediate and the archives. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

MJ, 12" guns were used on both dreadnaught and pre-dreadnaught battleships of the US Navy from the 1890s to about 1912-13. They were also used on the Alaska class largre cruisers in late WW2. The US Army also used 12" guns for coastal defense from the 1880s to through WW2. However, the gun in question has a large bracket above the breech with 2 large holes in which was part of the recoil system. Most of the US Army 12" guns were mounted on disappearing carriages which did not have this. However, the M1912 barbette carriage had recoil cylinders on top of the barrel but when you compare this gun with photos of the guns on Corregidor the holes in the recoil bracket appear further apart on the gun in the Philippines. So, my guess is that because of this and the traces of gray paint it is of USN origin. The last 12" gunned USN battleships were the USS Arkansas and the USS Wyoming. The Arkansas was sunk during the atomic tests at Bikini Atoll in 1946 and the Wyoming had the last of her 12" guns removed in 1944. The cruisers Alaska and Guam were broken up on the east coast about 1960. So, and this is, as they say in the legal profession, "mere speculation," I suspect that this gun was either from one of the WW2 cruisers or was a spare barrel for them. If Thomas is able to find any markings on the breech it might narrow down the origin and history of the gun. This is probably more detail than anyone was expecting but when I get on a military history nerd roll I can go on a bit. GNM Thomas, just read your post. This means that is definitely a USN gun. 1908 is likely the year of manufacture. So, it could be off one of the older battleships scrapped after WW1. Or a spare barrel for one of them. Thanks, that is a great help.

Nat, a couple of things: First, I'm not entirely clear about your most recent question but I think that it is a problem with translation. Many leg vises have had the leg cut off. I suspect once they were not used by a blacksmith they were converted to bench vises and the leg was in the way. This can be corrected by welding an extension on or building up a base to support the short leg. My primary post vise would be too short for me if the leg was on the ground (I'm fairly tall, 6'2" (1.83m)). So, I have a block of wood under the bottom of the leg to bring the jaws up to a comfortable height. I'm not sure I understand "woulnd shorter leg make anvils shorter". The vise and the anvil are mounted separately and one does not affect the other. If a spring is missing either a leaf spring or a coil spring will work as a replacement. I have seen both. It does not have to be very "springy" because all it is doing is moving the jaw enough to let gravity take over as you are opening the jaws. If the screw and box are in good shape and the price is right I would buy it. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."