Frosty

In virtually any configuration 1/2" of mild steel will make a poor anvil. Keep it around, it's useful stuff, just not for an anvil. Keep your eyes open for an anvil weight piece of steel. Getting in a hurry to build an anvil when you don't know nor understand what makes a good anvil is likely to turn into a "valuable learning experience". We learn from our mistakes yes? Just be patient, the kit will come, nothing good happens over night. Frosty The Lucky.

When you use that or any rotating tool stay OUT of the plane of rotation. You've seen mud slung of a bicycle wheel yes? That's the plane of rotation and things like grinders, wire wheels, buffs, your cut off saw, etc. can either grab things or even shatter shooting shrapnel at HIGH velocity. When I say high velocity I mean punch through your breastbone and penetrate your heart high velocity. We lost a member last October to a buffing wheel. Just learn to stand to the side so WHEN something gets caught you just are NOT in the way. Another thing to think about where cut off wheels are concerned is they're pretty fragile if hit from the side and it's really hard to see damage. Once damaged they can just come apart and . . . Stay out of the line to fire. Frosty The Lucky.

I don't know, maybe the Funky Wankers Dictionary? I bet it's on Wiki by now though. Uh, have we highjacked this thread or . . ? Frosty The Lucky.

I believe it is Thomas. Radioactivity is probably it's least dangerous attribute, toxicity is about as high as anything I know of and it's insidious once in you. I recall reading about the Fatman bomb project where someone was moving shavings from machining the core and dropped the container spilling the oil exposing the plutonium shavings to open air. It flashed emitting a little puff of smoke and the tech was dead in a week but he got a heavy dose. How much plutonium shavings? About a fingernail paring's worth, more wasn't allowed to leave the containment around the lathes. Cuttings were removed every pass or two in separate containments. I THINK this memory is of the Fatman core but it might have been the Little Boy core and that was a U238 gun device. I don't recall if Little Boy carried the Demon Core or it was detonated at Trinity. I'm remembering these things in bits and pieces. The Manhattan project killed a bunch of people, some in most gruesome ways, not counting the target populations that is. Interesting reading. Frosty The Lucky.

I used a roof jack with a wide skirt because I have a steel roof and it has pretty tall ribs. This makes it a little hard to get it down tight and water proof so moving it farther from the stack allowed me to use weather seal and mastic to put a gooey gasket under it and screw it at close intervals. Probably a better plan than asking a random bunch on the internet is hit the library and check out a book about roofing. There is a RIGHT way to do roof penetrations for every type roof there is. What works on mine may be a disaster on yours. Frosty The Lucky.

Pretty nice Shamus, good first project for sure. You'll be much happier with the scale sanded off the tang, all the parts of the handle need to be smooth. A little scale will grind through or blister your hide a LOT faster than you might think. Well done, carry on. Frosty The Lucky.

You have plenty enough to get started. Solid fuel forges are easy peasy and don't require much but a hair drier, mineral soil and a piece of pipe then charcoal or coal fuel. You already have a post vise, coooool, get it rigged and working and you don't need a hardy hole, eliminating the hardest to fake tool on an anvil. All you need for an anvil is a reasonably heavy piece of steel. If the local scrap yards won't let you buy, check out machine shops or heavy equipment shops. Machine shops will have drops and a nice piece of round stock in the 4"+ dia stood on end makes a fine anvil. Same for square or rectangular stock. Heavy repair shops might have a broken axle and they most often twist off at the spline end leaving the flange. Stood on end semi and dozer axles make SWEET anvils, they have a great depth of rebound (that's how hard the anvil hits back per blow) the flange and lug holes serve fine to hold bottom tools bending forks, etc. etc. The wood chisels might be happier left as wood chisels or relegated to the HC stock bucket, I don't think they'll make very useful metal working tools but I'm wrong a lot. The star drills could well be an S series steel and make outstanding impact tools, hot cuts, cold cuts, punches, chisels, etc. for metal work unless you want to make mason chisels, etc. then that's the HC stock bucket they should go into. The shorty punch will grind into a counter sink very nicely and it'll want a rounded tip. The large pin punch can be turned into all different shapes of hot punch as will the alignment (tapered) punch though those work well for punching and drifting holes. (drifting is expanding a penetration by driving a wedge into or through it. By wedge it can be a tapered round, oval, diamond, square, etc. cross section but it goes in narrow and gets fatter as it goes, hence wedge) Drifting is one of the best ways I know to produce a hole of precise shape and size. Tapered alignment punches work nicely for round but you're not actually driving them all the way through so it's not properly a "drift" but they do a fine job of opening a hole and in some cases a superior job as some holes should be tapered. Grind the mushrooming of the struck end of that chisel! That one is seriously dangerous as it stands. The overhang can chip ending sharp jagged shards of hard steel flying at flesh penetrating velocities. Eyeballs and arteries do NOT take kindly to being randomly penetrated. Grind it clean and chamfer the struck end of ALL your struck tools. This is basic maintenance of struck tools and should be done whenever the chamfer becomes hammered flattish. Any mushroomed struck tool either gets dressed or is a wall hanger in my shop, PERIOD. I have a few old top tools that are badly mushroomed with chips missing, I removed the handles and they're on a shelf as examples of dangerous tools. Seeing as you have a post vise wanting minor REALLY minor repairs the bench vise needs to stay on the bench for hand work. DON'T HIT your bench vise! They're cast iron and don't like being beat on, forget about that little anvil looking thingy on back that's a legacy shape and NOT an anvil. It's a very nice vise use it like it was designed to be used. The post vise looks complete missing only the return spring. Was there an odd looking gently curved piece of flat with a couple little tabs on one end and tapering down to a slightly more curve at the other end? If it isn't there these are really easy projects not needing spring steel at all. Heck the hardest to find, most often missing vise part is right there, looks like it even has the wedge, maybe both. Cool score. Nice spread of sledge hammers in the first pic, the head on the left looks like a stone dressing hammer to me, I have a 23lb. straight pein stone dressing sledge and it makes a SWEET heavy hitter. Unless you're going to train a striker, I've found handles about hand and a half length work nicely, call it more than half a standard sledge handle length or maybe double a single jack handle length. It gives you room for two hands but doesn't get in the way, good for close accurate hammering with a big gun. Be aware, that's MY preference, you'll develop preferences of your own as you go but feel free to borrow mine. Mother taught me to share you know. <wink> Ball peins, lots of them, good. I love ball peins, they're on my yard/garage/etc. sale buy em all list if the prices are reasonable. They're not only good smithing hammers as is but they can be reforged into all sorts of other useful hammers and top tools. For instance: Straight, angle, cross, etc. peins of different size and weights. Punches, slitters, hot cuts, butchers, shouldering tools, etc. again of different size and weight. Of course I suppose a person could use the ball pein for it's original purpose and pein rivets, tenons, head nails, etc. etc. they work a treat for that too. The hammer on the bottom left next to the red head is a "shrinking" hammer. The pointed end should come to a relatively sharp point and the flat face is the plannishing face and should be polished with the edges broken lightly.(that's radiused so as not to leave sharp marks) It's a body or sheet metal hammer used to reduce the area of a section by making it thicker. You use the pointy pein to make dents then flipping the sheet over or just working from the other side using the plannishing face to drive the pointed dents down flat. You use a "dolly" to buck the sheet while plannishing. Dollies are literally anvils and are often as light 10oz- though usually a pound or more. Anyway denting the sheet pulls the surrounding metal in towards the center of the impact area. Plannishing the dent flat can't make the surrounding metal expand so the metal IN the dent is upset or thickened. This leaves the sheet with a smaller area locally and thicker. Frosty The Lucky.

I suppose it's too late for me to suggest finding an old discarded shovel for stock? I'd use coil spring before I used leaf, it's less work to get to profile believe it or not. I agree with John, ceremonially killing the trowel is a perfect retirement gift. Any bogs close? Frosty The Lucky.

Is it an integral? Heck of a finish. Frosty The Lucky.

After my first Ooooh coooool reaction I thought of an adze with pattern welded feathered tail. Frosty The Lucky.

Now all you need is an inverter for your car/pickup truck so you can carry your portaband with you in case you see some salvage that just won't fit in the wife's car trunk whole. Frosty The Lucky.

Thanks for the tip Joel. I'm going to give the stuff a try, I'm looking at three things right now that might need to be Sugrued. Worth a try for sure. Thanks. Frosty The Lucky.

Oh great some folk DO call them a helper! Now we're all confuseder than before. So how many names do we use for guillotine tools? I know of the: Smithin Magician and guillotine. And the "Blacksmith's Helper". Okay, that's 3 so far how many more out there? How about you guys down under? Ian in SA? Frosty The Lucky.

That works Ian. A tap wrench works well in place of the vise grips if it's large enough to grip the round. Frosty The Lucky.

Wouldn't a double fugly PAIR of tongs be fourgly? Frosty The Lucky.

I don't know about an adhesive but I don't think a hard brittle one will work. You may not know it but a 2-3lb hammer will flex 1/2" steel like a drum head so anything like regular epoxy glue would shatter. I'll bet there are adhesives out there that'll do it but they might cost more than a new Nimba. That might just work Guns. I've never tried getting a solder or braze join that way. Tin the anvil, lay the face on it and induction heat the face plate? One side hot the other cold? I think the thermal expansion and contraction of the face plate would tear it loose but I don't know. Doing it in a kiln would make it a world easier, safer and more likely to succeed. You could do a controlled hardening and tempering heats too. All a person needs is a kiln large enough and enough curiosity to kill a clowder of cats. Something that's kept the whole idea in mind is how a successfully soldered face plate on a cast iron body would compare to a Fisher noise wise. They should be a self damping combination. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Bandit, glad to have you. There's a little difference between build a fire and get to it and Just get to it. doing some reading first is a good idea. I know I spent a few years trying to teach myself and wasn't doing so well till I discovered some books. A person should build a fire and get to it for sure just don't stop researching. What do you have for kit? You don't need much at all but a little helps a lot. What do you have for stock? My favorite is 3/8" sq. or 1/2" rd. mild but that's me. Depending on what your interests are different sizes are better. 5/16" rd is good too. When you say you haven't picked up a hammer, do you mean that metaphorically or literally. If you've never used a hammer that's okay there are good exercises to help you develop the eye hand and muscle memory blacksmithing requires. If however I'm right and you mean you just haven't hit hot steel yet, we got you covered there too. No worries. So, let's get started. What do you have for kit? List it out, not every little bit but the important things. You must have a way to control a HOT fire, you must have something to hammer against, something to hammer with and something to hold hot stuff. That's the basic kit, about all that's really necessary. sure, you'll want a way to cut stock and even hot steel but a hack saw is perfect and cold chisels from yard/garage/etc. sales should be on your to buy list. You'll want a center punch a drift or pin punch about 3/16" dia. is good. A big fat center punch is a good starter outer and handy for punching counter sinks. What are your interests? Nobody gets into this craft without at least an idea or two about what they'd like to make. Well, almost nobody there are folk who just like collecting skills but even they have things they like to make. You like tools, hardware, decorative or architectural things? We can adjust once we have an idea where your interests lay. I start students depending on their aptitude and skills sets. I like a first session welding lesson to get the mystique of forge welding out of the way but that's not very practical here. A good 1st. project in my experience is a leaf finial coat hook. There are video tutorials about making a leaf, look a couple up and give it a try. Then you want to draw a nice long even taper to a dull point. LEAVING about 3-4" between the leaf and the taper. Put a twist on the center section. Once you're happy with the twist get it screaming HOT and lay it on a block of wood with the back of the hook facing up and flatten the twist edges a little. The wood will cushion the front and not alter the edges allowing you to flatten the part of the hook that lays against the wall for a nicer look and fit. Okay, you DO know your leaf has a front and wall side. Yes? the part with the veins or vein like texturing faces the room. Get it hot again and lay it face up on the anvil and using the center punch drive two screw hole counter sinks. Later you'll be grinding your own counter sink punch but for starts a center punch works just fine. Drive it till the outside of the crater is about the size of a wood screw. Next punch into the center of the craters with the drift/pin punch till you can see the dark little spot on the back side when you turn it over. Lay the punch on the dark dot and punch the slug out. Now you have the screw holes. the hook will need a little straightening do that on the wood block with another wood block or better yet a wooden mallet. Now we're down to the last steps and probably the trickiest. Heat the end of the taper and with the leaf facing up turn a little scroll on the very end and I mean little, think pencil eraser diameter and smaller. The only purpose to this little finial scroll it to prevent the hook tearing a coat. And the scroll needs to be pointing the right direction. Now heat the taper again and with the leaf facing down form the hook. You've seen coat hooks, make it look like that with the finial scroll coming about even with the bottom screw hole. Get everything tweaked even, straight and make sure it will lay with the leaf flat on the anvil and the hook standing straight up. NO the hook isn't straight but it should be perpendicular to the back of the hook or it'll look kittywompus on the wall. Believe me people WILL see a degree or two off square, they might not know what's up but it'll look wrong. Humans have an instinctive recognition of square corners and straight lines. Once it's tweaked wire brush it starting at a high red or low orange heat, brush vigorously and don't be afraid to use something to back it against to keep it from skidding all over the place. Now while it's still too hot to touch finish it. Plain old Johnson's paste wax works very well. I like Carnuba because it's super durable and super fluid when melted so it leaves a thin coat that gets into every cranny. Many folk like Bee's wax and it's a good finish but can stay a little tacky but you're going to wipe the excess wax off with a rag before it's completely cool so it won't be tacky enough to notice. Of course you can paint it if you'd like, there's nothing wrong with paint, people have been painting iron work since paint was invented. The Yellin shop painted their work. Regardless, it's up to you and eventually it'll be up to your customers. Well, that's about it, however the hook turned out go put it on the wall somewhere you'll see it. You can admire a useful first project and as the years go by compare it to how far you've come. A person should keep their first project as a reminder of where you started. The last is assuming you have basic hand tool skills. If you need to learn basic hand tool skills, don't worry there's no shame in it, the condition is easily fixed and I have just the project to develop good hammer control skills. Frosty The Lucky.

They have a proper name I can't think of. I do know what they're for though, they're for holding round stock in this case that's too long to hold be the end like wolf jaw tongs do. Side grip or side bit tongs keeps popping into my dented head so maybe? Not to be confused with cross bit tongs that are intended to hold a piece, perpendicular to the tongs. The ones pictured hold it maybe in the middle but parallel with the tongs. Frosty The Lucky.

I'm thinking calling 911 whether he likes the idea or not but it's been too long. If he did this day before yesterday (Sunday?) and is still alive he may be okay. Typically if there's enough chlorine gas you can smell it you're pretty much toast. Chlorine gas was one of many poison gasses used during WWI but by both sides unless I'm mistaken. I don't know if he could've made sulfur mustard gas but just a wiff would be enough to make you sick for days. Here's something a person runs across and I'm afraid just has to get used to at least to a degree. If he's an adult you can't MAKE him see a doctor. Sure if he's unconscious you can have him hauled to the hospital with a 911 call but if he comes to he can refuse to be transported or treated at all. The premier cautionary tale about galvanized iron in a forge is Jim, Paw Paw Wilson and his mishap. He stacked his gas forge full of sections of galvanized pipe intending to burn the zinc off. He had doors and windows open and chased others out of the shop. Even though he dosed himself heavily enough he was seriously sick he refused to see the doc. By time he let himself be admitted he was suffering a type of pneumonia it takes a young man without COPD to pull through. Another tale about a neighbor of my Uncle Fred had the old gent sick for days but refusing to miss morning coffee with the boys or see the doc. About 11:00 that morning his wife, wondering what he was doing idling his pickup in the driveway went out to see and found him DOA behind the wheel. If he won't go see a doc he won't and it's on him. Sucks for his wife, kids, family and friends but it's on him. Frosty The Lucky.

Oooohhhh, the welds were ground! Fancy. I'm feeling envy. <sigh> Frosty The Lucky.

​Your perspective is a little scary here Spanky. I was referring to turning a caltrop into a cross and YOU were doing it. I'm pretty sure I'm NOT the only one to suggest forging weapons into plow shears. Let me know if you need help coming up with sermon germs, that's my kind of culture you know. Frosty The Lucky.

My Grandmother's house was on Puget sound, with a clear view of Hood Island. I was Born in Everett and. . . Oh heck our family pioneered the PAC NW in the mid 19th. It is exquisitely beautiful country if you don't mind rain. The NWBA is also a strong active blacksmithing organization, if you were to drop my name with them they MIGHT still talk to you. <grin> I agree about moving, I have too much stuff and no teen age kids to do the work so I think we'll just stay put as long as we can. Frosty The Lucky.

Just so you know I've never tried soldering a steel face to a cast anvil. You'll be taking your own chances if you wish to give it a try. Be prepared for a good fire to take several hours to bring it to silver solder sweating temperature and longer to cool. Think about this, I've been thinking about this for probably 35+ years. I have a brand spanking new ASO sitting out there that was abandoned with me 15-16 years ago. I have more than enough 1" Vascowear Grader edge just begging to be cut, fitted and matched. Have I built a fire on a clear part of this 15 acres we live on? Nope, they're still just sitting there and I have about 12 acres of forest I can harvest wood from for the fire. I had the idea years before I found an anvil, heck had an aso then too, I abandoned it way back. It's an all day/night job. Fine if you're camping anyway but it's a PITA to control the heat, get it where you need it and cooling it would be another PITA. What's so hard about spending a day watching a fire? It'll be more than hot enough to start a fire for probably 12+ hrs after the solder flows and you can't just walk away and leave it. Bury it in dirt? Not a bad idea but now you'd have to heat treat the face and critical is hotter than the solder's melting temp though if you're careful you can find solder that has a higher melting temp, think a brazing rod but now you're talking about getting it all in the range of 1600-1660f. (From a Uniweld alloy temperature chart) I suppose if you used a low temp silver solder, say 450f or under liquidus you wouldn't have to worry about hardening but the temper would be run probably into the purple. Not bad I guess. I have Vascowear grader edge to play with and it doesn't much care if I get it 1600f. so long as I don't chill it in a creek it'll be too hard for mere mortal man to dent with a hammer. I'm still not going to set up a camp and stay awake all night to make sure a gust of wind doesn't blow a leafy branch or someone's escaped garbage can lid on it and start a forest fire. Yves just posted a splendid pictorial piece that lays out what a real plan is like. Silver soldering or brazing a face on a cast iron anvil is an intriguing idea but when I started working out a plan realized it's a major job to do safely. I suppose I could take it to one of the heat treat shops in Anchorage but that'd cost a BUNCH. Start laying out all the things you'll need and need to do to try pulling this off, just diving in is a recipe for failure. Frosty The Lucky.

Does it say in the add it's a 25lb. anvil? The 25 cast proud on the side in the picture could mean it's a 250lb. anvil which would make $408au. a pretty fair price. Or it could be a model #, foundry, . . . Hard to say not knowing. Frosty The Lucky.

You'll lose performance welding the plate to the top of the block. the block alone is an excellent anvil as it stands, needing only a little radiusing of the edges. The steel plate stood on edge would make a fine anvil as well. Welding the plate on as a base wouldn't hurt but you'd lose it as a stand alone anvil or set of edge swages. You really don't find much use for a large flat surface like that unless you're forging anchors and such. I think you have a couple fine anvils just wanting a little dressing and stands. Frosty The Lucky.