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I Forge Iron

Introduction


ReconJack

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Hey all,

 

My name is Jason and I am in Portland, Oregon.  Just starting to get into blacksmithing and came across the site.  Right now I am working on getting some tools and equipment together but I just wanted to introduce myself and say thank you in advance for all of the information on here.

 

Jason

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Thanks for the welcome! First I am working on building a forge, and am going to try to make a couple of knives out of an old file that I annealed last night.  The fact that I got it hot enough without burning down my house or lighting myself on fire goes into the win column for me.  I think that I have enough to do some basic work, just need to get an anvil of some sort but they are surprisingly hard to find.  Ill keep looking though!

 

Jason

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you dont NEED a london pattern anvil unless you are more into warner bros cartoons than smithing.

historically and geographically most anvils are just a block of metal.

a bit of rail track will do a lot, stand it on end to get the best out of it and the working part of an anvil most of the time is about the same size as the face of your hammer.

 

there is a tread in the anvils section you should read as well, it is called TPAAAT

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I like a chunk of scrapped forklift tine. They tend to be of a good alloy, heat treated for toughness, and they are used pretty much everywhere in the first world. Generally the issues tend to be around convincing the forklift repair place that you will never use it on a forklift again, (liability...), or the scrapyard that you don't want to use it on a forklift and so they should sell it to you for scrap price... Asking if they will cut it in sections and you will pay a nominal amount for them to do so can help with that in either case.

I have friends who found an old tine in an illegal dump site and drug it out. Cut it off right after the bend and paid US$25 to have it welded to a tie plate; giving them an over 100 pound anvil for US$25 + time and effort. (The original tine was 180 pounds...)

Wygers' "The Complete Modern Blacksmith" shows several improvised anvils in it; parts off heavy earth moving machinery also work. Finally I once used the broken off knuckle of a RR car coupler as an anvil, about 80 pounds, had a flat side and a curved side and was free to me.

Start forging and sell trinkets and pay for an expensive london pattern anvil! Shoot I'm going to spend a week camping with two forges and a 25# medieval stump anvil and the T stake anvil I forged the shaft for and used a RR spike driving sledge for the crossbar. Going to be doing some pattern welding, lots of misc and hopefully a medieval coining die preform

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Thanks for all of the awesome advice!  I am trying to track down some RR track and was thinking of standing it on end in a bucket of sand.  Hopefully that will be stable enough.  Now I just need to find some, but there is a company near me that sells track so I called and asked if they had any scrap that they would sell, hopefully they call me back.

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Welcome aboard Jason, glad to have you. Bladesmithing is an excellent goal but not the best place to start. There are some of the top bladesmiths around that are subbed to IFI and they have tale after tale of how many failed blades they made even AFTER they learned to blacksmith. If you're bothered by failure blacksmithing probably isn't the craft for you.

 

Learn the basics, virtually everything any smith does: black, blade, silver, white, etc. does at the anvil is a series of basics. Learn them one at a time and learn how to combine them to make complex projects. And that's how it's done. <wink>

 

Hook up with the local blacksmithing organization, NWBA, I am sure, is probably THE go to club in your area. Every hour spent with an experienced smith is equivalent or better than maybe days trying to teach yourself. Seriously having someone just show you what THAT looks like or telling you NO, don't do THAT, can save you endless hours of trial and error.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

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Thanks for the advice, Frosty.  I looked up the NWBA, and it looks like they do a monthly hammer in that I might try to get to, it is only a couple hour drive.  I am also looking at taking a basic blacksmithing class at a couple of local shops, but they are a bit on the pricey side so I may just have to save up for those.  On the bright side, I might have found some track to use as an anvil, with any luck I will go pick it and some railroad spikes up tomorrow evening. 

 

Jason

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