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I Forge Iron

Does anyone here use one of these silly things?


kustomizer

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These came out of the days of multi tool magic. There are adds for similar or maybe the same thing in the old Sears and Roebuck catalog often sold as a complete blacksmith or metal shop for the farm. There were a lot of different versions some with drill presses and more. The flat spot shouldn't be mistaken for an anvil being cast it isn't up to heavy hammering, think straightening nails of moderate size. I don't know how effective the grinder would be but I haven't guesstimated the gear ratio but it's probably good for sharpening and light work. The vises were usually pretty decent and often had handy jaws like pipe jaws and such.

All in all it's more an antique or display piece but please don't vanquish it to the rust level of Tartarus say the yard.

I've gotta ask, are you some kind of rare earth tool magnet?

Frosty The Lucky.

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I have 8000 sq feet of tools ( primarily a CNC machine shop ), they come and go all the time. Lately, since the Butte fire stuff has been coming out of the woods from all directions. About 700 homes burned down but in many cases the sheds and out buildings are still there. People that have lived here for decades are moving away to homes that already exist rather than rebuild and look at burn scarred land for the rest of their lives, some are moving to towns and re-evaluating their hobbies leaving some cool stuff to those that use them. I have been making bronze markers for local folks that have passes away and donating art to local fund raisers for many many years. I have never charged for this kind of thing so perhaps you could call it "Karma". The third pic is the view from my deck last September, one of my motorcycles melted all of its plastic stuff on the right side while sitting in my carport. The Hat and Boots were donated to the "Rider Relief Fund" to help out Bull riders when they get hurt ( my wife is the PBR fan here ).

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That makes sense. While its nice to see some tools turning up for reasonable the reason is heart wrenching.

Beautiful work on the boots and hat, isn't working copper fun? How did you check and or treat for mercury? I'm not telling you anything you don't know about handling copper from gold refinery country. No?

Good cause too, rodeo riders are crazy but it's cowboy. I grew up in the San Fernando Valley, raised horses and did more than a little prospecting with Dad.

Frosty The Lucky.

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2 hours ago, kustomizer said:

It gets over 100f here every summer and after 150 years of sitting outside I have to believe any mercury left a long time ago

Probably but it's pretty easy to remove with a dilute nitric acid wash. I agree it's almost undoubtedly not an issue, mercury is more prevalent in California than gold, silver, copper, arsenic, etc. naturally but folk tend to just freak at the mention. It's like mentioning galvy near a fire around here. Mercury & copper is a natural amalgam that's hard to keep from forming weather isn't an issue. We used to assay more $ per ton in mercury than gold and or silver as a matter of course.

What makes me think it's not an issue anyway is the the process of extracting gold. You WANT all the mercury you can recover as it amalgamates the  free gold with greater affinity than copper but a gold amalgam still sticks to copper. That's why the bottoms of sluices were usually plated in copper, it let them run more water faster to process more material and not lose any amalgam in the concentrates.

I'd think the mercury had been extracted back in the day but you just never know, some operations were abandoned over lunch. Heck I think it's probably not an issue it's not like folk are going to be cooking acidic food in them. I just read gold mine copper sheet in your post and it took me down memory lane.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

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