Ferrous Beuler

Prayers and best wishes George. My wife had a brain tumor last year, a menengioma and the whole experience was very tough. She had a very skilled neurosurgeon perform her surgery, the chairman of the neurosurgery department at Strong Memorial in Rochester, NY. Having a good surgeon is very reassuring but nothing can keep the feelings of helplessness at bay save for faith in God. When the time came for her to be taken into the operating room and I had to leave her I felt smaller than a grain of sand. Then there was an ease which came over me and I believe that was my faith being answered and letting me know it would be ok. My wife is a strong willed woman and has been a nurse for more than twenty years. Its not easy for someone like that to have the roles reversed. One month before this she had elbow surgery, less than one year before, a hysterectomy and still her doctors are pestering her to have surgeries for her shoulder and foot. Enough is enough. I can't tell her to have the others, it's up to her. I cannot fathom myself in her shoes, for me to go through what she has. George I know how devastating this is but know that you are not alone, kneemail is on the way from here... Keep the faith.

I'm with Bob on this one, the price was about right. The pic is no longer there but I got a 93 lb PW for about the same price per pound. Bob's right, a few years down the road it won't matter what you paid as anvils are getting to be tougher to find as time goes on, especially those in good condition. You can't wait for PW's to go on sale at WalMart to save a few bucks, get the point? You find them where you find them so if you've been looking for awhile then you know how the "wait for another one" thing is like, could be next week or two years from now. I've seen rediculously high prices on anvils in antique shops, one you might think should go for say, $150 will be marked up to twice that or more and I think that's a shame because it could be being used instead of collecting dust in some yuppie trinket shop because the proprietor just wants to scalp somebody for as much as possible. So if you've gone down antique shop lane you know that's not the place to look and it really isn't all that easy to find someone with an anvil in good shape that they are willing to sell at a fair price. Nevermind the guys that harp how easy it is to find a decent anvil and how cheap they get them, it's bunk. You got a good deal and more importantly, HEY, YOU GOT A NICE PW !!! Congrats, you will continue to enjoy it for years to come as the prices for them continue into the clouds and they become scarcer and scarcer thanks to the piranha bidding frenzy mentality on Epay and gready antique dealers, etc.

Aral, add your location to your info under your avatar. Could be you are just up the road from a more advanced smith -or a whole mob of them- who could get you fired up in short order. It's like we're all hearing the cry for help but can't see where to throw the rope in the darkness... Plenty of ways to skin a cat, a forge can be made with little more than a shovel and a few rocks, been done that way for 5,000 years before Lowe's and Home Depot showed up. There are endless answers from thousands of folks on this site, worldwide. It would help if they knew where you are, you don't have to pinpoint yourself, just what state, province, region, etc... You'll be surprised, likely a group right near you and you'll fit right in...

Or it'd be -30F

Failte !!! :D

Try it as flux...

Please tell Mrs. Paul she did a fine job !!! Are you sure you havn't created a monster? Could be pretty soon you'll have to pencil in dates on the calendar to request when you might get some hammer time in the used-to-be-your smithy !!!

mrkiddi, Welcome to iforgeiron !!! If you use wood for forge fuel you are going to have to wait for it to burn down sufficiently to form charcoal. Instead simply make your own charcoal from wood beforehand. I think this is covered in the blueprints section. Being in Iceland I am guessing there are not vast stands of trees from which to gather wood. You will have to employ some scraphounding skill and secure sources. I suggest warehouses because there are always pallets to be had, good hardwood usually oak or ash and it is already seasoned. Locate the largest port in Iceland and you will have found the greatest source of pallets. Break them up with a sledge hammer and run the larger pieces through a bandsaw. Pallets are the perfect choice to cut up and make charcoal from in a 55 gal drum.

Yes, what are the features of this anvil used for in chainmaking? Also, is this not a coachmaker's anvil? Why does this anvil and coachmaker's anvils have the prominent side clip and how/ for what purpose is it used? :huh:

I believe that was Foxfire 9 (sorry, its been a few years). That issue features the largest documentary of the entire Foxfire series, that of Georgia blacksmith Judd Nelson making an entire farm wagon from scratch, Box, running gear, neap, wheels, everything. This segment also contains by far the most photographs in the foxfire series, they did an outstanding job of capturing the whole process. The wagon was donated to the Foxfie museum and remains in their permanent display. Judd Nelson was a founding charter member of ABANA and took part in the first national convention back in '69 (?) '70 (?) when ABANA was initially formed.

I recall two separate times I had objects in my eye that caused me to seek medical help. Both times I was wearing safety glasses but ain't it funny how flying objects can behave like a mojor league slider and arc right past the glasses... Both times were at Pearl Harbor back in my jarhead days. First I was busting an old fencepost out of its base with a spudbar on the softball field and got a tiny piece of concrete not much bigger than a grain of sand but it felt like I had a grapefruit in there. Got to the sickbay and the doc took two long woooden handled Q-tips, dipped one in some kind of adhesive, slapped it onto my eyelid and rolled it back like a sardine can lid then commenced to fishing around with the other one. Voila! He got it right away. Gotta love those corpsmen!!! Couple months later me and another guy were tasked with welding up a bar-b-que for some bigshot colonel's party coming up (NEVER volunteer...) and strike two, back to sickbay. Same doc, same procedure but after twenty minutes or so I had enough. "I think you got it Doc"... (he hadn't) "You sure"? "Yup, thanks doc"... I went back to the barracks on one headlight and popped off the back cover of my stereo speaker cabinet, pried my eyelid open with my fingers and stuck my face right up to the big woofer magnet. Tick! I heard it hit and knew it was finally and luckily gone. I don't recomend walking out of the E.R. before you're fixed up and yes it was stupid of me to do so and yes I was just plain lucky the magnet thing worked. ;)

By striving to increase/ improve my scraphounding abilities and number of sorties dedicated to specifically hunting for new sources of free iron (I always do keep a weather eye out wherever I am going...)and putting to use the digital camera Santa dropped down my chimney. One of those newfangled contrapations I know nothing about, but I'm looking forward to putting some mileage on it. Dang twentieth century is sneaking up on me, like it or not...

On the eighth day of Christmas my true love gave to me eight farriers shoeing, seven steel punches, six paying customers, five brand new files, four hammers swinging, three golden tong rings, two swage blocks for forming and an anvil on a big ole stump!

"Scarcer than hen's teeth" is what I was told by the smith who located mine when I asked him if he might know where I could get my hands on one. I had been searching for one for about two years at that point with no luck. He told me he knew of an Amish smith and wheelwright who had one in his shop many years before but he hadn't seen him in years. I got a call back a few days later. Available, what's my offer...The old smith now in his 90's had closed the wagon shop many years ago but still had all his tooling. $500 later I had my floor cone, about 42" high. I think there is a pic in the gallery of it. These are not so easy to find. I had done a LOT of asking around with no results until I met the smith who found it for me and the price I paid was regarded as fair by several accomplished smiths at the time, 2006. These don't seem to become available very much at all.

By shivering...

Paint one white, mark "Titelist" on it and accidentally see it makes it way onto your buddy's golf tee... Or- weld one onto square stock for a hardie post and make giant acanthus leaves

That's nice to look at, very well done Clinton. Anybody would be proud to have that set in their living room.:cool:

Frosty I'm thinking you had better get somebody out there with a few gallons of blaze orange and get all them white birch trunks painted up quick because they're all camouflaged in the snow now with winter here. We can't have unsuspecting folks getting snuck up on by any rogue birches... Is that man eater still out there on the loose? Welcome back tough guy !!!

What pkrankow said, I'm pretty sure that's the recipe that actually does work. My cat got hosed real good once point blanc right between the eyes and that is the recipe my wife was given by a freind. After one real good lathering up and rinse I'd say my cat, a heavily furred longhair, was 98% deskunked. Like prankow stated, use it fresh as it has no shelf life and the only thing I could add to that is we were told to specifically select the el cheapo dish detergent which we did and got good results. My sister's dog got skunked once too and she went the tomato bath route and got zero results so next she went with the expensive concoction from the local pharmacy which cost a bundle and she thought it did the trick. The next day she went to class (still in college then) and took her seat. Then she looked around and noticed the class had parted around her like the red sea so don't bother with the pharmacy... If I were you I would still be looking to give that skunk the 22 gun salute so it doesn't happen again. Good luck !!!

Then let's get forging !!!

I'm guessing the new moniker "AKfrosty57" means he's a-goin' birch tree huntin' with his AK47 and a 57 round banana clip magazine...

All I want for Christmas is to be home with my family. If I were dumb enough to spend that time out in the shop I would be flirting with death for sure (my wife can kill with nothing more than a sharp look from forty paces...)

Grew a new thumb...

I've heard of this, I think its been covered here a coupla years back? Think I'll give it a try, after all having popcorn flying around my head would be better than charcoal fleas!