Frosty

I believe the foundry is the facility rather than a single piece of equipment though I'll be happy to learn differently. English is such a slippery thing you just never know for sure. One of our club members is a professional bronze caster and pours over a sand box or outdoors on dry dirt. He conducts the yearly iron pour at Art on Fire event and that's all on the ground. Until a couple years ago I demoed blacksmithing about 50' from the cupola and iron pour. Frosty The Lucky.

When you say foundry it sounds like you're talking about the melter rather than the shop. No? Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Den, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you'll have a much better chance of meeting up with members within visiting distance. Branding plate? Do you mean like a label or data badge? I think that is highly unlikely, the body is looks to be intended to hold a liquid, That appears to be a level or fill plug and if it were to stamp labels, etc. it wouldn't need the big reservoir or body in general. It would probably have a vertical press and compound lever if it were for stamping labels, tags, badges, etc. IVI isn't a Roman Numeral. You might try one of the vintage tools or machinery sites. I'll be interested in what you find out. Frosty The Lucky.

Trentons tend to have longer horns but it's not too short to be one. Try a web search for images, I'd link what I just skimmed through but it's several pages and too much bandwidth when anybody can search it. It could be a Peter Wright too, there are a couple anvils listed in the images that clearly have the name stamped in their sides. A couple on Iforge for that matter. Frosty The Lucky.

Good job Chad, a clear floor and bench gives you so much MORE room to lay stuff down! While drying off after this morning's shower I saw the snow blocking the man door on my closed up for winter shop looks clear enough to shovel my way in. Cleaning it though . . . <sigh> Nice peg board hooks, did you put an upwards curve on the peg so it's locked in when there's weight on the hook? It doesn't take much but it really stabilizes the hook. Not taking much time to turn out things like simple hooks really improves them. When I'm just warming up right after I open the shop in spring I make leaf coat hooks, in part because I use them as a forge product #1 for beginners. When I get my self back up to speed I spend about 7 minutes from cutting the stock to brushing and waxing the finished hook. I start with 3/8" sq. hot rolled, twist the shank, draw the hook, leaf, vein the leaf, counter punch the screw holes, brush hard and apply my Trewax finish at a temp that makes it smoke so it comes out black. Later I may use a leaf die so the veins stand proud but I'm not so crazy about the dies I've come up with. Surprisingly it's more work than drawing and veining by hand. Anyway, in spring it takes me 15+ minutes to make a leaf hook and they're okay. Later when I'm cranking them in 7mins. or so they start coming out looking and working well. I think I have a peg board in the shop maybe I'll have to clean a path and make some hooks. Do your hooks want to turn sideways in use? Commercial peg board hooks have multiple pegs and or a spread bar to keep them facing straight. Turning has always been my issue with making peg board hooks. It's not insurmountable but it is unsatisfying having to add chachkas to keep them straight. An old acquaintance made little snake pegs that looked like they were slithering down the wall, neck and head raising into hooks. As I recall he said he spent 10+ minutes on them. Frosty The Lucky.

Uh HUH and the English book replied, "Go figure." That doesn't add up to a good joke either does it. Sorry. Frosty The Lucky.

It over heated. Cut off disks require a LOT more power than grinding or sanding so unless you have a light touch the motor gets hot. When an electric motor reaches a set temperature it shuts off until it's cooled below the limit. Frosty The Lucky.

That's pretty cool though I don't think unusual for mice. Buy better tasting tools maybe? Frosty The Lucky.

I can't argue. I'm losing track of what point we're on at any given moment and re-reading half a dozen posts is making my headache worse. I'll check back in in a couple days, we've run into Anchorage and back twice so far this week on top of other stuff and I'm shot. Frosty The Lucky.

I didn't see a 2 burner version, I was commenting on the forge pictured above. Helpful? . . . Helpful? . . . Okay, it will be a safe place to burn a mosquito coil when you're propping the door open. Frosty The Lucky. I didn't see a 2 burner version, I was commenting on the forge pictured above. Helpful? . . . Helpful? . . . Okay, it will be a safe place to burn a mosquito coil while it's propping the door open. Frosty The Lucky.

I forgot about the split brick but that's generally my advice about putting a brick in the forge. Forget about it. Like Mike I see so little right about this forge I don't have to "Find" fault. Even the hose is pretty useless being crimped to whatever the "regulator is." One of the guys up here bought one and we discovered the regulator was nothing but a flashy needle valve and did nothing for psi. My best advice is, "Do NOT waste money on it!" It is so badly designed and built I'd be hard pressed to think of anything to use it for. Maybe hardening short blades one at a time. I'd rather build a charcoal fire in the old BBQ. Frosty The Lucky.

Good Wonder Billy. I think it's just the thing to let the experienced trainers figure out. Frosty The Lucky.

You might want to refigure the volume. As shown I see 283 cu/in volume and if you ad another inch of ceramic wool barely 125 cu/in. The measurements shown are the outside dimensions you have to calculate volume with the inside dimensions. Frosty The Lucky.

That's Way too hot. Did you look up the melting temp of aluminum? 1220f is pure al, casting alloys tend to run lower say 1150f +/- depending on % and alloying metal. You should just be able to see red in a dark room, at orange temps it's oxidizing as soon as it starts to pour and the flux is no longer keeping air off it. 1250f is pushing too hot but should be okay. It isn't filling fast enough, hotter is not the answer. You can see how it was solidifying by the swirl patterns in the casting. You need to improve the flow rate so it fills the cavity before it cools. Aluminum has a low specific heat, it loses temperature fast, the greater the temperature differential the greater the change. That is why making the melt hotter doesn't do any good. You have a flow problem. Look to your runners, gates and fill cup to increase the flow rate. You want the fill cup to gulp the melt, not drain nicely. Frosty The Lucky.

Looks like cast iron to me but malleable cast iron isn't the same as cheap Chinese ASO cast iron. This is all I found regarding the manufacturer and it looks like there were financial issues over quite a bit of it's history. http://vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/detail.aspx?id=3485&tab=0 I didn't see anything about anvils or other blacksmithing tools or equipment but I'd say from your picture they made anvils at least. Frosty The Lucky.