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I Forge Iron

It followed me home


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An anvil on a stand.

A bit to high for me, but the previous owner did mostly small decorative leafs. So he set it up higher.

Very good rebound, feels like my hammer wants to come back up, only tip of square horn has a little bit. 

Ballbearing test good. Parts 90% rebound, lowest is 70 so not bad.

Little bow from use over the time and the round horn tip is shortened. When i put straith edge over it (from both tips)

250kg. Hardyhole is 35mm or 1 1/4". No pritzelhole, no upsetting block.

Some smaller chips from the edge.

Previous owner claims it is from his grandfather who was smith. His father didn't do metalworks and when his grandfather died, he was a hobbysmith and took it and used it. He sells because he stops the hobby. He feels to old for smitting, since he lost his wife and wants to travel. Guy is 2nd half of his 70s.

 

No tools to fit, he does not want to sell those yes (he still have 2 welders, 2 vises and a toolholder so he uses them probably.)

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He told his story. It's more a feeling in his head since he lost his wife due to her illness than really be old. (The way he helped me moving the anvil shows it). He wants to travel and enjoy his garden.

Glad I helped him with that by adopting the anvil. :P

For all the persons with anvilenvy, a couple 230 to 270kg beast are for sale. Prices between 390 to 450 euros (mine was at the lower end of this) and a couple of 70 to 100kg between 300 and 400 euros.  

And the smaller ones are moving quick. I asked some folks if it still was available after a week and nope, gone.

 

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In my younger days, 1 ton pile of gravel seemed surprisingly small, looks larger every year. 
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Got these last night. Proves how little I know of heat treat. Turns out a leaf spring blade which I thought was fairly hard, turns out between 40-45.

cant wait to try it on my anvil. $65 with shipping from Japan

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I don't know how much a 1/2 yard of 1/4" minus weighs, but my yard and smithy seem to soak it up like water due to all the terracing and leveling out I've done. The wheelbarrow and shovel method of getting back there is no fun, but Glen is right about small bites and light loads. 

Those hardness files are great. I've had them for a while now and am planning to put them to a lot more use coupled with this item I just got delivered yesterday.

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Eyeballing everthing in the heat treatment cycle may be great for experienced smiths, but I've been worried about inconistency due to my inexperience. I'd really, really love to have a heat treatment oven, but that's not in the budget yet. In researching how to heat treat effectively with a forge, I ran across metallugist Dr. Larrin Thomas of Knife Steel Nerds. He's done a really deep dive into how to do it. https://knifesteelnerds.com/2021/09/23/how-to-heat-treat-knife-steel-in-a-forge/ 

Forges heat up much faster than temp-controlled ovens, can have hot and cold spots due to inconsistent insulation and typically can't be held at a specific tempature for a set time. So it's really hard to soak your steel a set temp for a specified time and its very easy to overheat your steel, especially when trying to determine steel temp by looking at the color. Dr. Thomas shows that the way around this is to normalize your steel and for the austenitizing or hardening step, quench as soon as your steel hits non-magnetic, rather than soaking at that point or heating just a bit more. He says that the normalizing step creates a pearlitic microstrucuture that austenitizes pretty much immediately whereas annealed steel take more time and a higher temp. 

The tempilstik is to check that the steel has hit the target normalizing temp. I've looking forward to seeing if I can get consistent results with this method. 

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Boy, that's pretty large aggregate for a walking surface isn't it Glenn? Shoveling off a "flat" surface like a truck be I prefer a shovel to a spade but that's a personal thing. Many small loads actually saves time along with your back and blisters.

When you start, spread your first 1/2 barrow load to the desired thickness to get a feel for where to place the others. It's much easier to spread lots of small piles a little, than big piles a lot. If you turn as you dump the barrow you can spread the pile with a grade rake and leave the shovel by the truck. 

A LOT depends on what kind of rock is available but as a rule of thumb a yard weighs about 4,000lbs. The smaller the aggregate the lighter the yard. As a rule of thumb figure 160/cu/ft. compacted, to be safe. I used to know this stuff but it's been too many years and I'm not :angry: digging out the books. Just ask at the gravel yard, they sell by the ton, not yard but it's used by the yard in the field so they'll know.

Fire Bird: A good way to even heating is to use a muffle. A piece of heavy wall pipe with closeable ends is good, you can heat it passing it in and out of the hot spot and even if the muffle isn't at as even a temperature as you'd like a piece placed inside will heat much more evenly. 

Better yet is to make a forge from 3,000f hard firebrick insulated on the outside and heated with multiple small burners. Heated slowly and allowed to stay at temperature for a period the temperature inside will even out and hold with minimum use of the burners. 

OR send it to a heat treater and get certified results. Sending them mystery metal and expecting certified results will be more expensive but you'll know if it CAN be done with that alloy or pattern welded billet. It takes the guesswork out of it if you don't have the instrumentation and equipment.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

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5 hours ago, Frosty said:

Fire Bird: A good way to even heating is to use a muffle.

Yeah, I have a piece of rectangle tubing that just fits into my little farrier's forge to use as a muffle, and pieces of firebrick to close it up. Eventually, When I get around to building a new forge, I think I'm going to try forced air, rather than multiple venturi burners. That should give an even more uniform heat, and a thermocouple can be wired into the blower to regulate the temperature like Alec Steele has shown in his videos. Probably not as good as a heat treat oven, but getting closer. I'd still use Dr. Thomas's method as there looks to be sound science behind it.

If I where trying to make knives and axes for sale, sending out for heat treatment would make sense. That's not where I'm at though. I'm interested in this as a hobby to see what I can do myself as a creative process, so finding a process like Dr. Thomas is great, because it does take out the guess work using simple equipment and instrumentation, a tempilstik and a magnet.

Eventually, I could see getting a heat treat oven if I progress as a blademaker, again because I'm motivated to see what I can do. The Jen-Ken Vertical Air Baths and Paragon models start at what I paid for a 2x72 variable speed grinder, so not unreasonable.

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