That's awesome. Great machine and great associations.

I should definitely stop by the next time I'm visiting the monastery.

JHCC, please do. Door is always open to smiths and farriers.

4 hours ago, Hickory Wind Forge said:

….. However I wanted to share this: a blacksmith acquaintance just learned he is badly sick and decided to sell off most of his shop to prevent his kids from having to deal with it. ….

Mat, I had a similar experience yesterday. One of my mentors passed last year and I had wanted to buy his drill mill. It was a piece of equipment I wanted, but it was also a piece of His Shop. I couldn’t bring myself to ask about buying it from him. It made me feel a bit bad, didn’t want him to feel like it was coming to an end… Well yesterday I got a call from one of the smiths in our group who was helping the son clear out the last of Ray’s blacksmith shop and the drill mill was available. I was there in five minutes and after about 2hrs of reminiscing, I brought it home:

I now have a piece in my shop that was Ray’s! Next step is to get it setup and tooled up. I just hope I can put it to work as well as he did.

Keep it fun,

David

That's great Goods. Funny how something that's just an inanimate chunk of metal to most people can really tug at the heart.

At the start of last week I had no plans whatsoever to buy a power hammer but I came to realize that I would never ever have another chance to buy one from someone who I like and respect and who I knew took the same quality of care of his tools as I do. Finally decided I'd much rather pay what Rand was asking and get a well-maintained cherry than buy one from someone who I didn't know even for half-price. Rand was really glad it was going to my shop also, rather than some stranger.

Matt.

A visit to the town scrap bin yielded some nice chunks of black iron pipe (about 5-7 feet long) as well as these two interesting pieces of acme-threaded rod with round nuts. Not sure what they were for originally, but I’m sure they’ll come in handy.

To me, the sections of acme-threaded rod suggest parts of a house jack or scaffold. You are fortunate that the town scrap bin is available to be harvested, around here more and more are off limits with the excuse that it is for our safety... Grumble!

--Larry

Hi everyone, it has been awhile since I have posted but have to brag on the estate sale deal of the century. $75

It needed a drive belt but other than that it looks very lightly used. Even with an old worn belt it eats metal like crazy. Big upgrade from my 1”x30” craftsman.

New belts coming, cant wait to really use it.

Wow, excellent score Rojo. Rather than rolling in his grave, I'll hope the prior owner is smiling for you too!

--Larry

For years we have not been allowed to take stuff from the scrap metal pile at the local town dump and I've seen many good and useful things there that were unfortunately destined to be melted. Recently the town changed the policy realizing they could actually make money by charging residents a small fee to take stuff. Yesterday I took my trash to the dump and I always look at the metal pile to see if there is anything interesting and what do you know - I saw this. So five dollars later it was in the back of my truck and is replacing a cheapo popular mechanics brand tool chest in the shop. It's bigger and of better quality and I spent the evening transferring tools from one to the other.

Nice!

This arrived in the mail last week. After almost a decade, the theater department at the college remembered that I have their Lincoln 125 amp MIG welder and decided they wanted it back. Since Eastwood was running a sale on a 160 amp machine that can run off 220V, I decided to take the plunge.

While I haven't fired it up yet, I'm delighted that I'll be able to switch between DCEN and DCEP simply by moving a plug on the front panel, rather than fussing around with wingnuts inside the machine.

Another nice detail is that it came with a stinger for SMAW, and there's an available torch if I decide I want to try TIG.

I've not done any blacksmithing to speak of yet, but I have been gathering bits for a makeshift forge to maybe try my hand at making knives, other tools and small useful objects - I also dabble in woodworking/turning and various other crafts, and would like to add metalworking to that.

So this hasn't quite followed me all the way home yet, but in a small grove near me, I found an old cart that someone must have left 100 years ago or more. It's a public area and quite densely overgrown, so I don't think anybody's going to have any Feelings about this. The ground is quite soft and I was wondering if it'd be worth it to dig e.g. the wheels out and reuse the iron - maybe not for blades, but other objects or just to practice on once I get my forge setup.

Obviously there is some rust, but the rims are very substantial and I think there's still some good material here?

rvense, it certainly looks like you have found a bit of a treasure trove as far as potential material. I would suggest some checking into what's appropriate (local rules and customs) before digging it out though. A good many of those pieces could be usable for blacksmithing particularly for learning technique and likely for a bunch of other projects. Looks a bit like some leaf spring there, so maybe a knife, but as you're starting out, spend more time with the mild steel to get some experience. Unless there have been other parts dumped in there too, looking at the photos makes me quite curious about what that once was...looks to be more than just a cart or wagon.

--Larry

One thing to keep in mind is that there is a good chance that all of that metal is wrought iron of different grades. Wrought iron can be a very different breast to work with. While it forge welds beautifully and tends to feel very soft under the hammer, you need to keep it at a high temperature while forging. With all the silicon in the “grain” of the wrought iron, it will tend to split apart at lower temperatures. Wrought iron can be hard to come by, but is also desirable to many. If you can claim this material, you may want to sell some off at higher prices and buy a larger quantity of modern mild steel. At the least, get a little experience before working with it. Of course, if you mess some of it up, you could always stack it up and forge weld it back into a bar again…

Keep it fun,

David

It's very hard to get a good photo of it all, the foliage makes it very confusing. It was definitely a four-wheel wagon of some sort, the front wheels could rotate and the springy bits might have been some sort of suspension? Don't know. It has had a tree grow through it and then die. My friend suggested that maybe someone was riding it with a pocket full of magic seeds and dropped some and the tree grew before they could pick all of them up again. You never know.

Thanks for your inputs. My thinking is that this is probably worth salvaging, but that I would benefit from assistance of some kind. Maybe I'll try to find a smith locally... But is there a way to know if it's wrought iron? Other than not heating it up enough and seeing if it splits...

Very possibly wrought iron. Do a spark test.

Springs from old wagons can be very good knife making material because they are simple carbon steel, no weird alloys which are hard, if not impossible to harden or temper, which you sometimes run into with modern springs. Also, unlikely to have microfractures which can be an issue with modern used automotive springs. Make some coupons and play around with quenching mediums and tempering.

On 7/11/2026 at 5:23 PM, rvense said:

But is there a way to know if it's wrought iron?

George's recommendation for a spark test is a good one: touch a piece with a grinding wheel and see what sparks come off. Wrought iron gives relatively few sparks, and those it does throw off are generally dark red and fade out without bursting. A piece of high-carbon steel, on the other hand, will give a shower of bright yellow-white sparks that burst like little fireworks.

You can also cut a piece partway through and break it the rest of the way. Steel will have a granular appearance like a broken sugar cube, while wrought iron will splinter like a piece of wood.

From the local sheet metal shop that is closing. Channel, angle, square tubing of different sizes and some 1/2" solid square stock. Also included but not pictured were two 4x8 sheets of perforated steel - maybe 18 or 20 gauge. Not sure what I will do with it but it doesn't eat much nor take up much space. All of this was free!