ThomasPowers

Large "permanent" tanks do have a lot more hoops to jump through to use them. A good local dealer should know what's required/allowed.

In stead of a stirrup, I forged the end of a 1/2" sq rod down till I could insert it and bend it around the last link of the motorcycle chain I use as a hold down. It angles down to the ground and I can step on it to apply weight but still have my foot stable on the ground. The other end I can adjust length to keep the foot piece at a good angle when I radically change the size of stuff needing to be held.

I use the 100# tank that used to run the Kitchen range. Local laws are just that *LOCAL*; I don't have any issues running 100# tanks in my shop here in NM. I do have to strap them upright for travel to get them refilled. After I installed the piping to go from the tank to the kitchen range we had it inspected before they would connect the large tank that gets bulk delivery. My wife was very disappointed with the inspection; they said I had done an excellent job...

GG did you check out propane dealers rather than stores that sell stuff besides propane? The dealers usually have better prices and many do refills too.

I saw another "horned lizard" AKA horny toad on the path to my shop today. I guess letting most of the yard go wild encourages wildlife. I've had mosquito trouble for the first time this year; I think my neighbor's "duck puddle" is providing a water for them in this dry area. They were attacking my legs below my shorts and so I put a squirrel cage fan on the floor blowing a blast where I was standing. Helps with the heat too.

Wow that was a great deal! I hope you enjoy using it for many many years! (My first anvil was stolen around 1982, I hope you have better luck.)

It's also been done using the step between the face and the cutting plate on a London pattern anvil.

No fiber. We can see the antenna on the mountain top from our front door---direct line of sight; but they insisted they had to mount the house one through our new metal roof instead of the several places where they could hook it into the wooden frame. Wife said NO!!!!!!!!!

(or Heavy, or Sharp!)

Looking at too many videos; I got the down to 10% notice; so I'll not be on as much or at all this week.

There are a lot of different things used to make crucibles out of depending on the temperature and reactivity of the melt. I just grabbed one as an example. Now Crucible Steel in Central Asia Dr Feuerbach's PhD thesis goes into detail on how they were making crucibles for melting steel pre 1000 A.D. in Merv; but I strongly advise NOT to try to make your own crucibles as the risk of failure is quite high and the risks of failure can be catastrophic! I have melted bronze, actually made a 90:10 bronze in a stainless crucible using a volcano fire lay in my coal forge for heat; note this was only a couple of ounces of metal and the crucible was pretty much "disposable" after a melt. Al will alloy with coper making an Aluminum Bronze with properties you may not want! Could you melt a "cleaning charge" and pour it out before melting the one you want to work with?

Good.

I'd advise a thicker edge at quench, especially for file steel; as quenching puts a lot of stress on it and file steel tends to be brittle. You did draw temper on it immediately after quenching, right?

Natkova you melt metal in a crucible that has a higher melting point than the metal; so I have melted brass, copper and silver in stainless steel crucibles but would have to buy a silicon carbide crucible for melting steel.

Files are generally good steel for blades, but a bit picky in forging and quenching temps. They also tend not to have fatigue cracks in them! How thick was the edge when it was quenched?

Handling holes only go an inch or two in and you can see the face in the picture of the corner, (second to the last picture.)

Do you know what the scrap was used for previously? Might give some idea about alloy.

If you will be forge welding it, you don't want to start with overly thick stock like you might do with punching and drifting an eye. Thickest I would use is a bit over 1/2 the thickness at the thickest solid spot right in front of the eye. The poll will be another forge welded piece.

For the smaller dishes I like to use lifting eyes, larger dishes bottom of welding tanks that are NOT Acetylene tanks!!!!!!!

ALLOY? QUENCHANT? WORKING/QUENCHING TEMPERATURE? How even was the temperature in what you were drawing the temper in? All make a difference in making blades. And don't use the "at" symbol here---that came with Johnny come lately Social Media stuff----did you read the "Read This FIrst" thread yet?

You can easily make large curves using a hardy tool that looks sort of like this: (Mine was a random piece of scrap I welded a hardy stem on about 25 years ago, never got around to making a "nicer" version.) To use: I generally used a curved face hammer with the handle crossways to the axis of the piece; but for a Q&D picture... And you get a curve---this was done cold with a 4# hammer, ouch! Hot work is a LOT easier! 1 pass, no clean-up, you can see the curve developing. IIRC JHC recently showed one of these as was shown in Schmirler's "Werk und Werkzeug des Kunstschmides" where the guy I saw using one probably got it...

Another hardy hole for tooling that saw a lot of heavy hammering; hence the sway. (Note that the sway seems about centered on the hole.) As long as it has not lost it's hardness in a fire that anvil should work fine; looks to be plenty of sweet spot left to work over. The crossed sausages makes me think it's Wilkinson, Queens Dudley, made in the UK over 100 years ago. A wire brush on an angle grinder will work fine to remove surface rust. Pounding hot steel on it will polish it the rest of the way and if you work up to doing blades, it will happen as you go! What's the going rate for anvils in Denmark?

Definitely a crack in the blade; as to what you did wrong it could be: alloy, forging too hot or too cold, pre-existing crack in used steel, wrong quench temperature or quenchant, wrong tempering temperature. The Devil is in the details!

Allow room between the bent ends for shrinkage.

The standard reply to "How big should my shop be?" is: 2N where N is he size you currently have. (Of course when you expand; then N is the size of your expanded shop and you should start planning the next extension...) I started with 20'x30', doubled it to 20'x60' and would really like to add a truckport on the end...