George N. M.

Safety is sort of an odd concept. Unsafety can sneak up on you. The first few times you do something that you know is dangerous you approach it cautiously with full PPE and fear and trepidation in your heart. But after you have done the task successfully your cautiousness begins to wane. After you have done it a few hundred times you are doing it with your left (non-dominant) hand in cut offs and flip flops. And then when something goes bad and you are bleeding and in pain your first reaction is surprise. I have always tried to follow the philosophy that you don't want to die stupid. You don't want your last thought as the darkness comes down to be, "Boy, that was really dumb." There is a truism that I've heard in steel mills and mines that the most dangerous folk to work around are the rookies because they can do dangerous things out of ignorance and inexperience and the old timers because they can do dangerous things out of casualness and familiarity. HH, I'm sure that your photos and description will inspire many of us to be that much more cautious around power tools in general and angle grinders in particular. I'm sure that the experience will inform how you do things for the rest of your life. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Welcome aboard from 7500' in SE Wyoming. Glad to have you. I don't really have an opinion on the anvils except all other things being equal I'd go for the steel rather than the ductile iron. Probably better rebound. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Lovely job. You and your machinist get gold karma stars for bringing an old tool back to life and use. That is a very cool vise. I'm not sure I have ever seen one like it. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Welcome aboard from 7500' in SE Wyoming. Glad to have you. Is Katy, TX named after the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railroad? I know there is a RR museum in your town. On your horse head bottle openers have you tried putting on ears, either by just with a chisel mark or cutting and lifting the ear? Glad you are healing up. Power tools have to be respected if a person wants to avoid spilling precious bodily fluids and even then accidents can happen. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Yes, that makes sense. Thx. GNM

John, I'm so sorry to hear that. I hope it is a mild case with no lasting side effects. My best friend has had it twice now and has come through it OK both times. Do you have any idea how you contracted it. So far we have avoided it but Madelynn is very covid cautious and we are still keeping pretty locked down. You are in out thoughts and prayers. G&M "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

No, an "expert" is some SOB with a brief case who lives at least 50 miles away. As opposed to Irondragon's definition there is also the generalist who studies less and less about more and more until they know nothing about everything. ;-) "By hammer and hand all arts do stand." PS Rockstar, that reminds me of a joke about the guy in a hot air balloon who gets disoriented and goes down low to ask someone on the ground for directions. When he sees a guy on the ground the calls down, "Where am i?" The groundling replies, "You're in a balloon." The baloonist answers, "You must be a lawyer." Says the guy on the ground, "Why, yes. How did you know?" "Because you gave me an answer which was absolutely correct but also absolutely useless." GNM

John, I am only an occasional knifemaker but it looks to me like a combination of two things. One, the upper surface has more "topography" and the grinder is just hitting the high points of the upper surface and, two, rather than the edge of the grind line being the intersection of two flat planes the ground surface is curved towards the spine of the knife so that only the high points of the upper, rougher surface are touched by the grinding belt. I suspect that that area is done by holding the knife by hand against the belt rather than using a jig that keeps a constant angle. I'd try foughing up a piece of mild steel and then try different techniques to try to get the result you want. A forged and shaped knife is not a good experimental medium. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

I've sent him a PM. G

I think there are degrees of faking it. If I was asked by a County Commissioner "Do we have the authority to do X?" I might be able to say yes or no right then and there but I might have to say, "I'm not sure and be able to quickly research the issue because I am familiar with that body of law." On the other hand, if I was asked something about patent law I'd have to say that we needed to ask someone who specializes in that area, like Slag (BTW has anyone heard from Slag lately? I hope he is OK. I don't think he has posted in several months.) who is a patent attorney. There are other areas where I might give an answer that is an educated guess (kind of faking it) and go back later and double check my answer. I've been doing things in my area of experise long enough that my educated guesses are usually correct but occasionally I have to revise what I said. I think real "faking it" is giving an air of confidence when you don't have the knowledge or abilities to actually back it up. Works better at cocktail parties or when you are trying to impress someone of the opposite gender but not so well in a situation where you will eventually have to deliver. Where it can go really bad is in internet dating. If you lie about something, age, education, financial status you can bet you will be eventually found out. One lie will be inconsistent with other facts and you can't keep all the balls in the air all the time. When I met Madelynn on eHarmony I could have probably gotten away with knocking 10-15 years off my age but then it would have appeared that I had gone to Viet Nam when I was 12. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Frazer, I don't disagree with your advice to quickly stamp hot work and immediately cool the stamp but I think much of the hardness of your letter stamps is due to the alloy of which they are made than any hardening and tempering. In fact, I would bet that heat treating is not a step in the manufacturing process except possibly to normalize the stamps. Some steels can remain pretty hard wthout heat treating, very tough to forge but gves a long lasting tool. Frankly, a lot of letter and touchmark stamps really don't get used that much and won't degrade many details over time. I will bet that Templehound's bird does not get used very often since he must spend a lot of time on each of his wonderful blades. Erosion and wear is a valid consideration in choosing a touchmark. A simple one like Cimaera's is easily touched up or replaced while one which involves lots of detail work, not so much. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Chimera, I don't harden my touchmark punch or any other hot tool because the heat of the workpiece will immediately draw the temper. Just rely on the inherent toughness of the steel. Hardening and tempering are for tools such as knives and chisels that will be used on colder materials. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Mallory, Welcome aboard from 7500' in SE Wyoming. The anvil has had a lot of use but it is still very usable as long as it has decent rebound. Can't help on the maker or age though. BTW, if you put your general location in your profile it will help with answers. We will forget PA pretty quickly when we leave this thread. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Charfox, that's a xxxx of a story and I'm glad you made it. Not all military casulties are the result of enemy action. Welcome back to the world. Blacksmithing may be a way of developing new motor and neural pathways. It may take you a bit longer to develop the skills and muscle memory but I'm willing to bet that you can get there. GNM LTC, US Army (ret) late of 1/C/1/12 Cav/1 Cav Div (airmobile), Republic of Viet Nam, 1970-71

The day I paced 8444 it was very humid and she was wreathed in steam at speed. Very impressive. I was once northbound on Hwy 85 and saw smoke rising from some woods. As I crossed the South Platte River bridge 8444 came out of the trees pulling a revenue mixed freight train. I assume it was headed from Cheyenne, where the UP steam locos are based, to Denver for some excursion trip and they sent a string of freight cars with it. Unusual to see it in actual revenue service. Although 8444 is smaller than the Big Boy it is faster because it was designed to pull passenger trains while the Big Boys were designed for freight service, particularly over Sherman Hill between Cheyenne and Laramie. Speed vs. torque. BTW, the subdivision I live in is named "Sherman Hill Estates." GNM

PS I earlier mentioned watching and pacing UP 8444 along US 85 south of Greeley, CO. Here is a video of that engine along the same track doing 75 mph. I can imagine the engineer recieving his orders and when he reads them they say, "Warp 10, Mr. Scott." When I looker this up I saw that I had commented on it a year ago. Some of the other comments are interesting. "Our fathers' magic carpet made of steel." -Arlo Gutherie The City of New Oleans

Frosty, you probably know this but I'll throw this out for our friends who are not blessed with local steam railroads: In a RR roatary snowplow the engine powers the plow. Movement is provided by one or more pusher locomotives. Here is a video of a rostary snowplow operating on the Cumbres and Toltec, a senic/tourist RR, that operates along the Colorado/New Mexico border along a portion of the old Denver and Rio Grande Western right of way between Cumbres, NM and Antonito, CO. They use their rotary to clear the tracks every spring before they start operations for the season. I have ridden the route and highly recommend it as well and the Silverton Train between Durango and Silverton, CO on a different portion of the D&RGW right of way. Both are narrow guage (3' IIRC). "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Madelynn is the family genaeologist and she has turned up some stuff that I never knew abouty my near and distant ancestors. I found out that my father had been married and divorced in the 1920s and '30s well before he met my mother. As far as I know my mother never knew this. I also was able to discover detailed military records of one of my many times great grandfathers who had been in the NY militia in the Mohawk Valley and fought Native Americans and Tories during the American Revolution. Families tend to recall and sometimes exaggerate the roles and feats of ancestors and never mention the ones who were hung as horse thieves or were less than faithful to their spouses or fled before a crowd of creditors. We probably all have ancestors who were admirable and some who were scoundrels. They can be both an inspiration and a warning to us. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Here in Laramie we are on the main line of the Union Pacific RR and it is a good place for a rail fan. A couple of summers ago we had the Big Boy, the largest steam locomitive in the world, which the UP recently renovated after it being in a CA musweum for half a century, stop here for several days. I've also seen the UP's Challenger 8444, the Big Boy's little brother, operating at high speed south of Greeley, CO where the right of way is right beside the highway. When you are pacing a steam loco at 70 mph the wheels and connecting rods are right on the endge of being a blur. Very impressive and a memory I will treasure all my life. Here is a video of the Big Boy and Challenger, double headed, coing into Laramie in 2019. "By hammer and hand (and steam locomotives) all arts do stand."

Mothman, when making your candleholders on the press do you use some sort of softer backing to get the dish shape or does the thinning and expanding of the metal under pressure against a hard surface cause the dishing? Thx, GNM

TW, the pictures of Max on the train greatly remind me of my son, Tom, when he was little. He was fascinated by trains. One time when he was about 4 he was playing with his Thomas the Tank Engine toys and looked up at me and said "Trains (are) my life." We rode most of the steam trains in Colorado with him and would go out to see RR events such as big steam engines going by. Martha and I had our own interests in railroads and it all fit together very well. GNM

When the natural nuclear reaction in Africa was discovered it pretty well shot down the argument that nuclear power is "unnatural" because it produces elements and isotopes that do no occur in nature. I had heard that nuclear power was "ungodly" because of that. That said, I don't think I would have wanted to be close to an outcrop that "hot" when it was actually working. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

The last time I was to a big flea market I noticed that there was a lot higher percentage of vendors selling cheap Chinese junk and fewer selling good used stuff than there used to be. Possibly a sign of the times. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

it depends a lot on how large the anvil is, by weight. Here in the US used anvils, depending on size and condition can run from about $US 3-6/pound. New anvils are about $US4-7/pound. Assuming that it was about 100 pounds before it lost its heel I'd say that up to $NZ 150-250 is about as high as I would go but you have to decide what your own resouces are and when you may have a chance at a better anvil or deal. Good luck. Let us know how it turns out. If you can possibly do a rebound test before you bid do so. There are some very good anvils which ahve been damaged in a fire or otherwise mishandled that have lost their rebound and are worth little more than scrap value. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Mothman, this is my own aesthetic preference but I suggest either texture all over a piece or not at all or some kind of a pattern done with chisels and punches. The few random spots looks like a shotgun pattern to me. Just my own taste. You can vary a hammer texture by using tools with a different radius, large ball peen vs. small ball peen vs. rounding hammer, etc. or even mix and match the size of the depressions with greater or lass impact and well as different tools. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."