lighting

[yesteryearforge]

what kind of light do you have in your forge/shop ( I have a hard time calling my forge a shop ) its a forge
do you like it bright , dark, subdued, or natural light ?
can you control the amount of light in your forge or are they all on or all off.
fluorescent or incandescent.

how do you determine the heats of the workpiece , if by color how is the color of the metal determined under different lighting conditions.

[elkdoc]

Natural light from an open door and two windows most of the time. A 3 ft. flourescent shop light overhead from Home Depot if I'm out after dark.

[T-Gold]

My shop currently has one area fluorescent, one area incandescent (100W), and some task lighting. It needs more but I am not doing much work in there at the moment (full of junque!). More is ALWAYS better -- much easier to turn off a light that is installed than to need to install one that isn't

[Rantalin]

I have an outisde forge, so when I need lighting, I use a very powerful worklight that makes my work area light up ike daytime.

[Leah]

I have fluorescent lights in my shop, the front half of my shop is on one switch and the back half near my forge is on another switch. I did not put a light over my forge, I have natural light from a window near it. This way, I have a lot of control over the light when I am heat treating.

[Ed Thomas]

Yesteryear: Assembly and machining areas should be well-lighted. I like lots of light in the forging area as well. I don't think you can have too much, except for direct sunlight which can be a little overwhelming.

Watching the color of the steel is not that big a deal. You get used to what the steel heat looks like in your shop and adjust accordingly. As long as there is not direct light on the hot piece, it doesn't affect what you see anyway.

I have 12' ceilings with exposed trusses in a 32' x 60' shop. I decided to go with six metal halide lights... like the ones you see in parking garages. They take two or three minutes to get up to strength, but they only use 70 watts each and they aren't as affected by the cold as flourescent bulbs. I don't know how many flourescents it would take to get the lighting I have, but it would be a bunch. With only 60 amps going to the shop at the moment, I'm jealous of every watt.

For specific lighting, I use clamp lights, such as on the treadle hammer or on machines.

[ThomasPowers]

Currently I have the open 10' x 10' door by the forging area and a skylight in the rear of the shop. At night I have a double halogen worklike on a stand that I bounce off the steel roof---ok for forging but not for finishing.

I have 5 8' double bar fluorescents to be installed when power gets to the shop they will be run to seperate switches so I can only light the areas needed.

Thomas

[rthibeau]

I have 200 amp service to my shop (twice what goes to the house) so power isn't a problem. For 24'x30' space I have 7 overhead four foot flourescents for area lighting and each major tool (grinder, sander, band saw, etc) has its own attached light. Each light fixture can be individually controlled, so I can adjust the lighting to whatever level is needed. There are extra work lights also if needed. The overhead lights are usually all that I need, but I figured when I was wiring the shop, more is better and the materials were available, so I probably went a little overboard. As an example, I have 220v outlets with 4 differently configured receptacles, don't know how that happened. :roll: I agree that you get used to the lighting level you have and seeing colors is all relative anyhow, just as long as it's consistent.

[JWBIRONWORKS]

In my 32x48 shop I started out with 5 rows of regular 100 watt lights 5 to a row. Each row has it's own switch. I recently went to 150 watt flood lights in the 6 fixtures above the smithy.
When the building was built I didn't put any windows in but I am considering 2 in the smithy. I have a 10x10 sliding door that my anvil sets in the middle of and my forge is on the north side right inside the door. I like fresh air.
I also have a contactor wired into the lighting circuit so that my Air compressor and Rotary phase generator shut down when the lights are turned of above the smithy. I used to forget to turn them of in the evening. :roll: now when I shut the lights off going out the door I dont have to worry about it.

JWB

[Ed Thomas]

I probably should have mentioned that I put 17 windows in my shop. That is because that is how many I had in my barn loft that my brother in law gave me from a remodeling job. It was a lot of work to put them in, but the lighting during the day is awesome.