SubterraneanFireForge

Sticking in a horn and over sizing the hole both sound like a good ideas. thank you frosty and jhcc. The search continues! Daswulf I’d be happy to bash on top of your guys’s old sledges if they are in need of a new home. In my searching I came across this cool claw hammer.

Thanks you everyone for all your information! im very glad I asked before just going ahead and buying. apart from just having one as a beautiful heavy old object I want get a head to sink into a stump as a portable anvil I was thinking that a straight or cross pein would be easier to get back out again as il probably be moving it from place to place often ish.

Sorrry I meant to ad those! Here we go:

Hi I’ve been poking my nose in the old sledgehammer head market for a while now but only now that I’m taking a little break from forging have I actually been serious. I found this head and 30usd$ delivered sounded pretty good. My only reservation is it looks kinda like a masons hammer that you hammer on top of like a giant chisel meaning the face would be soft. Would heating it up and quenched ing it fix that problem??? im no expert and am wondering what you guys think? Is it a masonry hammer? also if anyone has a good recommendation for a place to buy old sledge hammer heads. Im not very picky along as there’s a hole going through a big old chunk of hard steel I’d be happy. I live pretty smack dab in the middle of the city so flee markets are probably?out of the question. Thanks for any advice u guys can give!

I didn’t get a good chance stop and look closely. Gorge those are wild! There’s more hinge than wood!! funny about the blacksmiths untimely end. To many fumes from all the forge welding?? The church is in Baltimore in Maryland.

These are some really cool hinges I bumped into on an old church. if knows more about these than me (low bar) please share.

Il look it up thanks!

I forgewelded some copper pipe. I closed one end put a bit of borax in the other hammer it almost shut. Kinda like how you did it Rainier. then I stuck it in my forge got it almost molted then tapped it together and some borax squeezed out. Then I stuck back in kinda melted some of it which stuck to the bottom of my forge and hammered it again Less lightly. put some more borax on and started folding it over. Again got it really hot hammered it shut and repeats the process. My gas pressure gage on my refrigerator is broken so I don’t know the gas pressure but it felt pretty high and my oxygen valve was pretty closed. this worked pretty well in the middle but I had trouble getting the ends mostly the front end hot enough without actually melting the copper in the center of the forge. I havet tried with out borax

I’ve never forge welded bronze but I’ve forge welded some copper pipes to make them into bars. I fill the pipe with 20 mule borax bring the copper right to the point where it gets melty without turning into a puddle then forge weld it shut fold it over and do it again. This works pretty well and is pretty easy. not exactly what you were asking but I hope it helps. looking forward to seeing what other people have to say on the topic!

Thanks Gorge and frosty, glad to see you posting! so what your saying is kinda like making Damascus.

It’s been a little bit but I’m curious if someone is using just scale pinch offs and other small scraps won’t that have practically no impurities. if one wants to make something more like wrought iron would just throwing in a clinker or sand remedy this?

That looks SO much better than my first knife. did cut out the shape of the large spoon then raise or hammer the bowl over into shape. I real like the lil spoon I want to make one now. What did u finish the spoons with. I remember the first fork I made I was so thrilled I used it to eat all my food on a camping camping trip probably made it take twice as long it had 2 toothpick sized tines and was about as wide as my index finger. your utensils look a bit more functional (; Enjoy!

I have a little gas forge that I use now. But before I did I would melt and cast aluminum and zinc in a ladle with progressive amounts of things around it to hold the heat better. id like to get get/make some sort of furnace for casting eventually.

Make/buy/find the right tongs for what you are doing. It will save you a lot of time and effort and your face for hot flying metal. Also if you are melted something with a propane torch it is very helpful to put a brick or something to cover the top of your crucible or whatever you use the metal. Even just a brick makes a big difference in holding heat.

Yeah I’m also curious as to how you are getting that much scale. I’ve been thinking of trying a similar thing with all my lil bits of scrap metal. if it you blooming works out I might have to start hoarding scale to. definitely let us know how it goes and take pictures if you can!

I didn’t see your post before posting my last one but that makes sense pat that the face of the anvil would be more efficient because of the mass behind it. I don’t think this should matter as much for little things because they don’t require that much force. and efficiency is more limited to how much metal you can can get forwards versus sectioning of metal when doing larger work. again I havet really worked with horns so my opinion is partially theoretical.

A benefit to using the horn for drawing out (brought up by someone that has never really done this in there life) but it seems like using a horn instead of the sharp edge of the anvil would result in Les lumpyness that has to be forged down later. well said frosty probably the biggest killier of time resources and tools is, using to big stock so u have to find your hot cut to remove your super long rat tail then you rush it trying to get the cut done in one heat and bonk your hardy tool and have to resharpen it and maybe reface your hammer like learn ing a new song buy effectiveness comes before speed

From what all you guys said it sounds like a good anvil to check out hammer and maybe in hand and if all is well that looks well a good anvil to adopt im surprised about how little you guys use your horns. I always thought it was a big part of blacksmithing that I was missing with my anvil blob. thanks for all information! haha my harbor freight served me welll (mostly) for about a year of sledgehammers poor hammer control and probably to cold metal. (I would have definitely picked up a smooth boulder though!) I’m really looking forward to an upgrade. thanks again everyone!

Thanks everyone for the input! Unfortunately there are no markings on the side. From everything that all you guys said it seems it’s worth checking it out in person and adopting if everything is good and I don’t find anything better. It’s not the best anvil but it will definitely be a step up from my harbor freight. In the pictures below

The horn definitely was there at some point.

There’s this 150lb that someone’s selling not to far from me farly worn stump included for 200$ with one big catch IT DOESNT HAVE A HORN. I’m very curious to hear everyone’s thoughts on this if it’s or good deel or not and how important really is a horn? My last cheap harbor freight anvil didn’t really have a horn either so I don’t have much experience with horns. Thank you for your input!

it looks so funny it’s like someone dropped a anvil on a clay hammer. ill be looking out for stray claw hammers that look like they want to try something new. “…and I don’t want tickle id rather ride motorsickle…”

Thanks Frosty, I’ve found plenty of pictures online of flat, mostly Japanese sickles. some with spike tangs. From what I gather the curved sickles are more for gathering while the flatter sickles are more for just cutting stuff down like when your weeding. I did welcome any general advice about sickles, but my original question was about combining work hardening and heat treating, which I couldn’t find information on in other places.

I just finished temping and sharpening the sickle. it was all forged to finish apart from the last little bit of sharpening. That’s a good point Jhcc I hadn’t thought of that we normally turn over the dirt and sift out the bits of roots and little weeds so it might not matter. a weeding claw might be a fun next project! Gorge I haven’t seen any tangs so small to u know how they would have to mount to a handle??? after watching that video I might have to try making a scythe next.

Thanks for all the information everyone! im making a sickle because I volunteer at a garden and pull mugwort by the hour, so I was thinking a sickle could come In handy and be a fun project that I can forge and test. The springs I got are pretty new but I’m just curious. would normalizing a piece of steel or heating it to forge welding temperature before working it fix any micro fractures.