ThomasPowers

Hmmm, how about tungsten? (Just for the challenge!) My 25# LG was shipped Dec 28 of 1915 to Merino Colorado and is now slumming in Central NM. Funny thing I was supposed to receive my insulin pump supplies tomorrow but UPS said there was a "sortation error" whatever that is and to look for them on Monday; so an extra 5 days tacked on their "3 day shipping". Checking the tracking; I noticed that somehow they went from Louisville KY to Minnesota????? (Hmm New Mexico == NM, Minnesota==MN hard to differentiate when spoken; but easy electronically!) Could have been worse. I once had several thousand dollars of Insulin mis-shipped and stored in an un-refrigerated warehouse over a 105 degF holiday weekend. It had to be replaced as it was hot within the shipping cooler when it finally got to me.

Gingko Leaves?

My buy point for used tongs is US$5 going up to US$12 for special ones---I've bought a set of titanium tongs for US$10 before. I have 4 racks of them so far so they are out there.

We will see next month!

We use a 100+ year old Erie skillet all the time. OK the simple 3 bar cook frame that also can be used as a tripod: the small one is made from heavily pitted scrap and is probably 100+ year old metal; but not real wrought iron. The large one is newer scrap and I used it to show the tripod configuration:

Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii is at 13796 feet on top of a peak there and they have a LOT of issues with folks coming up from sea level with no acclimation. (I've been to the ALMA site in the Andes, 16400' and they require a heart test and drivers must use supplemental O2. It's not even on top of a peak, but in a saddle!)

Frosty; we advocate you using a 2 oz Stanley Ballpeen when working 2" sq steel on your 200# Trenton and remember to not overheat your steel! A nice dull red will do.

Karl, we once founded a local group that was just for carpooling the 2 hours to the nearest ABANA affiliate. Lots more fun, we stopped for fleamarkets and road kill steel, and helped to keep the cost of going down. Currently I'm only 1.5 hours to an ABANA affiliate and we car pool to it.

Working on the lawn mower that was given to us as the weeds have finally grown tall enough to need mowing---first time this year! Looks like the spark plug was gapped incorrectly; lets see if the Briggs & Stratton website helps. I also did another seasoning run on the 12" Lodge skillet and wire brushed and waxed the cowboy cook frame previously forged. I've done a couple from old pitted steel for the "instant antique" look; lets see how they do at the Fair. (And yes they are marked as new made on the tag.)

My Parents spent 4 years in Naarden and I used to visit them and bike around, no hills but *always* a strong breeze blowing against you! (Like the old joke about having to walk for miles to get to school when we were young and it was up hill *both* *ways*!)

Here at over 4500' elevation down in the valley (and I can see 10K feet from my front door), it's hard to think of being below sea level. OTOH I was at an old miner's bar in Colorado once at 9000' and imported beer from the Netherlands tended to explode when opened according to the barkeeper...

Upsetting the bar to make it thicker is a two steps forward one step back process, You heat it as hot as that alloy will allow and hammer down on the edge. It will start to )( a bit so reheat if it's cooled and rotate it 90 deg and hammer it on the flat to get the | | shape again. Do not hammer it so much that you start thinning it! Repeat until you get the thickness wanted or run out of stock dimension, height, that you are converting to thickness. Most people tend to just go find a piece of steel that starts out thick enough a.fter doing it the hard way a couple of times

Let's see; I joined the SCA in the fall of 1978; Stayed out of the politics and stayed in the SCA. Finally got a laurel, (asked a friend with one: "Why after 20 years?" his reply was that it was getting embarrassing to the laurels that I didn't have one due to internal politics... In knifemaking we say that 15 minutes at the forge can save an hour at the grinder---(once you have good hammer control). So tell us about your forge and anvil? Have you dressed your hammers? Most armorers call annealing what the rest of the world calls normalizing, (and is defined in metallurgy books as normalizing...) Make sure you get the jargon right when asking questions!

Power hammer anvils have to factor in the force of the blow into their anvil weights, I don't know anybody with an arm that can put several horse power into their hammering.

But do I need 30' of 1/4" all thread?

Yup more details are necessary; do you need to work it with primitive tooling can you use fancy equipment? What is it going to be used for?

Diameter? always wondered about a tank in tank horizontal version with the inner tank justified up against the top of the outer tank and clean dry sand poured between them about halfway or more to make some thermal mass for long term heating while the top is contiguous for fast warmth.

Chad, one thing you can do is to forge weld one end of a bundle of steel wire and then weld the solid end to the tree branch. Works better on trees that grow that way I'll admit. Morning I spent a couple of hours with a hot gasser reminding myself why I dislike production work; but I'd like to have some stuff to sell at the state fair and anything leftover, there is a craft fair in November. Worked on two more rasptle snakes and a campfire cooking tripod. Afternoon I went back out and built a simple display stand for my chuckwagon cooking frame. I used heavily weathered wood and a couple of square headed rusty lag bolts. Decided to downsize the length of our tarp structure; so it won't hang out the back of the truck on the way to quad-state. Hoping to find some appropriate sized conduit at the scrapyard tomorrow.

With the BRO being the start of Brooklyn. Early HB's sometimes have worn the hourglass flat with the bottom, (I have a clearly stamped one that way.) Really the maker of the anvil doesn't mean much, it's the quality of the rebound and thickness of the face plate that makes an anvil good or great!

Another reason for shims is when they have worn out a section of the screw and so have shifted it to a less worn section.

We burn about a cord of wood in a bad year, but with the passive solar we could probably get through most years without a fire. I just like FIRE! (We even put in a propane kitchen range in place of the electric one...)

Welding a plate on that anvil will make it un/less-usable if that is what you are trying to do! Does it ring. TING, if tapped with a hammer or does it go thwap? If that is a metal leg behind the post vise leg you could weld a piece of heavy angle iron to make a holder for the foot of your post vise. Post vises are often mounted low so you can hammer down on them when forging, You would need to be TALL to need to space one up. I actually have a wooden platform I can put near one of my large vises so I can get a good hammer swing on work in it's jaws.

Inlaying or inletting copper or brass, (or silver or gold, or ...) Having everything but your tools annealed can help too.

Funny how all-thread has crept into my scrap yard finds after seeing those pics!

Put a pull rope on the arm and not adjust it very often.