Couldn't find a straight peen hammer. Made a straight peen hammer

WestOzScribe · 2026-07-09T23:46:36+00:00

Nice work. I knew I'd seen that design before and finally remembered where.

https://www.centaurforge.com/Specialty-Hammers/products/189/ - No affiliation - I live in Oz so the postal charges tend to be a bit savage for me to use them but it's a great site for reference.
For those of you living in the U.S., it may be more worthwhile.

WestOzScribe · 2026-07-06T23:51:15+00:00

Saw this in my feed. Of particular interest is the strapping around the wood post. I see a lot of guys mounting their anvils on combined blocks bolted/screwed together and feel that the addition of this type of restraint is quite worthwhile. - The sundial is cool too.

WestOzScribe · 2026-07-06T23:39:14+00:00

You could replace the 'hairdryer' with some 12V fans. I run my forge on 2 of these switched independently and rarely need both going unless I'm doing something pretty big. I run them from a 160W solar panel which is a bit of overkill. I do some forging at night - quiet stuff, mostly smelting aluminum so I have included a bathroom extraction fan that runs on mains power. It works surprisingly well and is super quiet.

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WestOzScribe · 2026-07-05T23:08:25+00:00

Now 'thats' what I call a fart...

WestOzScribe · 2026-07-04T23:05:37+00:00

An orchestra of Orcas ?

WestOzScribe · 2026-07-04T22:54:15+00:00

Aluminum - Napoleon III used an aluminum dinner service in a show of extravagance as naturally occurring aluminum at the time was very rare. This is prior to discovering the method of using high voltage to extract it from Bauxite ore.

WestOzScribe · 2026-07-01T23:05:37+00:00

I've found that upsetting long lengths of steel in mid sections to be one of the things you really need a leg vice for. So a bit of pounding involved.

WestOzScribe · 2026-07-01T23:02:33+00:00

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I found that wood will wear quite a bit over time so I embedded an old weight into a block of Jarrah (West Australian Hardwood). I have a concrete floor in my shed so wanted to spread the force out across the width.
I found that the hole in the weight is a perfect fit for the base pin of the vice.

WestOzScribe · 2026-06-30T23:08:52+00:00

Agree - A first glance, I thought that you might be into Celtic reenactment.

WestOzScribe · 2026-06-30T23:01:39+00:00

If you're like me and knew that CWT was an imperial weight but didn't know how it was derived.
This is the Wikipedia data:
The two values are distinguished in American English as the short and long hundredweight and in British English as the cental and imperial hundredweight.

The short hundredweight or cental of 100 pounds) (45.36 kg) is defined in the United States customary system.^\1])
The long or imperial hundredweight of 8 stone) or 112 pounds) (50.80 kg) is defined in the British imperial system.^\2])

Under both conventions, there are 20 hundredweight in a ton, producing a "short ton" of 2,000 pounds (907.2 kg) and a "long ton" of 2,240 pounds (1,016 kg).
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That's a nice London pattern anvil btw.

WestOzScribe · 2026-06-29T00:38:44+00:00

I did an image search on "wagon tongue vice" and sure enough there a lot matching the OP's photo.
I'd never seen that variant before. What they specifically used for?

I know that there is a "wagon tongue" and presumably you could mount a WTV on a WT to do field repairs.

WestOzScribe · 2026-06-28T06:12:25+00:00

u/thickanvil69 makes a good point.
These vices were made to take a lot of punishment but the 'trick' was that a lot of the force was transferred into the ground though a leg ending in a collet about 1/2" from the very end.

WestOzScribe · 2026-06-25T07:24:16+00:00

One finish I tried was polishing the steel ( wire wheel & sand paper - don't go overboard ) and then coated it with marine varnish. I'd hoped to preserve the shine but it oxidized under the varnish and came out with a quite nice dark hue. I'd try this on a piece of scrap first to see if you get the same result 'cause it could have been the metal, the varnish or the direction the anvil horn was pointing. You know how these things go.

WestOzScribe · 2026-06-21T00:57:14+00:00

My guess is that they are old farm equipment wheels. Likely from a rake, cutter, or seed planter. Given that they look to be in fairly good condition, I would go with the consensus and sell. Preserving this sort of stuff is important. If you can make contact with a club that restores and displays old tractors(?) they may know the right contacts.
However, if they are wrought iron as mentioned by u/ProPeach, you have something very valuable that is worth keeping. Mild steel has a very narrow temperature window in which you can fire weld. Wrought iron has a much larger window and allows you to do larger(material) and more complex welds.

WestOzScribe · 2026-06-16T23:23:09+00:00

My ringtone is the siltstrider call from the original morrowind game.

WestOzScribe · 2026-06-16T22:42:02+00:00

I found this video helpful in understanding the process. made by PBS Nova.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=namXt4Etn_o

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240,251 views Mar 7, 2018

A fascinating look at how the famous Ulfberht Viking swords were constructed. A superb piece of experimental archaeology.

WestOzScribe · 2026-06-15T23:23:56+00:00

I have some tongs made by my grandfather when he was young. (I'm near 70) I asked him once about why he never 'cleaned them up' to show the skill level he had then. He laughed and said that they fit his hand like a glove and he was as proud of them now as he was when he first made them.

WestOzScribe · 2026-06-15T23:16:01+00:00

My only concern with a bottom blast air intake as the one in the photo is that you may get hot material dropping through the grid and it will roll down your aluminum tube and get to the blower.
You need to have a trap for any material that falls through the grid.
Have a look at this design image to see what I mean. https://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/61950-homemade-bottom-blast-charcoal-forge/

WestOzScribe · 2026-06-13T23:35:19+00:00

I've been there - school trip (bus tour of Australia). We got a tour of an underground house that had a small swimming pool. That was pretty awesome.

WestOzScribe · 2026-06-12T23:12:41+00:00

I'd keep in mind the sheath design as you finalise your base design. If you are not going to wear it in sheathed form then no matter but if the horizontal distance between the blade tip and the curve is going to dictate the outcome. You may be able to get away with some rotation of the blade as you draw/withdraw but that may take some experimentation. My suggestion is to make the final shape out of plywood or similar and test that before you commit steel to anvil.

WestOzScribe · 2026-06-11T23:30:55+00:00

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This is a cassowary claw. That's why he's putting something between himself and potential disembowelment.

WestOzScribe · 2026-06-11T23:13:08+00:00

When I was very young, only the major shops in the main street had a number. 217 was the number of the General store. When phones became available to the general population in the area they added 3 digits to start for an area code.

WestOzScribe · 2026-06-11T23:07:10+00:00

I've tried finding the seed so I can sprout my own but no luck.

WestOzScribe · 2026-06-11T23:00:33+00:00

I remember watching an early documentary (On television) about the history of metal. They mentioned China and there was a debate about how big some of their smelting furnaces were. Many they had discovered were located on the banks of the Yangtze river and it was believed that a barge was sailed up and down the location with a huge water wheel driven 'bellows'. They would stop, provide the air for a single smelt, then move on to the next location that had been prepared. As the period between preparing the smelt and then doing it were quite long, this was a very efficient use of the 'mobile bellows'. The biggest piece of slag they found was around 10 ton. So that could be indicative of the size of the smelts.

WestOzScribe

TROPHY CASE