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I Forge Iron

How about a purple anvil? any takers?


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No word of a lie, I went to the shop to buy some paint. They had black, white or lilac. Lilac it was then!!! I get lots of condensation in my shop, so my tools needed painting... I also have since painted lots of them red, and some white. I'm still deciding what colour to paint my big anvil. My daughter wants turquoise, I tend to think that would look nice next to the lilac!!! Oh dear, what colour then to paint the swage blocks???? I'm quite enjoying having colourful tools, actually!!! :)

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yeah...the big ole guy from Michigan loves that purple-surple color. I have seen him attempting to claim other persons tools by using that color. Believe it or not....Go to the TryingIt headquarters in Illinois and your witness that feat.

 

So watch out for RT

 

 

 

 

Carry on

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I paint just about all of my tools somewhere visible with Federal Safety Purple, and have for the last, jeez, almost 40 years. I once had a construction company, and everything would walk off with red, yellow or even hunter orange.

 

But someone broke in to a log cabin that I was working on, stole everything down to the shower stall and electrical panel box! Left my purple tools sitting in the floor. Made me a believer!

 

But I still don't paint my anvil purple.  :blink:

 

post-114-0-91631400-1359801845_thumb.jpg

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Bright anvils are a good idea, especially the horn. You are less likely to catch yourself on a brightly painted horn (obviously not the top).

 

Why not paint the sides of an anvil? See my other thread about rust forming more slowly on the alloy steel rhino anvils in the shop as compared with carbon steel anvils.

Painting an anvil, the horn or the sides, is like painting the face of your hammer.  If you actually us the anvil for forging the paint will burn off in short order.

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yes, this is true, Ciladog, the paint does wear away when it is used but of course stays on the parts that don't get hammered on, (the sides mostly!), but I am finding it a better form of protection against rust than just oiling my tools, which I used to do. I also hate that when tools are oiled they seem to attract the dirt and dust. "Use them more", they say, but sometimes that scroll former or whatever will sit for six months without a need for use, so it gets painted too!

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yes, this is true, Ciladog, the paint does wear away when it is used but of course stays on the parts that don't get hammered on, (the sides mostly!), but I am finding it a better form of protection against rust than just oiling my tools, which I used to do. I also hate that when tools are oiled they seem to attract the dirt and dust. "Use them more", they say, but sometimes that scroll former or whatever will sit for six months without a need for use, so it gets painted too!

Colleen, I will never understand what people do to keep rust off their anvils or their tongs and the alike tools.  When it comes to blacksmith tools, it just seems like a total waste of time.  As soon as you start pounding on an anvil with hot metal the rust is gone.  Toungs work just as well with a coat of rust on them as they do without it.  It's not like your tools are buried in wet soil or stored in a drum of water.  They are tools and work just as well either way.  But each to their own.

 

To some people, it's about the tool and not the work that gets done.  And as I have posted before, a light coat of rust prevents further rusting.

 

Around here they use something I think is called core 20 steel to make highway guardrails.  It takes on a light coating of rust and stops oxidizing.  No painting, no galvanizing, and no maintance.

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Yes, ciladog, of course I am not saying tools won't work without it!!! Please don't be offended that I choose to splash a little paint around!

 

Alas you have not seen the tools in my workshop- I've had different workshops in my time of having workshops, only since 2007, so yeah, I'm a veritable newbie in all this!!  In the first two I had no need at all to do anything to my tools apart from an oiling every now and again if at all.  My current workshop that I moved to a year ago is just over a mile away from the sea, the air is corrosive, and my workshop is prone to condensation.

 

"It's not like your tools are buried in wet soil or stored in a drum of water."   Quite clearly you've never been to England!  :D

 

I am not talking that my tools (the ones I don't use all the time)  suffer "a little bit of rust" I can live with a little bit of rust... but it's more like a heck of a lot of rust, not a fine dust of it but a raised crust!! So, my tools get crusty, I'm going to protect them, if that's about the tool and not the work than so be it!!

 

Interestingly though, I do like a little bit of rust on some of my sculptures, especially the flowers-- I will often wax over the rust or varnish over the rust. Makes for a nice finish!!  

 

Core 20, is that the same thing as Corten?

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that may be true of special alloys and non ferrous metals, but rust on iron will not form a skin and stop at that.  The rust is very porous and will continue to corrode beneath the surface layer and so on until the metal has been consumed (fast forward a few years of course).

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