Frosty

<sigh> Frosty The Lucky.

Oh I don't know. I can't think of a much more positive way to close a gate than with artillery. Charles: I'm pretty ignorant of things military so had to search the web but found no reference for a 901. What am I missing? Frosty The Lucky.

I just hunted the episode up and watched it. That is surely a level of craft to aspire to. Frosty The Lucky.

Joke? Frosty The Lucky.

And I thought it was because I was listening to other people's children. Learn something every day. Frosty The Lucky.

Nope you have it backwards. The hardy hole was introduced into anvils to hold the already existing Hardy which is a cut off chisel used edge up. There may be various shapes of hardy, hot, cold, curved, butcher but all are cut off chisels. Probably the closest modern cut off to the original "hardy" is an "anvil devil." Basically a cut off chisel with a base wide enough to lay on the anvil face and be stable enough to do the job. I imagine the modern anvil devil is changed significantly from the olden day's hardy. The oldest reference I've seen to bottom tools for the hardy hole are as "shank" bottom tools. Calling anything with a square shank a "hardy" is a modern corruption of the terminology. Frosty The Lucky.

A flat round plate W/ bolt flanges for the vertical if you need to break it down for flat storage makes about as good a non permanent vise stand as I know of. Frosty The Lucky.

You don't talk to knife makers who use 440 series stainless steels? Frosty The Lucky.

He may love the sound of children whooping it up in the yard. I know hearing a child laugh makes me feel younger and fitter. Frosty The Lucky.

Do you have a torch? You can simply torch bolt holes OR heat the spots you wish to drill to black heat and let them air cool. Using a carbide drill bit might do it but any chatter will kill expensive bits. Your idea to use washers on screws outside the flange will work just fine. If you were to drill a couple holes in a couple pieces of say 1/4"x1 1/2" strap to act like you envision for the washer it'll be more secure. Frosty The Lucky.

If you want to do production and etch then check out a stamp making kit for applying the resist. The problem with etching is how it WILL be undercut by the etchant and eventually flake off or just blear the results. Frosty The Lucky.

Charles, Ian: come on guys pint, pound, litre, meter, who cares. I mean really, who drinks French beer? Frosty The Lucky.

Ditto the convex edge for a number of reasons. Next hardy try not drawing the blade out quite that thin. All in all a good serviceable tool. Well done. Frosty The Lucky.

Let me see if I have this straight. Double the area of the hole halves the flow velocity and quarters the pressure. Yes? Does the volume of gas delivered not double? OR is that a constant? Frosty The Lucky.

I used carb and brake cleaner to get the 100 years of oil and grease off mine, then freaked out the employees by taking it to the car wash to use the power sprayer to strip the sludge and old paint off. I'd be pretty nervous using a sand blaster on it for contaminating the babbit bearings with sand. I understand the principle of pouring babbit and could probably pull it off but would rather not. Solvents won't hurt anything important on an old mechanical power hammer but blowing sand into the works? Frosty The Lucky.

My go to anvil is a 125lb. Soderfors and it's but one step from my 206lb Trenton. I've never noticed the extra 81lbs. making much difference other than using bending forks. Frosty The Lucky.

I'm not familiar with the term, "tankers bar." I've used old axles as field expedient axles a number of times and most any with a lug bolt flange work pretty well. I did find one that was off something heavy duty that was a super anvil. I wish I brought it home rather than leaving it stuck in the sand bar on the Resurrection River. Oh well. Frosty The Lucky.

Beautiful work Asma, you DO have the gift. I really like the "Star Saw" it put a smile on my old face. I am so happy you're posting pictures of you work on the forum, they're a nicer size and the white background makes them easier to see. And believe me yours are well worth seeing. Thank you for the look. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard John, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many of the IFI gang live within visiting distance. Nobody is going to remember you told us in this post once we open another. That looks like a cast iron Chinese knock off anvil we call them ASOs for Anvil Shaped Object. However, it's hard to tell looking at a pic. Have you done a rebound test? Drop a ball bearing on the face and estimate how close to that high it bounces. You CAN use a scale and measure the rebound but eyeballing is good enough for an estimate. 50% is mediocre, 70% is okay, 80-90% is pretty darned good. A hard anvil face is pretty necessary to efficient forging. Is it available? Are you interested in learning the craft? Frosty The Lucky.

Thank you sir, I try. I like dark beers and creme stouts though a nice ale is good. We'll take turns on the check though. Frosty The Lucky. Patrick: I see you have the good taste to not read enough of my posts to know I'm a smart Alec so you probably just didn't realize how far in my cheek my tongue was. However, there is a good reason to try upsetting such a piece of stock and no, you don't have to lose much of anything to scale. IF you flux it to prevent oxygen contact. The only good reason, other than a patron is paying your rate, to learn to do this kind of silly process is to learn how. As a learning exercise it's a fine thing to do, education costs, one way or another we have to invest in education. And, yes I've actually tried this silly kind of upset and pulled it off IIRC 1/4"x3/4" or similar. It was far and a way more work than it was worth. Yes I lost so much to scale that by time it was square it was something like 5/16". After keeping flux on it edge chilling it so it'd upset in the center and liberally coating my apron with flux spatter I proved to myself I'd prefer to draw 1" sq. down than upset very much more than absolutely necessary. The way to keep buckling from screwing the show up royally is to correct it the second it starts to occur. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard James, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many of the IFI gang live within visiting distance. Telling us in the first or any post isn't going to work, we're not going to remember after we open the next post. I've got about the same advice for newcomers who want to make blades as always. If you want to forge blades learn to forge before you start making blades. Learning to be proficient as a blacksmith is a pretty involved learning curve. It's a little knowledge and a LOT of practice. Every project, no matter how large or complex is a series of basic process in the correct order. Once you have a good handle on forging learning to forge blades is only learning to adapt to a new material and a couple specific techniques. Trying to do both at once is multiplying your learning curve by more than double, it's much harder and failure prone than learning them one at a time in order. We like pictures, projects, tools, equipment, shop, landscapes, pets, family, about anything you'd let a 9 yr old look at. Frosty The Lucky.

Does it have to be a parabola? A straight sided box with a semicircular vault is EASY to calculate. Seriously, box LxWxH + 1/2 pi.r.sq x L. Or if you have an example of the thing trace it on graph paper and add the little squares and triangles. My preference if for technique #1 I'm a KISS kind of guy. Frosty The Lucky.

You hardly came away empty handed. Tools and equipment are just things and things can be had and lost. The real treasure is knowledge, that's the one thing that can't be taken from you. The real topper though is you got a shot. The gentleman gave you a shot in his shop, offered you his friendship and knowledge. That is the jewel in the crown. He may have kept all that for a number of reasons but I'd bet he was hoping one of his kids or grandkids would take the reins but families tend to grow apart sometimes. Passing his heritage on may be what he really needs. You and your son may be getting adopted in a sense. Without getting too obvious about it, treat him like the kindly uncle, grandfather, etc. It sounds to me like he either ran a more or less commercial forging operation or a school, maybe both. Teaching is a deeply satisfying thing. Scoring tools is the least of your opportunities, Friendship, education and giving the gift of purpose. You could well be giving him the gift of continued purpose and reason to be. It think it's a win all the way around. Frosty The Lucky.

I really like the way the hammer marks compliment the wood grain in the handle. Beautiful piece of work, no fu-fu, all serious business. Frosty The Lucky.

Hey I RESEMBLE that remark!! Frosty The Lucky.