Steeler

I made a swap recently. My 4 inch english made machinst vise on the stand I made for this cut down 4 inch leg vise welded to this rail plate.

Both parties won. What do you think?

Nice work Beth. The bold textures are very apealing to the eyes. I think that a woman blacksmith offering her original hand forged works would be irresistable to most of the public.
Sure to be a hit. Good luck with your sales . Awsome that you provide your daughter with the opportunity to express herself by creating things from her own ideas. You rock!

Randy that's a nice chunk of wood and unless I'm mistaken, probably as good as using a steel post.

:) I would like to express my gratitude to all of you for all the good wishes and prayers that I have witnessed on this forum. It has shown me that there really are men and women in the world that care about the welfare of others. I am encouraged and inspired by your posts.
May you all experience the healing power of the love of God that flows so abundantly. God bless you.

Might be for spreading battery cable clamps?

Cool tool, nice shop, beautiful work.
I'm inspired! Thanks for posting. :)

hollow punch

Great start! Heat, Hammer, Observe. Have fun.

Dave, Thanks for that video. Nicely done.
I have to try that now.
Steeler. :)

Not if you PUSH the blade into the material. I have a 3HP 20" DeWalt that I picked up off CL here that I was looking to also use as a chop saw. Pull the saw out to the end, and lock. Clamp the material down. Turn saw on, and push the abrasive blade through the item.

I cut some sawmill catwalk a few years back on my 10" dewalt radial arm saw and it was 18" wide. I could only take about one eigth inch per pass, so it took awhile. The results were great. A little deburring and the job was done.
A couple of weeks back I put a 12" abrasive disc on the same saw to cut a wide piece that wouldn't fit on the chop saw or my small cut off bandsaw. The blade guard won't fit over a 12" disc, so I set that aside. I forgot to start the cut from the front to push the blade through and that disc exploded as it tried to climb over the work piece. I was lucky to have had at least enough sense to be standing to one side when it happened. I'm grateful that I didn't get injured.
Don't do what I did.

2Dogs, thanks for saving that piece of history from the smelter.
I like it and I would save it and not use it either.
It reminds me to "make do with what I have at hand" and somebody obviously did.
Great conversation piece and I doubt if anybody would really be "deprived" if you kept it.
Kludge! hey now, my vocabulary is growing just by reading these posts.!
One day its "subsumed" and today its "kludge".
Its a good day for the old grey matter, when I learn something new.

Vacationing in a town with a big scrap metal yard. :D

Subsumed Curmudgeon?! I never heard of that word before, so I looked it up. Thanks for adding to my vocabulary.
Speaking for myself: I find the "heads up" messages to be of great interest. Being fairly new to the craft, I thirst after all
information about blacksmithing. One thread of "heads up" postings would get my vote and I can see where an indication as to locality would be handy too. :)

Good to hear that you are doing better. Without our health, what have we got?
Love the spurs and nice camera work!
Are the spurs stainless steel?
The domed buffalo head nickel button conchos are my favorite detail.
Well done and hope to see more of your work in future.

so after "face hardening" what is the bounce like?

nice looking anvil btw

Thanks DennisG. It was so late and we had such a long day, that we didn't think to try a hammer bounce test. After the bearing drop test, it was high fives, big grins and good night. The anvil is on its way to its owner's home and I look forward to hearing about how it works for my friend and what he forges with it.

I built this little anvil as a gift for a good friend. I started with a 2" thick drop of mild? steel that had a convenient curve for the underside of the tail and a flat surface for the face. A one inch thick drop with a nice big hole in it was cut and welded to form the base. I turned the horn on my ancient lathe out of a two inch diameter drop of mystery steel shaft. All the welds are as close to 100% as I could make them with one-eighth E6011 rod.
The anvil weighs 58 lb. and has a 2" X 10" face with a 3/4" round hole, a 10" X 5.5" base and a 6" horn.
Accesories are a hot cut made from the tip of a wood splitting maul, a 2" built up and remachined trailer ball, a 1.25" ball bearing welded to a shank, and a 1" thick hole punch saddle plate with an assortment of hole sizes.
I decided to try hardening the face, figuring that there is at least a little carbon to work with. Heating took about three hours in my jury rigged fire brick oven with tiger torch burner to achieve a dull red color. I boosted the heat on the face with oxy-aceteline and then quickly quenched with buckets of water and the garden hose full on.
The face did harden somewhat. A ball bearing dropped from 5" gives a consistant rebound to 3".

great conversation piece. I would't mind having it around.

WOW!! That's a truly inspiring piece of work and a high standard to aim for. Thanks for sharing.

Cool lock! Photos just the right size. Looks like a fun project to add to my ever growing list.
Interesting website about this type of lock. Thanks.

Those are called dywidag bolts and are used for high tensile concrete anchor applications. They are made of cr-mo similar to astm 4140 steel.

Thanks NeatGuy. I Googled dywidag and found lots of info about this anchoring system that I was previously unaware of. Dunno what I will use them for but they are cool as heck.

I got these 3/4" threaded rods from my local scrap metal yard. The thread roots are unusually round and the count is 4.5 TPI. The nuts are made for this thread shape and spin easily on the rods. I wonder at the origin of these parts and what they were used for. Could I use them to build a light weight fly press or?

Thanks for sharing some of your work.
I would be tempted to leave the praying man piece almost as it is. To me it's quite provocative.
Your leaves turned out nice. They remind me that I still havn't tried forging any kind of leaf yet.

Looks like your wife is definitely a keeper! Nice gift. One that can keep on giving.
I like a knotted wire wheel on my grinder for stripping away rust. I have never found it to be overly aggressive.
I've not heard of electrolitic rust removal before and I'm going to check it out. Sounds easy, I like easy.

Way cool! Thanks for posting.

Mechanical, technical. Nice contrast between the different metal finishes. Caused me to stop and ponder. I like!

Accident Steeler? Isn't that called serendipity? Besides it falls under the heading of the "old" blacksmith's moto I came up with a while back, "Carpe Terminus Frigidus."

Seriously though, glad it came out well and the gifted folk are happy with it. There are very few things belong on a ranch house porch like a triangle dinner bell. Well maybe Grandpa and his whittlin or a sleeping hound dog but a dinner triangle is right at the top of the list.

You done good Buddy.

Frosty

Hey Frosty you put a whole new perspective on my dinner bell forging experience. Serendipity, yah. I think that I may make up a sign by my forge with that old motto on just so I remember to grasp the cold end of the work piece. Thanks man.