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I Forge Iron

OK that does it- I'm outa here!


Stash

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Well, I'm not leaving the forum in a huff, or even a minute and a huff. I'm moving from my home and shop of the last 33 years. Settling on the new place is in ~ 2 weeks, and some final negotiations on the current house. The official moving date is 12/7-8. I've spent a bunch of time packing up my shops- wood and metal. The movers will actually be taking the wood shop, I will do the metal shop. So, why am I boring you with all this stuff? I thought I'd document the move, from existing, to packed and loaded, to setting up my new blacksmith shop. If there is interest, I'll keep it up to the end. If not, I'll let it fade. Lets see how this goes.

The current shop is in a 20x32' modified timber building  with cedar siding  ~ 120' from my back door. The forging part is ~ 12x 16' or so, with a few satellite stations. There is a 12'wide opening in the front, with double sliding doors. The rear is a single 8' slider. The rest of the space has been in support of my landscape biz for the last 23 years, and also holds some of my wood. ( I have ~ 2500 bd ft of mixed hardwood- mostly cherry, walnut and oak all nicely air dried, and awaiting it's destiny).

So, that's the nutshell of it. I'll attempt now to post a few pictures, and take off from there. The first attempt is the approach to the shed from the house- yeah, it's there somewhere.

Steve

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Well that seemed to work. Here is the approach around the corner, scooting past the fig tree, and head on to the front doors. You can see the little  shed I built on the right to store more of my resources. Finally, the open doors, both front and back. You can see the evergreen hedge I planted so I won't bother the neighbors. Of course, they're about 250' on the other side of the hedge, but I like planting stuff.

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So, let's step inside and see wazzup. Just inside the door is my drill press and bandsaw, with a 103# HB  behind it. Going clockwise, we see my welder and a few sets of OA tanks. The wagon holds my little Champion rivet forge. The legs were pretty roached out, so I cut them off and mounted it on a modified kiddie wagon, along with a table, and tong racks. You can also see some wood tucked in there. The next shot is my 270# Fisher, that I have set up for doing cold work- chisel cutting and texturing. The last shot is my 179# PW. I've told the story before, but I was on the road picking up this anvil when I got the text from my wife that I was officially a pop-pop. Shanna is 3 1/2 or so now, and loves to come out and tap on her anvil with  some special hammers I keep around for her.

More of the tour to come

Steve

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OK, so I got an early start today, maybe I'll wrap up the tour of the current shop. I'm kinda on light duty for a while anyway- still recovering from eye surgery.

I didn't mention previously that the shop is not wired up. I run a HD ext cord from the house to run the machinery. Nothing with a heavy draw here, and even with the long ext, I still have 122V at the end of the plug. I have a 6.5kW genny to run my welder. Yeah, I really like the welder- it is very forgiving of an incompetent like me.

So, let's continue. We now come to my main forging station with my 250# Fisher. I currently have the propane forge set on the coal forge table. The forge table is kinda small, ~ 20x 32 or so, so I put on wing extensions off the side cutouts. I have ~ a half sheet of 10ga sheet that will probably become my new table. Firepot is cast iroin from Laurel, in Miss. and I fabbed up the tuyre. The Champion 400 blower is mounted to one of the posts- it came my way without legs. The Hofi -style side sucker is a 13" sq 10ga box 4' long, poking thru the wall with a 12" chimbley on the outside. My main tongs are on the wall above the blower. Chisels punches fullers etc and hammers are in easy reach and you can see some of my steel storage. Filing cabinets are scattered thru the shop.

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Almost done here. Turning a little more we see the workbench with a 6" vise mounted to it. When I built the bench, I extended the foot out and bored the hole to receive the foot of the vise, and built the height as needed. I had the vise before the bench, so no retro fitting. There's a swage block that I mainly use to hold tooling- guillotines ect, and a hornless (broken) colonial anvil. The belt grinder is a basic Porter cable thing I got from my Dad. It won't die. Heading back out the door is a filing station with a post and a machinist vise. It's a simple wood stand with a few chunks of granite for some extra weight. Finally, a shot from the back, looking in the rear door. The flue box and flue and a little more water.

So there we have it. I've tweaked at this thing over the years and am pretty pleased- it works well for me. This most recent manifestation is less that 1 1/2 years old and is basically the 3rd way I've set up since I started in this thing ~ 6 years ago. Now it is time to pull it all apart, pack it up and move to a new location. I'm going to miss what I have in this shop, as well as I will miss the rest of the 4 1/2 acres that I've gotten to know real well in the last 33 years.

I will next start showing progress when the truck and trailer are getting loaded. Just a teaser- there is a building at the new site, but I'll let you know more of that later.

Steve

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How far are you moving it?  I did a 1500 mile shop move about 13 years ago.  I hired a rigger as I couldn't be there in person for loading the truck; took more than one semi as I had to ship 3 pallets by common carrier.  Biggest problem was that the truck didn't show up on time and everything sat out on pallets during massive thunderstorms

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Thomas-  it's about 60 miles from where I am now, due north, up the NE Ext. of the PA Tpk. Nothing I really need a rigger for. 1200 lbs or so of anvils and swage blocks will go on 1 pallet. I have a set of forks for my Kubota loader, pop it on my dump truck and throw most of the rest of the stuff around it. I have a 5 ton equipment trailer to haul my mini loader to the new place in one trip, leave the loader there and keep the Kubota here till the last trip. I have quite the collection of stone slabs I will also haul- probably 5 trips or so to get it all there, unless I get access to a larger truck. Probably 2 or 3 loads of wood, also. Gonna be quite the adventure.

Steve

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I had everything on pallets and they were offloaded onto the desert to sit while the shop was being built and then I used my pickup to drag them into the shop building  for offloading  My shop has 10'x10' roll up doors on opposing ends...Biggest items were the 60# Champion powerhammer and the large H frame screw press---I had 4x4 "runners" bolted to its feet; over a decade later they are still there sigh; but it makes it easier to move it around the shop on rollers.

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Great topic! Glad you decided to document the move. You certainly have a lot to shift from your current shop and it will be interesting to see your new set up.

I hope I never have to move mine. The anvils, forge and stuff would be the least of the problem .... the many tons of scrap would be a real challenge!!

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I have a ton or so of scrap that I'll take to the scrap yard next week- lots of unusable stuff. I still have plenty in my usable pile. Truckload of mixed aluminum I gotta get rid of, too. Had a small project in the woodshop today, had to undo half my packing. Oh well. First world problem. I figure once it's over, I'll hate moving too. My last move was in 1983 when we moved here from a 2 bed apartment. I borrowed a liftgate truck from work, and had about 3 buddies with pickemups. I guess I'm not counting college move-ins and my son's 2 moves.

Steve

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First 6 years I was married we moved every year; not much of a problem.  Then we spent 15 years in a large old house with full attic and full basement plus the detached garage/shop.  Then we moved the 1500 miles to New Mexico---That was the move that was traumatic!   Can you get into the new place early enough to build a lot of storage on the walls?  Always easier to unpack into semi-final locations!

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I do have some heavy duty shelving I'll be moving that should take care of most of my storage needs, I also have a few filing cabinets. I'll have some time before the big move to get some of my stuff in and somewhat organized. I should be in pretty good shape. When we were looking at houses, my wife accepted that there were certain parameters that I needed , amongst them is a forging area, or the space and access to build one. I'll have a ready to move in space that just needs to be loaded in and set up.

Steve

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7 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

Lou; less than a ton is NOT an "epic" scrap pile.  Shoot I moved more than a ton of wrought iron scrap when I moved from OH to NM  only took a couple of pallets that I built walls for...

   If I had a ton of scrap anything I'd either be divorced or, worse, I'd lose every argument with my wife because, no matter what we disagreed on, she would always drag my scrap pile into the debate.  Perhaps with time I will manage to ferret away mass quantities in the garage in smaller, discreet piles.  One could hope!

3 hours ago, Stash said:

Lou

 most of what I took was not really recognizable as anything, or at least anything usable. I save short lengths of rope to tie together when I need a new belt. I'm cheep!

Steve

   Steve, I have always had a serious case of junk fever.  Lately I've had a hard time passing metal by.  I give every scrap of metal I walk by the elevator eyes...your pile would be no different!

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I know what you mean, Lou. I've got a well established scrap eye. Sometimes it goes in my recycle pile, sometimes in my resource pile. I tend to be very observant, my wife tends to be oblivious. Traveling with her is fun. "did you see that ?"  "See what?" "Oh, nevermind".

Took my aluminum, copper and brass scrap to the recycler. Another $270 my wife doesn't know about.

I spent some time today stacking and staging some of the stone I want to take with me. Some nice irregular step slabs, up to 5' long, probably 750# or so; a carved granite bollard, and some granite columns I split. I've been a stone guy for quite a while. Just don't call me a stoner. The round brown stone in the 2nd photo has enough iron in it that a rare earth magnet sticks to it. I call it Bethel Township Basalt, I'll have to find if there is a proper name for it.

Steve

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