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I Forge Iron

What do you need to get started in Blacksmithing?


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  • 3 weeks later...



This explains what you need and how it is used.


Small world - i was uploading a knife i made on deviant art when i get a comment from this lady saying what a nice knife it is and how her uncle has been makeing them for 40 years - turns out she`s the niece of smith in this video. on of the first videos i saw when i was getting into blacksmithing.
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  • 2 weeks later...


The idea was to show the newbie that you do not need a high tech blower, a high tech forge, or a high tech anvil.You can forge metal using a rock. It may not be efficient but it can be done.


I started using just that, a rock, I still have it in fact, and I was fanning a wood (charcoal) fire by hand to work copper, and I was using a small hammer. imagine thousands of years ago, many peoples were doing the same things! If I can start doing this at twelve with literally no money so can you!
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  • 2 months later...

Thanks guys .I plan on building the 55 to start with .I inherited my great grandfathers anvil ,blower and forge ..but the forge was broke in half.I have the brake drum .And now i need to acquire the barrel. And the piping for the blower.Ive made a couple of s hooks on a friends forge and loved working with the steel .I see many future projects when my skill improves.Till then i will keep watching the forum for learning And ask questions when i need too.Thanks for posting all the useful info for us beginners.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 3 weeks later...

I recently finished building a forced-air propane forge with an electric blower.

It works great, the metal gets hot enough to forge, BUT one part that I have not included
is a propane regulator. The only reason being is money.

I have spent a year and a halfworking on this project, and through trial and error spent quite a bit on its construction. I recently bought a new car, and do need to be more prudent on how I spend, and I
just wonder, as how this is more first forray into Blacksmithing, if a regulator is ABSOLUTELY
necessary right now.

Below is a pic of my forge. The propane setup is not shown, as you can see there is a bright fire
in the opening.

Any comments would be appreciated.

FORGE.jpg?psid=1

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It sure helps not having to tweak things as the bottle runs down. I generally buy my regulators at the fleamarket for $5 buying *other* things that use a high pressure regulator: turkey fryers, old weedburners, even acetylene regulators marked "for all fuel gasses"

I would think the cost of a redhat regulator bought from a propane company would save it's cost in gas pretty quick. Make a couple of steak flippers and sell them and buy a regulator!

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If yoiu would have done anything that youi could to earn some bucks and bought a new forge when you started on this you wouild have have all that time as smithing experience,,Some folks give that amouint of time start to see items they have forged and can recoup some of the outlay.I have done things very similiar to that and almost everytime i wished I had not...
Forges i use have pressure regulators and anyone i ever get in the future will also. I change the pressures a lot when forging, When I am welding a layered billet I increase the pressur, when i am working on small stock i decrease it. i would feel lost withouit one and its abilities.
I am not sure wot your needs are and how a regulator would assist you. Not sure wot you are forging.

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  • 1 month later...

All great advice from.everyone.
If you Can't find a anvil in due time. Find a piece of railroad track. A few Tongs to start out with. You can find some at flea markets with no trouble. Of course a fire source. Beat thing to do is get the word out that you are in the biz and are looking for somebstuff. My aunt is also a blacksmith too. And she's 67 now. Of course She had some breaks in service. Lol

But most fellers will gladly help you find something to make a anvil put of. And help load it too.
Just put the word out in Your area. You Never know who has what or knows of someone. There will be plenty of folks saying.
" I wish I knew about you wanting to do that stuff " I just saw this the other day or just sold some things that they would've been Glad to give you
I have most everything. You never have everything but I tell everyone I'm hunting anything, post vices. Hammers. A layout table, whatever you can think of. And you Might. Have to start out on some Juno in the beginning. Just do What you can. Scarp hunt. Find grader blades, saws, etc

Pick up coil or leaf springs at body shops. Ask then to save Then for You.
You'll have to build up slowly to have quality stuff. But that shouldn't stop you from moving metal. If only for practice, learn how to face or dress your hammers. Be a opportunist, grab up rail spikes. ,gravel truck parts that are being thrown away.

Research all you can. There are several great books on Google for free. To read.

I thought the Backyard Blacksmith by loriel Sims. ?? Not sure on here name. But she made a Good book that anyone xak follow. But its better hopefully for what your wanting to do maybe?

You've made a Good choice by coming here. Amazing set of folks that are all willing to help

A trick I showed my apprentice, was to get some copper piping. And bit it in half long ways. And go to town on It. I use copper alot to accent my frames or make leaves out of. Some Eben say use modeling clay to learn how to draw the material around using different grips and direction on the swings too.

You can make alot with no fire or anvil. To keep. You going and progressing. Its like playing a guitar. It will always have more to teach you. Learn What different car parts are better To make certain tools or pieces out of. Check the stickeys on here prior to posting your questions. It will help get you better answers. God bless

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  • 2 months later...

Some iron, a heat source, something to hit the iron with and something to use to hit the iron against, and something to hold the hot iron. So at a flea market you can get some scrap, a hammer of some type, and a pair of pliers.

My very first attempt at blacksmithing was done with a small cutting torch a pair of water pump pliers and a masons hammer. My "anvil" was just a big chunk of scrap iron. The first thing I made was a very crude pair of tongs with longer handles than those pliers! after that it was 3 dozen tent stakes from 3/8 square hot rolled stock. I used the money from those stakes to buy a rivet forge and have been getting better and better equipment as I progressed in skill. I watched every video I could find involving "Smiths" of any kind . One of the things I learned from this was NEVER use square stock for handles your going to be squeezing for hours on end.
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Thanks guys .I plan on building the 55 to start with .I inherited my great grandfathers anvil ,blower and forge ..but the forge was broke in half.I have the brake drum .And now i need to acquire the barrel. And the piping for the blower.Ive made a couple of s hooks on a friends forge and loved working with the steel .I see many future projects when my skill improves.Till then i will keep watching the forum for learning And ask questions when i need too.Thanks for posting all the useful info for us beginners.
If you kept Grand dads forge there are a bunch of ways it can be repaired and used again. You can also use an old cast iron or tin kitchen sink for a forge to start with.
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  • 3 weeks later...

So as I'm just getting acquainted with the site and trying to get a lot of questions answered by reading and searching rather than just spitting out every question that pops into my head I'm finding that there are some questions that I can't seem to get answered by reading alone so here are just a few...

I do plan on attending a class and as many live demonstrations as I can before actually doing any real work because I want to enjoy this. I don't want to struggle and get turned off of it because I don't know what I'm doing - or because I'm doing something completely incorrectly. All I've done is heat up an old old rusty rebar and flatten it and bend it and whack it and whack it some more.


Here goes:

1. If I have no plans on creating a finished product just yet and I only want to get accustomed to the feel of hammer/striking surface, experiment with different striking techniques and the different faces on my hammers, is there a "beginner" size or type of steel that I should be using? All the rebar I see at hardware stores has some kind of coating on it and I don't want anything to do with that stuff. I can buy nice/new steel but it seems like such a waste of material and money.

2. My inventory of scrap metals includes rail spikes, small sections of leaf springs, a coil spring and a pickaxe and they're as rusty as all get-out. I was told that heating and brushing it should do the trick to remove the rust. Does ALL the rust need to be taken off or will it sort itself out as I heat it and hit it? The reason I'm not using that stuff to practice with is that I'm afraid it's all too thick/heavy and I don't want to hurt myself or get discouraged by working with something that's "over my head" based on the level I'm at (which is zero). For reference, I'm 6' tall and 200 lbs, and a former collegiate-level athlete. I've felt a lot of pain in my life so I try my best to avoid it, sometimes at the expense of being overly cautious.

3. Some of the rust on the scrap metal is really scaly, so is there a point of no return? Everything still rings when I hit it with a hammer but a bunch of scale falls off too...

4. I live in Toronto and it's getting colder and colder every day but I don't want to wait until next spring to start trying my hand at blacksmithing and working inside is just not an option. Can I work outside with cold hammers and a cold anvil?

4b. Is there anything I have to do to keep my tools safe from being damaged from the cold? I can bring my hammers and anvil inside if I have to. My anvil was cheaply acquired and is just a block of steel and although I won't be devastated if something happened to it (I have a backup) I don't want to intentionally or carelessly wreck it for no reason because then I'll be back to having nothing.

5. Regarding flea markets and used tools, I have been to a flea market in Buffalo, NY where there are vendors who sell nothing but old used rusty metal things but all the flea markets I can find in Toronto seem to only be selling cheap electronics, knock-off brand sneakers and other things that are not relevant to my interests. Does anyone know of anywhere in the GTA that has that gruff old guy who is sitting on a stool sipping on bad coffee selling a goldmine of neat stuff? Where can I buy old used stuff in the city? Every google search I try seems to always bring me back to ebay, craigslist or kijiji.

6. Scrap yards...I've never been to one and the only public ones I know about here are automotive-related. Aside from the various kinds of springs, what other items should I be looking for that would serve a purpose for a beginner?



Thank you all!

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Well rebar is generally not a fun material to start with. I start new students with 1/4"sq stock; lots of stuff you can do with it and it's small enough they can generally get a project done before their arm gives out in a forging session.

Frankly I hate doing stuff that doesn't result in an end product and there are a lot of things you can learn on but still generally use---like tent stakes, S hooks, etc sell the ugly ones cheap and if you only break even you are *ahead*!

Have you checked around under "ornamental ironwork" in the yellow pages? We had a medium sized business where I used to live that would *give* me hundreds of pounds of drops when I visited them. (medium as small may be using their own scrap themselves and large doesn't want the hassle of dealing with you)

Auto scrap yards: axles can make tooling and hammers, suspension members are often good steel too. (and at our scrap yard a surprising number of old tools come through---sometimes in the boot of junked cars!
Out here in NM, USA I buy new metal from a local business that sells it on the side, (their primary business is selling, installing and servicing old style farm windmills). As they get a price break the bigger their orders are, they are happy to supply metal to the local population. A 20' stick of 1/4", 3/8" and 1/2" sq stock will last you a *LONG* time when starting out.

Heating your tools and anvil helps working with them as they are cooling your workpiece by conduction. I can't say I've ever worked in the cold, 20 deg F is generally my limit and a big piece of scrap plywood will help keep your feet warm.

However look into a "one firebrick forge" run off a plumber's propane torch, I've used one in my basement to forge a lot of stuff when the weather was cold back in Ohio

Biggest problem with excessive rust is that it comes off when hot and you are working your piece and DOES NOT FEEL GOOD when a big hunk lands on your bare skin. *So* heat it up and slap it on the side of the anvil to dislodge a lot of the crud before you get to forging.

Tools: if no good fleamarkets, juntique stores, etc---start asking around: welding and machine shops, *old* car repair places, retired ironworkers, etc.

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  • 2 weeks later...

My substitute anvil is a block of machined steel with "perfect" sharp corners but I don't think that's good.  The small amount of time I've spent using it is already frustrating me because of the small indents it makes on the underside of the steel.  If using a rounding hammer is advised because it's one of the most diverse hammers, then I would assume I'd want some kind of bevel or radius on the edge of the anvil as well to get the same effect on both sides of the material.  How much do I want to take off?  Do I just need to get the sharp corner off or do I need to actually round the edge right off?  A lot of the anvils I see people using are so worked in that they have really rounded edges.  Is this desirable or is it just something people deal with when using old anvils?  Since my anvil is an 8" cube, my guess is that I would actually benefit from having 4 different degrees of rounded edges so I could have 4 different "dies" to use, and since I don't have a horn of any kind, I'd grind one side down to a radius similar to that of a 4" diameter horn.  Does that sound reasonable?

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For some tasks you need a just broken edge, for other tasks you need a heavier radius. 1/8 inch radius (consult a piece of 1/4 inch roundstock for comparison) is probably all you need for the heavy radius.  You want the same radius on the other side of the anvil, but the radius can change some along the length of the anvil edge.

 

Phil

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Another couple of questions...my anvil looks like it was originally used as a die block and there are some holes drilled in it that are conveniently close together.  Initially I wanted to make one of them square to use as a hardy hole but someone (Thomas I think) suggested I just make them with two round shanks.  I can't seem to figure out what the best way would be to do that.  If Thomas or anyone else could expand on that I'd appreciate it.  All I can think of is to take a relatively thick piece of stock and split it up the middle on the bottom, round each side out a bit and then and pound both shanks into the holes while hot.   Does this make sense?  Is there a better idea that doesn't involve welding of any kind?  I'm too inexperienced and don't have the exuipment (or access to it) for any kind of welding yet.  Am I just better off using hand held tools and waiting to get a better anvil that has square hardy holes in it? 

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What tool you want to make?  A cutoff does not need a square shank or indexing.  Several other tools like fullers can fuction without indexing, although some lightweight positive index might be helpful. 

 

Turning forks are the only one that really needs strong indexing, and depending on the spacing you can just drop some rod in the holes and go with it.  You can make a fork then weld (or clamp)  a bent rod alongside to index on the other hole or the side of the anvil.

 

Phil

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I assume "indexing" means making it a shape that won't spin in the hole?  If that's the case, and I can just get away with a round hole, that's even better.  As for turning forks, at this point I'd just use my vise, so the first tools I'd want to make are a cutoff and a spring fuller, and maybe even a bickern of some kind since I don't have a horn or anything else to do any rounding on.  I guess the biggest drawback would be that I'd just have to readjust my position a little more carefully before each hit?  If that's the worst I'll have to deal with, I can handle that.  Because my block is only 75 lbs and I'm so new I don't really plan on using anything bigger than 1/2" stock anyway so that should hold up.  I'll wait until I have something a little bigger before I start pounding on the really heavy stuff. 

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Yes, indexing is a means to prevent rotation or turning.

 

You may have already noticed that you can cut on the hard corner of your anvil, and that will work with controlled hammer blows on 1/2 inch stock.  You can either cut by making a groove then breaking, or using a shearing blow with the hammer face exactly off the anvil, and the stock flat on the anvil.  The shearing blow does require a fair level of hammer control. 

 

You can open a hole for a bottle opener on a corner of your block.  You can also check flea markets for a "bull pin" which is an alignment pin or drift used in steel work, which you can clamp in your vise.

 

Phil

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  • 1 month later...

All,  I saw a small Lorance Swage block (40lb), with the spoons and shovel, and have been trying to figure out if these are still available new, or if one must shop the autions and sales to find one.  I'm trying to either find a new one, or figure what a used one should be worth, assuming I can find one.  This is not the 44lb new block carried by Pieh tools.

 

Thx

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  • 1 month later...

From another post

 

 

You already have a computer and the internet. It is a wonderful blacksmithing tool. Use it. Read IForgeIron.com,

What do you need to get started in Blacksmithing? should answer most of your questions.

The anvil section 2,569 topics and 28,677 replies. You should find many different ideas on starter anvils as well as information of what type and condition of anvil to look for in your searches of the flea markets, hammer ins, blacksmith gatherings etc.

The forge section lists Solid Fuel Forges, Bellows, Gas Forges, Induction heating, oil forges, etc with 2,201 topics and 20,866 replies. You should find many different types, styles, and forge configurations. Choose the one that works for you.

No power tools? Blacksmithing was around over 2000 years (give or take a few years) before they had electric power for the *power* tools. It certainly did not stop those blacksmiths from working the craft. Read how they did it back then and it can be done the same way today. *Power tools* just makes it easier.

As others have said, do not limit yourself to $50. You can build most of the tools you will need from scrap that can be found in alleys or dumpsters, or free for the asking.

Back to the computer and use it as a blacksmithing tool. Set aside a period of time each day for research, say 2 hours. That is only 14 hours a week. Spend those hours in TEXT MODE, READING about blacksmithing. Think of it as taking a class that you will be tested on at the forge. You will find how well you learned as soon as the hammer drops. If you were intense and dedicated it will be easy. If you were a slacker it will show in frustration. That is not to say it will be easy, or that you do not need to reread some things, or do more study. That is a life long process that stops only when you do.

Once you have a forge, now shift and spend 2 times the hours at the forge for every hour that you spend reading. Practice each process or technique you read about until you understand how the metal moves and that technique.

Until you have a base knowledge about the craft you can not tell if a video is telling the truth or not. Shift and spend 3 times the hours at the forge for every hour that you spend watching the videos.

This should serve you will and get you started in the craft. Locate a blacksmithing group near you and attend the meetings. The time will jump start your knowledge like nothing else can. Take classes. Read and learn all you can. Your education stops only when you stop learning.

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  • 4 months later...

First off ill start by aplogizing for this thread because I'm sure questions like this come all too often so ill try to keep it brief. I've always been interested in blacksmithing but never knew where to start also ill start by saying i have very limited funds so some starting ideas for things to craft metals to buy equiptment is what im interested in finding out im interested in building swords knives axes things of this nature but anything more simple i could try as well i have many tools or rather my dad does (im 18) he was an aircraft mechanic for over 20 years so i have alot of stuff alas an anvil is not one of them also i dont have too much space and as for a fire i only have a small iron firepit, my current living arrangment is in a suburban area so I am limited to this, Im really dedicateds to this, its something Ive wanted to do since I was young and I apprecieate you for all our patience and understanding thanks guys :D

 

 

 

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This thread will get you started

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that and just reading thru the tons of information that's posted here.  A couple of other websites you'll find useful are anvilfire & purgatory ironworks.  I got my start from those and from books I could download to my kindle as well as "The Backyard Blacksmith".  Enjoy the trip and welcome.  I would recommend forgetting about swords & such while starting, learn the basics and how to make your own tools.  As I was on a limited budget as well, but have financed my efforts by forging & selling bottle openers, gardening tools and knives.

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