9 hours ago, CrazyGoatLady said:

The train station is about a block or two down. They have tons of spikes, track, and track plates.

You may have seen the posts about this already, but there can be serious legal issues about removing anything from a railroad right-of-way. If you get permission to salvage, get it in writing!

my local scrapyard owner is upset that he now has to document folks bringing in and scrapping RR stuff and power cable...

JHCC

I should of been more clear about that. I meant that those two scrapyards have all those materials. That is where we bought a section of RR track for an anvil. Good advice none the less. Thank you.

ThomasPowers

We had a real good scrap place pretty close to us, but they are closed to the public now. Last time we went there, we had to be issued a card. I am not sure why, but it wasn't long after that they closed to the public. Bummer.

Crazy Goat Lady,

After my demo today, I had a try at forging a goat's head similar to your buck. I wasn't real pleased with my attempt at those flattish horns, so I won't post a photo. The head features looked OK but the horns were just not right. I think the problem was that I have done so many of the standard ram's head designs, it was hard to make the radical changes necessary, even though I had the photo of your goat to help. I won't waste him though - I'll just reforge the horns to square and twist them in the usual way.

Sometimes things just don't work out!

ausfire

Thank you for trying it. And I am glad you can still use it as a ram instead. I appreciate your time and effort! Look forward to your future posts as it gives me something to aspire to along with the other wonderful art I see on this forum. Thanks again! 

Ausfire:  did you have any luck with figuring out the goat head? My wife just tasked me with putting one on a bottle opener to throw in a trade we're making for some host milk soap. 

 

Those bulls head hooks look great. 

Thanks. I haven't tried another goat head, but have done dozens of ram head bottle openers and hat hooks. About the only difference is the shape of the horns - the goat's horns tend to sweep backwards more while the ram's horns  curl round.

Depending on the length of the stock you use, you can put a head on each end, then cut them apart. In some instances this eliminates the use of tongs.

That's my standard procedure. Usually a ram head on one end a bull head on the other. Start with 400mm of 12mm square bar and the two openers (loop style) will be the right length. (That is if you have the two heads looking away rather than bent round.) Made a pair for today's demo. I do more ram heads than bull heads for bottle openers because the ram fits the hand better. But you have to look after the cattlemen too. They like the bottle openers but don't want a sheep!