Frosty

Sounds good, post some pics when it gets here. Someone will know what it is if it's a large enough maker to show up in catalogs, etc. How familiar are you with Farm loop rd? Take inner Farm loop till it hits the T intersection, turn left. Arctic Fires Bronze is about 1/2 mile on your left, there's a sign off the road a bit. Meetings start around 9:00 +/- and last till folk leave or Pat says "see ya." Meetings are open and there are usually a few stations. I don't know what the demo is but someone will demo something. Lunch is potluck. club business usually happens after or near lunch. Everything else is pretty much open. Frosty The Lucky.

I can't see enough skew to suggest how to correct . . . ? It's a fine looking hammer head, how's it work? Have you heat treated it? Frosty The Lucky.

The amount of tar in a bottle can be an indication of age as well as quality of the propane. A substantial % of the tar is Mercaptan the odorant introduced to propane so we can smell it. Perhaps I should say a lot of the tar is the result of adding mercaptan oil as an odorant? It's been so long since I got the explanation I could have it pretty wrong outside of mercaptan = stink & goo in tank. Liquid laundry bleach and water will cut and remove the odor and much of the tar. 1 cup in a 40lb. tank filled with water is plenty. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Joe, glad to have you. That old lady's seen some miles alright. A pic of the side with the light from one side so we can see it in profile will help. I can't see enough to even venture a guess. Frosty The Lucky.

The burner on your gas range is just a different shape so I believe it's been around a LONG time. Pre Civil war? How long have gas lights been around? Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard, glad to have you. You need to brush the rust and scale off the face to do a reliable rebound test. It's hard to tell from the pics is the USA cast proud or recessed? What's it weigh? There are plenty of good cast anvils but they're steel or have high carbon steel faces foundry welded to a cast iron body like a Fisher. After Mr. Bessemer made steel cheaper than gold it rapidly became cheaper in materials and labor to cast anvils from steel. Being cast isn't a real determining fact, it is however a signal to investigate more closely. A LOT of south of the border knock offs are made using existing good quality anvils for the pattern and casting them from cast iron. You see a lot of these online as known quality brands for bargain prices. Take a wire brush NOT a grinding disk !! to the face till its reasonably clean, wear a dust mask. Once it's shined up some drop a ball bearing from a distance say 10" and eyeball estimate how high it rebounds as a %. Figure 75%+ as pretty good to excellent and less than 60% as limp biscuit poor, I've found ASOs with better than 60% rebound. Work a pattern across the face and listen for an abrupt change in tone, dead spots are a B-A-D sign. Not all anvils "ring" some clank, some clunk others will make your ears bleed. Thuds are a generally BAD sign, clunks and clanks might mean a HC steel face foundry welded to a cast iron body. A cast steel anvil tends to hurt your ears with a missed blow, some are like the devil's tuning fork. Keep us up on what you find. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Mick, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many of the Iforge gang live within visiting distance. Sorry, don't know anything about that anvil. Face and edges look decent but the casting looks kind of rough. What does a rebound test tell you? Drop a ball bearing from a way up and estimate how high it rebounds as a %. Good is in the 75%+ range and below about 60% is pretty limp biscuit poor. Frosty The Lucky.

Oh good luck finding any dealer willing to accept the liability of talking you through anything but finding a licensed and bonded professional to do installations. I've been getting my burner supplies from a close by plumbing and heating supply and being the talky sort I am have described what I'm doing for years now. Last summer just before the annual "Art on Fire" event where I demo I stopped by to show them one of my burners. The guy at the counter muttered something like Hmmmmm, interesting. One of the service guys walked out from the backroom, caught a glimpse and turned on the spot and went back through the door. That was hint enough for me and even though the store is less than 3 miles from the venue of Art on Fire one has never stopped by my area. I'm running home made gas burning appliances and they have a professional interest in NOT seeing them or reporting them to the appropriate folks. Frosty The Lucky.

I've had good luck using leaf spring but I made my guillotine to fit. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Atomizer glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised there are folk in Alaska within visiting distance. So where in Alaska ARE you? I'm in Wasilla about 50 mi. north of Anchorage. Our next meeting is 01/23/15 in Palmer. Time, directions, etc. are posted in the Alaska Association section near the bottom of the Iforge front page. PM me for specifics. Oh the anvil, sorry not a clue. If we haven't heard something about by time it gets here we can maybe do some basic testing and get an idea what it's utility as a tool is. Weight, rebound, general condition, etc. the basics. Frosty The Lucky.

Here's a tip that just might help you succeed in more than just this. Forget social media for anything but entertainment. Anybody with a connection can claim and say anything and they don't have to back a word. Even considering some world class bladesmiths have offered cogent advice WITH cites on Iforge you haven't bothered to read even here. Going back to my advice about social media's unreliability for research, a person has to know something of the subject to be able to sift the good info from the babel of kids who just HAVE to say something even though they don't have anything to say. Now, go to the library and check out a bladesmithing book or two. ILL one if necessary. (Inter Library Loan) There is a book list in the bladesmithing section here to help you find out what ARE good books and what are just . . . less good. The $50.00 Knife Shop is a decent book but if you don't have any knowledge or skills you'll end up just shotgunning away with guesses and not know why things don't work. I'm not trying to discourage you, I much prefer to see people succeed but you can't just slough off real research and ask a poor questions and expect good answers. Seriously, you don't know enough to be able to ask good questions so how do you expect to understand the answers? EVEN if someone here could figure out what you're asking. Frosty The Lucky.

Which books have you read? Not Wiki, not Youtube, etc. BOOKS. By the sound of it you're guessing and hoping for good results. It doesn't work that way outside the Xbox or fantasy novels. Frosty The Lucky.

May this be the best Christmas you've ever had and the least of those to come. Peace on Earth Brothers and Sisters. Frosty The Lucky.

There's a world of difference between a horrible fright cast iron Anvil Shaped Object (ASO) and a cast steel anvil. Most modern anvils are cast steel, once the Bessemer process made steel affordable it was no longer necessary let alone desirable to forge wrought iron bodies and weld HC steel face plates to make anvils. There are however some very good cast iron body with mold welded steel face and horn anvils, top of the list being Fisher anvils. The difference in resonance frequency between the steel face and cast iron body damps the sound so they don't ring. SWEET anvils. My go to anvil is a 125lb. Soderfors cast Swedish steel anvil, it's not only the best anvil I've ever used it will hurt your ears through muffs and ear plugs with a missed blow. Loud doesn't begin to describe the ring. It is one piece of homogeneous hardened steel so it's like a big tuning fork. Brooks are or were high end cast steel anvils. I'll bet you could find a steel mill close enough to buy in on the end of a crucible and get one poured. Frosty The Lucky.

A few years ago I made a tumbler from a 55gl drum with a locking lid. I welded a 2" lifting lug in it and mounted it on a tipping drum stand with the motor on a hinge board underneath it and driven by belt around the drum and pully on the motor. Simple and works nicely at about 40rpm. However, bouncing almost anything in a steel drum WILL wear holes in it pretty quickly while being LOUD. I put this one together right after finding a gallon can of bed liner paint at a yard sale. A Rhino Liner kind of product meant for patching truck beds, etc. It really REALLY quietened it down and better still armored the inside wonderfully. It served me well for several years before the accident with no apparent wear. The media I used was pinch offs and other steel bits and gravel, I'd toss in a shovel full every now and then. Frosty The Lucky.

It can be pretty overwhelming trying to teach yourself two or more skills sets at the same time. On the other hand some folk already have the skills they just need to adapt them to a new job. Too many of the kids I've tried to teach the craft recently have never used a hammer and one not only couldn't calculate (to use the word pretentiously) the area of a circle he didn't even know what "area" meant so couldn't figure the area of a square. But as he put it, "I'm not getting an A in math!" These are the very kids who think they're apprentices and just coming over makes them a blacksmith so they're going to make swords. I was a silly kid at one time and had some truly unrealistic ideas I mean seriously unrealistic like the submarine I was going to build. But wow, maybe if I grew up with a game controller instead of cardboard box forts and making stuff? Frosty The Lucky.

SWEET tip Joel!! Thank you and Merry Christmas. Frosty The Lucky.

I'd like to say this really brings back the memories but I don't. Merry Christmas Gang. Frosty The Lucky. http://www.jibjab.com/view/lO70u3Nt4niiZYEhhSWg

Here in Wasilla Alaska where shipping nearly double the price of everything a bag of 10 mig contact tips runs about $14.00. Short, long or tapered run about the same. If you have a buddy working there a singleton MIGHT fall on your foot but don't count on it. Frosty The Lucky.

I had a bunch of papers from manufacturers who make various induction devices of which our burners are a type. It took me probably 2 years to get one working fairly well and I have machine tools and schooling in the use. You're going to waste time and money trying to guess till you get lucky. Pick a set of directions, follow them and start smithing. Frosty The Lucky.

Maybe paint, I don't know and I don't know what OLD cad plate looks like either. Frosty The Lucky.

Nice piece Quint. How was the SS to forge? Some forges nicely some is a mutha bear. Doing demos is fun Forging Carver but you need to have a decent handle on what you'll be doing. Then again you might be able to hook up with another smith doing a demo and get a lesson too. The last couple demos I've done I've had a student present and not only didn't I have to work so hard, the student got to work under a little pressure AND spectators got a look at the process of learning. It worked out nicely all round. Frosty The Lucky.

Next time try using coil spring, it's actually easier to profile than leaf. Nothing wrong with grinding to a finished shape, that's what the things are for you know. I don't know if you've read much by us old curmudgeons recommending the kids NOT try learning blacksmithing by making knives. . .Well, nevermind, you might just have enough of a knack to pull it off. It doesn't matter how perfect you make something you'll ALWAYS see the flaws. We all do, get used to it. Nice blade Harry, especially for your first - time - at - the - anvil!!? YIKES outstanding job of it! Frosty The Lucky.

Here're a couple: Make a platform to stand on that raises you to a comfortable height. Or use hold fasts. Find a teenager who wants to "apprentice" and put him/er to work. Perhaps make tooling to hold your top tools while you strike. Perhaps make an Oliver attachment. Frosty The Lucky.

living in S. Calif. One of the features we grew up with were the red ants, the black ants weren't terribly aggressive but the red ones would come after you if you got too close. I'd wandered into a nest when I was maybe 8-9 and can still remember the stings from my feet to my arm pits. I was miserable for a couple days with red welts everywhere. Well, that started my vendetta against red ants, big red and very territorial and I tried everything a youngster could think of. I tried drowning them with a hose, bug poison, gasoline. (had I known NOT lighting gas was a good way to kill a nest I'd have tried that too) Anyway I never stopped but pretty well gave up hoping I could take out ant hills. One day while watching a 4 lane ant highway carrying bug poison dusted with powdered sugar back to the hill it struck me. The bug poison wasn't doing it but I had just the stuff. I went to the reloading bench in the dry utility room in the garage and opened a can of pistol powder and began mixing it with powdered sugar, then another can. 2lbs of fast pistol powder and about 1lb of sugar later I was ready to cook. The next morning I dusted a little trail of sweet powder from maybe 10' from the hive mouth to where I was sitting, outside the ant's defense border. I spent the whole day keeping the little pile of sweet powder up and when the can was about empty I dumped it all and waited. To give you an idea of just how popular the sweet powder was with the red ant hive the ant highway was a solid 4 ants each direction, nose to butt the whole way. Guess what I did when the sweet powder pile was about gone? . . . If you say, "tossed a lit match on the ant highway." You'd be right and watched with sadistic delight as the ant highway burned like a fuse. Not like the movies it burned pretty slowly but the sugar made it smoky and sell like a weird, burnt sugar, sulfur marinated ant BBQ. One thing I thought was pretty cool was the ants coming from the hill were burning too so they must've been coated in powder to. Well, when the fuse entered the ant hole it sort of smoked a bit, then the smoke turned into a jet and in a few seconds there was a jet of orange smoky flame shooting about 8" +/- spewing burning ants. I'd backed well away when the ant fuse got close to the hole, I expected it to explode even though smokeless powder doesn't explode like black powder but I figured the ant hive would confine it maybe enough. Well, nope no explosions but the little ant rocket engine burned nicely for a good 10+ minutes and about the time it died down to a dribble I stepped back and looked around. Holy Moly! A bush about 20' away was smoking and starting to burn! While I was stomping it out I noticed another couple smoke streams but no more fires. Geeze ants have back doors! What did I know about ants I was a dumb teenager. One plus though, that ant hill was done for. Something actually worked just don't get caught. I don't think the FD in S. Cal. would take kindly to youngsters turning ant hills into fireworks but NOTHING to what Mother would've had to say. Dad never hit us, ever but Mother had her wooden spoon and if pushed too far was good with it. Happily it didn't make the news or even draw attention. Yeah, I was lucky as a kid too. Frosty The Lucky.