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I Forge Iron

Justin’s Smithing progression. [PIC heavy]


Justin Topp

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Well for set hammers you don't need a lot of strength as they are just to position them for hitting with your "real" hammer!  If they were fresh they would be quite strong as they were chosen for it. (Another use would be  knife handles for folks who like "old stuff".  You could even stabilize some pretty far gone...)

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I picked this up yesterday after oogling it each visit.   Turns out the guy is selling his farm.   I would have loved to gone around to find other stuff too. But it was a no go. 

It's got wrought iron bits with Medium carbon.. I'm pretty sure the axle is medium carbon from the rust pits. 


Justin, wrought iron is the smiths material. :)   many times the axles if not wrought iron were a decent steel.  In all the years of me smithing and getting stuff like this.. I have not once ran into a mild steel axle.   It doesn't mean they didn't do it..  They just didn't seem to do it around here..  Buggy axles especially moved over to medium carbon steels pretty quickly because of how fine they were. 

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this axle is about 8ft from end to end. 

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I once was at the trash transfer station once, (rural folks have to take their trash to a place that packs it into a 40 yard dumpster and then hauls it to the county dump, and we pay for that out here based on how many 55 gallon bags we bring),  and someone had brought in parts of an old wagon and they were sitting in the "metal pile".  The person running the station told me I could have all I wanted!  3  WI tyres, parts of the running gear, etc.  Most of the tyres I get at the scrapyard next door and have to pay 20 cents a pound for them.  I have over a dozen of them leaning up against the smithy right now...

Strangest find was probably when I lived in old part of the city in Columbus Ohio, brick streets, 100+ year old house, and a florist in the next block threw out a large tyre they had been using for "decor".  I snagged it out of their dumpster as soon as I saw it and asked if I could have it. Rolled the hoop down the alleyway to my shop that was on the alleyway two blocks down.

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JLP that bit of equipment has so much reforging potential. Lots of really nice sized bar stock and the axel I imagine would make some great tools like fullers or hammers. If it’s medium carbon that is. 
Thomas I know what your talking about but those are not really around here because there’s towns close enough that people just haul it grit stuff to town to dispose of it. I wish I could find some cheap wheels Or other sources of WI easier. But unfortunately there isn’t much really old equipment around here. And what there is usually gets scrapped or used for display. I’ve been unable to find a scrap yard that lets me buy from them directly. I always look out at auctions for old wrought iron stuff like the horse shoes I got. It’s around I just have trouble finding it. I’ll keep an eye out this summer if there are auctions again. Assuming the virus settles down 

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So it was recently my birthday and my dad got me some pallet forks for forging and 1000lbs of coal! Also won a giveaway and got some high quality flap disks and wire wheels along with 4 large block brushes so I’m set for a long time! Now to forge a hammer!

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Found some steel I had badly very burnt at one point basically into a iron bloom. So I treated it like one and worked it into a bar of useable stock. Forge welding and consolidating with sand as a flux. It worked and it still is steel so I suppose it could be called “wrought steel?”

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