Frosty

Just pour a concrete mount for it. Level and compact the grade under it and form it up with 4" lumber, a little rebar and a wheel barrow or two of mix and its a done deal. 3'x4' should be more than large enough for a stable patform.. Out in the weather even under a roof isn't so good, keeping it sprayed with LPS3 should be a big help. Frosty The Lucky.

More IPS weirdness, this is a reply to Nate's shim stock acquisition. What did the sparks look like? Frosty The Lucky.

None here. Everything that's gone wrong for me has been operator error one way or another. Well, occasionally luck comes to play but if you cover the bases well enough it's not as big a factor. Of course that might just be a superstition I don't know about. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many IFI members live within visiting distance. I can't read the side is the picture so I can't venture a guess on it's weight, a bathroom scale will tell you what it is. Those are excellent results on the rebound test. Did you brush the rust off the surface first? If not it will limit the rebound and it might be better than it seems. Regardless it's good to have some of the family heritage back in your possession. I have relatives I wouldn't trust out of my sight, it's sad but all families have a few of "those" members. Glad it came back home. Please don't forget we LOVE pics so we'd love to see what you make on that fine old lady. Frosty The Lucky.

The only problem with an outdoor hummer is scale, they're small enough folk might miss one unless it's right in their face. I always thought it'd be fun to overcome this little problem by scaling the hummer up and me being me I took the concept to the illogical conclusion. A humming bird with a T Rex skewered on it's bill would be an attention grabber don't you think? Frosty The Lucky.

Will do, I really need to make some test coupons and see how they do. It'll need to wait till we're clear of freezing temps, freeze thaw before it's fully cured messes up Greencast, even thin slip. Frosty The Lucky.

Ron Reil had the formulae and ran the numbers to calculate the proper size ratios for linear induction devices. Ron's a retired high school science teacher so it's no surprise. I copied the basic ratios from sales brochures a coffee shop friend gave me a couple years before the internet went public. I used trial and error to fine tune mine. It only took about 2 months but I had a head start. Maybe I should say it only took me a couple months to make a burner well enough it worked on industry standard ratios. It was me needed fine tuning, not the devices. I'm glad you did the simple math and pointed out Mike is hitting at or close to 0.06x tube dia. on his jets. Consider that written down here. Thanks Buzzkill. Frosty The Lucky.

Ah, I misread your post. Knapping is very enjoyable and you aren't nearly as likely to be caught without a blade if you need one. Frosty The Lucky.

You wouldn't ask that if you owned a Soderfors, hammers always lose though you CAN chip an edge. Don't miss, by time you're down to thin you should be using lighter blows so you should be much more accurate. You just need more practice, making nails is excellent practice for making consistent tapers and heading. You can't be consistent without good control and it's a good gauge of your progress. Frosty The Lucky.

How big a blower we talking about here? Almost anything that won't catch is fine for a walk behind like Deb's 30" John Deere. The ones on the Oshkosh or Rolba blowers when I worked highway maint are Vascowear and weigh in at around 75lbs. each. The Oshkosh would load a 20 yard end dump in about 20 seconds. They're not your average home or hobby machine. The skid shoes on my pickup plow are maybe medium carbon but I wouldn't bet on it. Frosty The Lucky.

If a person were to want to make more precise concoidal fracture representations in steel a set of chasing tools would work a treat. What were you knapping? All I had readily available was obsidian. Flint is harder to find here but I admit I didn't look very hard. The chert close by isn't good for anything finer than a hand ax, getting a bi-face is really sketchy let alone dressing a fine edge. Frosty The Lucky.

He captured the concoidal fracture structure of a knapped blade very nicely. Better still he didn't forge the pattern he used stock removal! Just think how this would expose the layers in a pattern welded billet. Hmmmm? A little practice with the sandpaper tube and you could easily develop the widening wave front and ripples of a concoidal fracture. Heck a small ball burr and you could do the percussion bulb as well. A nice high contrast pattern welded billet and it would be stunning. Just saying. Frosty The Lucky.

You thinking those thoughts too Mike? I was playing around with Kaowool soaked in the phosphate bonded Green cast cement. I sifted the fines out of the refractory. Anyway, I mixed the Greencast cement as a thin slip that soaked into the Kaowool nicely and laid it in a form that had about 1/4" of straight Zircopax in the bottom. The excess Greencast slip soaked into the Zircopax. Being a water activated cement refractory it takes no heat to cure and the entire thickness of the Kaowool stiffened up considerably and it's still much lighter than soft insulating fire brick. I haven't run thorough tests on the "bricks" so I'll leave it at that. Frosty The Lucky.

Let's see if this reply shows up. My first one just said I really like the hummer. I don't think that's too much spring for the flower but a hummer moves much faster so maybe a stiffer spring for hummers. Maybe mount the wings on springs? Flappy birds are attractive. Frosty The Lucky.

No telling from here Jack. What did the spark test look like? How about cutting a thin section off heating to critical and quenching it to see? You can make a guillotine tool that bolts or rivets together, everything doesn't need to be welded you know. Frosty The Lucky.

some years back a friend of mine was forging blades to look knapped. He dressed a small diameter hammer with a sharpish edges. Visualize the pein on a small ball pein hammer ground flat say 1/4" dia. Then he hammer marked the blade from the edges in with overlapping blows. I THINK it was from the edge in, maybe it was the center out I don't recall. The hammer marks overlap to the sides as well for something like a fish scale pattern. If you checked out knapped stone tools you'll get the idea, it's not a uniform pattern and often crosses the center. He was making some very nice blades. He's knapped blades and points so he knew how the concoidal fracture patterns develop which helped a LOT with his forged blades. He had a snappy sounding product line name to. If you give this a try I'd experiment on scrap a while before committing to a piece of work. Frosty The Lucky.

A marble will work but not bounce as high from the start. A light ball pein hammer is good if you can't find a bearing. Were he in Alaska that entire pallet would've been gone in days. I'm not rushing you I'm just thinking you're one lucky dog to have so many to choose from. Frosty The Lucky.

Jr. and family are in our prayers here. May God bless and grant peace. Frosty The Lucky.

Mmmmmmmm! Tasty art! Frosty The Lucky.

Learn when to remove the handle from the heat before it chars. Flame browning or toasting hardens the wood but char is weakening. At first it's just on the surface but still. I only heat mine till they just begin to show darkening then wax them with Trewax. Johnson's paste wax works well too. At temp the wood draws the wax into the cells and is hardened more than just heat. Gives my hammers a nice smooth nonslip grip without being sticky. WAY better than varnish and heavens oh my BETTER than tape! Frosty The Lucky.

Very nice J. How are you going to finish them? Have you tried a little brushed brass? Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Deviant, glad to have you. Where are you? Blacksmith tool prices and values vary considerably depending on location. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many IFI members live within visiting distance. Every hour working with an experienced smith is worth days of trying to figure it out yourself. You can learn a lot online but nothing and I mean NOTHING beats face to face learning. All those anvils look to be in very good condition, surface rust doesn't mean anything, a little wire brush time and some hot steel and hammer time and any will shine right up. The make is a BIG determining factor to anvil value, for instance that could be a pallet of Fishers and worth great gobs of money OR they could be artificially aged Mexican knock offs and worth little better than scrap. Can you visit them in person? If so take a ball bearing somewhere between 1/2" - 1" and do a rebound test. Simply drop the bearing from a distance and estimate how far it bounces back in a %. Use a ruler if you're not good at eyeballing things like that and drop from 10". You can make the same estimate with a small smooth faced hammer, ball peins being the norm but it takes more practice. What you're looking for is max rebound: 90%+ is OUTSTANDING! Grab at least one for that price on the spot, you'll be able to sell the other one and pay for both plus. 75%+ is good up, 70% down is okay and less than 60% is pretty poor. While the ring of an anvil is really over rated in general you do want to listen carefully to the ring of impact. Not for any specific sound but for consistency, rebound and ring will ge better over the waist, center, of the anvil and diminish as you test towards the heal or horn, this is normal. What you really need to watch for is a sudden change or "dead spot." Dead spots are indicators of several probably defects typically delaminating face. Many anvils have a high carbon steel face bonded to a wrought iron or cast iron body depending on maker. If for some reason the face is coming loose from the body "delaminating" it's a failure point and a defect. It's a BAD thing. The sound of a ball bearing or hammer bouncing will speak loudly. Another cause for a dead spot in an anvil's face is being over heated by a torch. This abominable sin is typically committed by an idjit in a shop whith a cutting or heating torch who uses an ANVIL!!! as a bench to cut or heat on. Torch cuts on anvil faces are the tracks of these sorts of ofal eating idjits. Anyway, from all appearances those are darned good looking anvils. Value is depending on their rebound and availability in your area. Frosty The Lucky.

Knot thinking of a sheet shank are you? No wait sheet shanks are for taking up excess line in the running part not securing loads or trimming sails. Dad Called them "sheeP shanks" at least that's what I thought he called them. I sure wish I knew where that book was, I haven't seen it since Deb and I moved out here. Uh lets see, a "hitch" is for making fast to a cleat, bollard or other solid anchor. As the fog clears in fits and starts I seem to recall "bends" as a type of knot and a "sheet bend" one of many. I can recall how to tie lines together but not the names of the knots I know. Drats. Okay, I know someone here actually knows these things, pipe up will you? Frosty The Lucky.

Cool, sort of a Mad Max, zombie apocalypse bottle opener dagger thing. Just think of the mark a rap on the noggin with the pommel would make. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Philip, glad to have you. If you'll put y our general location in the header you might be surprised how many IFI folk live within visiting distance. Frosty The Lucky.