Aspects of loud Anvils

[ThomasPowers]

We talk a lot about the downsides of using a loud ringing anvil; but there are some upsides as well.  I have found that it lures in folks at demos; and if I hear someone working at an anvil I'll go track them down to say Howdy.

I ran across this tidbit on a blog about Old Washington in Arkansas: "Her Grandpa was born in 1855 and was a blacksmith by trade in Stratton, Colorado. Her Dad said that when he was a boy, you could hear his anvil ringing all over town. When it quit ringing you better get home. It was time for supper."

In the shop though, ALL my anvils are muted, save for my Fisher.  It doesn't need it!

[Steve Sells]

I take the chain off my Kolswah for demos to let it bring in the people as well

[Shabumi]

I has read in some of the "older" books (pre 1921) about not muting the anvil or securing it to a base so the vibrations would clear the scale off the top.

With all the older books I've read each author had their own unique opinion on the subject of anvil setup, some even saying all other ways are for lesser smiths or are flat out wrong.

[ThomasPowers]

Some things never change!

[Frosty]

Ah, the flowery pseudo legalese language of the late 19th and early 20th century. You should read the language of early patent descriptions. One of my blacksmithing books that was liberated from durance vile on my shelves contained a version of, "You'll find my method the superior" and or, "Other methods are for lesser smiths or establishments." 

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

The blacksmithing Journals which were the internet forums of the day are full of "While XYZ's method, shown in last months issue, will work by making this simple tool you will find the task MUCH easier."  Sometimes it's possible to follow such chains a number of links down over time.   Frosty was that book "Practical Blacksmithing", Richardson?  It's a collection from a smithing Journal and has several similar things in it.  (As I recall the special tongs for repointing plowshares had several variations.)

[JHCC]

Yes, Practical Blacksmithing has some sections devoted to competing "best" ways to perform some specific task that is now almost entirely irrelevant and obsolete.

[ThomasPowers]

It's not a book I suggest for folks wanting to learn blacksmithing; but I consider it an important one in the history of blacksmithing with respect to the late 19th century. I especially like it for some of the discussions on the working differences between real wrought iron and the new Bessemer/Kelly steel.

(Along with Diderot's Encyclopedia for the late 18th century and Moxon's Mechanick Exercises for late 17th century, etc...)

[Frosty]

Yes it was. Agreed, not a good source to learn the craft but once you have some experience you can pick up useful bits. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Shabumi]

I think it was "Practical Blacksmithing" that I was talking about too. 

If you paint your anvil a really loud color, like neon lime, you will be more likely to find it if you lend it out or misplace it.

"I swear I saw a mouse hole somewhere along this wall"

[anvil]

Like Frosty said, there are useful bits there.

I had a job to make some wagon wheel chandeliers. They needed iron tires and hub bands. I knew I had to make the tires slightly smaller than the diameter. Small enough so that when heated, they would expand and slide on easy. Then when they cooled, they would shrink and be tight enough to stay on. I searched and read every article in "Richardson's hoping to find out how much smaller. Sadly, everyone in one way or a other basically said the same as grandma adding salt to a recipe,,, just a pinch smaller! I sweated bullets, not knowing if it would blow up the wheel, or fall off.   

[Frosty]

There is an episode of "The Woodwright's Shop," where Roy and Peter Ross make a wagon wheel and iron it. Peter used a rule of thumb for tire size and shrinkage but I don't recall it. Might be worth looking up the episode.  Mr. Ross was adamant about not over heating the tire or it'd stretch as it cooled and not be tight on the wheel. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[anvil]

Expansion happens in the black heat range, so that's the max heat needed.

I checked my notes and I meaured the circumference of the wheel with a traveler and deducted a quarter inch. This was a total guess. It worked for both the hub bands and the tire. Since they were chandeliers, I errored on the side of caution and secured all bands and tire with wood screws.

For what it's worth, all tires and bands were forge welded, which added another dimension for tolerance. I did these without a helper, and since I had no roller, all were turned using my bending forks and scrolling wrenches. I have a 5'x10'x1" layout table, so I drew a 4' diameter (Id) circle and used this as my pattern to work towards. I add this just to give others confidence as to what can be done with proper setup in a contemporary traditional one man blacksmith shop. 

I suspect in a metals class there is probably a coefficient of expansion available for most steels, so with a bit of due diligence, expansion could be figured out. 

[Frosty]

How much did you allow for the weld? 

Yes, COE charts for almost everything are available online, iron and steel charts have been posted here a few times.

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

Some people want to overheat the tyre not realizing that it will then char the wooden wheel and become loose as charcoal has little to no strength. I recall one source saying that when the tyre felt slippery when touched with a pine splint; it's the correct temperature.

 

[anvil]

Frosty, I cut the circumference 1/4" short. I shortened the 4 hub bands by a 1/4" as well. They all went on relativly easy with a bit of light hammer taps and shrunk back fine.

I was worried about char as well. I got a lot of smoke but no appreciable char. A little blackened, but none that would crumble. Kind of what you see on the "char'd hammer handles. It oiled up nice.

I don't remember about slippery. I do remember the challenge of rotating a 4' dia tire, 1/4"x2" in the vertical trying to get an even black heat,,, where there is nothing to use as a temp reference! Lol, that I remember as clear as crystal! And I remember the beating of me poor ole heart as well!! But it sure felt good when it worked!! That made it worth it.

On 11/8/2020 at 12:26 PM, Frosty said:

How much did you allow for the weld?

Sorry, I misread this above. When I do a forge weld I never add any material for the weld. In this case I measured the circumference exact with a traveller and cut it 1/4" short to deal with expansion and contraction. Also, I stress that the upset for a forgeweld should be as minimal as your skill level will allow. Most sources state ~ 1-1/2 times the thickness of material for the scarf. This is great for learning, but as your skills progress, this is just far too much.

[Frosty]

You didn't just build a ring shaped fire to match the tyre? I've never seen anybody standing the tyre up in the fire but I've only seen it done a couple times other than TV. The touch stick is a pretty common old school temperature gauge. We used it or a version for a number of things, mostly annealing non-ferrous, in metal shop class.

Ayup, whatever the lap will forge back to the original length after it's welded. That was another thing Peter Ross was adamant when he and Ry Underhill made and ironed the wagon wheel. 

Frosty The Lucky.

 

[anvil]

Not sure what you mean a ring fire. Do you mean a fire ring on the ground with a 4' radius? If so, I never seriously considered it. Lol, I live in the rocky mountains.   No. I did it in my forge in the vertical, 6" at a time, rotate 180*, rotate 90*, rotate 180* etc. Actually each heat was moved left and right a bit and I got about 12" consistent heat each time. I did not want to do it outside in the daylight. I was far more in control of the temp in my shop. No temple sticks, but it actually wasn't hard to feel the temp with the back of my hand. I got a pretty consistent black heat all around. Also it became pretty obvious about where I was temp wise within the black heat range. It was a dramatic moment, but well, in the heat of the moment, I had pretty good control. Outside and in the daylight with a wood fire, there were far more unknowns.  The biggest technical challenge for me at that time was turning ~12' of 3/8"x2-1/2", or whatever the steel crossection was into a symmetrical ring and pulling off a forge weld to dimension by my self. If it wasn't round it would not easily fit the wheel. When I got in the groove, it was like turning a giant horse shoe using my bending forks and working in the horizontal. If I didn't hit the forge weld to dimension it would be way big or way small. The unknown nail biter was just how much should I cut off to handle shrinkage and expansion.

I've never seen the Peter Ross vid. I believe I had the Judd Nelson article in "Foxfire" for reference, but I don't remember how he brought the tire up to heat.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

This is the video I remember from a while back, by Engels Coach Shop. a 450 pound Borax Water Wagon wheel hot set tire.

 

[JHCC]

12 hours ago, anvil said:

I believe I had the Judd Nelson article in "Foxfire" for reference, but I don't remember how he brought the tire up to heat.

Flat bonfire, if memory serves. Been a long time, though, and my memory isn't what it was. What were we talking about?

12 hours ago, Irondragon ForgeClay Works said:

This is the video I remember from a while back, by Engels Coach Shop. a 450 pound Borax Water Wagon wheel hot set tire.

That's an awesome video. Wetting down the wheel makes sense to prevent charring; I wonder if it also creates a lubricating effect with the steam?

[ThomasPowers]

Clear space on the ground. Set wheel on it's side and cover with corn cobs or other small wood. Run a bit of kerosene on them to get a fairly uniform start up. Light.

This is the way I've seen it done.  Some old shops even had a wheel stone to work on---a large flat stone like a millstone with a hollow center set in the ground outside that the  wooden parts could be laid on and then the tyre dropped on and hammered home, the stone acting like an anvil.

I think this is an example of the blacksmiths' maxim "There is only one correct way to do a blacksmithing task and that is: Any Way That Works!"

Being slightly off size seems to have been fairly common; or people wanting to reset a tyre where the wood has worn or shrunk slightly as I've seen a goodly number of tyre upsetters in historical blacksmithing shops. They are designed to pull in a tyre without having to  cut it and reforge weld it.  They work by taking a tyre and heating a section and pushing a ridge across the width of the tyre towards the center.  Then heating very hot; clamp the tyre in the upsetter and hammer the ridge back flat upsetting the excess into the sides; the  reduced length being maintained by the uppersetter clamps.  If your tyre is slightly small you can always heat and draw it out a bit on the anvil.

[anvil]

Great vid. I'd love to ask him a few questions. Basically my process was for sure far more rude and crude, but basically the same. I was particularly interested in his setup for holding the wheel to set the tire. Mine was similar. I was worried about the tire being big enough to fall to the ground, so I set the wheel on 4 level blocks that would keep the tire at the bottom of the wheel. Then I had 4 longer stops about an inch below the top of the wheel. This gave me control over the tire going on catywompus and binding up. I also set camber into the wheel. The hub was slightly above the plane of the felles and tire. When hung, this put the wheel/hub in tension so that over time, the hub wouldn't end up in someone's glass of wine and medium rare steak! 

I did this job somewhere around the mid '80's. SWABA was~6-7 years old and the Rocky Mountain Smiths were either still a twinkle in we colorado Smith's eye or in it's early infantancy. The nearest smith to me was 70 miles away. No facebook, no youtube and two sources: Foxfire and Richardson. 

I'd call it more a situational reality check than "any way that gets the job done". There is a fine distinction between the two. A high mountain valley, a two track driveway, a hand pumped water system and crested wheat a nice golden color shoulder high on my 8 year old daughter. And me. Yup, the situation was clear. No outside 4' bonfire under any circumstances. For what it's worth, it took no more time to heat it in my forge in the vertical than with a wood fire on the ground. Not to mention, I'd already done the forgeweld by heating in the vertical, so I knew I had very good control of the tire in my forge. So don't get locked into thinking a bonfire is the "traditional" first choice.

Richardson's book shows the big city way of heating tires. A dedicated room heated indirectly by a wood fire. The room can hold many tires and the temp can be controlled. Put a tire in with the other dozen + and grab it when you need. Of course this is a 1890's version of today's Big O. And the smaller the community the setup changes. Then theres that farmer/rancher that either figures out how to reset a tire by himself in his farm shop, or he has no transportation. No kids, no help and the wife is knee deep in canning. He's the one who does it "anyway to get the job done".

I agree with you guys on Richardson's book. It is the original social media source for info back in the day. And one must take many of the responses with a grain of salt. However in the mid 80's I looked at it more like "in the kingdom of the blind, the one eyed man is king". I can't tell you just how many times it came to my rescue figuring out how to do various processes. I won't say I found the answer, but I found enough varied ideas that I was able to figure my own way to do the deal. A friend of mine saw the use it was getting and made a very nice leather jacket for it to protect it from my serious use. The book sits on my shelf to the day.

Also, getting the tires and hub bands set was actually just a small part of the whole project. Each wheel had 8 forged lights, hangers, chain, and ceiling mount to contain electrical wires. And of course, I did the wiring. The learning on the wiring was that an artist/craftsman can do one off lighting without getting a URL rating and be legal. During this period I did 8 or 9 wagon tire chandeliers over a 2 year period or so. None since.

Again, thanks to all for helping create this very fond memory moment, and I hope my experience will be a benefit. 

[Frosty]

Yes, a fire in a ring. IIRC Mr. Ross said he usually just used charcoal from the stove, it didn't take much of a fire. I'd probably use the weed burner. 

Bringing 1/4" x 2" steel to 400-500f doesn't take a lot, you could probably use sticks and twigs. 

No matter how you do it, BE SAFE, letting a fire get away from you will effect, maybe thousands of people and you DO want to like the person looking back in your mirror.

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

Helps remind me that the environment in say, England, can be a lot different than that of New Mexico. (Shoot my house in the valley is higher than the highest point in the UK---and I look at twice as high out my front door!)  Must have been interesting trying to keep tyres on wheels that were set in a much wetter environment when they travelled through the desert on the way to California.  Perhaps a "habit" was handed down to dogs as I still find them wetting down my pickup's tires...

For folks not familiar with it Richardson's "Practical Blacksmithing" is a collection of articles from a Blacksmithing Journal published in the late 19th century and so like these forums has a lot of "their way is pretty good; but if you do it my way---it's better!"   It also has discussions on how to weld the new Bessemer Steels as compared to real wrought iron and so shows that the changeover from wrought iron to mild steel was still going on 40 years after it's original introduction. (Yes, I hold by Kelly's work!)

A fascinating period piece but not focused on what most modern smiths are doing these days.

[Frosty]

Speaking of that canine habit. My second car was a 62 Vette and I bought alloy rims as a start to making it Frosty Cool. I walk out to go to work the next morning and there is dog pee corroding one of the wheels. 000 steel wool and elbow grease got it back to good but it happened again and again. Soooooo I wired my car to an electric fence charger, I'd just done a quick finger brush to make sure it was hot and was walking to the garage door. YIKE!!! I spin around to throw something at the evil neighbor dog and see MY DOG running for the front door like he'd just been bit by the devil.

I step around and there's Mother soothing poor Trooper, she'd let him out to do his business in the front yard because I was there. Otherwise he had the fenced back yard. Mother says, "I wonder if he got stung by a bee or something." . . . "No I say, I just hooked up the fence charger to keep dogs from peeing on the wheels." . . . . "Is that bad? I just thought Trooper loved your car, he always pees on them."

What's a son to do eh? Trooper never peed on a car tire again and it wasn't but a week or so and neighborhood dogs would cross the street rather than walk past my Vette. Just do NOT forget to unplug the charger and use the copper wire to discharge the car before touching it. Seems fiberglass acted like a capacitor of sorts.

Frosty The Lucky.