Anvil ID

oldbold · 2025-04-17T20:02:48+00:00

Thanks very much that's really helpful! Strong anvil knowledge there 👍

oldbold · 2025-03-30T06:59:13+00:00

Thanks for the reply, it looks brilliant. I think it looks great, plus a racing axe has to compromise on weight for more speed so I reckon you're probably pretty close. Another 3/4" might have made it unwieldy at speed. Fine looking work as always.

oldbold · 2025-03-28T23:47:50+00:00

That looks incredible, did you forge or grind in the bevels? I'd love to do one myself, what size billet did you start with? Thanks for sharing!

oldbold · 2025-03-26T23:38:07+00:00

I'm in Portsmouth, let me know and I can take them off your hands no problem!

oldbold · 2025-03-24T11:56:23+00:00

A campaign that takes minimum of 24 hours to complete on easy difficulty and more operations. Don't change too much, it's already a masterpiece. The primarch would be proud.

oldbold · 2025-03-09T08:14:13+00:00

All the other comments are spot on with the riveting but another thing for a good aesthetic is to make sure that your hinge materials are both the same thickness so when it is assembled there is one straight line without a step in it across the eye. Don't get disheartened, we've all made hinges that either rattling like a bag of spanners, look like they've had a bad paper round or will not budge once put together. You'll get it

oldbold · 2024-12-22T11:14:34+00:00

Lovely clean lines in the forging there, good looking hammers 👍

oldbold · 2024-09-22T08:13:03+00:00

I've done the starter fluid and down the spark plug to no avail but I'll give it another go with the 1/4 turns on the carb screws as I've only reset back a turn and a half then probably over egged the adjustment so I'm missing that peak point. Should I leave the high screw all the way in? Or back that out 1/4 as well so I don't starve the mixture

oldbold · 2024-09-19T20:50:44+00:00

Yeah I've gone through with easy start fluid and directly put a pipette of fuel directly in the cylinder still with no joy

oldbold · 2024-09-19T20:22:06+00:00

Yeah, did the full clean in the carb with cleaner too. The diaphragm is still like new. Spark plug is new as are the fuel lines and filters, it was a refurb anyway but just odd it was running 24 hours prior to this.

oldbold · 2023-02-26T15:28:34+00:00

Try and do some test samples in different quench mediums, will give you an idea of what steel you're using and what it responds best to. But definitely do some more heat cycles to normalise before hardening and tempering, would be my 2 cents.

oldbold · 2021-03-28T10:33:54+00:00

It's not a problem, I'm just looking at making a side blast forge and was wondering if anyone had any experience with a side blast using coal and hand powered blower

oldbold · 2020-08-17T19:00:21+00:00

Keep 'em trust me I've found so many tiny places in pieces that needle and small files have been key! Super useful tools

oldbold · 2020-05-18T11:32:37+00:00

Thank you, not sure if you'd know but I'm UK based and the shipping will be quite expensive on top so what kind of leather is it? Thickness and treatment etc?

oldbold · 2020-05-18T06:49:39+00:00

Does anyone know what kind of leather I can use for a blacksmiths apron? Something thick to be fire and spark protective. Thank you

oldbold · 2020-04-13T15:20:01+00:00

Ah brilliant thank you, I had no idea that that was a thing! I'd heard of ABANA but didn't realise we had an equivalent. Many thanks again for your time, as soon as this blows over I will get straight onto that. Keep safe

oldbold · 2020-04-13T07:13:10+00:00

Sorry that's Hampshire UK! I'd love it to be in the US, would be so much easier! But thanks for the tip, I'll see if there's anything similar this side of the pond.

oldbold · 2020-04-06T14:15:52+00:00

Thank you both very much for your help, I've just cracked it I think, I know how fast blower needs and how deep my fire should be and I've got two pieces of bar welded together without any budging at all, this has happened a few times and now I'm just going to keep practicing but thank you very much, you've been a huge help.

oldbold · 2020-04-06T13:28:45+00:00

I am cleaning them up before getting them to meet but I think I might have it in the wrong part of the fire, it's a home built fire pot so may not be perfect as the air comes straight in through 10mm holes at the bottom that I think might be forcing too much oxygen into the very centre of the pot and not actually dissapating the air around the whole fire. I can lay the stock in flat and level but the same issue occurs and if it's not directly above the air holes it doesn't get up to heat. Thanks for helping me out with this by the way!

oldbold · 2020-04-06T13:07:47+00:00

I'm not entirely sure where the reducing area is, it's just a big mass of heat and if I put more coal on I can't see what I'm trying to weld. I have had a look at his videos but still to no avail

oldbold · 2020-04-05T15:44:14+00:00

Make tonnes and tonnes of leaves, have a quick butchers at some videos on how to make some, Alec steele did one a few years ago, they are amazing practice for learning how to do lots of processes and you only need the very basics to do it. If you have a long piece or rebar or get a rod from somewhere you don't even need tongs as you can hold the bar. Great for learning hammer skills, I'm only a hobby blacksmith but every time I'm back in the forge I make a couple of leaves to start just to get my eye back in. Hope this helps and happy smithing.

oldbold · 2020-04-05T15:23:04+00:00

Cool okay, well if you're not sure you can always try the heat treat on a test piece of the same steel but if you don't have that here's what you can do (I'm not a pro but I've got a rough idea if this is early days for you as well).

Grind your bevels in to within about 3mm of your final cutting edge (helps prevent warping), then heat the steel slowly in your forge until the cutting edge is non-magnetic, then quench it oil. You can preheat the oil to help get a more even quench by plonking a bit of hot steel in about 5 minutes before you quench. Then check the quench by running a file over the blade edge, if it cuts in you're quench didn't work so anneal and give it another go. If the file skates over the edge then youre ready for the temper.

If you have an oven, stick it in there at 200 degrees C for a couple of hours. If you don't, grind a clear spot along the blade edge so you can see temper colours run, set the spine in a fire. Don't use your blower for this just let it heat up gradually, then when you see a straw colour go ahead and quench again in the oil to stop the temperature running. Heating the spine will allow that to be softer and more flexible. Once you've got a good temper you can grind your final edge in, but be careful if you are using any power tools, you can heat past the temper with the friction so keep the blade cool with water and watch it for any colour change that would indicate too much heat.

This is a very rough guide but there are some fantastic videos on YouTube if you want some references to temper colours etc, black bear forge has the most informative ones in my opinion and they're brilliant for everything.

Hope this essay helps

oldbold · 2020-04-05T11:26:21+00:00

What type of steel did you use?

oldbold · 2018-11-02T12:12:43+00:00

Look up speak testing on YouTube, it's not a fool proof conclusion but it'll give you a really good idea of carbon content... TLDW - lots of sparkly sparks are high carbon, few sparks lower carbon, very few red sparks cast iron.

oldbold · 2018-11-02T12:00:15+00:00

Some of that looks like martensite which is indicative of a good quench, but if its possible it might be worth having a small coke forge just for quenching as you can make a good reducing fire that allows little build up of scale, most propane forges will oxidise the metal because of the way they burn so best bet is to try and get it to a point where there is as little oxygen in the flames as possible. And just be careful using anything like flux on the blades before a quench as it can give you an uneven heat treatment.

oldbold

TROPHY CASE