Answer: The last address that I have on them is:
Champion Forge &
Blower
P. O. Box 4098
Lancaster, Pennsylvania
I don’t
have a zip code or telephone number. You might try a search on
that address on the Internet.
I whould also like ask our
readers if they have any information on the company. How about
it readers?
—Fred Holder
Answer: Sounds like you are in about the same
boat that I was 3 or 4 years ago. There are several ways to go.
I subscribe to Newsguy.com news service for about $35.00 a year
to get the full news group service. You then subscribe to the
ones that you want to read. There are also a couple of free
methods:
Go to <http://www.deja.com> and do a power
search on blacksmithing with the forum being
“alt.crafts.blacksmithing”. That should give you all of the
postings to date. Or you can do your search on a particular
topic and get a much shorter list to read. I think you can sign
up with them for newsgroup reading capability, there may be a
charge.
Second option, go to <http://www.altavista.com>
and do a search on “blacksmithing” with the “discussion groups”
selected. This should lead you to alt.crafts.blacksmithing and
give you the listings of the newsgroup. You have to sign up in
order to post to the group. I don’t know if there is a charge
for this or not.
If your ISP offers newsgroups, you can use
the newsreader that comes with your e-mail or with your browser
depending upon what you have. I use Netscape and it has browser,
e-mail, and newsgroups all together. I don’t like the format of
the newsgroup presentations; hence, I like the Newsguy.com
presentations much better.
—Fred Holder
Answer: What
you have is an anvil made in Sweden, possibly in the
1930’s. Their weight was in pounds, they had a single star
with “Made in Sweden” below it. They were advertised as
being made from one solid block of Swedish Charcoal Steel, with
no face plate to come loose. Don’t have any information as to
who manufactured them. There was an ad in the Janney, Sensple,
Hill and Company catalog, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1930 that
lists an anvil like yours.
—Fred Holder
Answer: I can’t answer
your question because I’m not knowledgeable in chimney design to
make any reasonable comments. However, Aldren A Watson in “The
Village Blacksmith” addresses the subject while describing how
to build a permanent forge. You’ll also find some good advice on
building your forge. This book has been our for a number of
years, mine is copyright 1977. With some luck, the book will be
available in the library. I’ll publish your letter in
Blacksmith’s Gazette to see if we can turn up some expert
opinions.
Incidentally, have you tried posting on
alt.crafts.blacksmithing. There are some pretty knowledgeable
smiths reading and posting to that newsgroup. You can access it
easily through your aol conntection.
—Fred Holder
Answer: What you have is a Mousehole Anvil made
in Sheffield, England. You can find out a lot about the anvil in
Richard Postman’s book, “Anvils in America.” This is a self
published book that is available from Postma Publishing, 10
Fisher Ct, Berrien Springs, MI 49103. You may find it in a
library, but I doubt it. Excellent book on anvils.
The
pointy part of the anvil is the “horn” the round hole is
the Pritchel hole and the square one is the Hardy. The square
holes in the curved area were used to handle the anvil during
manufacture. They were forged of wrought iron with a steel plate
forge welded to the face. Excellent anvil.
—Fred Holder
Answer: I can’t offhand shed in light on your anvil. I
checked in Richard Postman’s “Anvils in America” with no luck.
If you would like to mail me a photo of the anvil, put something
light colored behind it before taking the picture and send some
dimensions and descriptive material, I’ll be happy to publish it
in Blacksmith’s Gazette and try to turn up something on the
anvil. With the crown, it sounds like it was made in some
country with royalty. There were also a lot of anvils made with
the distributor’s name on them. Sorry, I can’t be of more help.
—Fred Holder
Follow-up: Per your request, attached
are some photos of the Foster anvil.The anvil was a XMAS present
to my 13 yr. son, Nick. He is VERY interested in
blacksmithing(and he has gotten his Dad into the hobby/craft, as
well). Perhaps you could help us get some info/history as to
where it was manfactured and is this a fairly common or
hard-to-find anvil?
—Phil
Answer: I’m not sure exactly when
the leg vice was invented, but they have been around almost as
long as blacksmiths. Yes, they would have existed in 1823. A lot
of early leg vices would have been made by the smith himself,
because there was no central manifactory for them in the early
days. I’m not real sure where you would go to look for
information on the origin of the leg vice, perhaps some of the
better encylcopeidas would provide that information. However, to
give you some idea, Joseph Moxon in his “Mechanick
Exercises or the Doctrine of Handy-Works” circa 1703 illustrates
and describes the leg vise, so they are hardly a recent
invention.
—Fred Holder
Question: Altough I am not new to metal work, I am
new to blacksmithing. I grew up working with my father in
his home machine shop on the Texas coast. Mostly shrimp boat,
and sail boat work. I have recently accuired an anvil and a
forge. I found some information about my anvil in one of your
articals and was wondering if you could tell me more about
it. It has stamped on its side SWEDEN PARAGON 103#. This
anvil came out of the Missouri KansasTexas rail road round
house (locomotive servicing facility). A fine old retired
R.R. gentleman sold-handed it down to me for $20.00. Every body
tells me what a steal but it was really more a gift. So what
more can you tell me about it? I also got a forge from
another fella that I know nothig about. It stands on four
legs, the fire pot is about 20" dia., the blower is mounted
under the forge, it has written on it’s side NO.150 REG.U.S.
PAT. OFF. it has a handle attached to a 8" gear attached to
a shaft that turns a wooden pulley that runs a leather strap
that turns the blower. The blower has a clinker breaker
coming off of it. It has some mounting holes that may have
been for a hood of some sort. Also brakets with hole and set
screws on two of the legs. The guy that gave it to me got it
off a working ranch 20 to 30 yrs. ago. If you can come up with
any thing on these two please let me know.
—Mike Menard
Answer: Finally, got around to looking in my book, Anvils in America by Richard Postman. Richard devotes almost three pages to the Paragon anvil, which was made by a Swedish company names Soderfors. The advertisements claim that they are solid forged steel, but Postman feels they are cast steel. He says that it really doesn’t make any difference, because they are excellent anvils. Soderfors has supposedly been making anvils since about 1200 AD; however, he could only find records of the Paragon anvil dating from around 1902 as the oldest and about 1934 as the newest. Soderfors Bruks Akkticbolag was located in Falun, Sweden and exported blacksmith’s , farrier’s, and sawmaker’s anvils to the United States. The number stamped on the anvil would be its actual weight, they didn’t use codes. Paragon Solid Steel Anvils were made in weights from 50 pounds to 450 pounds. They were marked in different ways, come having a crown, some having the image of a raxor, some having the name cast in and some having it stamped on. My copy of the January 1, 1909 Champion blower and Forge co. Catalog lists a No. 150 as an Agricultural Lever and Crank forge. It is pictured on page 13 of the catalog. Says the hearth is 18 inches , fan is 8 inches, weight is 75 pounds. and it sold new for $14.00. The forge was equipped with a small shield to protect the fire from the wind. It is quite possible that a company like Sears was selling Champion Forges under their own name.
This is the best that I can come up with at this time. I’ll
publish your letter in Blacksmith’s Gazette and see if
anyone else can come up with more information.
Question: I am looking to by a propane forge
and wondered if you had a recommendation for me. I am
willing to spend up to $500 for such an item. Thanks for
your help.
Answer: I’m a
coal forge smith myself and have never used a gas forge, so
can’t be of much help. If you have newsgroup access on
the Internet (which you can get through DejaNews.com), you
can post your question on alt.crafts.blacksmihting and
probably get more information than you every really wanted. Lots
of gas forge smiths reading and posting to that newsgroup.
You might just try going to: <http://www.DejaNews.com>
and selecting “Power Search” then enter “alt.crafts.blacksmithing” in the proper place and put “gas
forge” in the subject or topic area. Should turn up a great
deal of posts related to gas forge. Or you can just go
to DejaNews and type in blacksmithing in the subject area and
probably get most of the alt.crafts.blacksmithing postings
with reading material for a week. Sorry I can’t be more
helpful directly, but I’ve never even used a gas forge. Perhaps
some of oour readers can help you.
Question: My uncle, who is a retired smithy has
been trying to find out how taps and dies were made and used
long ago when the only materials available to a blacksmith were
wrought iron or mild steel, probably too soft for a durable
tool. He thinks that such items were used by small
local smiths using their own particular thread sizes for
making nuts & bolts before any standardization came along. I
don’t know just what period he’s referring to and I should
imagine that most blacksmiths would prefer to employ
rivets, but thought I’d ask anyway.
Answer: It is pretty likely that the earliest screws
in history were made in wood and were hand carved by the
maker using a knife or chisel or perhaps only a broken rock
with a sharp edge. The earliest form may have been done for
decoration and may have been cut between the strips of raw hide
used to wrap around a tool or weapon handle for added
strength. By accident, someone may have learned that by mounting
the cylinder with the spiraling groove between two mounting
locations that a follower could be added to move something along
the spiral. This may have been the first use of the screw.
Unfortunately, this is all speculation, because the actual
invention of the screw thread seems to have been lost before
history was ever recorded. The earliest record that I’ve
been able to find that might pinpoint a beginning of the use of
screw threads dates to about 200 B.C., when Greek
mathematician, Apollonius, described the geometry of the spiral
helix, which is the
basis for a screw thread. Also, Greeks
and Romans both used screw presses to squeeze grapes and crush
olives. A Pompeiian mural shows a screw press being used to
make linen, according to one source. On a more modern
reference, in the 1703 edition of Mechanick Exercises or
the Doctrine of Handy-Works, Joseph Moxon refers to the
screw-plate and its taps as a standard piece of equipment in the
blacksmith shop. He describes the screw plate as having
several holes in it, each less than the others. He says that
these holes are threads grooved inwards, into which grooves
fit the respective taps that belong to them. Sounds like the tap
was made and then a hole was punched or drilled and a
threaded hole was made in the screw plate with the tap. The
screw plate was used to make the external thread and the tap
to make the internal thread. A screw plate with several taps
would be similar to a set of taps and dies today. I had
recently researched this subject trying to determine exactly
when screw threads were invented and the methods for making
them in those early beginnings. If someone comes up with
something better, I would be most pleased.
Question: I don’t have AOL, how can I access the newsgroup?
Answer: There are at least three options that I know of to access newsgroups such as alt.crafts.blacksmithing:
1. Most browsers have the ability to read the newsgroups. You simply have to set it up to access them through your ISP. I personally didn’t care for the formatting of the stuff coming in through my newsgroup reader.
2. DejaNews offers newsgroup access free, you simply have to join their My Deja News. They have a lot of newsgroups available, in fact, most if not all of them. I really don’t care much for their format and they keep changing it on a pretty regular basis. You don’t need a news group reader to use DejaNews.
3. For the last two or three years, I’ve been using ExtraNewsGuy news service (it used to be Zippo News Service). I think it costs somewhere around $35.00 a year and I like the format of their newsgroup listings. No news group reader is needed you use your browser directly. I like their format of presentation. Unfortunately, they do not carry every newsgroup, especially in the alt.* area, but most of them aren’t that spectacular anyway. They do carry alt.crafts.blacksmithing, however. To access them, go to their web site: http://extra.newsguy.com/&nb sp; and sign up with a credit card. Then you have to subscribe to the newsgroups that you want to view on a regular basis.
These are all
alternates that I know of to using a service like AOL, which is
not handy for me because they do not have a local, non-toll,
number for me to use. Their service may not be too expensive,
but the local long distance bill would break my back.
This Page Last Updated on November 234, 2002.