Purple Bullet

I can't deny that. Most days at the forge my wife makes me change shirts four to five times a day, and I could probably wring a cup of sweat out of each. There's not much that scares me, but I think I'll just avoid the opportunity to experience REAL cold.

I know the kind of cold we in South Louisiana are experiencing now is just a normal winter day for most of you guys, but I don't see how you stand it. I feel like I have to cut the air up into blocks and warm them up just to be able to inhale.

Single digits F is more than a "bit chilly" but glad to hear you're home.

Between wrapping pipes under the house and preparing lights to keep the naval orange trees from freezing I don't expect to get much done in the shop except looking for things cold will hurt (like epoxy and other glues). 24 deg F with a high of 34 might be a normal winter day for some of you guys, but down here it's potential disaster.

Said the man with a "harem of anvils".

I originally thought I would cut my pritchel mod flush with the surface but thought better of it. The roller has a nice radius to start easy bends as it is and if it gets in the way I can just pop it out. The face has reportedly been hardened to ~45-55. This would make drilling difficult unless you spot-annealed it with a torch, a chancy operation IMHO. George - Rebound is reasonable, not exceptional. It is slightly better than my old anvil but not so hard that I would worry about chipping or cracking on a miss hit. I'm satisfied with it. The increased work area over my old anvil feels almost luxurious. I was considering a Rigid 165, but I don't think I can see over $1100 USD difference in what I could do with it.

As I mentioned earlier, I am making a few modifications to my new Vevor 132. First I made an adapter for the one inch hardy to fit my 3/4 inch hardy tools. It’s just square tubing with about an inch of the sides folded down to make a flange to hold it in place. Then I used my flap disc grinder to round off a part of the far face corner. The round hole (I don’t think it was ever intended to be a pritchel) is much too large to use while punching holes. I have a few stainless steel rollers. I don’t remember where they came from but the hole in the middle was just right. I turned it to fit on the lathe and milled a flat to match. I’m pretty happy with the result.

I wasn't personally involved, but some fellow divers were inspecting pipeline behind a lay barge in the Gulf of Mexico. They built a raw egg launcher out of pvc pipe, some fittings and a quarter-turn valve hooked up to their dive compressor. The critical part, they found was the wadding. It couldn't be too loose or too tight, but when they finally got it right they used the side of the lay barge for practice. They were pretty proud of themselves until the next time they pulled up alongside of the lay barge. The whole crew met them and hand-delivered a few cartons of eggs all over their equipment and deck.

Hmmm, my egg normalization process involves copious quantities of Pickapeppa.

Getting back to the subject, I know I said I wasn't in a hurry about buying one of these, but after thinking about it a bit I went ahead and ordered one. It came fast! It was in an intact crate, FedEx backed up my driveway to deliver next to the house, (I was there and took possession with a hand truck) after opening, yeah, there is some bondo and patches on the underside, but the top is pristine flat and hard, providing twice the surface area and many more options for pounding metal than my old anvil. That is good. And it only cost $239.99 delivered. That is cheap! Sometimes there are exceptions to the rules. Now, is it the best? No. I will probably do some mods to make my hardy tools fit and besides the odd location of the pritchel it is much too large and needs cleaning out. I'll probably do some grinding and flap disc work on the horn, but that is part of the fun. I will never get rid of my old anvil. I don't know what brand it is. I think it was a cast iron with a welded on face. It has the vague shape of an eagle on one side. It's adequate, but not great, but it was one that was given me by my wife's grandfather who I loved very much. The sentimental value far outweighs any practical value it may have.

Thomas - Doctors are useful and helpful, but they don't run the universe. Most of them will admit to that.

The cheapest set-up I can think of to weld (apart from forge welding) is flux-core arc. For ~$150.USD you can get something that not only welds the end of cable, but you can do light fabrication such as building stands and such. In some ways flux core is better than MIG in that it is less susceptible to wind and tolerates grease and dirt better (not that I'm advocating you not clean before welding). I also find that I make fewer tie-in errors with flux core. I have flux-core MIG, TIG and stick. If I'm outside it's gotta be flux-core or stick. Inside where I want it pretty or on non-ferrous, MIG or TIG. I'm blessed to see you posting, Thomas.

Pencils and T-square I understand, but slide rule? Wow! I have my dad's old slide rule and I know how to multiply and divide with it but haven't actually used one for over forty years. Have fun with the build!

Finally finished my wife's 51st wedding anniversary gift. It was a little late, but she didn't mind.

Hey Arkans. In our engineering group at a major oil company we used to say "I can get what you want fast, good or cheap - pick any two." The cosmetic issues that I have seen (admittedly, only online - always suspect) had nothing to do with the function of the anvil. The weird pritchel can be gotten around, but that is half the fun of smithing! Figuring out how to do stuff. I probably wouldn't buy a HF anvil shaped object, but if I had one and didn't have anything else I'd sure as heck use it. I've used shipyard gantry rails (like RR tracks but a little larger) and other random hunks of metal. One of my favorites when I was doing some improvising offshore was a large boat bit. My anvil was bought by my wife's grandfather from an sugar plantation auction. I had to replace about half the face with hard surface rods back when those could be had for a reasonable price. The surface could only be described as "nominally flat" and doesn't have a lot of bounce. I'm considering one of those anvils myself, but I'm not in a hurry. Why? Cause what I have works.

Get Thomas' wife to give you lessons. The first time I saw her writing I assumed it was done with a computer using a calligraphy font. Then I did a double take. It was hand printed on a cardboard box, NOT a label . I was so impressed I cut it out and saved it. I was really disappointed that I couldn't make Quad State this year, knowing that Thomas was going. I still hope to meet him. Get well Thomas!

It looks like a dedicated heating tip, like a rosebud. I might have to look into getting one of those. So far I only have a cutting torch for oxy-propane and oxy-acetylene for brazing. BTW - If that was oxyacetylene wouldn't the flame be more blue?

Well, it didn't work out. Frosty's advice was good and I'm sure the rest is as well. Where the silver flowed it stuck fast to the tang. My problem was the geometry of what I was trying to cast in green sand. I packed the blade with the wax guard and bolster into a bucket with the green sand. I left just a tip exposed of the guard and bolster. I then tilted the bucket on its side and used a MAPP torch to melt the wax out. It looked like a lot of wax went into the sand but I figured that wouldn't hurt. The silver hardened up before it flowed all the way around the blade and plugged the pour hole. I may just go back to brazing a brass guard or try brazing silver. I probably should try again, though, leaving one entire side exposed. I was trying to pour with the plane of the tang vertical. Maybe I should try it flat. That would guarantee a large enough pour area although I may lose a bit more silver in shaping. Steve - I use oxy-acetylene to edge quench and a toaster oven to temper. If I wrap the silver guard in wet rags for the quench I'm hoping to keep the guard below the melting point of silver solder. I'll have to get back to this later. Right now I'm trying to make a bouquet of a half dozen Russian roses for our 51st wedding anniversary. When I do, I'll let y'all know. Thanks for the help.

Thanks Frosty. That makes sense. I was planning on quenching and tempering AFTER I get the guard on. I figure it would be easier to temperature protect the guard than the blade, although I'm sure that would work too. I just got the ceramic crucibles and tongs in today.

My granddaughter wants a knife. Not just any knife. She wants a serpentine blade dagger in feather cable damascus. I have some old silver spoons that I'd like to use on the guard and a bolster near the pommel. I plan to use some horn scales. I typically braze a guard in place before heat treating. I braze a length of 1/4" brazing rod on either side, smash them together where they extend past the blade, braze/weld the pieces together then grind and polish as needed. I know silver CAN be brazed, but I've never done it. I was thinking of making a model of wax on the blade, packing tight in green sand (Mississippi River sand is very fine grain down here) melting out the wax and pouring in the silver. I drilled a couple of holes through the tang where the silver will go to make solid mechanical connection. However, being buried in sand I would not be able to preheat the steel very much. I'm afraid that the different coefficients of expansion might be a problem. Anyone ever try this?

Alexandr, the quality and quantity of your work continually amaze me.

Another nephew, another wedding, another knife and roses. The blade is cable-feather Damascus. The guard is brazed on. The scales are from a root ball of osage orange. I've tried to make scales from it before, but found them too brittle. I made a vacuum chamber from a disc, a stainless bucket and a venturi vacuum and used a UV resistant epoxy to stabilize. There was already a crack in the scales, but after stabilizing in epoxy they seem pretty strong.

Ah! So they are NOT metallic?! Maybe someone was a fulgurite collector.

I think the casting is a good hypothesis. Similar, but random sizes may be from vents or sprue cutoffs. Barrels may have held them until the wood rotted away. The joined pieces are probably just corroded together. Back in my diving days I once came across something I thought must be a badly corroded cannon ball. Getting it to the surface revealed it was a bag of nuts that corroded into a solid ball and the bag rotted away.

Yep, and the corollary is "easily offended is just a step from perdition."