Sorry to hear about your back JHCC hope it’s better soon.  I slipped a disc a couple of years ago and although I’ve broken over 11 bones before and had splinters up my fingernails and picked up a few bits of hot iron and seen my football team lose hundreds of times I have never had pain like it.

I have good news and bad news. Remember all these hardy Hole tools that followed me home a few weeks ago that I didn’t have a hardy hole for because my french anvil has a silly slanty one(and then Frosty sighed and said ‘leg vice ‘)?

Well, the good news is ‘Anvilina’ the old french Anvil, when I moved her earlier, I noticed, she has ANOTHER hardy hole!!! and it fits every one of the hardy tools I got!! 
 

Bad news? Oh yeah, it’s on the bottom of the anvil. Born lucky me.

Back to the leg vice then.

I’ve been blessed with a strong back but weak mind 

 

Went to the Steephollow Forgeworks Combo-Demo today- full day of awesome. 

Snagged Mark's last drift and a nice pair of tongs off of him (all his tongs, heck, tools, are nice!) 

Yeah, my pritchels are a tad small hahaha

 

Was a fantastic day!

I finally get something to post!

Went to an auction Sat. with one of the featured pieces being an anvil. One blurry pic of it in the sale ad. 

The anvil was an 80lb ACME with nice rebound and a nice looking top plate. I was curious to see what it would go for. Pretty much every tool in the guys shop was Craftsman or Sears branded. So I figured the anvil was sold thru Sears as a rebadged Trenton. S/N and weight were in the correct location on the front foot.

Auctioneer started the bid at a thousand with no takers...the anvil went for $425 with a 10% buyers premium and 6% tax. Guy told his wife he wanted the anvil and she came to the auction and got it. I did tell her it was a nice anvil, but didn't comment on the price.

Anyway my goodies...A Craftsman 109 baby metal lathe, 105mm howitzer brass powder can, a bunch of misc metal, and a huge started for something...it was 1 lot and I wanted the lathe. I was bidding against one fellow and hit my limit, he won but only wanted the table the lathe was mounted on. We chatted a bit and he took the table and I took the lathe.  We both walked away happy.

I found out that the 109 has some short comings but for what I want it for (small parts) i think it will be just fine. 

I have the farm bell from my maternal Grandfather's farm, he wasn't in the service but died from a farming accident that happened as he was trying to run 3 farms, 2 of guys who were in the service.  No pension for his widow.   I was going to put it up by the back door and let my wife use it to call me in the shop; but was warned it would probably disappear so now it's in my shop...

Auctions: I have often done better letting someone else buy a mixed lot and then getting what I wanted a lot cheaper.  When it backfired, I often made a new friend or contact out of it.

Nice little lathe, that would be prefect for knife fittings. Did it come with a 3 jaw chuck as well?

 

Thomas,

I do think I made a friend out of the deal., so that is a nice thing.

The only lathe parts were 2 drill chucks, 2 cutters and the assorted wrenches. The 4 jaw chuck is much too large for the lathe, but maybe someone with a bigger lathe and more smarts than me can put it to use.

I started cleaning the accumulated gunk off and started oiling the machined surfaces, things are starting to move easier.

From the little bit of nosing I have done, there are parts and accessories available. Probably spend more for repair/upgrades than I paid for the lathe.

Please do not tell anyone, but I have used my Jet midi wood lathe, with a 3 jaw chuck, to turn small metal parts, used drill presses too. I have a NOVA chuck for the wood lathe, I wonder if I can adapt it to the metal lathe...

What, not tell folks you are a blacksmith rather than a machinist?

On 2/17/2020 at 3:24 AM, Chris Williams said:

Be careful. 

Thank you Chris for the valuable information. I will process the titanium blades outside under the open shed of the forge with adequate ventilation and take the necessary precautions. Keep you informed of the progress and the results.

These didn't follow me home. They were already here. The chickens dug these up out in the goat pen. It's amazing the things they find. They are excellent finders of things in the ground. I would call them metal detectors, but they find all sorts of things. Recently, they also dug up a Hot Wheels army tank dated 1976. It was in a hole about 4" deep complete with grass roots entangled in it. I cleaned it up and gave it to my little nephew. 

Clearly, someone was spiking their feed.

Haha made me chuckle! We found a steak knife they dug up in one of the tractors. We joked they were planning a breakout like in "Chicken Run".

Start looking for the Locomotive they hid...

Found a lineshaft lot in what was left of a local blacksmith shop, sadly all the machinery and forging accessories were taken long ago (now to find them again!) except for a leg vise. It will be set up on one side of my shop to run a drill press and grinder some day. Does anyone have experience with making babbit alloy (lead, tin etc)? I have the hangers but not the bearings or cups.

That's a cool find!  I've never poured babbit, but if you go on Youtube and go to Keith Fenner's channel, he has a few videos showing how he does it.  David Richards also has a video on how babbit bearings were poured circa 1925.  He has a fully functional steam powered line shaft machine shop.  

I watched several videos when I needed to pour the babbitt bearings for my Star power hammer. I bought the Babbitt ingots from Rotometals.

Found some roadkill that wanted to follow me home. Cut a 4" piece off to make a handled punch.

On February 24, 2020 at 11:04 AM, rustyanchor said:

Anyway my goodies...A Craftsman 109 baby metal lathe 

I've never seen a lathe use a drill chuck as the chuck.  Interesting setup.  Smaller lathes have their place and I hope to have one someday myself.  Great score!

Jacobs chuck made a spindle nose chuck for use on lathes like the 9" Southbend and Logan and was essentially a larger Jacobs chuck as found on drill presses.  The chuck had 1 1/2"x8 internal threads to attach to the spindle of the lathe.  I believe the little Craftsman lathe had a solid 1/2" spindle that was threaded 1/2-20.  Be careful with your Craftsman, it is easy enough to bend the spindle if you crash the machine while it is under power.

Like IDF&C; I'd buy it from Rotometals like I do my tin for retinning pots.

KS and Gazz

Thank You.

I know it is very limited in it's uses with no dials, but it's a cute little baby. It will be a good starter lathe, and most of the metal I monkey with is small stuff that doesn't need real tight tolerances.

UPS  brought me this #198 Italian Piggy 

All of this followed me home today! Also a few vice stands ill be putting the leg vice on finally, apparently there was a lot of blacksmithing stuff that had already been taken so i dug deep and most interested in the punches. rivet punches or eye punches anyone think?
 

Nice find, a lot of good stuff there.

Digging deep often leads to good stuff; like the time I dug deep and found 11 Lynch collection hammer heads for US$5 a piece---at a blacksmithing event!

12" disc sander at my local junk dealer. Needs a little work to make safer. Re-wiring for sure. It runs like new. I'm going to try and clean the tag. I'd like to know how old it is.