Donal Harris

Which did you choose, and how did it go?

This is an old topic, but why would this be better than just using vinegar? Vinegar is less expensive and appears to work OK.

Bought it. $400 + a steak turner/bottle opener in trade. Now I have to make the 4 1/2 hour trip to BFE to pick it up.

I let a very clean (except for the bird poop) 154# Sodefors @ $750 pass me by at the Sulphur, Oklahoma Tractor Show a month or so ago. I let a decently repaired 130ish# Arm and Hammer anvil pass me by last month. It had two Pritchel holes which threw me. That coupled with the welded and reworked edges. $500. Peter Wright. Unknown weight (described as all you can carry) $400. It was just 40 miles away, but someone had welded chain links to the base. So I passed. Properly priced anvils in the Central Oklahoma area seem to be rare now. Any one of the above anvils would have been acceptable. I suppose I am like my dad in a way. He can spend two or three years looking for a new truck.

I found this for sale. 120#. Asking price is $450. I’m a little concerned about the edges which appear to have been welded. I think I can make out traces of welding in the Hardy hole. It is 4 hours away from me. How risky would you say this is? I like the Mouse Hole anvils. They all look thick and stout. What do you think. Take a day trip to Arkansas and see the sights along the way to look at an anvil that is likely a dud? Maybe even pick up some other anvil or tools along the way. Central Oklahoma has a few anvils to be found but all see to be at full inflated Forged in Fire and Game of Thrones prices.

I was a little worried about what I would find when I finally managed to get the ‘thing’ off. I thought the bottom of the leg may have rusted completely and I might need to put it back in, so I was careful not to break it. SOtherwise I would have just cut it off. Now I am stuck with some floor mounting thing that I seriously doubt I will ever find a use for sitting around taking up space. Can’t toss it because even though the day I find I need it will never ever come, I gotta keep it.....I am not a hoarder, but I think I may be a carrier of the gene. This is the end of the leg. A lot of rust, but I don’t think it is too deep to save. The rust looks odd. Is it wrought iron.

I believe you are right Stevomiller.

Isn’t the spring missing?

The can-like thing, I assume it is to set the vise in a concrete floor. I tried double-tapping to edit the size of the photo. That option did not appear. How do I reduce the pixel count? It took quite a bit of work with a chisel and punch, but I finally got it off. I had Googled and looked at thousands of leg vise images and could find nothing on that “can-like” thing. The vise was too tall with it on and too short if I set the can into the floor. Sorry about the size.

Nice looking knife. Be sure your wife understands those scales will swell and split if she tosses it in the dishwasher.

There are a number of YouTube videos which explain how to restore what appear to be totally dead tools. Some use electrolysis while others use vinegar or extended soaks in kerosene. One guy even used ice on a drill. Heat I had known about, but ice I had not. Should you open it up and find the screw shaft and box are stripped, there is even a video of a guy who replaced the screw shaft and box with a threaded rod and coupling, but he had access to a machine shop. If that were to be the case for me, I would just have to accept that I had a very cool piece for the garden. The only real problem I have ever had with getting a rusted shut tool to work again has been rust which has gone too deep. But usually that isn’t the case. It does require quite a lot of patience though.

So I have learned. I thought all that was over when I quit golfing, but they seem about the same in that aspect. Just as there is always yet another new putter or driver that will “fix” your swing or stroke, there seems to be always another this or that tool which will magically make my forgings cleaner. Bradley. I grew up in Rush Springs, so I’ve been through there many times. Not often now though. I normally take the other road and pass through Dibble and Chickasha when visiting my parents since they opened the road up leading into Chickasha. It seems faster. I sometimes go to the SW region’s SCABA meetings. Perhaps I will see you at one. I had been looking forward to my first SCABA conference last weekend, but life happened instead as it sometimes does. Off topic, but I assume I am allowed to hijack my own thread? I don’t know how to upload photos yet, but I just finished wire brushing my post vise I spoke of above. I was wrong. Some of the original paint is still there. I first noticed it on the leg and thought it just looked like paint. But when cleaning off the U-shaped bracket that holds the vise to the mounting plate, I found what is unmistakably paint. It look a heck of a lot like OD Green. Could it have been an Army vise?

RAs the title says, I am a hobbyist and live in Purcell. I have a wife, three daughters, only one of my girls is still school age. The one still at home has 5 cats, meaning I have 5 cats. TL;DR version: I am a blacksmithing newb from Oklahoma. I work in a clinical lab. I don’t have a lot of equipment, but that really doesn’t seem to matter much. My interest is primarily ornamental and architectural iron working. The Great Wall of Text version: I work in a clinical lab, primarily inventory control, cost accounting, process improvement, negotiating contracts with vendors and clinics, and other business related aspects of the lab. It has been well over a decade since I have actually performed testing of specimens. I am a complete newb where blacksmithing is concerned. I have watched a lot of videos and read quite bit online, both here and other sites. So I know a lot about it, but haven’t progressed past the drive and S hooks, leaf, cross, and steak turner stage in actual practice. I don’t have much in the way of equipment. I use a brake drum forge which was fabricated by a friend. It is pretty cool. It only cost $35. That was for the steel plate he used for the top, and most of that was to pay to have a circle cut for the drum to fit in. The rest was just bed frames, oilfield pipe and other bits from his junk pile. For a blower, I have gone through three or four of my wife’s hair dryers. My anvil likes like something like a piece of rail from the railroad, but the salvage guy said it isn’t. He said it came from a bridge. I have it mounted to a stump I picked up at the city’s recycling center. It works well considering what it is, but with no horn, hardie, or pritchel holes, I will be buying one eventually. SCABA may have anvils for sale soon, just as they do cone mandrels and swage blocks. I have a Champion #40 blower and a post vise. Both weirdly have been usable as they were but I chose to wait until I cleaned the rust and red clay off both and replaced them with BLO. I am about ready to put the vise back together. The blower will take a little more time. I am debating painting it. I have heard these blowers were at one time painted red, but I am unsure of this. None of the original paint is left. Just rust, oil and dirt. In the end I will likely just go with BLO. I have seen some shine them up with flap disks, but I am not planning to do that. Perhaps if I paint the blower, but certainly not the vise. I like the black look you get after using a wire wheel on rusted iron. And with a BLO finish you can still feel the iron. It is just as good with iron and steel as it is with wood. I suppose that is more than enough about me for now. Thanks for all the very good information you guys have contributed to this site.

I like the one on the left. To me framing hammers should have a waffle face, but only because my dad’s did. No other reason. You did a good job with the waffling. It doesn’t appear milled, yet the lines are straight and essentially evenly spaced. I prefer the shape of the handle of the one on the right. I don’t particularly like handles which bulges in the middle. The one on the left seems to have a bulge, whereas the one on the right appears to have be evenly tapered, growin wider as it gets closer to the butt of the handle. Like others, I don’t care for burning a handle. Supposedly you can harden a handle by burning, but here I think you have done it strictly for appearance. Rather than burning the handle, have you consider trying something like ferric nitrate or Auqua Fortis reagent to make the grain and any figuring in the wood more prominent? The effect will not be as dramatic as it would be with a highly figured wood like curly maple, but it does look good nonetheless. It gives the wood a nice rich yellowish color as if it were an old, well cared for handle. The stuff is fairly nasty though. It is safer to purchase the commercial reagent, but you can make it yourself. If you ever decide to try it, follow all the recommended safety precautions as if your life depended on it, because it does. There are videos on YouTube about how to use it. Lastly, I prefer handles to be finished flush to the top of the hammer. Leaving them proud to me makes them appear unfinished, but as will every single one of my other comments is simply my own personal preference. I believe your hammers appear to be very well made and I only wish I could forge half as well. BTW, from what I have read from other posts of his, my saying Frosty is right is likely redundant, but I believe he is right. A roofing hatchet would be more marketable than a framing hatchet, although even they are being replaced more and more these days with nail guns. And having worked as a roofer’s helper in Jacksonville the Summer after I got out of the Army, I can tell you all those I have ever met are stupid free with their money. (No offense intended to any roofers in the forum.) All that Summer long we worked hard from morning till dusk every day the chance of rain was less than 20%. And every night we were in the clubs until long after we should have been in bed asleep. Edited to add: Jeez I sure laid down a wall of text there.

Takes you a couple minutes. On my phone, quite a bit longer. :-) And with people in over 150 countries potentially reading what what I post, I think I will be a bit more careful about what I say.

Perhaps I could have been a little clearer.. I expected to find a more up to date list of SCABA events. Our annual conference is the 13th and 14th, but isn’t mentioned. We have a website where scheduled meetings are listed, so I can see how listing SCABA events here also might be a little redundant.

I was hoping I might be able to ask questions and get answers from people I know. I guess that isn’t likely to happen

Bells, trivets, ornaments for the tree, hooks for hanging stockings, candle holders, poinsettias, cork screws. Cork screws are a little tricky for me. Poinsettias also, but shouldn’t be. Trivets.....the joinery I haven’t learned yet. Bells I can do. Ornaments and hooks also aren’t hard to do. Edited to add: So this is something I have to make and post an image of? I suppose I should have read the Sticky first