Frosty

Perfect, s/he can be our xenophobic engineer's roomy! Say, if the bridge is on top we can name the ship "Trouble Waters." I better stop now. Frosty The Lucky.

Nice little forge. A couple little things: the built up section of adobe (duck's nest) needs to be thicker, think fire bricks not pottery. You'll probably want to rotate the duck's nest 90* so you can heat long stock farther in from the end. You're going to want to do some bending and will need the pass through. Nice score. You might want to search IFI for charcoal retorts or buying lump charcoal is going to kill your pocket book of course being in Ohio there should be good smithing coal available and you'll get better mileage. Check with the local smithing organization, failing that call local farriers if the one you call doesn't burn coal s/he'll know who does and put you in touch. Frosty The Lucky.

The maker of the anvil isn't a "Forge" it's a "Foundry." You may be looking for the wrong industry. It could well be QLD. AUST. Makes more sense, I just enlarged the pic till it pixellation reached the point of diminishing returns. Does the company selling them talk to people? The ad says they're waiting on another shipment so . . . Nevermind, I was just going to say something unuseful, like you'd really go all detective just to find out. Frosty The Lucky.

I know you're Canadian but you just MIGHT want to see if you're risking serious fines and or jail time scrounging RR property. Worth a call to you? Maybe you think ignorance of the law will work in court but not a chance. Frosty The Lucky.

Vinegar's fine so long as you finish it with olive oil and a twist of fresh ground pepper. Frosty The Lucky.

Good job! I think you're going to fit right in here. Blacksmiths are pretty well known for improvising, making do and just generally liking to mess with stuff till we have something that works or come up with a good story about why it's really something else. You like puns I trust. Frosty The Lucky.

I was expecting to see something that implied a swan but didn't. Are you referring to the shape of the hook itself? If so I'd call it a swan or goose Neck, hook. When you say "tips" I take it you mean the very end of the hook, what I'd call the "finial" treatment. I don't see a swan but I may not be looking at it right. Frosty The Lucky.

Fergy: Reading the ad it looks to be a decent anvil. HRC 58 is decent for the face and it says it'll work harden so being only 3-4 MM shallow isn't too bad. I wouldn't hazard a guess about alloy but they say it won't become brittle and that's a good thing. Have you tried contacting "Old Aust"? The anvil makers might be more than happy to tell you what it's made of maybe put you in contact with satisfied customers. Like they're going to put you in contact with folk who hate them. There is a lot to be said for modern anvils, folk haven't forgotten what makes a good anvil though plenty of charlatans are putting out junk. Same everywhere. Frosty The Lucky.

Russell: Didn't you bring a copy of Wygers', "Complete Modern blacksmith?" It has all you need to know about making stone dressing tools. From: field ID of scrap to heat treat for the intended use and maintenance. Frosty The Lucky.

While brush burnishing brass on aluminum seems to work I'll be interested to see if he posts the results of electrolysis. It never occurred to me to try this on al but what the heck, it works a treat on steel and iron. I wouldn't bother sand blasting the base metal unless I didn't like how it turned out on clean. Frosty The Lucky.

Yes, I like making tongs from coil spring, I'm too cheap to buy 4140 like MetalMangler does. There is a thing to watch out for using steels with enough carbon to harden, you either have to keep them well below red heat or let them cool on the floor. Quench them too close to critical and you can make them brittle enough to snap off next time you pick something up or drop them. Spring lets you make them thinner and still be plenty strong so they're lighter and less likely to bed under hard squeezing. Springy tong reins work really well with a clip too. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Mark, 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. Nice expedient forge, well done. You'll need a better air grate, that one will burn through probably first fire. Then a fire and some steel heating aught to about do it. I already answered your intro post but was Forbidden. Frosty The Lucky.

ARGHHHHH! Neutralize with Baking Soda. Thanks for back stopping my mistakes. I don't know what I was thinking, certainly not basic chemistry. Even MY level basic. Frosty The Lucky.

By jet end do you mean the flame output end? If so hat would be a flare. It sounds like a version of what I winkled out back when. Glad it's working for you, if you have problems let me know we'll get it squared away. Frosty The Lucky.

A clamp it where you need it vise, say the transom of your boat as a pole holder. Frosty The Lucky.

There's nothing wrong with windows in doors, just place it so it's over the one in the wall when the door's open. Frosty The Lucky.

Editing can make things appear to occur in any order, whatever the editor THINKS is most dramatic. Reality isn't really a factor in "reality TV." Today they run the whole series as a lead in for tonight's episode so I've been watching. In two instances, I caught, the editor sequenced it so the bladesmith said he was about to "temper" the blade for . . . Cut to shot of bladesmith Quenching the blade. In one of the above scenes hen the bladesmith said he was about to temper the blade he was holding in the tongs was still smoking lightly. There isn't one of the bladesmith contestants who'd make that level mistake in terminology or he wouldn't be able to talk to other bladesmiths. Don't let the editing fool you. What we see is a small fraction of the jobs they're doing. We're seeing two 3 hr. competitions and a 3 day competition in maybe half an hour actual show time. Frosty The Lucky.

I have to take my comp in for a little debugging but should be back online later today. I've been working out Corrigan's back story and will be ready to go. Come ON guys the ship's company needs some more members. Frosty The Lucky.

The lighting in your pics is such I can't read the thickness. Line spikes were typically around 5/8" thick I've seen different versions but I don't believe they were used on the line. Their length was sometimes fairly long probably for spiking through thicker lays of plates, pads or who knows what. Frosty The Lucky.

Those look much nicer, the hangers are smoother though it could use more file and sanding work for the jewelry table. It's been a long time since I've seen the clear rubber coating and I don't know how it's applied, maybe like Dipit in the can for tool handles. I don't know what kind of burner you're using. Is it made up from black iron plumbing parts namely a T mounted like a letter T? If so it might be one modeled after what I cobbled together a while back. Frosty The Lucky.

Just score it where you want it cut and smack it smartly with a sledge hammer it will snap cleanly. Don't worry about the face imperfections till you've spent time working on it, the hardened surface is literally only a few thousandths of an inch thick and it doesn't take much grinding to remove it. A wire brush to remove surface rust then take hot steel and a hammer to it. You'll be surprised how the bumps and pits will work out. Frosty The Lucky.

Ospho or Naval Jelly (N J) are both phosphoric acid compounds and work very well. I've gotten excellent results from Naval Jelly on very heavily rusted things the one that jumps out right now is a small set hammer head. I found it in the basement of the Seward Machine Shop when it was being liquidated as an estate. That was a good pick. Anyway that little hammer head was so rusted the eye was closed and the entire surface was leaves of rust like a book. I diluted the (N J) in water to about 1/3 and laid the hammer head on 4 plastic pointy ended thumb tacks I'd ground the points. The next morning, say 18+/- hours I rinsed it neutralized with dilute vinegar and rinsed again. The hammer head had been restored to as close to new as it was when it went into the basement, you can read the maker, size, weight and see the spot where a single chip of rust got knocked off. If you follow the directions on the bottle and allow Ospho or (N J) to dry it leaves a flat black phosphorous (oxide?) coating which is a perfect primer for painting and will protect the steel until it wears off. I also have a gallon bottle of lab grade phosphoric acid and it does the same job however it lacks efficiency. I think both Ospho and (N J) have surfacants "Wetting agents" and (N J) has a jell agent to make it stick. Were I experimenting I'd look into Jet Dry or find a source of Sodium Laural Sulphate. (the ingredient in Jet Dry and other similar products, like: shampoos, dish soaps, dish washer soaps, laundry detergents, car wash soaps, etc. to make the product wet the subject.) Regardless a covered, plastic bucket or tub with a solution of 1/3 dilution of (N J), Ospho or about a 10-15% solution of phosphoric acid is about as easy as derusting gets. WAY easier than brushing and the upside is dilute phosphoric acid is in the realm of fertilizer so haz mat disposal isn't a big deal or we wouldn't be allowed to use NJ or Ospho at all. Just remember you must neutralize rinse and as soon as it's dry oil, wax or paint the project or it will rust almost as you watch. It's really pretty cool to see steel rust so fast but a spritze or wipe of something to protect it is easy. Heck, Pledge spray wax or Pam does the trick at least temporarily. Frosty The Lucky.

8' at 600lbs. comes out as 225lb. rail and I can't think of any that weight. Rail is categorized in lbs./yard so 125lb. rail is 125lbs. per yard. Have you weighed it or are you estimating? Don't get carried away trying to clean it up or "making" an anvil from it. Rail actually cuts easily if you don't try cutting from the rail face, flip it over and you can hack saw through it from the flange side in under half an hour. My cut off band saw makes nice clean cuts in under 10 minutes. The contact surface is induction hardened a few thousandths deep from the mill and work hardening deepens it a little. The trick is to make sure the saw teeth only contact this hard zone from the back side so it chips out. If the teeth contact the hard steel they dull almost instantly. Mounting on end gives you excellent depth of rebound which is the thickness of steel directly under the hammer and goes a long way towards efficiently moving steel. Laying it flat provides handy shapes, the curved contact surface or the rail being a goody. No, flat isn't necessary or even terribly desirable as an anvil face. Steel draws more easily with better direction control over a curve. Straightening work is better done lengthways for the longer surface. There are nice shapes at the connection of the web and flanges that make acceptable swage while the ends can be used as cut offs, butchers and fullers. The down side to laying rail flat is the depth of rebound. Total weight has less to do with efficiency than rebound which is the shock wave from the hammer's impact in the anvil itself. The rebound is how hard the anvil resists movement or hits back. Great depth typically means the anvil moves much less and rebound is the shock wave returning to the face. The shock wave travels through the anvil to the first change which in most anvils is either a significant change in material or open air. The shock wave travels at the speed of sound through steel so even in a 30" deep piece it returns to the impact site while the hammer is still compressing the hot steel. However laying flat the energy is absorbed by flex rather than rebounding, the length of rail bends under the hammer and reverberates like a piano string rather than hit back. If you search Iforge you'll find some posts Charles made and hopefully the pictures of his take on rail anvils are still there. He's demonstrated some of the possibilities for turning rail stood on end into a list of valuable tools besides a forging face. Frosty The Lucky.

I wish I could remember the name of the fellow who showed us how easy and well it works I'd give him full credit. I'm proud to pass it along. Frosty The Lucky.

She's a beauty J. Very nice score. Frosty The Lucky.