WELCOME to the anvilfire Guru's Den - V. 3.3

THIS is a forum for questions and answers about blacksmithing and general metalworking. Ask the Guru any reasonable question and he or one of his helpers will answer your question, find someone that can, OR research the question for you. This is an archive of posts from May 8 - 15, 2007 on the Guru's Den

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Thanks Guru. I saw a drum forge being used for a demo at Ironfest, up in the mountains near Sydney a couple of weeks back. This drum was smaller than my semi, but he had cut away a section of the wall facing him. If I were to do something similar, would the resulting high walls of the semi drum surronding the fire be any advantage? Or would this just waste coke?    Craig - Tuesday, 05/08/07 00:27:49 EDT Craig: It isn't the size of the container you start out with but rather then means to make a firepot within it of a practical size. A firepot 8" x 8" x 16" should give you all of the pot size needed for likely anything you would be doing. Check around with boiler installers/repair services, hardware stores, home supply outlets, brickyards, etc. to see if you can find refractory, fireclay or perhaps even fireplace mortar. Likely you will find the bricks used in a home fireplace to be cheaper than the mix-it-up materials so they can be used to fill in much of the space, using the mortar materials as essentially glue or cement to hold the shape desired. (Convert to metric) For a tuyere in the bottom go to a hardware store and ask about floor flanges. They are used to hold sections of pipe to a floor surface. Essentially it is a nipple area for one end of the pipe surrounded by a flat area with holes for securing the flange to the floor. A 2" floor flange should work nicely for you. Under it you need a nipple to a T, another nipple on the bottom and a screw-off end cap. From the side of the T you need a nipple which will eventually be adapted to your air supply. A scrapyard which has used plumbing pipe may have what you need except for the flange. In the floor flange, for a grate, you can weld within it a single short length of round stock, such as 3/4" x 1", or two short lengths of say 5/8". For a stand/base for it perhaps find someone throwing out an old round BBQ grill. Modify it to hold your drum with the top at a suitable working height (about the same height as your kitchen table).    Ken Scharabok (Poor Boy) - Tuesday, 05/08/07 06:54:54 EDT Notching the Drum: That gives you a wind break which can be good. The problem with high walls is getting work to the hot spot. Notches work and are very practical for some work and too restrictive for others. But as I mentioned, this IS a limited use forge. However, consider this. At the recent bladesmiths hammer-in I attended they used a small vertical gas forge of about 10" (25mm) diameter. It had two windows on either side of the vertical cylinder about 1.5"(38mm) x 3" (76mm). A sword was being forged through these restricted openings. See Don Fogg's web site for this type forge. Note that for coke and charcoal a slightly deeper fire is needed than for soft coal. The hot spot in coal in a average blacksmiths forge is about 4" (100mm) from the bottom. In coke forges it is closer to 5" (125mm). However, this varies according to how fine the fuel is and how loose the fuel bed. Jewelers use charcoal fires of only an inch or so. Industrial forges have had coke fore pots that are several FEET deep. That is why I qualified the type of forge. This also illustrates the point that many solid fuel forge problems have to do with fuel size.    - guru - Tuesday, 05/08/07 07:59:39 EDT I fear that I'm developing Carpel Tunnel Syndrome in my hammer hand; I usually only forge on the weekends, and I can feel numbness the next morning. I wonder if we can all benefit from Uri Hofi’s hand hammer techniques. I assume you can use the Hofi ergonomic techniques even if you don’t own a Hofi hammer.    Dave Leppo - Tuesday, 05/08/07 08:28:21 EDT OK, I see that apostrophes don't work read "Hand hammer techniques a la Uri Hofi"    Dave Leppo - Tuesday, 05/08/07 08:54:02 EDT Dave, No, you do not need a Hofi hammer to correct you work errors. Generally this is caused by gripping the hammer too tight and or "driving" the hammer. Driving is when you push the hammer into the work. It is a VERY bad habit. Never place your thumb on the back of the hammer handle. Practice loosening up your grip on the hammer and letting it pivot in you hand. Swing the hammer, do not push it. When using a light grip you should be able to bounce the hammer off the anvil and catch it on the rebound. This illustrates that you do not need to be holding the hammer tight when it strikes. In fact once it is swung you can do nothing to change its movement at the time of contact. This is when shock from the hammer is transmitted back into your hand and arm. Not only is this repetitive, it is a high force. There are many ways to prevent damage from hand forging. My friend Josh Greenwood has been instructing people on how to use a loose pivoting grip since the 1970's. I did it naturally from years of swinging and axe and doing wood sculpture using the wrong type hammer (a Craftsman steel shanked carpenters hammer). I use a loose sliding grip that I would not try to teach to anyone. It works for me. Uri Hofi has a DVD on his method but it is also covered in the Big BLU Forging Solutions Video on Hand Hammer Technique. Other things can contribute to the problem. Your anvil height, your stance. Also as a part timer you may be overdoing no matter how you do it. Even when one has good technique they tend get sloppy when tired and start driving the hammer and gripping too tight in fear of losing the hammer. If the work is not going along smoothly and tired muscles are making it hard to work then you are beyond the stopping point. So STOP. If it is a hobby there is no point in continuing. If is your occupation then continuing may end your occupation. . .    - guru - Tuesday, 05/08/07 08:56:55 EDT Carpal Tunnel: At the bank where I do business one of the tellers has had trouble with carpel tunnel and lost time from work and wears a brace on her wrist. The problem was not the work, it was how she did it. When using the adding machine she punched the buttons hard like a snake striking. She locked her hand and used her whole arm to hammer the adding machine. The machines did not hold up well either. . . It hurt me to watch. While keyboards and adding machines are bad for developing carpal tunnel this was a case of repetitive impact (not slight stress). I asked her if she thought her technique might not have something to do with the carpal tunnel. Oh NOooo. . . I'd bet that if her doctor could watch her work for 1 minute that he would have something to say about it. After years of working at the keyboard I find that I develop stiffness after working too long. Generally I have more trouble with fine movements of a mouse and in cool weather. CAD and graphics work can be tedious and result in a lot of tension along with small movements in the hand. I use one of those funny looking "ergonomic" keyboards and it seems to help. But any time I feel stiffness or my fingers getting cold I stop, shake my hands, do hand stretching exercises and take a break. I use a trackball and have not found a solution to it other than stopping when I notice any problem. I find it ironic that we have become a nation of George Jettsons. Remember George from the "space-age" cartoon and his bandaged button finger? In the 1960's it was hilarious to think that one could hurt themselves pushing one button all day. But that science fiction comedy correctly predicted the not too distant future of the 21st century (now).    - guru - Tuesday, 05/08/07 09:26:02 EDT Jock I do the same kind of CAD work during the week. I find that after mousing all day, I can feel it in my elbow and shoulder. I try to vary my posture and stretch my mouse arm across the desk more, anything to break the pattern of repetition.    Dave Leppo - Tuesday, 05/08/07 09:57:53 EDT Dave Leppo, Uri Hofi hand hammer techniques Hofi has a 2 Blueprints on his hammer technique on IForgeIron.com > Blueprints, Blueprint BP1001 Hofi Hammer Technique and Blueprint BP1002 Hofi Hammer Technique. You may want to look at Anvilfire demo #6 on Hammer Control, Dippy Duck assists in displaying proper hammer handling.    - IForgeIron - Tuesday, 05/08/07 10:49:49 EDT Stretching and warm up's: I try to start forging with a lighter hammer and as my muscles get warmed up I can then switch to a heavier hammer. If I start getting tired I back off to the lighter hammer. I had one bout of blacksmith's elbow that was so bad I could only forge Titanium---cause I could used a tiny hammer for it and the elbow didn't know I was trying to get some work done... My Dr said it was not my hammering causing trouble but my keyboard and mouse---said that touch typers tend to suffer more than the "subset of fingers" typers and that it was the light controlled motions that stressed more than the heavier thunks... Thomas    Thomas P - Tuesday, 05/08/07 10:54:49 EDT Well, when you type with one finger you twist it around and give it lots of non-repetitious exercise. . I'm up to maybe three or four fingers (out of 10) after 20 years of PC use. . . and still use some very creative cross over techniques. However, the ergonomic keyboard with the gap in the middle tends to help you learn to divide up your keystrokes between the hands. It makes me hate using my laptop. . .    - guru - Tuesday, 05/08/07 11:36:28 EDT Jock, You do know that you can plug your fancy ergonomic keyboard into your laptop, right? I hav e trouble typing on my laptop too, due to the smaller keyboardlayout and less throw on the keys. I keep telling myself that I should just get a regular keyboard for it, since 99% of the time I'm out on the porch using the laptop, but I never seem to get it done. (grin) Now, if I could just get the wireless router to reach to the shop, I'd have it made.    vicopper - Tuesday, 05/08/07 14:53:39 EDT vicopper, Depending upon distance you could look at an 802.11n or pre-N, Draft-N router and card. These are supposed to have a greatly enhanced range over b or g. If I'm not mistaken this could be good for about 1200 feet, been a while since I looked into it.    Juterbock - Tuesday, 05/08/07 15:38:23 EDT ViCopper, have you made a pringles can antenna for it? Thomas---who, after a hard day herding bits, would not like a computer in the shop least it suffer an injury, most likely a fatal one, involving large hammers and anvils...    Thomas P - Tuesday, 05/08/07 16:14:20 EDT Many later laptops don't have all the extra ports that the old ones had. . . That and its bad enough carrying around a mouse to plug in because the touch pad does weird things (even with all the extras turned OFF). Mine has a bunch of USB ports but I often find all three full AND my ergonomic keyboards are not USB. In fact I scrapped a USB keyboard and wireless mouse because they used batteries at an alarming rate and always failed at critical times. The plug in units have been working fine on several PC's for about 10 years and NO BATTERIES. When I recently had a hard drive failure I had two smithing hammers on the floor near the desk. I came VERY VERY close to ending it all. (The computer, not me.)    - guru - Tuesday, 05/08/07 17:00:30 EDT I have an old 386 four-color computer with a 20 MEGAbite hard drive. The idea of taking a 3# hammer to it gives me shivers of anticipation!!!!!! Great stress management technique, Thomas!!!    - Quenchcrack - Tuesday, 05/08/07 18:28:42 EDT Jakeitiscustomarytoemploypunctuationandcapitalizationtoyourpostingasitmakesiteasiertoread.    quenchcrack - Tuesday, 05/08/07 18:31:56 EDT Error report-- I misspoke re: tennis elbow. Time-LIFe Books medical series volume Bones and Muscles says it is tendinitis, a strained tendon. Remedy, says T-L: RICE-- rest, ice, compression and elevation. Little League elbow is different: a bone protuberance on the elbow that anchors a tendon gets snapped off, needs an operation to fix. LIFE did a story on it back in 1961 when it was first being recognized as a medical syndrome. Sorry.    Miles Undercut - Tuesday, 05/08/07 18:32:22 EDT Larry Neilson, your question seems to have been overlooked. (Or I missed the answer.) Side draft forges probably date back to the dawn of the iron age, and I wouldn't be surprised if bronze age foundries had side draft furnaces. As for an ending time, they are still in use. They are more popular in England than in the US. In the US the use of the side draft tapered off with the introduction of bottom blown cast iron firepots around the time of the US "Civil War." As for the transition from charcoal to mineral coal and coke, mineral coal gradually came into use after about the twelfth or thirteenth century. Exactly when blacksmiths adopted it in large numbers, is hard to determine, but was much earlier in England than in the US or Scandinavia. Whereas coke is made in the process of burning coal, you could say it was contemporary with the adoption of coal, but as a separate product, it came much latter, after the iron makers of a given area switched to coke from charcoal, which would probably put it into the eighteenth or even early nineteenth century. Indeed some Scandinavian iron makers were making charcoal wrought iron into the twentieth century.    John Lowther - Tuesday, 05/08/07 18:56:59 EDT Charcoal Ironmaking: US Iron Makers used charcoal for about 150 years after its adoption in Britain. The reason was the belief that sulfur in coal would make an inferior product. This was coupled with the fact that we had huge forests to support the charcoal industry in the US long after Britain had bans on logging for charcoal making. In parts of Europe the adoption of coal was held back by superstition and disbelief. But as John pointed out almost all prior methods are still in use. Those interested in recreating historical methods use charcoal to make both wrought iron and steel.    - guru - Tuesday, 05/08/07 19:11:58 EDT Just wanted to say thanks again to the guys who helped answer the fire management query I had on Sunday. I haven't had the chance to fire it up since then but I have a better idea of what I should do then before. I am from NW Georgia, near Chattanooga,TN and was curious if there is anyone or possibly any groups/clubs in my area which are involved in Blacksmithing?    Jeff - Tuesday, 05/08/07 20:17:40 EDT Back to horseshoe nails, I contacted Lee Liles of the Horseshoeing Museum in Sulfur, Oklahoma. He does not have any early horseshoe nail making tooling nor does he have any hand made nails. He does have nails from various countries of the world and historical information about when and how the first horseshoe nails were machine made.    Frank Turley - Tuesday, 05/08/07 21:18:27 EDT Horseshoe Nails: Frank, of all the dozens of headers at the Old Millstone Forge Museum not one was a nail header much less one for horseshoe nails. . Established about 1820. Of course the old headers may have been scraped or recycled as soon as factory nails were available. OR the nails were purchased elsewhere from a specialist.    - guru - Tuesday, 05/08/07 21:31:11 EDT Jeff: The ChooChoo Forge group meets the first Thursday of each month at the Joe Humble blacksmith shop. This is located at the East Chattanooga Yards of the Tennessee Valley railraod on North Chamberlin Street. Tuern east off N. Chamberlin (towaeds the ridge) on Emma street. The gate at the end of Emma street is open on the afternoon of the 1st Thursday of the month. Some guys usually get there early but activities ofissially begin about 6. New blood is always welcome. Drop me a line.    John Odom - Tuesday, 05/08/07 21:35:38 EDT Guru, I found some chain in the local junk yard. It is about .750" square stock and the links are about 4x8 inches. It appears the links are forge welded. Is there a quick way to determine if the material is wrought iron. If it is I could have a nice little supply. Thanks, really enjoy the board. John JB Bergman    John JB Bergman - Tuesday, 05/08/07 21:51:02 EDT Side blast furnaces. These certainly did exist in the bronze age. I remember reading about a bronze age bronze plant which had been built in the middle east. The archaeologists who excvavated it wondered why it had been built in a mountain pass where it was incredibly windy due to the funnel effect of such places. They then excavated channels with grooves across them where shutters could be lowered. The channels provided the blast for the smelt, the shutters were a means to control the amount of the blast. There is little new in the world. Just different ways of doing the same thing. Some are improvements. Many are not.    philip in china - Tuesday, 05/08/07 22:47:35 EDT Hi. I recently ran across this very large power hammer with the name of BEMENT cast on it. I am a 64 year old metal shaper and own a power hammer, Yoder type but not a Yoder. I also teach metal shaping. I work in sheet aluminum, steel, and copper and make parts for antique cars and airplanes. I live in central Florida and the hammer is near by. It is at a metal shop that is closing it's doors. No, I have no plans to buy it, but I am very interested in the history of the hammer. It is connected to a very large air tank. The owner was not available at the time. my email is phg111@verizon.net Pat Groover    Pat Groover - Tuesday, 05/08/07 23:35:18 EDT Chain ID: John, Generally you can identify old wrought by the grain pattern in the rust if heavily rusted. That is method one. Method two is to cut a piece about 3/4 through then bend it to break it. If grains pull out of the iron like breaking wood then it is wrought. The third method is to spark test it. Wrought throws long non-branching sparks. Note however that spark tests vary with the wheel type and speed. It helps to have comparison pieces for the particular time and place AND grinder.    - guru - Wednesday, 05/09/07 00:18:54 EDT Niles Bement Pond Power Hammer: These were very popular in the early part of the 20th century. Many books that show how to setup steam hammers use a Bement as an example. Niles made small industrial hammers as well as large. I have a 350# Bement and a stock certificate for the company. But I know little about the company history other than that they have been out of business for a very long time. The stock certificate is dated Jun 12, 1944 and says the company was incorporated in the state of New Jersey.    - guru - Wednesday, 05/09/07 00:29:26 EDT Thanks Guru, I will check it and post my results on the chain. When you mention the rust grain pattern, would it have a scaley appearance? Thanks for your time , John JB Bergman    John JB Bergman - Wednesday, 05/09/07 01:19:46 EDT John JB Bergman, A "stringy, longitudinal" pattern. It might be hidden under heavy rust scale. Try a little rust removal.    Frank Turley - Wednesday, 05/09/07 07:23:20 EDT My friend, the law librian, came across an item where a bookbinder's hammer is needed, so she asked me to pass this on knowing that not only does our circle of friends include blacksmiths but also toll collectors, book lovers and other folks of eclectic tastes. "Bruce, Check out this website. http://www.virginia.edu/oldbooks/news/ Can you let folks in Blacksmithing circles know that if they find or have a bookbinder’s beating hammer the Rare Book School is looking for one? I am figuring that someone who has one and doesn’t know what it is will be more likely to mention it to a blacksmith, hammers and all that, than to a librarian. Billie"    Bruce Blackistone (Atli) - Wednesday, 05/09/07 07:43:47 EDT It should be "librarian", not "librian" and "tool collectors" not "toll collectors", although our ranks may include a few of them, too. Poof, then prost!    Bruce Blackistone (Atli) - Wednesday, 05/09/07 07:50:46 EDT Librians are a very elite secret cult of people that are hell bent on keeping book pages dusty and shushing everyone.    - Nippulini - Wednesday, 05/09/07 08:26:17 EDT Beating Hammer: Bruce, While some collector may have one I have never seen one. AND while one of my hobbies is bookbinding I use a combination of modern techniques and this is not one of them. I suspect that if they really want a hammer of this sort that it would be cheaper to have one made or a common hammer dressed for the purpose. The illustrations referenced show 3 distinct styles starting from a rectangular block like a Spanish Club hammer (see BlacksmithsDepot) to a fancy one as below. Here is a 19th century style with enough detail to manufacture it. Harrild & Sons Beating Hammer from Paul N. Hasluck's Bookbinding.    - guru - Wednesday, 05/09/07 09:08:13 EDT Rivet head formula: For a round head rivet what is the formula for the length of shank which needs to protrude out to create a matching rivet head on both sides? I seem to remember it as 1 1/2" times the diameter of the rivet (e.g., 3/4" for a 1/2" shank rivet). Correct? Book Binder's Hammer: Several years ago I bought an odd lot of hammer heads and listed one as a mystery hammer. Bidding went surprisingly high. Winning buyer said it was a book binder's hammer.    Ken Scharabok (Poor Boy) - Wednesday, 05/09/07 09:14:12 EDT W.L. Harrild & Partners Ltd. Unit 3, Alpine Business Centre Eastbury Road London E6 4LP    - guru - Wednesday, 05/09/07 09:15:17 EDT Rivets: Ken, the blacksmiths rule is 1.5 to 1.75 times the diameter for round head rivets. However, if using heading tools the actual ratio is 1.625 times the diameter (splitting the range of the rule of thumb).    - guru - Wednesday, 05/09/07 09:57:29 EDT Greetings Guru! First off, thank you so much for the service you provide, you're helping many people become more proficient at a wonderful trade! I am 31 years old living in Ohio. I have had an interest in blacksmithing for many years, but my trade is computers and networking. I am a pre-beginner, just reading everything I can about blacksmithing because I have a genuine interest in trying my hand at the art as a hobby. I am intrigued by the creative aspect of forming metal into useful items, and I really want to get into a hobby that can be good excersise and doesn't involve sitting on my rear in front of a computer (as I am doing now). I have found this site (anvilfire.com) to be an incredible resource already, and I haven't even brought a hammer down on metal once yet! So, for my question, as a very very early beginner with no metalworking experience, I am looking at the 3 main components to get started, the forge, the hammer and the anvil. I understand that there are many different types and weights of anvils. I have found a 55 pound anvil that is cast iron. If I had to guess, I'd say this is most likely a Farrier anvil, or, a really cheap junky forging anvil. here is a link http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=806 . I want something to use for forging. I am planning on attempting some beginner projects I saw either here or on another website. One was making simple Kabob skewers, and the other was tent stakes. Will this anvil be decent for a hobbyist who's just starting out? I plan to make the brake drum forge, and pick up some lighter weight ball peen hammers. I have already placed an order for my copy of "The New edge of the Anvil" book. and I will be reading this thoroughly before I ever fire up the forge for the first time. I also plan on taking the welding classes with my father-in-law that your beginner's guide suggested. I really want to do this right, and not try to bite off more than I can chew. again, thank you so much for this great site, and for all the encouragement to those of us who are just starting out.    Jeremy Trim - Wednesday, 05/09/07 10:14:27 EDT I have really enjoyed the iforge section. I tried the spiral candle holder (project 110). My wife really liked it. After I finished it I reread the article and learned how to make the spiral tighter. Before I was able to finish my second candle holder, my wife reminded me that I am not a full time blacksmith. Anyways one problem I was having is as the spiral gets larger I usually destroy the coke ball trying to get it in the fire. Any suggestions or tips in getting odd shaped objects into the fire without destroying it?    Sean in China - Wednesday, 05/09/07 10:25:32 EDT Riveting You've got manufactured rivet heads, often round (button) or flat, sometimes cone, etc. It would depend on what kind of head you're shooting for. For cold riveting, I most often allow 1.5 times protruding through the materia. It is helpful to file a chamfer on the end of the shank to be headed, helps prevent work hardening cracks. For two equal sized heads, you can make both heads on the work piece itself. Use an annealed piece of round protruding an equal distance either side of the work. Use a proper thickness shim stock on the anvil to lift the work and allow the shank to drop down to the anvil face. Start peening until you get some upset, Then reverse and peen the other side. Continue until both heads are the same size.    Frank Turley - Wednesday, 05/09/07 10:29:07 EDT The last charcoal fueled blast furnace in Ohio went out of blast around the time of WWI. The last known one in the world went out of blast in Brasil several decades later and the last run was "excavated" to provide documentation on how it actually worked. Jeremy; where in OH? I used to live in Columbus, working rfor Lucent as a bit herder, and can hook you up with smiths down there. There is also a number of ABANA chapters in OH, SOFA, Western Reserve, NOB that you should look up. Now as to a cast iron ASO: You would do better with a heavy piece of scrap steel from a scrap yard---cheaper too! OH is a great place to find real anvils at reasonable prices if you are willing to hunt---or you can usually get a decent anvil at the "retail" price by asking around at a smithing meeting. Sean, you are using straight coke right? One method is to rake the top off the fire to one side. place the piece on the hot coke and rake the top back over it. It should heat fast and you don't lose your coke fire to cooling that way. Thomas    Thomas P - Wednesday, 05/09/07 10:52:57 EDT Thomas P., I am in West Milton Ohio. Since I last posted, I have found the Southern Ohio Forge and Anvil (SOFA) organization based right here in my neighboring city of Troy, Ohio. I have e-mail Gary Ward who is the president of SOFA and I expect this will be an awesome resource for me! Thanks so much again, and for the suggestion about the anvil. I figured it wasn't much good. the term "you get what you pay for" comes to mind. I plan on attending one of SOFA's monthly meetings, and seeing about becoming a member. they offer beginners blacksmithing classes that run for 10 weeks in the fall/winter months. This sounds like the place for me! Thanks so much, your site is awesome! Jeremy trim    Jeremy Trim - Wednesday, 05/09/07 11:11:46 EDT Cast Iron Anvils: I was just sent a photo of an old cast iron anvil. It is a crumbled up mess. I'll post the photos as soon as I get permission to use them. Cast iron anvils are junk temporary use anvils designed for hobbiests to have something to crack walnuts on. In the trade we call these "ASO's" for Anvil Shaped Object. While it will work as an anvil for a short time you will not be happy with it. Its edges will immediately start chipping and spalling under normal forging use and the face will rapidly become marked up.    - guru - Wednesday, 05/09/07 11:15:41 EDT There is limited information on the history of the horseshoe nail on via Google. One cite: http://www.horseshoes.com/advice/nails/horseshoenails.htm.    Ken Scharabok (Poor Boy) - Wednesday, 05/09/07 11:19:17 EDT Alternative Anvils and other tools: Any heavy piece of steel is better than the prettiest shaped cast iron ASO. Years ago I recommended that RR-rail anvils would be better standing on end (see our iForge demo RR-rail tools). Since then the bladesmiths have started using large cylindrical pieces of steel (about 4" (100 mm) diameter) setting on end as an anvil. In both cases the mass is put in line with the force of the hammer blow and makes a VERY efficient anvil. While the small target would appear to be a draw back it is not. When working on a full sized anvil a smith will tend to work primarily over the center of the anvil on one edge. This "sweet spot" where most work is done is only about 3 x 3" (75 x 75mm). If you can find a large block of steel that will work as well. If it is less than 3" thick then it is best to turn on edge and work on the narrow edge in order to put the mass under the work. Machine shops, steel warehouses and those that buy scrap from the same are good sources. Both the cylindrical anvil and block anvil have the disadvantage of not having a horn or a hardy hole. However, both can be setup as separate items. Hundreds of years ago it was common for anvils to be very plain and stake anvils used where a horn was needed. More important than an anvil with all the modern features is a good vice. A blacksmith will use a vise to hold work while hot chiseling, heading and bending. You also need it for cold work such as sawing and filing. It can also be used to hold hardy tools and bending forks and fixtures. A blacksmiths leg vise is best ($125 to $150 used) but a sturdy old machinist's vice will do as long as you do not hammer on it too much. There is little you can do to simplify a vice. Where an anvil can just be a heavy lump of steel a vice needs a screw and a guide system for the jaws. In both the case of the vise and the anvil you are best off to be patient and go to a blacksmiths association meeting (if you are in North America or Europe) and see what is available used from other smiths. You can also find these things used in flea markets. All but one leg vice I have came from flea markets and cost much less than other places.    - guru - Wednesday, 05/09/07 11:42:57 EDT Hello, I am trying to build a metal stair case that has a 5 degree radius. I have the bender to give me the arch but when we lay it out it is not squar to the stairs. So my question how do people make curved stairs?    Bryce - Wednesday, 05/09/07 11:54:52 EDT Jeremy, You are in the right place. SOFA has monthly meetings AND has the country's BEST annual conference in September if you are looking for used tools. See our NEWS Vol. 31 for the conference is like. If you can afford to travel a bit and want to get into it NOW the SouthEast regional conference is coming up. in a week and a half. See http://www.southernblacksmithassoc.org/ The tailgating there is not as good as SOFA's Quadstate but it is sufficient to pick up a lot of tools. And there will be major vendors from all over the country including BigBLU, Blacksmiths Depot and Chile Forges to name a few. There are also demos and classes.    - guru - Wednesday, 05/09/07 11:55:08 EDT This is absolutely great! The montgomery county fairgrounds, where the SOFA conference is held, is literally 10 minutes from where I live. how could I have never heard about it! I'm not superstitious, but I'm ready to call this fate. hahaha. thank you for the advice about the anvil. I will begin my search for a heavy peice of scrap steel to use as a preliminary anvil. I think my next hurdle will be building or aquiring a serviceable forge, and I think I will attempt to build the brake drum forge. Do you know if there are any good tutorials or texts available for good firemaking and maintenance? I'm hearing lots of talk about coke, and I don't know what it is. I know I will be needing to learn all about it. Does Anvilfire have resources to help me learn about the forge? thank you for your great help! Jeremy    Jeremy Trim - Wednesday, 05/09/07 12:44:46 EDT Jeremy, the Indiana Blacksmith Association's hammer-in is early next month about an hour north of Indianapolis; there should be plenty of tailgating there for anvils and vises! Gotta go! Thomas    Thomas P - Wednesday, 05/09/07 13:21:15 EDT oops, I meant to say Miami county fairgrounds. anyway, it's close. I've been invited to swing by tonight to the SOFA workshop, as they are having an open-forge night. I think I'll take them up on that. and also, as a followup, I did find the FAQ here on anvilfire about building and maintaining a coal fire. So, I'm good to go with that. Thanks friends! Jeremy    Jeremy Trim - Wednesday, 05/09/07 13:27:18 EDT Librarians: They WERE your last line of defense against the police and FBI demanding to know what you are reading. Many have been threatened with jail for refusing to turn over individuals reading lists as a right to privacy. However, the Patriot Act now demands that they turn over this information. Librarians also have the miserable task of deciding which books to keep and which to discard. Most libraries shelves are full. So to put new books on the shelves, old books must go. This often means good books that just have not been checked out often. . . Librarians also get caught in the middle censorship and book banning battles. Many have fought the freedom of speech battles for authors. SO the next time you are shusshed by a seemingly grouchy librarian, do so with a smile and remember she may be protecting your right to read what you want in privacy.    - guru - Wednesday, 05/09/07 14:15:28 EDT 5 degree Radius: Bryce, curves are measured in distance from a center point, not degrees of angle except for their length. Redefine your question. Note that stairs are at an angle thus the distance is longer than in the plan view. Using the solutions for right triangles: The length (c) equals plan length divided by the cosine of the angle of the stairs. You start with the portion of the circumference of a circle as viewed from directly above and divide by the cosine of the angle (which can be derived from rise and run by another right triangle formula). The radius of the curve is the plan radius divided by the same cosine of the angle factor. See the solutions of triangles in Machinery's Handbook or an 8th grade geometry book. I still have to look them up. Then make a scale drawing and do the math based on the drawing.    - guru - Wednesday, 05/09/07 14:27:28 EDT One fringe benefit of the small, bladesmith-type anvils is that they force you to learn to move the work under the hammer, rather than moving the hammer over the work.    Matt - Wednesday, 05/09/07 14:40:25 EDT Shop Math: If you can remember PI = 3.1416 circumference = PI*d and area of a circle = PI*r² vol = area * length A = SQR(B²+C²), B = SQR(A²-C²), C = SQR(A²-B²) Then you just about have everything you need covered outside a little multiplication. And PI is built into most calculators. If you remember that the density of steel is .2835 lb/cuin (7.847 gcm3) and can do the above volume calculations then you can calculate the weight of almost anything in steel. If you remember the basic rules of algebra then the law of sines: a/sin(A) = b/sin(B) = c/sin(C) will give you all the solutions of triangles. However, this is a lot of work if you do not do this kind of math every day. So I look up the solutions in Machinery's Handbook. And if you cannot remember any of it then Machinery's has the formulas and often the solutions for stock sizes, weight of bolts and rivets. . . and much much more.    - guru - Wednesday, 05/09/07 14:45:05 EDT Cast Iron Anvils: This is what you get after a few years using a cast iron anvil. This one is quite old but far older REAL anvils look like new after the same use this one has had. The big hole in one side is the result of a sand inclusion, a common occurrence in cheap castings. Sadly the folks that bought this thought they were getting a valuable antique and paid too much. If you see it on ebay bid it up as the lady needs the money.    - guru - Wednesday, 05/09/07 14:56:35 EDT Jeremy; I have seen old anvils and postvises at Ceaser's Creek Fleamarket (every weekend down toward Cincy, one inside dealer in used tools in particular) and at the Urbana Fairgrounds Fleamarket (open 1st Saturday of the month---it was here that a friend told me not to pay $30 for a post vise in great shape as "then he'll want $30 for all of them") Tell the folks at SOFA that the man with the disreputable red hat says Hi! Thomas    Thomas P - Wednesday, 05/09/07 15:13:46 EDT Jeremy when i built my break drum forge i put 3 1 inch sq legs. made a 6 inch ring to weld to the bottom so i could hook my 6 inch t duct. at the bootom i put a damper so i could dump ashes and i put a 200 CFM 115 VAC 6-3/4" FAN W/GRILL that i got at surpluscenter.com for ten bucks. i put a dimerswitch to control air speed with out dampering it. welded a plate in the bottom of my break drum and cut holes in that so i would get more air then i took a piece of 1/8 x1/2 and put in the grove on the top so a disk blad could fit on it (that would keep my coke in) i put 50 foot of extention cord on it so any wheres good to put it my email is jakeg_2004@hotmail.com if u have any quiestions i will send u pics if u want them    jake g - Wednesday, 05/09/07 21:42:00 EDT There was a charcoal iron blast furnace in the forest at Wundowie about 70km east of Perth, Western Australia. It produced high grade pig iron from 1948 to about the earlie 197o's.I visited the plant in the late 1960's and watched the furnace being tapped. Good memories.    Hugh McDonald - Thursday, 05/10/07 07:32:05 EDT Stack Furnaces: The interesting thing about these stack furnaces is that you can get wrought iron, cast iron AND steel from similar furnaces. Tall furnaces produce cast iron, shorter furnaces produce wrought and similar short furnaces run slow produce steel. Twice I've seen steel making using the Japanese method with Mike Blue and Ric Furrer at the Holston Mt. Bladesmith Hammer-In. The result is a messy clinker like lump of iron and steel. This year they forged it into a billet then a blade. This year the furnace was much smaller than last and fired a shorter period. This was probably as small a furnace as would work. They said it was possible for one person to fire and attend this furnace but it would have taken some serious hustling. Of course that assumes the blower is powered by someone or something else. This used to be done by hand. The processing of the product into usable steel took the better part of another day using a gas forge and a hydraulic press. This would have likely taken a least several days by hand. The result was a couple bounds of steel. Enough for one large blade or several smaller ones. While we tend to focus on the interesting part of these processes, the firing and the forging, there is a lot more work to it. Consider the primitive ironmaker that had to mine and process his own iron ore, process his own charcoal and collect his own refractories. The ironmaker could have traded for much of this but there is still probably 10 days total labor in that one small firing resulting in a couple pounds of steel. To be efficient at the process there needed to be a cooperative effort and the economics of scale come into play. A bigger furnace takes no longer to fire but produces much more product. A team of strikers working together can produce bigger more efficient to forge billets than one man working alone. So iron making must be a cooperative effort, then and now.    - guru - Thursday, 05/10/07 08:20:32 EDT Something to share A friend gave me this. It is a piece of an antique Japanese screen. The leaves are approximately 1" long and the frame about 1/16" x 3/16" (2 x 5mm). While the leaves are simple flat things the difficulty level of welding this all together is very high. Every leaf is forge welded to the stem and each stem forge welded to the frame. The wind blown hat is delicately forged to scale and has a delicate draw string. The whole piece must have been a wonderful piece of art. Material, wrought iron. This is the kind of work that would be done at a very small forge using light almost jewelers size tools. It could be done on an apartment terrace or at a fireplace.    - guru - Thursday, 05/10/07 11:21:12 EDT Note for folks wanting to try smelting on their own; there is plans for a "foolproof" bloomery in the appendices of "The Mastery and Uses of Fire in Antiquity", Rehder, This is not a Y1K version like my friends build but using modern available materials. Our Short Stack scandanavian bloomery was doing 15 pound blooms using a hand crank blower last time I helped with a run. Of course the bloom gets much smaller during consolidation... Thomas    Thomas P - Thursday, 05/10/07 12:08:14 EDT Rehder is good,especially for theory, and the info from the guys at the Rockbridge Bloomery is better for nuts and bolts, but they both make the assumption that one is after wrought iron as the end product. We at the hammer-in were making natural steel direct from ore, which means we were hitting the spot exactly halfway in between wrought iron and cast iron. Well, the first furnace gave us a hunk of cast iron along with the unconsolidated bloom, but who's counting? (grin!)    Alan-L - Thursday, 05/10/07 13:34:16 EDT But if you get half and half (cast iron and wrought mixed) it forge welds together and eventually becomes steel. The difference is that you CAN get nearly all steel if the furnace is operated just right and that means a LOT less forging. I've known folks to make steel from broken up cast iron welded on a mild steel plate. Kind of a modern cheat. But if you use wrought and good clean cast without alloying ingredients then you get the same or very near the same result as the direct process.    - guru - Thursday, 05/10/07 13:51:32 EDT From the eact same bloomery you can get cast iron, steel and wrought iron just by tweaking the fuel/air ratios and time at heat. "Natural Steels" were much in use before a good method of blister steel making was developed; the problem being you were never sure exactly what you had and that natural steels tend to be harder to consolidate as they will burn easier than WI. The group I was a blower thrall for gave a paper on their 10 years of Bloomery experiments at the IronMasters Conference when it was at Athens OH (2002?). Thomas    Thomas P - Thursday, 05/10/07 14:42:14 EDT I was just reading the iForge demo that Bill Epps did on leaf keyrings. He offered to divulge his recipe for superquench, but when I tried to send him an email via the link there to ask him for it, it bounced. Does anyone else have the recipe?    Craig - Thursday, 05/10/07 19:38:59 EDT Craig, look on our FAQs page under quenchants.    - guru - Thursday, 05/10/07 19:58:55 EDT where can i find some type of powder to harden mild steel or silver steel so that i can make some tools for my lathe and what is its market name thank you    john - Friday, 05/11/07 01:05:23 EDT Guru, FAQ was useful. Thanks. On another topic, I have found a supply of cheap 25mm (1 inch?) round 1045 bar. Would this be useful for making any tools? A nice thick drift, maybe? What would you use it for?    Craig - Friday, 05/11/07 02:52:29 EDT Lathe Tools: John, You cannot turn mild steel into tool steel with a magic powder. Case hardening compounds only harden the surface of steels and is used for scratch and wear resistance. A case hardened tool cannot be ground to resharpen it when dulled. Many small parts such as gun parts are case hardened for the purpose of wear resistance. The material you are looking for is called "Casinit" and is sold by BlacksmithsDepot and others. Lathe tools, both metal turning and wood turning are made of high steel steel. While wood turning tools do not need to be quite this high tech of steel they are much more durable. Normal wood turning tools are made of high carbon tool steels like W1 or A2. For metal turning you want the best tungsten HSS bits that are already hardened. For a low speed primitive wood turning lathe you can get away with medium to high carbon steels like the spring steels 5160, 1075 and 1095. If you are looking for cheap scrap steel to make cutting tools out of then old springs work well.    - guru - Friday, 05/11/07 07:10:31 EDT Craig, That 1045 would be fine for making drifts, punches, repousse' punches, chasing tools, hardies and raft of other things. The 25mm is a bit small for most hammers, but would be fine for small silversmith's type hammers and chasinig hammers. A very good find, indeed!    vicopper - Friday, 05/11/07 07:15:58 EDT 1" SAE 1045 Steel: Craig, This is useful for a variety of tools depending on how it is heat treated. Small hammers, drifts, fullers, hot punches (not the best) and any type of non-edged hardy tool used for bending and support. While you may be thinking a 1" drift this material is suitable to be forged down for smaller tools. For hammers the faces can be upset for sheet metal planishing and raising. Oil quenching is recommended.    - guru - Friday, 05/11/07 07:34:43 EDT Thanks Vicopper. I think I will go and grab it then after all... if they haven't already sold it. The place is an absolute gold mine though! They only sell 2nds, surplus, and 2nd hand steel, so everything is cheap there. Half the time they don't even know what they're selling. I'd love to make a hardy, but I'm still stuck with working on a crappy old 1m length of RR rail. Even bloody Ebay has run dry of anvils in Australia lately. It's so frustrating!!! Sorry. Had to have my daily bitch and moan.    Craig - Friday, 05/11/07 07:39:00 EDT Guru, I've found a good, reliable use for rebar. Tent pegs. The stuff I've been buying must be hard enough to break rocks, because it has been extremely difficult to draw down at a low cherry red. It's even relatively hard to grind out the hacksaw marks, but the deformed surface gives it a great grip in the dirt. I've been using plain old pegs to hold down the puppy fencing in my backyard to keep the beagles out of the garden, but they rip them up in minutes. The rebar pegs make it a bit more difficult for them. I've been quenching them in old sump oil to "waterproof" them. Seems to work well.    Craig - Friday, 05/11/07 07:47:19 EDT Craig, If the canine defense league find out about you quenching beagles in oil you should expect trouble;-) I used to hunt with Beagles until Tony Blair outlawed all hunting with dogs. So I moved to here instead.    - philip in china - Friday, 05/11/07 08:18:38 EDT Craig, see our iForge article on using RR-rail for tools. If you set your rail vertical you will find that working on the end is as efficient as working on a 70 to 100 kilo anvil. If you have access to welding equipment you can add a small horn and heel such as shown. This one was a design for a short "portable" anvil. I would only shorten your rail to what is a suitable work height. As mentioned recently, bladesmiths are now using small vertical anvils due to their solidity. While the small work area does not look like much it is not a lot different than the portion of the anvil face actually used by most smiths. The setup shown with the post could also have a vice attached or a hardie tool holder. In all it would be a very compact work station.    - guru - Friday, 05/11/07 09:33:37 EDT Philip, In china..... The esteemed mr Blair handed in his notice yesterday, its safe to come back ! (though doubt mr Brown will be any better)    - John N - Friday, 05/11/07 12:08:32 EDT Silver Steel is a term used over the pond for a high carbon steel---much like we would use the term Drill Rod. It sould be an OK steel for woodlathe chisels but not nearly as good as the modern high alloy steel or carbide bits for a metal lathe. You would want to heat to critical, quench in oil and temper immediately. a Differential temper with the body tough but the edge quite hard would probably be a good idea. Thomas    Thomas P - Friday, 05/11/07 12:19:02 EDT When I looked for wood turning chisel material I found a fellow named John Lea that makes turning chisels the way boring bars are made for metal turning lathes. Each tool has a mild steel shank and holds small square HSS cutter bits. When I make these I use old tap shanks for the bits because they are round and fit snuggly into a drilled hole. I grind a flat on them for a set screw. For square bits I have drifted holes. However, I found it easier to drill an oversize hole and make a half round bushing with a 90° notch cut out for the cutter bit. In this case two set screws hold the bit. The bushing can be slightly longer than the width of the boring bar (or almost as long as the cutter bit) to help reduce chatter. When they say "silver steel" I think cold finished steel and then mild steel. . . Need to remember they are talking about something like W1 or O2.    - guru - Friday, 05/11/07 14:43:40 EDT Oh joy oh joy guess what I found lying in the gutter .A five inch diameter 3ft long round solid steel bar.Now how to make it in to a knive forging anvil the best way.I haven't weighed it yet don't have a scale but it's got to be 100lbs because I could barely lift it.    chris makin - Friday, 05/11/07 16:04:58 EDT According to anvilfire's mass3 calculator: 200.394 pounds for common steel 5" dia by 36" long. An excellent Knifemaker's anvil; but do not hurt yourself getting it---one good ER visit will make a new store bought anvil look cheap! If I was in my truck I would get a couple of planks as a ramp and use a comealong and some rope to pull it in---being inside the bed with a comealong is a lot safer than being *below* something that heavy---I've also used the pallet trick: pick up one end and rotate it over and put on a pallet. Pick up other end and rotate it over and set it on two pallets, USW, until you can rotate into the carry vehicle. If you use friends I would suggest 4 of them and use rope loops under front and back so everyone can get a good grip. Go over lifting commands too like "Lift, lower and *STEEL* meaning someone is dropping their piece and *everyone* jumps back out of the way! Thomas    Thomas P - Friday, 05/11/07 16:53:49 EDT On rings for forming bowls: I have give it some thought in the past as a possible sales item. It really wouldn't be difficult to make a sort of ring from say 3/4" to 1" stock. Calculate length and then use a hardy bending fork to make it sort of round. Then arc weld ends together. Trick would be to make it truely round. Since I don't have a large floor mandrel/cone, nor a forge currently capable of reheading such a ring, I have put the concept on the back burner. Remember on calculating a ring it isn't pi times inside D (diameter) since this gives inside length. For outside you have to add twice the thickness of the stock. For example, for an 8" ID ring out of 1" round you need pi times 10" if my Algebra 101 is correct.    Ken Scharabok (Poor Boy) - Friday, 05/11/07 19:08:49 EDT For the ring, you're dealing with the neutral axis, so it's pi time the mean (average) diameter, neither the ID nor the OD.    Frank Turley - Friday, 05/11/07 20:47:31 EDT Ken, a better low dollar tool is cut off cylinder ends. See our Armoury page articles about Eric Thing's shop. Cylinders are scraped daily and part of the process is sawing the ends off.    - guru - Friday, 05/11/07 22:34:26 EDT Does anybody have the details for the IBA conference in June? Do you have to be a member to attend?    brian robertson - Saturday, 05/12/07 00:19:17 EDT So, I converted my propane BBQ into a charcoal grill, mice chewed through the lines during the winter. I guess the grease made it taste better. So, I chopped up the frame and welded some car parts to it to make it look like my sculptures. The original grille is pretty much corroded, so I am planning on welding up a new one. Is there anything I should avoid (except the obvious galvanized). Should I go with stainless or will mild steel rod suffice?    - Nippulini - Saturday, 05/12/07 07:16:40 EDT Guru, I've got a whole bag of questions this time! I've just been through the FAQ on heat treatment, but can't find 1045 in there. I also had a look at it on Matweb, but I didn't see any guides for heat treatment. I have access to an electric muffle furnace at work, so I can be relatively precise with the heat if need be. Can you point me toward a guide? Does it make a difference in terms of forging and heat treatment if it's been hot rolled or cold drawn bar? Will it make decent knife edges?    Craig - Saturday, 05/12/07 08:44:48 EDT Nip, The commercial ones are chrome plated but end up pretty well blackened. If you want rust proof then use stainless. You can use bar stainless welding rod which is readily available. But mild steel will work fine. Old fashioned trivet type grills and toasters used in fireplaces were wrought iron.    - guru - Saturday, 05/12/07 08:47:52 EDT IVBA Conferences: Brian, There is a contact address on their website events page    - guru - Saturday, 05/12/07 09:08:09 EDT SAE 1045: Craig, My Heat Treaters Guide says treat the same as 1040. Then there is 17 graphs with various properties and a page and a half of micrographs (photos). If you want hardening depth, temper hardness, strength. . . it is all in the graphs. It says it is the most often specified medium carbon steel. It is a little low on carbon for blades. For that you want something 60 point carbon or more. Forging: Heat to 2275°F (1245°C). Do not work below 1600°F (870°C) Normalizing: Heat to 1650°F (900°C) Cool in air. Annealing: Heat to 1550°F (845°C) cool in furnace at rate of not more than 50°F (28°C) per hour to 1200°F (650°C). Hardening: Austenitize at 1550°F (845°C). Quench in water or brine. Oil quench sections under 1/4" (6.4mm) thick. Tempering: See our FAQ page, Temper Color Chart with Hardnesses. While 1045 is not listed you can extrapolate between the 1040 and 1050. Note that the bar you have is probably annealed to be ready to machine unless it is as rolled from the mill.    - guru - Saturday, 05/12/07 09:35:11 EDT TGN, did you ever get the email I sent to your old contact address? I'll post the question over on the hammerin so as not to go too far off-topic here, but it does involve stainless...    Alan-L - Saturday, 05/12/07 09:43:05 EDT Grill-- beware refrigerator racks. I have read that they are coated/plated with something extremely poisonous if heated as in BBQs.    Miles Undercut - Saturday, 05/12/07 10:13:37 EDT I was surprised to see the high end of the forging temperature for 1045. Is this not a welding heat when the metal begins to lightly spark?    Frank Turley - Saturday, 05/12/07 10:38:04 EDT Oh Guru, I am seeking enlightenment of the Indiana Blacksmith Association conference in Indiana the first part of June not IL. Can't find link on IBA website, only the dates and Tipton, IN is posted. I'd like to know the schedule and demos.    brian robertson - Saturday, 05/12/07 12:06:15 EDT Frank, That is what the book said.... and I just checked the similar steels above and below it and they are the same.    - guru - Saturday, 05/12/07 15:07:03 EDT Brian, I found the IBA info on the IVBA site. They list Don Nuenschwamder (812) 448-2828 as the contact. Tell him he is welcome to list details on our Calendar of events page. Most groups charge something for their major events of conferences. Usualy in the range of $35 to $55. IF membership is required then this usually covers it. Often the membership is required for insurance reasons.    - guru - Saturday, 05/12/07 15:14:52 EDT Southern Regional Blacksmith Conference: I am sad to say that I will NOTt be attending even though I had planned to. My primary PC which had a hard drive failure a few months ago and cost me several weeks to rebuild (software instalationsa and file backups) has stopped operating and will not boot. So it is time to purchase a NEW PC. . . Someone please take lots of photos for me!    - guru - Saturday, 05/12/07 15:20:46 EDT Tipton, Anyone going to the conference in Tipton IN is in for a real treat. Clifton Ralph will be doing a power hammer demo along with Steve Parker and Kurt Fallenbach (I may have the spelling or last name wrong here). That's something not to be missed if you are anywhere in that area. I'm sure there will be lots more to see also. I wish I were closer.    SGensh - Saturday, 05/12/07 18:49:23 EDT IBA Conference. I have sent in my form so I don't have pricing in front of me, but from MEMORY, whole weekend for a member of ANY blacksmith group is about $40. Camping is $15/night, with regular RV spots with electric and water. Dump station on site. Hot showers. Saturday night is a catered dinner. Friday night is a pizza dinner on the IBA. Call for the remaining details. The onsite registration is a few dollars more, but still reasonable. Good tailgating, good friends and great times.    ptree - Saturday, 05/12/07 18:58:25 EDT Nippulini- If you are planning on barbecuing any Oysters, then you will want stainless for your grille. I live a couple of miles from the oyster beds, and often grille up a few dozen, and found the salty water that drips out of them to be fatal to mild steel barbecue grills, so both mine now sport stainless grilles. But for most meats, chicken, and vegetables, mild steel should work fine.    - Ries - Saturday, 05/12/07 20:26:15 EDT HI I would like to make my own anvil. I would greatly appreciate any help you could give me. I have an idea on how to make it, and a general design. but I don't know how to make it. It involves a one inch thick steel face being welded to two short sections of I beam. The I beam is used for the base.    Jarathorn - Saturday, 05/12/07 23:12:27 EDT Ptree, did I remember to email you copies of the photos I took at the CSI HammerIn in Waverly?    Quenchcrack - Sunday, 05/13/07 10:03:13 EDT Fabricated Anvils: Jarathorn, It depends on what you want the anvil for. If you want it for a welding bench and doing simple bending that will work fine. But if you want it for forging then it has serious problems. 1) Structural beams are designed to provide the greatest strength using the least steel. This means they are springy and flexible spreading the steel out in a large space. An anvil wants to be a very compact mass in order to resist the blows of a hammer with the least movement. Anvils made of structurals deflect more than the same mass in a compact block would move when struck by an equal force. 2) While the measure of a solid anvil's hardness and efficiency is how much the hammer springs back the springyness of a beam is in deflection not the resilience of the hard surface. When a beam is struck hard enough for the hammer to bounce back it does so at an unpredictable angle different than that which the blow cam from. While beam anvils and their cousins RR-rail anvils sound good to the neophyte they are a miserable inefficient anvil. However, using the right materials and techniques you can make an anvil as good as the best. To fabricate an anvil you want large solid blocks of steel. These can be shaped then welded together producing reasonably good to excellent results depending on the type of steel and the skill of assembly. I recommend that upper bodies or center blocks be made of medium to high carbon steel rather than trying to hard face mild steel. We have some old articles about fabricated anvils linked to our selecting an anvil article on our FAQ's page. I am working on a much better article with photos from a number of folks that have made anvils using different methods. Below is a very nice fabricated anvil made by a young man using nothing more than a cutting torch, an arc welder and a grinder. This is a very traditional shaped anvil. You can go much simpler with good results if you can get over what you THINK an anvil should look like.    - guru - Sunday, 05/13/07 10:38:19 EDT I'm looking to expand my Blacksmithing Library by one. I have The New Edge of the Anvil and The Artist Blacksmith. Does anyone have a recommendation on what my next book should be?    Frostfly - Sunday, 05/13/07 11:18:13 EDT Frostfly, If you don't have Machinry's Handbook, get it. Used older copies are cheap and plentiful, and it contains a wealth of infrmation you'll find you need over time. I'd also suggest you look into a copy of Alexander Weyger's book, for good information on making your own tools.    vicopper - Sunday, 05/13/07 11:42:24 EDT Do you have a Machinery's Handbook? It can answer about half the technical questions you see here. After that I would suggest the late Donna Meilach's Decorative and Sculptural Ironwork. It is still available in print but I suspect that when this printing is gone that will be the end for one of THE BEST books on modern metal working. When the first printing ran out it was 20 years before it was printed again and THEN it required Donna to find a new publisher and replacement materials. Werk und Werkzeug des Kunstschmieds By Otto Schmirler is also VERY good but also goes in and out of print. See our book reviews of all the above.    - guru - Sunday, 05/13/07 11:45:38 EDT Frostfly: On the beginner end I recommend The Backyard Blacksmith by Lorelei Simms and The Blacksmith, Ironworker and Farrier by Aldren Watson. The first is a nice introductary text which is well written, photographed and illustrated. The second gives a good historical account of blacksmithing in a mid- to late 1800s or so village situation.    Ken Scharabok (Poor Boy) - Sunday, 05/13/07 12:35:03 EDT Quenchcrack, no photo's received.    ptree - Sunday, 05/13/07 12:43:09 EDT Good BS books: The Complete Modern Blacksmith, Alexander Weygers; The Art of Blacksmithing, Alex Bealer, The Practical Handbook of Blacksmithing and Metalworking, Percy Blanchard, The Blacksmithing Primer, Randy McDaniel. There are also some electronic copies of very old books available free on the web.    Quenchcrack - Sunday, 05/13/07 13:37:08 EDT Ptree, your card does not have your email address. I cannot seem to link to my email by clicking your name. Send me an email and I will send you the pictures by reply mail. Sorry, Duh....    Quenchcrack - Sunday, 05/13/07 13:38:50 EDT i just built a forced air gas forge and i am wondering if i need a pressure gadge for the hook up or just a hose and regulator because i have heared it both ways any info would by very helpful.    - Andrew - Sunday, 05/13/07 14:00:03 EDT Andrew you don't need a pressure gauge but a pressure regulator is highly suggested---it need not have a gauge on it; it just needs to be adjustable---which gas grill regulators are not... You can direct connect but they you have a lot more fussing to get a workable gas flow that then changes over time and has to be fussed with again. Thomas    Thomas P - Sunday, 05/13/07 15:07:58 EDT Frostfly If you want a great book to add to your blacksmith Library that will expand your knowledge base in addition to the Machnist handbook I would recommend " A BLACKSMITHS'S CRAFT THE LEGACY OF FRANCIS WHITTAKER" by George Dixon. You will learn volumes from this book. As for " THE BLACKYARD BLACKSMITH" By Lorelei Sims it is just repeteing basic smithing you have already read about. I have both books and am very disappointed in her book. It is a good book for a newbie, but she tried to reinvent the wheel. Basic books already exist.    - Burnt Forge - Sunday, 05/13/07 15:50:01 EDT Jock Nice anvil homemade anvil!! Go ahead and post my scrap made anvil. Like Jock explains...I forgot what an anvil needed to look like and used what I found.    - Burnt Forge - Sunday, 05/13/07 15:52:55 EDT so if i have a valve that i can adjusted at the top of the hose were it goes into the forced air burner i should be fine then?    - Andrew - Sunday, 05/13/07 16:14:56 EDT One of if not THE best overall how-to book on smithing iron is Plain and Ornamental Forging by Schwarzkopf. It has answered many a question for me since I first heard about it in Frank Turley's class in the early 1970s. I think Centaur has it, and perhaps Lindsay Books, too. A close competitor is the COSIRA book on smithing, available as a free download along with several other valuable books online at http://www.countryside.gov.uk/NewEnterprise/Economies/craftpublications.asp Add to these the three-in-one set of smithing books by the late, great Alexander Weygers, available ditto, and you're pretty well set.    Miles Undercut - Sunday, 05/13/07 19:13:16 EDT Andrew: If your regulator has a standard 1/4" port in the side you can purchase a pressure gauge at most auto parts stores or plumbing supply outlet. I have a 0-20 Fisher regulator without the option for a gauge. I just run it wide open and then control propane pressure via an on/off valve near the side of the forge. A rather look and by feel control.    Ken Scharabok (Poor Boy) - Sunday, 05/13/07 19:27:53 EDT Andrew, You need an adjustable pressure regulator at the gas cylinder. Otherwise, you'll be running ~200-250 psig through the hose, a prescription for disaster if you drop a piece of glowing steel on the hose. Picture a flamethrower flopping around madly, searing everything in reach. Larry Zoeller and others sell Redhead regulators that are adjustable from 0-35 psi; that's just what you want. For a forced-air forge, you can use relatively low pressure, say 2-4psi, or higher presure, but you will need to be able to control the volume. For this, a needle valve in the line just before the forge is the ticket. Get a good one. Again, Larry Zoeller sells them reasonably. When you can adjust the gas and the air both, you can have any flame you desire.    vicopper - Sunday, 05/13/07 19:32:04 EDT thank you i now know what you mean i was confused because the plans i used has an on off valve at the top of the forced air burner. i was not sure if i needed a controleble regulator or if i used just the valve alone thank you    - Andrew - Sunday, 05/13/07 20:41:03 EDT There are two good, old books titled "Elementary Forge Practice", one by Bacon and one by Robert Harcourt. I'm partial to Harcourt's with his 42 lessons. For example, one lesson is a hatchet, another the strap hinge eye weld. The forge welding scarf shapes are well illustrated. Your search engines can locate the book.    Frank Turley - Sunday, 05/13/07 22:09:53 EDT Guru, Going back a couple of days, to the Japanese fire screen, could the forge welding be done on a standard sized forge using a blowpipe to direct intense heat to the pieces being welded? Or as an alternative,(because I work exclusively with coke, by myself and a coke cave doesn't seem to be possible....so far), I could tack weld the center of the scarf with rodless welding (OA), leave a bit of space between the two pieces for flux, bring the two to welding heat and then hammer them together?! Has either method been done sucessfully, or not worth the effort to try?    Thumper - Sunday, 05/13/07 23:53:38 EDT Also on the fire screen. What are the actual dimensions of the piece? What is the size of the stems? Inspired, I've been working on a similar design but presumably much heavier at about 3-4mm diameter stems. Forge welding material that thin is certainly a challenge for the welding impaired such as myself. I too use coke. For welding, I use a deep fire (~ 6") with fine coke (pieces 1" or less). I pass the stem through the pile at the top of the fire to avoid heating too large an area. I leave the leaf clamped in the tongs so I can pull it out exactly when it's ready and before it burns. Because I'm clumsy and slow, I put the stem on the anvil, place the leaf stem across at 45 and make the weld with a little bit hanging over, another welding heat and this is welded too. With more finesse, or somebody to hold the stem, this would be a one heat operation. Make sure it's all flat so it will sit on the anvil nicely for welding, then reshape at the end.    andrew - Monday, 05/14/07 01:40:00 EDT Andrew: Essentially what you want to end up with is the ability to adjust both the flow of propane and the flow of air (oxygen). Fine tuning a particular propane forge is a matter of look, sound and sense as anything else. The forge will likely act differently (required a different pressure) when starting up than after it has been running for a while and the entire chamber has come up to a constant temperature.    Ken Scharabok (Poor Boy) - Monday, 05/14/07 06:46:32 EDT Japanese Screen: It is not a "fire screen". It is some type of decorative screen or panel. If you re going to weld with OA then weld with OA. Tacks that could hold it together would be as about as big as the final weld. I see no sign of wiring or twisting together. Welding with coke is done on in loose coals about 1/3 into the fire (depth). One technique used for fine welding in a coal forge is to use a pipe or ceramic tube about 2" (50mm) in diameter, 6 to 8" (150 to 200 mm) long filled with fuel. Welding is done on top of the vertical pipe where you have an intense fire that uses up all the oxygen. The pipe is supported in a bed of fuel over the tuyeer. Welding in small charcoal fires can be done near the top. I suspect that these small pieces were stuck together in the fire holding each in a pair of tongs. In a traditional Japanese shop if the smith did not have a helper he would have been operating the bellows OR manipulating one piece with a foot. OR as mentioned a pipette may have been used to blow the fire. Note that for small intense fires you need to break your fuel up into proportionately small pieces. There would have been enough leaves in something like this that there was LOTS of welding practice on this small work. There was also room for lots of failures. However, each stem with 5 to 10 leaves is only about 6" (150mm) to 12" (304 mm)long. These were then welded to the frame of the screen. But there is no telling what else was in this iron art. Wire clouds? The farm girl that lost her hat? OR is that a mystery? There could have been an ox cart. . no telling. OR maybe this is the complete piece. Where is the Antique Road Show when you need them? If I were to try to reproduce this piece the way it was originally made I would use pure iron and a small charcoal forge. The leaves (more exact dimensions) are 1.25 to 1.5" (32 to 38 mm) long without stems. The hat is 2.25" (57.15mm) in diameter. Scale it from there.    - guru - Monday, 05/14/07 09:27:28 EDT Going back a couple of days - 2275 F for 1045 - not uncommon in my experience for processing a medium carbon steel. We used to reheat low carbon, less than .10, to 2400 F for initial rolling from ingot to slab. The 1546 ingots weren't heated as hot - maybe 2300 F (it's been 30 years since I worked there). 1546 was used to produce 5 & 1/4 inch round corner square billets - end use was by Chamberlain Mfg. Co. to produce shells for military use. Of course, we had thermocouples in the soaking pits to control temperature. Checked them with optical pyrometers to verify they were measuring properly. A "fun" job - have the crew crack the lid of the pit about 12 to 18 inches, crouch down so some of the readiation from 200 or so tons of hot steel missed you and shoot the wall of the pit near the thermocouple with the infrared pyrometer. On occasion, some of the operators weren't too happy at having to open the pits and the 12/18" became more like 36" - made a heck of a difference in the amount of radiation you received.    - Gavainh - Monday, 05/14/07 12:29:49 EDT Gavainh, I fully understand about radiant heat. Most who have never been close to a LARGE mass of yellow hot steel don't understand the unbearable amount of radiated heat. At the upsetter shop we had a tunnel furnace for heat treat. and when those baskets had to be pushed out, the doors had to open about 5' up. The doors were 10' wide. The tunnel was a little over 100' long, so plenty of steel and refractory to radiate. Not 200 tons of steel, but enough to give you a glimpse of what hell might be like.    ptree - Monday, 05/14/07 19:23:28 EDT It would be guesswork to figure out the methods of the Japanese Screen. I suppose a charcoal fire would have been used with claybanks on the either side, close together to keep the fire from spreading. I think I would work from butt to tip, perhaps using thick jawed tongs to cover and protect the leaf while taking a heat. Each stem with leaves would be kept straight, the curves put in later. Unrelated in terms of aesthetics are 17th and 18th century Mexican branding irons. One is my collection is 16¼" in overall length. The shank is of 5/16" square stock. The four connecting rods are of 3/16" square stock, and they are forge welded to the stamp stock with some tiny, interesting methods.    Frank Turley - Monday, 05/14/07 21:53:28 EDT Guru, The cheeky buggers went and sold the surplus 1045 before I had a chance to get out there! Anyway, if you follow this address, (http://www.allsteelbrokers.com.au/product_info.php?cat_id=7) You will see some really HEAVY RR rail right at the top of the page. If I were to weld this butt-to-butt, would this serve as a not-so-crappy anvil?    Craig - Monday, 05/14/07 23:10:26 EDT Craig, The 192kg/m rail would make a nice anvil without any work. I have never seen rail this heavy (with no narrow web). That works out to 129 pounds per 12". A piece about 18" long with a horn carved out of one end would make about a 150 pound anvil. Very solid. The trick would be talking them into sawing a piece off for you. Note that most RR rail is in the 60 to 75 point carbon steel range.    - guru - Monday, 05/14/07 23:26:12 EDT Tricky Welds: One thing nice about old wrought pieces is that you can often see how the weld preps were made. I have an old traveler (measuring wheel) with 4 spokes forged from one piece and then welded to a ring. The ring is about 1/8" thick by 7/16" wide. The spokes are 1/8 x 5/16". The end of each spoke is split and the ring is pinched into a scarf to fit the splits spoke end. It is not a work of art but it IS a nice piece of blacksmithing. I repaired a very old jewelery box for an antique dealer many years ago that had little forge welded hinges that were no thicker than 1/32 and closer to 1/64" (0.5mm). I used a torch and file. But the originals that were in good condition were obviously forge welded. What makes light work very difficult to weld is that it cools rapidly. Smiths that do this work have their anvil setting in the ashes next to the fire. The welds are often stuck as good as they are going to get in the fire and then just dressed on the anvil. Big heavy welds are actually a lot easier.    - guru - Monday, 05/14/07 23:37:40 EDT Sometimes, theeasiest way to make little bitty welds is IN the fire, using a pair of tongs to pinch the weld together. Afterit is stuck this way, it ccan be re-heated and finished on an anvil kept close to the fire...close enough to keep it warm (hot) so it abstracts less heat from the work.    vicopper - Tuesday, 05/15/07 00:11:34 EDT