Nice little Haybudden

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

Had a customer bring a machine to the shop this morning for repair,

we got to talkin bout anvils and I mentioned I’d like to find something lighter like a 50-75 pound range for a portable setup,

he came back a little while later with several more machines that needed fixed up and an haybudden anvil in the truck bed,

I looked it over, did a ring an rebound test and it checked out pretty good,

so I asked him if he wanted to sell an he asked what I’d pay, so I told him that i usually pay by the weight and I’d have to weigh it first before making an offer,

and he asked if we might just do some swappin for some repairs an I said I was fine with that, 

so technically it’s not mine yet but I did weigh it later an it came out to 84.8 pounds on my wife’s new bathroom scale 

it’s a new digital one because someone broke the old dial one by putting heavy stuff on it all the time… 

 I’m thinking one of these days I might need to get my own scale for the shop! Lol

anyways, there’s paint an some chipping so I couldn’t make out the serial numbers but if I feel motivated in the future I might clean it up and see if I can make out enough to date it, 

[arkie]

Maybe a nice find.  Those rounded corners could be cleaned up a little (very little) to use for curving stock.  Use chalk or flour on the base under the horn and you might be able to make out some numbers.

[Frosty]

Looks pretty good Billy. If you use a sanding block on the base the paint left in the digits will make any number stand right out.

Frosty The Lucky.

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

27 minutes ago, arkie said:

Those rounded corners could be cleaned up a little

Thanks arkie! I’ve tried the chalk before but never thought about using flour,

Believe it or not all the anvils I got have rounded corners, even the big ones, you’ll be hard pressed to find crisp edged anvils round my shop Lol,

that’s why I find so many anvils at $2 a pound because, I get the ugly duckling ones other people turn down! Lol 

Jerry,

thanks for the idea, I hadn’t thought about that, I’ll have to give it a try!

It’s hard to tell from the pictures but the face and step down looks almost unused, a lot of anvils I find have chisel marks like crazy on the step down, 

I wonder if this anvil was just used to size horse shoes?

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

That will make a great traveling anvil. I would probably knock $175 - $200 off of the labor rate (parts not included) in a trade. The edge being rough is usually an indication of cold fitting horse shoes.

 

[arkie]

Billy, a common use for the step was to cut metal with a chisel or punch to refrain from using the face.  The steps were usually softer metal (except cast steel anvils).  Chisel marks would/could be expected.  Seems most anvils had the chisels tested on the softer sides.

[KMADDOX]

Looks like a pretty decent score there!

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

4 hours ago, Irondragon ForgeClay Works said:

175 - $200 off of the labor rate (parts not included

That’s kinda what I’m thinking,

33 minutes ago, arkie said:

Chisel marks would/could be expected

That’s what I’m used to finding, but this one looks untouched, so it kinda threw me for a loop!

KMADDOX,

thank you!
One of these days yer gonna need to take a trip down here an haul some of this rusty stuff outta my way so I can fit more!  Lol

[ThomasPowers]

"One of these days yer gonna need to take a trip down here an haul some of this rusty stuff outta my way so I can fit more!"

Just let us know when all y'all will be away from the place for a good long spell---and if you could leave the keys under the seat of the truck with the tommy lift, please?

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

Thomas,

you prolly already have ten of everything I have two of! lol

[ThomasPowers]

I'm sorry; what was your point????

(Some of my smithing friends are getting tired of me going to the scrapyard and finding hand crank blowers, post vise bodies and a gas forge shell when they go and find dust and sunburns...I did fairly recently find a tool chest to put all the tools I'm finding in...)

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

I never have good luck at the new salvage yards finding stuff,

but I do find lots of blowers forges anvils an post vises laying around the county that haven’t moved since great great grandpa used em to sharpen plow points,

ive only ever found one swage block an it was a beat up small 75 pound one, 

no big mandrels or big anvils either…

but you could fill a pickup truck with all the old farm anvils under 200 pounds laying in the mud in every barn for a thousand square miles around my shop Lol

i quit chasing after small anvils anymore but now apparently their coming to me! 

[Frosty]

I got my swage block when I got a call from the new heavy duty shop foreman telling me he was cleaning out the welding area and there was an old tool he thought was a blacksmith tool. If I wanted it come get it if not it was going to the scrapper. There were two pieces of smithing equipment in the welding area I knew of for sure a 250 Fisher anvil and a swage block. No way he was going to let the anvil go, he figured he'd take it when he retired so I left with a Lancaster pattern swage block. 

Every State equipment shop had one just like it from the road commission days. I found out later from a guy who worked in the Rail road shop all those swage blocks were journeyman foundry projects in the RR foundry, if they passed they went to a highways shop. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

That’s a cool story Jerry! 
i wish I’d been around when they tore down the railway turn table at Westville, 

I had an old timer tell me the ball bearings were as big as basket balls! I bet there woulda been some good stuff to find there!

[Frosty]

The Hickson side of the family were RR millwrights and Dad's great Uncle Bert saved smithing equipment when they dismantled a station, shop, roundhouse, whatever. I didn't realize it the one time I visited with Mom and Dad but the fence around their front yard and circle drive was logging chain with mandrel cones for posts, one every 10', a couple thousand of them. He had barns filled with anvils, swages, forges, coal and oil fired and two filled with power hammers, more tooling that a person can imagine and more. Dad didn't mention it to me the one time we visited, he wanted me to learn a paying trade and actively discouraged blacksmithing craft even as a hobby.

So I never knew until a cousin mentioned how many semi loads of blacksmithing equipment his widow sent to the scrapper. Uncle Bert didn't know of anybody who wanted it and his widow was even less equipped so it went as scrap when she sold off everything. That farm had been in the Hickson family for generations but not as a working farm since before the turn of the 20th. century when the Hicksons became Railroad men.

It's hard for me not to be angry at Dad for never understanding I never wanted to try making a living at the anvil I just like playing with fire and hammers. 

A not so cool story, I have more than a few. Such is the balance of life.

Frosty The Lucky.

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

That’s a bummer Jerry! 

I would like to hope some of it still exists buried in the brush an mud at the very back of a obscure scrapyard somewhere waiting to be re discovered! 

we used to have a scrapyard locally that had been in operation since the late 1930s or early 1940s and the old man that owned it used to let me dig through the old run down buildings and buses filled to the brim with stuff from days gone by,

there was one pile of pulleys an lineshafts bigger than my house there!

i found some of the coolest old stuff an even some blacksmith stuff in that scrapyard! 

before he closed an had an auction he made a trip out to my place to invite me to do one last walk through,

he told me he’d rather just sell the place as a whole but He couldn’t find a buyer…

[ThomasPowers]

There was a place in Lima Ohio that got into military surplus machine tools in a big way right after WWII. (Lima used to build locomotives, did a lot of large engine work during the war.)  I tracked down the "Mother Ship" from a place in Columbus that sold used machine stuff---and once a huge forge in mint unused condition!  Anyway I drove out to visit; acres and acres of decrepit collapsing unheated warehouses;  I needed a flashlight to go look.  I remember watching snow falling through a hole in the roof onto a 6 foot high pile of broaches.  Spooky and sad.

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

I know a lot of government owned stuff gets dumped off at ware houses an then handed down to municipalities who in turn dump I at the back of some street Dept lot and let weeds grow up around it,

ive had my eye an a old engine powered civil defense siren setting for years out in the weeds around here! Lol

id like to get my hands on that thing and get her back up an running again! I’m sure everyone for a few miles radius would really like that! Bahahahaha! 

[Frosty]

If you make it portable I know just the place to fire it up! There are storm drains running all over LA Ca. as kids we'd fire cherry bombs in them and you could hear them echoing for minutes and hear them miles away. I suspect an air raid siren would carry a LOT farther and it'd be really cool watching the authorities trying to find out where it was coming from.

Frosty The Lucky.

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

It’s on a trailer so it’s portable!

But I’ll be honest I’m not gonna drive 2000 miles to test it out lol

[Frosty]

Oh come ON Billy. Just think of all the old farts my age diving under things to "duck and cover" when they hear an air raid siren for the first time in more than 50 years? Every Friday at 9am sharp they held air raid tests and students held "duck and cover" drills. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Scott NC]

  Back home in the small towns they run the tornado siren for a short blast (30 seconds or so) every day at high noon and six in the evening.  I never did know why, but if you were out doing chores or in a field you knew it was lunch time.  I lived on a bluff above the Elkhorn Valley in Ne. and you could hear several towns horn going.  Their timing was off somedays so when one quit, another would crank up.  I wonder if that's a local thing?  

[Frosty]

The air raid sirens never all started at the same moment, if you weren't too close to one of them you could hear others winding up in the distance. IIRC something like a minute sounds right per test. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Scott NC]

 But they turn them on every day at noon and six.  It's probably a wierd thing for others to understand.  I think it goes back to the old days of farmers in the field, but I'm not sure.

[Frosty]

That makes perfect sense when tornadoes are so common and dangerous. I think it's unlikely that everybody flipping the switch synchronized their watches nor that any one else's was closer to right than a minute or so. Nobody I've ever met cares if the lunch bell is a little off, well very few and nobody else much cared, even when it was the boss. 

Frosty The Lucky.