wd&mlteach

For forging I have one about that size for upsetting long bars, be careful not to bank it off your shins when hot. I also mounted a post vise with wheels on one similar to what you are describing, works like a protable basketball goal. The last, I have mounted a small drill press on one smaller that what you are describing. They all work great and love them.

That Arizona grinder sure is a nice one, a bit more than what I wanted to spend, or could. I built mine last spring out of an old grinder and an 8 inch rubber cart wheel off of Amazon. So far I used it for grinding knives that I forge. I also have a Multi-Tool attachment for my grinder that is REAL nice. I use the MultiTool becasue it has a platten for basic shaping and polishing becasue it is Real Fast! I use the one I made for hollow grinding. If you need help building one let me know I can take the arm apart and post pics of all the parts, if that helps. I had more time than money and chose my route. Plus I like to build things :)

I have never tried or heard of painting on the the investment. Thanks for the tip, I will have to try it as it seems to make a lot of sense. I have only ever mixed by hand and when I was in school they showed us the vacuum method. I volunteered to be part of the demo and my job was to mix the investment. The professor said to me make sure you get all of the bubbles out and I did the best I could. I shook, I tapped, I shimmied (I think that is spelled wrong) and I did the best I could. Then the prof poured it over these staff heads they were casting and placed the whole thing in a vacuum chamber and asked me how if I got all of the bubbles out. I was proud of my involement and said somehting like "you bet". He then turned on the switch and it started to boil, not a lot but some. He then explained that if you leave the bubbles in the investment your surface will not be smooth and you run the risk of cracking/exploding you mold. At school I when I need to do this I pour the investment and go see the science people and have them draw a vacuum. Your method would save me a bunch of time, thanks.

Bentiron are you making more of a shell when you paint on your investment? I have seen that done but I never have tried it, Also the ruber mold making is great. I do not have the supplies to make rubber molds at school, but I wish I did.

I do not know if you have moved on or not but here is my take on the process Gundog. If I were doing another investment casting of a short run I would pick the Styrofoam method with petrobond sand. And make sure it is actual foundry sand and you are not trying to do this in a 2 x 4 box with beach sand at home, not good. I personally use a petrobond sand for my castings at school. It packs nice and make the kids complain because of the stink, burned smell, plus they wear it from head to toe Hah! The lost wax method is great if you have the proper equipment pattern making supplies, vacuum container for the plaster, melting out, preheating the mold and then the ability to accurately pour into the sprue. If you were just doing two pieces go with the foam as 781 says. Carve the piece out, ram it in the sand, put a sprue into it in a place where you are going to cover or cut out. Then heat your metal, more than enough is always better, the extra can be poured in an ingot mold,I made mine from 2 inch angle iron forng a v-shape. Then pour the hot metal directly on your Styrofoam, the foam does not stand a chance to hot metal. Allow the whole thing to cool and see how you made out. If you need more help let me know I can send a powerpoint on the process if you need.

I would stay away from anyhting coated with zinc. You may not be welding on it now but in the future, down the road when it is covered with coal dust and dirt, you may forget and try to srike an arc. Zinc fumes are bad stuff iformation below taken from an MSDS for Zinc: "Inhalation: Inhalation of zinc dust or fumes may cause respiratory tract and mucous membrane irritation with cough and chest pain. It can also cause "metal fume fever", a flu-like condition characterized appearance of chills, headached fever, maliase, fatigue, sweating, extreme thirst, aches in the legs and chest, and difficulty in breathing. A sweet taste may also be be present in metal fume fever, as well as a dry throat, aches, nausea, and vomiting, and pale grey cyanosis." I realise blacksmithing may be "sweet" but this is not the way to taste it.

Definately a germanic language ~Dutch? Thanks for sharing great video!

Thanks Phil. It would appear to me that this could be a new sticky at IFI. I only knew of a couple of these videos to use and it seems as though there are many more out there than what I knew about. And it also seems that that others are interested I put a couple of the other ones I show here: http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/28637-the-sheet-metal-worker-video-1942/

Hah, guess I should have checked there as well. I can't get youtube at school becuase of "adult content" and the other site is not blocked, yet.

I know this is not metal related but...Fresh trees are always good for turning natural edge bowls. I turned a couple last out of locust, when wet it turns soooo smooth. I could do it all day, -just great. IOf you need more info on that let me know. Relating this to blacksmithing I have seen a couple of people that keep a stump around their shop the same height as their anvil. They used it accompanied by a wooden mallet to straighten out hot steel without damaging delicate twists. I gota get me one of those.

I do not know if you have seen this or not but to me it is incredible on so many levels and I thought I would share it. I show it yearly to my students and they just laugh thinking it is comical. If only they had the same frame of reference that I have towards metal and metalworking. Just amazing...... http://archive.org/details/SF174 I do use it for safety as well.

I have been showing that video for years and I love it! There are a couple of great videos that I absolutley love on that site! Here are the ones that I show my students every year. I have tried showing the them new ones and they have no real drive to see that stuff. But when I show these they laugh and pay attention, who knew? Anyway here are the ones I like, my favorite is the big ring forge the best!!!!!! I always use it to talk about safety and to show how things were done in the past and how nice GMAW is. http://archive.org/details/SF174 http://archive.org/details/WeldingO1942 http://archive.org/details/Aluminum1956 http://archive.org/details/Aluminum1956_2 http://archive.org/details/forging-a-nail http://archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.12505 http://archive.org/details/Bushcraft-HowToMakeAKnifeAZOfBushcraft781-2

I agree very innovative, looks like it might make for a nice chipping hammer in a pinch as well.

Hey that makes some sense, could be used to blow dry the car too!

This one caught my eye as a cheap blower, like I need another. However, I have never seen anything this big, holly cow! 36 inch fan hooked up to my forge would blow the coal right out of it. Not a bad price at $55 but I only have one forge and I believe this thing is for running a whole shop. Oh well if interested here is the link. http://lancaster.cra...3131586382.html

I think you should wait, and by the way do you have contact information for the sale? I would like to contact the seller to ask a few questions about something....... :) Oh wait I found it.....But do not worry I am in PA and I am not driving that far for an anvil.

That is what I thought, I have his snail mail address I should send him pictures.

Here is my Trenton. It looks to me like an import from what AIA says as there is no number or USA on it anywhere. Plus the bottom is just weird, it is not cast, no Trenton hourglass, it is all wavy and not flat at all. I have spent some time looking other Trentons and I cannot seem to find one with a bottom like mine. The others are all flat with the hourglass shape in them or they resemble a Peter Wright with the four handling holes. I do not know who made mine as the face matches the specs of a PW 4 x 14 ½ and the bottom is well weird. Anyway here it is. There are some markings under the horn but who know when those were made as there are two sets. Paid $125, it is big enough to do what I want to do but small enough to want another one :) If anybody has any idea why the bottom is shaped like that I would love to know. My theories are that it was the last one made at the end of shift on Friday and everybody wanted to go home or it was the first one made on Monday morning when they were too hungover to care. Either way they did not have enough metal to finish the base properly and it was classified as a second, then it was stamped with Trenton and sold to Boker.

50 bucks, sounds pretty good to me. Use it for a bit and then decide if you ever need more, might not

What you have is an ASO. I guarantee it. It looks exactly like the one I was given in a trade this past fall, the only difference is mine is red with dents. The story goes like this if you care…….it is long but might be worth the read. So a couple of years ago I was talking to one of my old college professors and he says to me something along the lines of “Hey I have all of these great 16mm movies of old industrial arts stuff and it is dated but has some real good teaching to it, but I don’t have a projector. Do you know where I can get a projector?” Of course I had no idea but that thought entered my mind and stuck. Later on while having another conversation with him I asked, “Hey, know anybody with an anvil?” He told me, “Yeah I’ve got one that I have had for years, never use the thing, just move it around,” and that is when I made the connection -thinking I need to find a projector. A little while later the janitor at my school stopped by with a projector and informed me that they were throwing this old technology away and did I want it, you betcha! Boy could I hear that anvil ring at the sight of that old projector. I figured the school, and I are going to make out on this one, one old projector for a nice anvil I now will use for class demos. I called up the professor. It took him two years to bring that anvil for the trade. When he came to my school he gave me this long story of how he acquired the anvil from the University of Maryland when they shut down the technology education program and that it came from Donald Maley’s Program. Maley was not a blacksmith, but a big technology education leader and creator of the Maryland Plan, google it for more information. They now give awards away with his name at ITEEA, I have one on my wall. Anyway as we are going out to his truck I am dreaming of what could be in there. I mean Maley taught at Maryland for almost 50 years, and they shut the program down years ago, whatever it was, it had to be old, right? He tells me it is really heavy and we need two people even to move the thing, and boy I am thinking all kinds of stuff at that point. So he drops the tailgate and my heart sank. There is was, in all its painted glory, a big shiny red ASO. My heart sank. I had been moving that darn projector around my room for two years until the deal went through and now this is all I got, -A red 70kg or 154.4 pound piece of junk, with a story. I did not have the heart to tell him, I just acted excited and wheeled it in my classroom. Later the next day I thought, well maybe, just maybe, I might be wrong. So, while the kids were working I busted out the belt sander to see what was under that paint, nothing but a bunch on dents, gouges, and scratches. I could tell it was cast iron but the way the metal just dusted off by the handful. After I had it all cleaned off I grabbed a small ball pien hammer and gave a small hit. No bounce, no ring, just another dent, heck the concrete floor bounces better. I now keep that anvil on the lab benches where the kids are. They use it for shaping dustpans and pounding pennies, cause that is what kids with hammers do. I yell at them, tell them that it’s a felony or something like that. Then I tell them next time drop the penny in a jar I have by the door grab a piece of scrap and hit on that instead. In the back of my mind I keep hoping that a kid grabs a sledge and knock the horn or tail off and depending on how snotty the kid is, I can make them buy me a new one. Well, maybe not that but at least I can throw it away and not feel guilty.

Looks to me like a shearing action with direction of impact originating where the step was. I can't imagine the force need to do such a thing in a single hit, unless the anvil fell from a signifigant height or it was used in anvil blasting. Then I believe that it could be possible if the anvil in question struck another anvil on the way down. According to google they can blast things pretty high up to 300 feet in the air. So guessing conservatively that once 125 pound anvil falling from 200 feet can generate (guesstimating a bit on movement after impact) 76524 pounds of force. So pretty much a 38 ton whack right on the step. I am no physics expert nor a math teacher but to me that might just do it. Somebody who is an engineer might be able to give a better explanation and provide the math to support it. I just plugged my guesstimates into a couple of online calculators.

I looked at that ad several times in the past couple of days when taking breaks from writing my thesis and wishing of blacksmithing. O, it has been too long sing my anvils rang! It was orignally posted for 350, and had I not been stuck in the purgatory of the thesis process, that one might be sitting in my shed now. Glad it turned out to be a good find and I am even happier that it went to somebody that might actually use it.

Best of luck to you, it is out of my budget right now and trying to tell the wife that I need another vise after -will not work. She knows that I have three already and "Why on earth would you need another one?", even though this is about a 1/3 heavier than my 5 3/4". Send me pictures if you get it.

Here is a nice one and it is cheap for now... http://www.ebay.com/itm/vintage-blacksmith-vise-/140794539423?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20c8022d9f

Picture troubles.... See if this is any better....most likely too big