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I Forge Iron

It followed me home


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I currently have a family heirloom sort of type vise, the German style. Been eyeing at others but most of the ones I see are nearly identical to the one I already have. Quite cheap, so they're tempting.

On another note, I got some letter and number stamps in the mail today and stamped the vise with my initials and 2020 to show I renovated it. Also stamped the hinges I made with my initials. I guess I'm finally proud enough to stamp my initials in things.

~Jobtiel

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Back in the 1990's a typical 4" postvise was selling in central Ohio, USA for US$20-$25.  I used to see stacks of them at fleamarkets.  I finally decided to draw the line at owning only 10 of them and would sell off ones when I upgraded to larger better condition ones.   Now I wish I had kept them all for a not-rainy day!

I remember them at Q-S going for $45 and then $75 and then $$$.  I have a large and a small postvise on two workbenches, (one workbench in the clean shop and one in the dirty shop), and a heavy hammering postvise attached to the utility pole supporting the roof truss in the dirty shop. I still plan to mount a 6" I have out in the middle of the driveway to the shop in a gazinta so I have one I can run a 20' stick of steel around  for a gate project I have in mind...

They don't have the notoriety of an anvil so finding them cheap is still a possibility if you go out and hunt!

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That is kind of my fear, if they used it “wrongly” and damaged the screw/screw box internally. If it is fully functional, then it’s a pretty fair price generally speaking. But up here there is not huge demand either so I don’t feel too bad about trying to bargain. My thing is the damage to the mounting plate, plus screw box, I’m a bit Leary of it. 

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It can't hurt to look I suppose? Nothing wrong with being leery and bargaining. There is also nothing wrong with walking away if that's what the situation calls for.

Low (apparent) supply and low demand can cause prices to vary widely. Some people sell it as "junk" others sell it as some magical tool from days of old, not knowing that not all too long ago just about every farm had one or more of those set up somewhere on the property.

Of course there are also the blacksmiths that happen to have several of them kicking around and just decide to part with one. The guy I met yesterday was like that. I had to wipe the drool off my face after walking into his shop.. I love seeing peoples' lifelong collection of tools. He used to teach classes for the local high school out of this shop so had multiples of everything you can think of. 

Long story short you never know what you're walking into. You may go for one thing and leave with something totally different, but equally cool/useful.

 

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I have imagined that this would happen way too much to me the next flea market after covid. More than a year worth of stuff just waiting to be sold by people.

I'm probably buying a lot of tools then, woodworking things too.

~Jobtiel

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That quad-state thing seems like quite the happening, I'm on the lookout for gathering like that around here but up until now I haven't found a lot of gatherings. The language diversity might be the cause that prevents big international blacksmithing events.

There are medieval LARP events though, and I'm planning on visiting a few once that start happening again, hopefully meet some other blacksmiths from the area.

~Jobtiel

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Quad-State is something special. I used to live 2 hours away from it and tried never to miss one.  Now I'm 1500 miles away and don't get there very often.  I wouldn't at all except one set of kids&grandkids is one day's drive from here and then the next set of kids&grandkids is a day further and *they* are 2 hours away from Quad-State.  So it's our big every other year vacation.

I've read of blacksmithing conferences in France and Germany before; hopefully you can find something within travelling distance to you!

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We've had people from the other side of the planet attend quad-state  before even demonstrators for foreign countries. I hope to see you there someday; I'll be the middle aged, stout, bearded, balding guy,  wearing glasses...and an aloha shirt and lederhosen and a disreputable red hat on Friday of Q-S!

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Did some dumpster diving at work this week. The first load was 27ea 32 gallon, 13ea 15? gallon food grade Rubbermaid Brute trash cans, 8 large plastic mixing paddles, and 3 totes.  Audit at work by a customer, so sprucing up the place some.  The mixing paddles run around $50 ea, and the Brutes $35.

Last night I extracted a full sheet of 3/8" clear Polycarbonate , a full 4x10 sheet of stainless -have not measured yet but around 18ga, the pallet the stainless was on, and some other crating to use for chicken shade structures. 109F today, and 7% humidity with a 5mph breeze.

It flat amazes me what the company to$$es. 

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5 hours ago, BillyBones said:

about an hour later the bleeding stopped.

crazy glue!!!!!!!!!!!!! i will bit a little tourniquet on(rubber band) squish the blood from immediately on the spot sop it up and put a thin line of glue on the finger and blow on it then take the tourniquet of within 2 min of putting on the glue holds together and seals the cut  then as the tissue grows back it will pop right out no prob  

M.J.Lampert

oh and the neighbour said he would dig out his RR track/ cat spring anvil for some work i did for him

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Stopped at a little roadside shop I always pass by, and glad I did. Got these two pair of tongs and a super long chisel, which will need to be redressed. Got a line on some more stuff, if it pans out. These look to be factory made tongs, but they have a thick coat of paint on them. There seems to be markings under it, but I don’t know if I should wire wheel them to metal to find out or just leave them be. 

86D4025C-8C84-49CD-AC62-19C5005F8ACF.jpeg

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