Frosty

I can't help with an ID but it looks to be in pretty nice shape. How's the rebound? Pitting on the body doesn't mean much, gives it character if anything. Taking pics in oblique light will help stampings stand out. rubbing it with chalk, then wiping it off will leave chalk in low places like stamped letters, numbers, etc. OR you can do a paper charcoal rubbing. Of course it's possible there never were ID marks or they've been obliterated by corrosion. While It's nice to k now the maker and age of your anvil it doesn't really mean much, what counts is it's condition and how it works. Frosty The Lucky.

Nice looking piece of work Mark. Splitting wood certainly gives a person practice hitting the mark with a full measure of power doesn't it? Even though I am, or was, a crack shot with a sledge I haven't been able to bring myself to take a full bore over the shoulder blow on one of my anvils. Yeah, I'm a sissy I know. That's a beaut, well done. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard, glad to have you, Mystic smith. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be pleasantly surprised to find out how many of the IFI gang live within visiting distance. I'm afraid I can't help ID your smith but I wish you the best of luck. I'm sure he'll be happy to hear he helped get someone else addicted to blacksmithing. Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome aboard Doug, glad to have you. You've found a winner with Steve, good for you! If you put your general location in your header you may be happy to discover how many IFI folk live within visiting distance. It makes finding tools, stock, etc. much easier. Frosty The Lucky.

Good point <grin> there's always the hazard of walking into the point of the horn, either of mine will leave a deep bruise so taking it into account is a good idea. Frosty The Lucky.

Yes, literally. :blink: Frosty The Lucky.

You don't need a grinder if you first hot rasp it, then draw file it to finish edge before you harden it. hardening will damage the edge but it'll still be close enough to whet stone sharp. If you find a striker you can make yourself a turning hammer ala Brian Brazeal, a turning hammer moves metal so much faster than a flat face. Cross and straight peins are really effective for moving metal in a controlled direction. Any of these will make forging a hardy a joy instead of a chore. Still a lot of work but less than half. Dcraven: by blunting read DAve's post proceeding mine, he lays out the why of it well. For some cutters a blunting is a must, say any for cutting copper alloys, Drill bits, lathe cutters, deburring tools, etc. A very light touch to a fine grinding belt or gentle brush edge on to a sharpening stone to take the as honed edge off the cutter makes for a robust edge that is much less likely to roll when hot. A convex edge is backed by steel even if hit off center. Put your hands together and bend your fingers like a hollow ground bevel and you can see how easy pressure from the side will bend then roll it. Straighten your fingers to a straight bevel and you can see it's stronger but still vulnerable. Now imagine it parting steel, the steel is forced aside all along the final bevel with attendant friction. Lastly bend your fingers out so they're convex to the edge. You'll see the edge is backed by steel at almost any angle of impact. Now imagine it parting steel, the only point of friction is a very small point of the curve, think a tire on the road. It's not only much easier to drive, it absorbs less heat, is stronger and less likely to roll. Frosty The Lucky. Frosty The Lucky.

They can SAY whatever they want but if it's marked they HAVE to honor the tag, it's the law. You just have to let them know you know, call a manager if you must, the sales folk often just don't know. Call a manager, they'll honor it or call the BBB and they'll do some citing and fining and you'll get the deal. Frosty The Lucky.

Willis's story reminds me of the time during construction on the house when I was going to hang a quick piece of wood on the tarp tent shop when I ran a screw through the plywood thingy I was hanging, through the 2x4 I was hanging it on and into my finger. Any idea how hard it is to just pull your finger off a wood screw? so, there I was violating several safety rules, standing on the second from the top step of a ladder on uneven ground, nobody within shouting distance, my finger screwed to the far side of a 2x4 and my only recourse to unscrew it. All I needed at that moment was to drop the screw gun and I'd be there till Deb came looking or ran an errand. Luckily I got the screw gun reversed and freed myself. Sure, I'd gotten away with this kind of thing for years but it's like drinking from the well, do it enough times and you WILL drop the dipper. Frosty The Lucky.

Looks good, nicely matched and well formed. I found punching for the counter sink before punching or drilling the screw hole works very much better than doing it second. I very much prefer screws for working hooks, nails, especially hand forged nails WILL work loose. If however you twist the nails they will hold longer, they'll still work loose but will hold longer. OR you could clinch them on the other side of the mounting board, that works nicely. Good inexpensive lumber for projects like this are shipping pallets, they're often high quality hard wood, oak, maple, etc. and sometimes tropical hardwoods like teak and such. They ca be a PITA to clean up but usually look very nice as backing boards. Watch out for oil stains when you pick pallets, oil and chemical stains can be invulnerable stains, sometimes hazardous. Frosty The Lucky.

You're very welcome and Thomas is someone I always read and give consideration. I plain forgot the practical test of swinging a long piece to see what gets in the way. Sorry about the Dr Pepper, bummer. I put the horizontal/vertical band saw against the wall where the stock is stored nearer one end. That lets me just pick a piece and lower it onto the rolls to be fed to Mr. Shortener. The less handling you can do the better. Frosty The Lucky.

Not to worry, too much emphasis is placed on ring when it's rebound that counts. An anvil does it's work by resisting the inertia imparted by the hammer to the work and this is best indicated in a field test, by rebound. After all the steel isn't going to be scared into moving by a loud noise. <grin> It's an immovable backing that's going to have the most effect and rebound is the far better indicator. Ring is best generated by harmonics and a Fisher is high carbon steel on cast iron two materials with very different resonant frequencies so they damp against each other, making it go dink and quieting. Fishers are famous and highly desirable for being quiet anvils. blacksmithing and iron/steel is a huge learning curve, you could study it from birth the rest of your life and not learn but a small fraction. Welcome to THE learning curve, enjoy the ride. Frosty The Lucky.

You know Dave when we over emphasize hazards it tends to make folk under emphasize things they shouldn't. this is why you don't see caution signs on the road everywhere, too many and motorists start disregarding them all. Same reason we didn't thurn on the strobes unless we were doing something that darned well needed early warning. Then there's the effects of warning people about an issue and NOT taking proper precautions for that level hazard. For instance, were you wearing a paper class 1 hazmat overall, gloves taped to the sleeves and a hepa, full face filter mask? OR were you wearing neoprene gloves, plain filter mask, open sleeves and safety glasses? Seriously inadequate PPE for the level hazard you were warning about. NOTHING kills a person's regard for warnings like seeing the person making them disregarding them. The last 10 years I worked for highways maintenance I was required to carry current hazmat certifications just shy of nuclear waste. Why? Have you ever noticed who is on the front lines with the fire dept if there's a hazardous spill? Yeah DOT Highways guys and gals, we have the equipment and training to go in and first contain then cleanup. My hazmat response PPE was hanging in my locker with my every day orange coveralls and there were emergency spill showers in 6 places in the shop bays with floor drains feeding directly into grease and hazmat traps. I certainly appreciate you warning people about a hazardous material or process but keeping such warnings accurate is much better policy. Sometimes we have to put our feelings aside to be truly effective. Frosty The Lucky.

While you don't need to redeem yourself in our eyes we certainly know how you feel, I'm pretty sure we've all bit on something sour. I left the ASO I bought with a shop where the guys think an anvil is something to use to torch stuff on. AND I have another sitting around here somewhere another fellow bought but couldn't bear to keep. We've all done it. HOWEVER, not many of us get spanking great deals like you did. Next time I fly I want you sitting next to me! Frosty The Lucky.

Welcome to the forum Jason, do keep posting once you get settled. Frosty The Lucky.

Well done Harris. That is a lot of work single handed. I sharpen my hardies and hot cuts sharp but put a convex bevel on the edge, it makes them much more robust and requires less force to drive through the stock. Slightly blunting works well for the reasons given but I don't do it except for butchers and area section isolation sets. Frosty The Lucky.

Really nice angler fish. First time I saw a picture of one I thought they could catch people by dangling the bait near the bank, dock, etc. So I was maybe 9-10 I can still see the image. Frosty The Lucky.

I wondered about the name but . . . HEY, I got close! I said, "Slick Jim, Slick! SJS is pretty close. Isn't it? I'll be waiting for videos for sure. Frosty The Lucky.

Slick Jim, very slick. How about some action shots? Frosty The Lucky.

Harris: Take a look around the gas forge section, there are a lot of burner designs to choose from. Not being able to take your apart is the first black mark I've heard about these. Dave: I looked up the MSDS for Zircopax and it's listed as a breathing hazard and possible eye/skin irritant. With no "reportable quantity" it's not toxic, zero. There is a reportable quantity for the trace isotopes but it's such a minute quantity there is none for zircopax, you could us zircopax for plaster in your house without tinting a dosimeter in decades. NO, I'm NOT suggesting zircopax for plaster, it's just an example. <grin> The dust hazard is persistent and serious enough to use good quality PPE, HEPA filter quality, all round. If you have a link to a MSDS with a reportable quantity, please post it. I'll be applying it the way ITC uses zirconia; mixing it with kaolin clay. Kaolin isn't a high silica clay so is pretty resistant to base fluxes. I'd give your application a try but current hazmat regs. make getting sodium silicate a PITA or I'd be using it in casting media. Thanks very much for the work and videos, very useful. Well done. Frosty The Lucky.

A pristine 150lb. Fisher and tools for $200 is something to brag about. Were it me I'd have bought a lottery ticket on the drive home in case the luck held. Some of the tools are stone cutter's tools, no matter, good scores all round. Frosty The Lucky.

Good looking first commission, well done. the customer is always right, almost. I make few exceptions to giving the customer just what they want. I will NOT compromise on safety but I've never met a customer who didn't agree if I pointed out a safety issue. Congratulations, you'll have em lining up in no time. It's HARD to get better exposure than an airport. Too COOL. Frosty The Lucky.

Yes, it works very effectively if you can get it welded solidly enough. Try stacking some rail the way I describe, you'll see the rail and flange/webs match up almost perfectly so the entire new face is supported by solid steel. the main trick is getting it welded as solidly as possible. You need to slot the webs of the base pieces so you can weld the center flange to the inside of the rails on each side. Do the same to the bottom contact areas. lastly if you grind a little scarf on the lower flanges where they connect you can weld straight through to the upside down rail making the base solid. Weld every joint you see. Remember rail is high carbon steel and is prone to being brittle, preheat, ping and relieve the welds, post heat and normalize the whole sheebang for best results. I did pre and post heats with a wood fire and tempil sticks, let it soak but don't get carried away. Frosty The Lucky.

I wouldn't sand blast it unless you're just going to paint it and use it for a decoration. Wire brush and put it to work works really well. After a long day's work, when the anvil is almost too hot to touch bare handed is a good time to rub it down with a bar of paraffin wax. the hot iron/steel will soak it up and when cool it hardens and makes a good tough finish. that's how I coated my Soderfors. When I redo it I'm using Tree Wax, it's Carnuba wax, the stuff they armor bowling alleys with. A coat of LPS3 is good, it has rust inhibitors and leaves a coat of really tough wax once the deep penetrating volatiles evaporate. I'm HUGE fan of LPS3, fast, easy and good. Frosty The Lucky.

My first anvils were whatever heavy hunk of steel I could find and lastly I kept my third welded up RR rail anvil and used it for a number of years. I kept my eyes open but hadn't heard of so wasn't using the TPAAT till one day I mentioned looking for a real anvil to one of the guys at work. Next day he told me a neighbor of his was selling his blacksmithing gear. Turns out the fellow was a farrier who's knees and back were giving out so I bought his kit. my much beloved 125lb. Soderfors Sorceress#5 got a pallet of tongs, a 12v coal forge his anvil stand with shoe vise, etc. etc. BUT. . . the Soderfors was MINE! And worth the price without the other stuff that came with. Some years later the new shop foreman at Heavy Duty wanted the welding area cleaned out so I got a call asking if I wanted this really heavy thing, take it or it's going to the scrapper. It's my 200lb. Lancaster pattern swage block. See guys, donuts and coffee pays off. Frosty The Lucky.