I think the ingot and the residue in the pot is lead.

 

I think the ingot and the residue in the pot is lead.

 
Could be. That was my first assessment. It's mighty heavy. I googled Pyrmont Smelting Sydney and could find references only to it being a tin smelting works.
Is there a chemical (or other) way of verifying that the metal is lead? It cuts easily with a knife so we thought it may be the softer white metal.

If it cuts easily with a kife, it is most likely lead.  Try cutting it with your fingernail if you really want to know.

Lead is fairly inert in acids, that is why we use it in batteries.  IIRC, zinc or tin alloys will tend to turn black or fizz with vinegar or lemon juice. 

Was given about 100' of 1/4" low carbon rod (around 1016; so probably low C of the 1018 spec...) Gotta plan some ornamental forging with it, perhaps decorative ironing for a wooden chest...spiral and then flatten...

 

Was given about 100' of 1/4" low carbon rod (around 1016; so probably low C of the 1018 spec...) Gotta plan some ornamental forging with it, perhaps decorative ironing for a wooden chest...spiral and then flatten...

That would be 200 twisted looped letter openers for me. Or a heck of a lot of nails! Nice pick up!

Was given about 100' of 1/4" low carbon rod (around 1016; so probably low C of the 1018 spec...) Gotta plan some ornamental forging with it, perhaps decorative ironing for a wooden chest...spiral and then flatten...

 

Hmmm.... A wooden chest, eh? Love to see your ideas for that. Been thinking about finding reclaimed barn wood and building a chest with all hand forged hardware and trim.

I don't know if this was a score or not, I'm still in a little bit of shock from spending way more than I intended to at the scrap yard today.  Went out there to look for a small piece of flat stock and came home with 800 lbs. of tool steel.........
 
Turns out there was a full machine shop that just got scrapped a few days ago.  A majority of the round and square stock is labeled with a grease pencil.  Picked up a lot of 4130, 4150, 4340, 4620, A2 & A3.
 
Then when I was about ready to leave I noticed a flat 25"x17"x1" tool plate with all types of removable pins and various sized blind and through holes, some threaded.......then I started noticing all the round dies I was standing in and the old light bulb clicked - bending jig!  I've been wanting a bending jig but wasn't willing to pay $400+ for a pre-made one, I'm pretty sure I have enough pieces here to build what I need.
 
Anyways, went out to spend $10 and four hours later I was paying out $200.......

01   It looks like you have four heavy plates to do all kinds of jigs with.  Now you have the job of finding common diameter holes or pins, and start figuring out what can be done with the stuff.  It will be an interesting project.

Yeah I was out there for about an hour finding all different types of combinations of pins and dies that had a machine fit, but then got overwhelmed and just started throwing stuff in the carts. I could tell that some of it was meant to go together just by the fit.

Tough part will be figuring out how to drill some of the holes in the plate larger.

Beautiful score, O1.  

 

To drill those holes larger, go to your tool rents place and rent a drill with a magnetic base.  They usually run around $50 a day to rent and have automatic feed so all you have to do is set it up and forget about it.  With an annular cutter, they'll go through 1" plate in no time.

Beautiful score, O1.  
 
To drill those holes larger, go to your tool rents place and rent a drill with a magnetic base.  They usually run around $50 a day to rent and have automatic feed so all you have to do is set it up and forget about it.  With an annular cutter, they'll go through 1" plate in no time.

Thanks Vaughn, I didn't even think about that.

So far these are the only ones that I can make out the markings on.

I worked on sorting out all the dies yesterday and came up with a pretty decent bending jig I believe.

 

It has dies from 1/2" to 10" and I do not believe I'm going to have to do any drilling on the plate.  I'm sure I'll find a place over time where I'd like to have an additional pin option, but that shouldn't be a big deal to do with the right drill bit.

 

 

 

 

Looks very versatile. Will the casters give problems with the whole thing turning when you try to bend something too unwieldy to allow you to hold onto the cart as well?

Just got back from the scrap yard next town: 24 pieces of 5-6' long 14mm hexagon 1045 rod. 50 kg/110 lbs. (Slight chance that it's 1060, but not confirmed. I lean to the 1045 as around here it's more common stock nowadays.)

 

Now I can practice tool making on a new scale.  :)

 

Question: Is 1045 good material for flypress tooling?

 

Greetings

 

Gergely

1045" good for "force tools"---bending, dishing, etc not so good for tool that get buried in hot metal like chisels and punches; intermediate for drifts.

 

I visited the scrapyard Saturday myself and walked out with 150# of steel.  My heavy hitters were: 9 pieces of 5/8" cold rolled sq stock (sharp corners, no scale layer) about 5' long and one piece 10' long; 1 piece of 1.5" sq stock about 5' long---I needed a bit for hardy shanks.  Would prefer 2" so I could have a stop forged in, (1.5" hardy holes); but for certain tools it will do fine... a few strips of thin sheetmetal, a party balloon helium tank for a gasser body, 2 pipe clamps, a piece of black pipe for chilies and a lovely walk in nice warm sunny NM---shirt sleeves weather by weigh out time!   I was coveting all the heavy plate they had 1" to about 6" thick but until I find a VoTech machining class that wants to make a swageblock it's a lot of money tied up in steel (even at 20 cents a pound a 1000# chunk is real money to me!)

 

Sunday I passed on an Ex-Columbus Public Schools Johnson Pedestal Forge to a fellow setting up a smithing school.  I've never used it as it's set up for NG and we don't have it out here.  I also just build my own propane forges so not worth the trouble to me to convert it.  Let it go cheap---traded it for 5 gallons of Parks 50 quench oil; something I do need and will use a LOT; again the fellow is dealing with all the issues of getting it here; a bit of a pain when you are usually in Mexico during "work" hours.

LastRonin, on 19 Jan 2015 - 08:17 AM, said:LastRonin, on 19 Jan 2015 - 08:17 AM, said:LastRonin, on 19 Jan 2015 - 08:17 AM, said:LastRonin, on 19 Jan 2015 - 08:17 AM, said:

Looks very versatile. Will the casters give problems with the whole thing turning when you try to bend something too unwieldy to allow you to hold onto the cart as well?

 

Probably, and the back being high is going to limit it as well.  I just had that welder cart sitting around and was about to give it away, so it was a handy place to get the plate off my shop floor and be able to move it around by myself.

 

I could zip the back off with the plasma cutter and replace the two front swivel casters with locking style and make it work decent.

This is literally tiny compared to the last few finds  but here goes. I wondered how common these mini grinders were in this size. The wheel is 2.5" diameter. Got it for free from local feed store along with a tiny Stanley lathe tool and an older wrench of unknown origins.

I think they were quite popular in their day. We have a few on display in our museum. The gearing is such that they do develop quite a decent RPM. Very nice little tool.

I've owned several of these very handy to touch up tools when you are camping with a forge and the nearest power is several miles away.  However I have never seen one *that* small!  My Buda Liberty is a beast and came with it's own built in stone truer attachment.

Just got home from a friends house, he called me and asked if I wanted some free steel.....of course I said yes.

No idea what I'll ever do with the larger stuff, most of it is parts off of fork lifts, but there was some nice smaller square stock too. The one really wide plate standing up is a single 3/4" thick fork that will make some great swinging targets.

This is quickly becoming a sickness that I don't have the shop space to support..........

those fork lift tines are would make  sweet anvils . put on a good stand .great haul

 

face is at a guess 5 inch by 7 inch and it is 13 inches long

 

2 hammers

one looks primitive and the other one is cast and could be interesting

I have one of the top hammers and was told it's a Spanish  hammer.  Mine has the faces not parallel to the handle axis and so hard for a new smith to use as they can't understand why they are not hitting flat---like them using a turning hammer never noticing that once face is flat and one domed.  (I tend to not bring either to classes to avoid the pain...)