8 hours ago, Frosty said:

A lot of Liberty ships broke, quality control was all but absent.

Some of them were repairs of broken ships.  On the ship my step-granddad crossed the Atlantic in, one of the other soldiers on the ship started looking closely at the hull.  The guy went to examine a few places, and then realized that HE had welded it back together after it broke in half in the Great Lakes (I don't remember which one).  The welder spent the rest of the trip telling others, or just saying to himself, "my welds will hold...  my welds will hold!"

 

The switch from riveting hulls to welding them without a good long test cycle of the new technology was scary for the folks who used them and *knew*.

JPaul, I was working on the forge floor yesterday before I put everything back, and I had to use my sledge to make parts of it workable. That's what I get for using up all the warm months on my garden. 

Thanks for the knowledge on preheating the anvil. Makes a lot of sense. I've got a piece of metal that will do the trick if I can figure out how to move it with gear on hand. 

 

Current plan for the forge: I'm going to keep the rivet forge inside and carry it out when it's time to work. The shed is only 10'x8' and the forge will be about five feet from there, so I shouldn't lose too much heat in transit. Still more than I'd like, but I've got to start somewhere.

I also figured out a fun way to get my stump a little higher up (I'm 6"8"). My cousin gave me a semi brake drum to use as a fire pot. I didn't have a good concept of its size when I said yes. It's about 18" across and weighs somewhere in the 125-150 lb. range; WAY too big for my purposes. However, it fits perfectly under my stump, gets it about 1" above ideal height (room to level and fiddle), and has holes in it that will accommodate anchoring bolts to keep the stump from turning. I'll get a picture up before too long. 

 

Thanks as always y'all. I think I might have that poker done for my dad's Christmas present after all.

We're going from a high in the high 80's degF a couple of days ago to a high of 32 degF tomorrow.  I improvised a greenhouse for the cantaloupes, but I expect they won't make it to when the temps recover later in the week.

Forge is much more pleasant to work in front of now! 

I'm between the La Plata's and Mesa Verde. Temps dropped to 28 last night and a skiff of snow. Still have a little concrete work to do.  

Keep yer cantaloupes warm!