Been away down south for a couple of weeks and called in at a second-hand store near Canberra. This anvil was for sale. Obviously made from an old wagon axle. Handy I suppose, but I don't think it's worth the asking price. There was a forge too, but the blower was in poor shape and I wonder how long that grate would last!

 

I wouldn't give that mesh a cat in xxxxx chance in a BBQ let alone a forge....

Interesting anvil, I wonder how much work it's done?

That mesh idea is pretty funny  It's sure very useful for keeping birdies out of the hole...

Stop your paper falling through on the first light up......

Price tag on the anvil made my eyes bulge.

But, come on, it's "unique" and "on block"! 

2 hours ago, Gergely said:

But, come on, it's "unique" and "on block"! 

Which is why I might go $50 for it to put in the front garden

You think the anvil was dear. Check out the price on the forge.

 

Well, there is clearly a career in making blacksmithing equipment just waiting to be capitalized upon down under!  You could seriously make much better equipment than that on your own.  I would buy a block of mild steel and pound on it before I would pay that much for that anvil...and a similar forge could be made for a fraction of that price.  I guess if steel is hard to come by where you are those prices would make sense.

The market price for anvils especially "antiques" is outrageous in Australia. 

Correct. That's why I sourced my 300# Hay Budden from the U.S. Just fortunate I had free freight to Australia.

P.S. Peter, the traffic in Sydney is outrageous too! I was there last week  - Hornsby, Penrith, .... what an experience!

Nice! How did you manage to do that ausfire??

Yep doesn't surprise me about the traffic in Sydney.

20 hours ago, Jackdawg said:

Which is why I might go $50 for it to put in the front garden

Hehe... I ship you one from here for that price  Oh, wait, no, the shipping costs more

By the by, when I saw Ausfire opened a thread with the title axle anvil, I thought he found - again - a new pile of scrap treasures of his own and noticed an old piece of let's say 10" dia axle. But - thank god - life is much more unpredictable.

Bests to you all!

Gergely

 

Peter: We had a container load of vintage John Deere tractors coming over from Ohio, so my Hay Budden sneaked a free ride under the Waterloo Boy tractor.

Gergely: Well, we do have dozens of those big axles on display and throughout our scrap piles but I've got better things to do than spend hours making dodgy anvils out of them!

 Okay, that's quite understandable. And I meant absolutely no offense.

Best wishes:

Gergely

Gergely, Hey! Absolutely no offence taken! How did you get that idea? Funny how words can sometimes be misconstrued.   

1 hour ago, ausfire said:

Gergely, Hey! Absolutely no offence taken! How did you get that idea? Funny how words can sometimes be misconstrued.   

glad to hear  well, you know, although I do understand written English pretty good, often I find very difficult to read between the lines. (Or if I can put it like this: I can easily get the denotations but connotations can be slippery for my mind.) So while I was only smiling on your answer because of its direct meaning, it just got to me: what if you used those exact syntactic and vocabulary choices because my assumptions about your actions were too irritating. So  that's how... (I could tell what those particular choices were that made me think it, but as this is a blacksmithing site, let's just leave the stylistic analysis there  )

All the best!

G

All good. And back to the photos - how about that gauze in the forge. I reckon with those galvanised washers and (shock, horror) cadmium screws, you would take your life into your hands just firing that thing up. The mesh is probably gal too. A dose of ZFP waiting to happen.

Ausfire, I looked on wiki, do your dirt daubers like forges too?   The mesh over the blower intake would at least keep out mud wasps; have to remember that one.....  Our little blue ones will jam up a blower between forging weekends. 

Mud daubers are a problem here too. The mesh over the blower is a good idea but the mesh over the air outlet is dodgy.

Then set up a home the mud dabbers CAN use to build nests. Then collect the nests and use the nests for flux. 

6 hours ago, Glenn said:

Then set up a home the mud dabbers CAN use to build nests. Then collect the nests and use the nests for flux. 

Have to try that; the last bucketful I gathered I used for firepot liner.

Actually the mesh will hold up for quite awhile. I have used even thinner gage 1/4" opening mesh for a grate, and it lasted for several sessions.