ThomasPowers

Frosty; DO NOT TAKE A CHAINSAW AND GO OUT TO CUT FIREWOOD!

I see broken vises on a regular basis at the scrapyard. Most vises that are NOT postvises are made from cast iron and will not take heavy hammering---which is what you use a post vise for anyway! (Some very expensive machinist vises are made from tougher materials like the wilton bullet vises; or are HUGE like the old chipping vises that weigh over 100#!) Frankly I buy tools to use; not enough room in the shop for things that "look neat"...

If the log is green the bands will loosen. A shallow taper on the stump ends can allow you to hammer the bands down tight as the log dries a couple of nails can be used to keep them from working their way back up.

Just what we need---a knife for killing Semi's! GG no pic's of making them as my hands are on the hammer and tongs... However: I start with the tang end and draw it down into a long skinny roundish rat tail going all the way till the rasp cuts start. Then I heat the other end and draw out a blunt triangular shape for the head. Heat the length and hammer along the mid-line in a swage to make a U shape between head and tail. Coarse side out! Bend over the edges till the meet in the middle. (If they get a twist it's easy to straighten in a postvise with a pipe wrench). Center Punch the eyes and nostrils---I do the eyes on the anvil and the nostrils in a postvise. It helps on the nostrils to make a flat where they will be punched ahead of time. Straighten and flatten with a soft hammer---rawhide or wood to not mess up the "scales". To make the bends I open my 4" postvise several inches and with the body hot stick the head/neck interface over the front jaw and hook it under the back jaw and with the head vertical on the side slip a piece of pipe over the body and bend the snake in the first bend. Reheat and flip the snake over and stick the first bend over the front jaw of the postvise and under the back jaw, stick the pipe over the body and bend the opposing curve. Most snakes I get 4 curves for the long rasps and 3 for the short ones. Heat and straighten adjust any unwanted bends with the soft hammer. Flip around and heat and bend the tail straightish up. Anneal the tail. The rattles are bottle caps with the centers punched out with a flat steel punch with sharp edges done on the end grain of scrap lumber. Thread them on the tail making sure to leave enough room for them to be shaken up and down. Then curl the tip of the tail over, (hence the annealing), and make a loop to keep the caps from coming off. Wire brush and finish to choice. Any questions? Today I punched the face features and bent the curves on 2 rasptlesnakes and did a little clean up on the tails to make the bottle caps slide freely. I also wire brushed another tripod ready to heat and wax and did another seasoning run on the skillet. Had a forge friend over and he was forging a 5160 blade. Scrapyard was closed as the owner went fishing...

I consider 80% of the worth of a post vise to be in the condition of the screw and screwbox. Generally I only buy ones with a bad, worn out or damaged screw & screwbox for scrap rate. As you don't show or tell us about it; it's rather like asking us what a used car is worth without telling us if the engine and transmission work... 4" is on the lower end of the size scale; but is a handy size for the shop and travelling kit. I have 4" and 6+" post vises mounted on two workbenches in my smithy. If the screw and screwbox are in decent condition the spring is a Saturday morning project in the smithy. In CA I'd offer US$100 cash and tell them that the broken spring and bent handle lowered the price for you.

Depends a lot on the bloom; I've worked one that was more "iron soup" from using crushed taconite pellets as the ore. We used a wooden mallet to start consolidating it on a wooden stump as the slag content was such that it would "splash" if you hit it with a metal hammer on a steel anvil rather than welding it together. Most of our magnetite blooms were consolidated with a steel hammer on an anvil.

I once made a veining die from a short piece of RR rail; in general it doesn't get used.

As wrought iron bar stock was made by forge welding pieces together it could also just be the original welds in the merchant bar or higher grade WI too.

I don't recall seeing one riveted; but I've seen and owned several that had a mortise and a wedge. Unfortunately the fellow out here who knew the most about vises was Frank Turley and he died in 2020. (Dated one of mine with a tenon mount and mortise and wedge holding the pivot pin in place as being "pre-1800". Not a bad deal for US$20 at Quad-State one year.)

Nowadays with steel tyres; the arc welder and angle grinder is often the tyre tweakers of choice.

There's a reason "Muck Bar" is called muck bar!

Frosty, it's not splitting from anvil impact, it's splitting from drying out or the wet/dry cycle that is the issue. I once used a hollow log for an anvil stump for demos as it was light to transport. I would not like to do production work on it though!

Of course when they were welding real Wrought Iron they didn't use Borax; that came in with Bessemer(Kelly) Steel. Previously they would use clean quartz sand or crushed glass or nothing at all as real WI forge welds well. Mud Dauber nests are mentioned in the Foxfire books IIRC, wood ashes/rice straw ashes have been used with success and it's possible to forge weld using *NO* flux; good fire control and high heats let that happen.

Had a friend stop by around noon and so opened the shop and lit the gasser. I worked on two rasptle snakes for the state fair; he worked on a toasting fork, we may see it in use at Quad-State. I also wire brushed one of the 3 legs for another largish tripod. Scrapyard tomorrow and then probably finish off finishing that tripod. We were checking out his big 4 door 4WD truck with the small bed and payload---looks like putting just the four of us in the cab would max out the total cargo weight! (We checked against my much smaller truck and I noticed that they used 150# per person as the weight of people; sigh it was accurate for me back in High School; but 38 years of marriage and a good cook for a wife has made that but a fond memory.)

A lot of ornamental iron smiths could use one too.

Luckily; as blacksmiths, we can always forge weld on more material for the reins---several times if necessary!

Funny, I had to wait 9 months per child, paying off our mortgage took 15 years. 24 hours doesn't seem like very long...

It's an old tool; not a collectable or antique or museum piece! Use it as it was meant to be used and let it fulfill it's destiny.

In my 40+ years of experience most leg vises are not marked as to the maker. The 1's are obviously to indicate which parts go together.

Petrified wood?

Well forge welding is what is required. For small pieces it helps to have a wrought iron "paddle" you can stack the bits on and weld them to it building thickness as you go. (A lot like how Japanese swordmakers start off with the bits of tamahagane and weld them up into a billet.) Once you get your muck bar; you then cut, stack and weld and forge it out into a merchant bar Once you get your merchant bar; you cut, stack and weld and forge it out into singularly refined Wrought Iron. Continue until you get the level of refinement you want---or run out of material!

Elm was a traditional wood used for anvil stumps because of it's resistance to splitting. Resistance to rot would be a plus too. I'd like to have an anvil stand made from Osage Orange with a twisted grain. What I have used is rough sawn Oak, creosote impregnated softwood---old mine timber, Cedar dimensional lumber; cottonwood; pretty much all at the same time. None impressed me enough to get rid of the others.

So far I 2-" hacksaw cut 7 of the 12 sections of 1" conduit I need for Quad-State. The pickup bed is less than 6' long and the 10' long conduit would protrude too far. So I'll hunt for some unions at the scrapyard Saturday and stock to cut 5 more 5' pieces from. I'm trying to avoid cutting the 10' sections we usually use for the structure. I also heated and waxed the larger tripod pieces so they are ready to sell at the State Fair---and did another seasoning run on the 12" Lodge skillet while I had the propane stove running.

Just amused as Minnesota is on the US/Canada border and New Mexico is on the US/Mexico border; I wish I could collect mileage reimbursement for it! Of course living in Rural NM, no mail/package ever makes the promised date. "Overnight" means 2-3 days for example.

Don't forget to add in shipping costs!