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I Forge Iron

My First Anvil - Introductions


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A sensible person has to consider a wide range of vehicle types depending on intended use. What's wrong with mini vans, they're really utilitarian aren't they?

I've been a big fan of salad my whole life. Is there something significant about folks who eat salads in your thinking? I love Brie, fruit, spicy sausage, and crackers too, makes a great meal. Left over quiche makes a great lunch. Stop by sometime and broaden your culinary horizon a little. 

Curing a ham isn't a medical procedure. :rolleyes:

I'd love a pattern welded anvil, just a chance to see a raindrop pattern would be a treat. Can you imagine what a piece of art a pattern welded cathedral or French pig pattern anvil would be?

Frosty The Lucky.

 

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May get the chance to see that anvil. I been welding all kinds of bits and pieces together for about 2 weeks now. I got a billet that is about 10" x 3" x 1" now and growing. 6 kinds of known metals and a bunch of unknown. I just started to see how many different kinds of material i can get welded together and do something with all the small bits i have lying about. I try and add a piece or 2 everyday. It is up to 250 +/- layers now. No idea what i will do with it when done. 

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IIRC, in Manfred Sachse's book on Damascus Steel there is a picture of a forge welded billet that weighed over a ton.

There is an excellent use-case for minivans for families. I once worked with a fellow who spent way too much money on a large SUV "so his family could be safer".  It was back in the SUV rollover days and I pointed out to him that his family would have been safer with a minivan.

Most times I have been pulled over was when I was around 60 and working on the border. I was driving a 25+ year old pickup; I never got a ticket as it was: licensed, registered and insured; but it became amusing to hear their "reasons" for pulling me over.

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Used to happen to me a lot in the Army because we ended up working weird hours, and they wanted to see what we were doing out at two and three in the morning. 

I finally got so I'd tell them, you can just ask me what I'm doing if you want to know, you don't have to say I ran a non-extant stop sign, and I'll blow in your Breathalyzer if you want, it doesn't bother me.  A couple laughed, and one got mad and gave me a ticket for running the stop sign that wasn't there.  Which would have been embarassing for him in traffic court if he'd bothered to show up.  "You swerved a little back there" was one I got a lot.

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The fun one we had was with my wife driving her minivan into Arkansas with NM plates around midnight and getting pulled over for "nothing".  Our SiL, a local cop retired on disability,  got a big laugh over that and told us that they were currently doing a drug interdiction on that highway and we must have hit a bunch of the triggers, (time, van, NM plates)....

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No on both counts to the best of my knowledge.  I decided not to go with my first instinct of responding with a potentially problematic reference to OBGYN Kenobi.

As far as I know the word "vegetarian" is from an old native dialect and the rough translation to modern English is "lousy hunter."

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"Bad hunter" is a pretty good transliteration of "vegetarian," to most hunter gatherers. Gatherer runs a close second. 

In an interview W.C. Fields said, when asked if he was a vegetarian because he loved animals. "Heavens no, I'm a vegetarian because I hate plants." I think he probably became vegetarian because drinking and heavy aspirin use was eating holes in his stomach. He was under a lot of stress, largely because of how he lived but he really LIVED.

Frosty The Lucky.

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W. C. Fields was also a much nicer person than his stage persona would have him.  Used to send hand drawn cards to his nephews for their birthdays, etc.  He started out in Vaudeville doing trick pool shots and juggling.  (Why yes I did once read a book about him.)   Disliked the income tax, he once wrote a skit about a guy getting a large windfall only to discover that the income tax on it was over 100%  and so went bankrupt.  He was also notorious for running out and opening a bank account under an assumed name whenever the train stopped while he was on tour---many of which he forgot about.

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Yes, when I've up in the middle of the night sicking up from reflux and ulcers (not at all booze and ibuprofen related, right...) my first thought was, 'but man, how alive I feel!"

I'm going to go out on a limb, and get to the root of the problem by saying if you've got a vegetarian bill, you're hooked.  Could be barking up the wrong tree though.  Meh, I'll just leaf.

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Well I got a little impatient. Don’t have cash laying around to build the nice propane refractory quite yet and discovered JABODs today sooooo here we are. First “project” on my new anvil. It’s not great, heck, not even good. But it *IS* and that’s what matters. 
Burning scrap wood, figured I may as well, see if it gets hot enough. Made a dull red at least so enough to piddle around with a piece of 1/4 round. 
And... I don’t have a blower so I *was* the blower...

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  • 3 weeks later...

I consider Audrey II a truncated humanitarian.

On 6/10/2020 at 5:07 PM, NoGoodWithUsernames said:

I don’t have a blower so I *was* the blower...

That's your first project? Darn nice finial scroll. Making air for the fire isn't hard, a cardboard box, some tape and a piece of hose will work a treat.

Frosty The Lucky.

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Blow drier, vacuum cleaner "out", vent fan.  Shoot you could use a desk fan blowing into a cardboard pyramid with the tue pipe coming out the peak for charcoal!

But I'm all for getting started and improving as you go along!  I regularly state that 1000 hours working with a US$100 anvil will make you a better smith than 100 hours working with a $1000 anvil!

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