tzonoqua

haha, JHCC I like that you've included earwax as an option. Who does that??? Think I'll leave that one to the more adventurous. One of my other fav waxes to use for a dark colour is a coloured floor wax.

I think a lot of people overthink what wax you can use on ironwork- you can literally use any kind of wax, floor wax, candle wax, i have used crayons as well. Some waxes are stickier than others, i use renaissance wax on iron because it gives a really nice finish you can buff, i find beeswax can be a bit sticky. I love burts bees stuff for using on the hands, any of their products are great!!

how often you need to reline will depend on how much you use your forge and 'how' you use your forge. Its a fairly straightforward job but care must be taken with proper health and safety precautions. Dust from the ceramic fibreboard is a carcinogen and you don't want to be breathing it in. I wet it down before handling and also wear a respirator. I have a diamondback metal artist forge and relining is a simple proceedure of opening it up, taking out the old and cutting the new fibreboard to size and installing it. As I'm overseas i've never bought the relining kit, i've just bought the raw materials and was supplied with a 'cutting list' and instructions.

really nice work Joel, enjoy that hammer!!

test with a white cloth. If it marks, it's not ready to go out the door!! clear coat over a wax coat I wouldn't recommend.

Diamondback Metalsmith forge, I've had one for 7 years, great little forge.

Hi Spicehammer, I worked in Western Rajasthan, with a tribe of Blacksmiths called the Gaduliya Lohar. Was quite an amazing experience but was also incredibly challenging. Pm me if you want more info.

Dale, I love those!!! Australian Redback boots are without a doubt, hands down the most comfortable, long lasting "workingmans' boots" ever. Even if you happen to be a woman.. and trust me, I've been through a lot of boots, you know what they say about girls and their shoes, well I'm quite partial to boots. Totally worth the £80 odd to ship them from down under!!!

Hi Kustomizer, the one thing I really love about a post vice is that if you mount it, say .. to a post, very securely, (both to the post and to the ground) you can walk all the way around it, 360 degrees, which isn't always necessary, but when it is, it's invaluable!! I have one post vice on the corner of my bench, an engineers vice on the other and another post vice on it's own stand... that's the go-to one. to mount just make a 'receptacle' for the leg that transfers the weight/support into the ground. For my one that was too short to reach the ground from the table I used an offcut of the same dimension round stock, welded a ring of flat to the top to socket the vice leg into and then sort of collared the extention bit onto the leg of the table..

have you seen the bottom blast tuyere on an alldays and onions forge, it's one slot that swivels, hard to explain. brilliant design.

I have an old french portable forge, the tue was a cast sphere with slots in it. Held up quite well until I attached a powered blower and then it didn't take long for it to burn out, now it's just a hole in the bottom lol. I have fixed it by using a cast drainpipe cover so that should hold up for temporary use.

you can stop the collapse of punched holes by filling the hole with a bolt and nut or a section of the same sized stock as a spacer while you bend, (drop them in cold to the heated length and work quick) obviously sometimes the bolts get a bit stuck but can be punched back out and you might need to adjust slightly but has worked for me in the past and easier than trying to punch a curved length. and no idea if that's a correct technique it's just what i worked out when faced with that problem before

hey Frosty, over here Breeze is definitely coke and will go out if not continually fanned, if you leave it over lunch you have to relight the fire.. you americans probably don't take as long for lunch.. lol I have attached a pic of a heart shaped clinker that came out of my forge when burning coke

Hi Iain, I'm going to amicably disagree with Frosty with regards to the gate on the ash dump, i've had one like that on my "temporary" forge that kind of became permanent for over 4 years, the occassional backfire didn't really do much but just ignite the gas but my fan had an open grate section on it where gases could escape, so maybe just leave the bolt loosened a little, but I will wholeheartedly agree with frosty, just keep a steel bucket underneath. I'd say you're hitting the ground running there! Also I think you might struggle with coke and again have to side with Frosty, so I'll share that beer with him, you'll be on the coal rather than coke soon enough!! With a hand turned blower, you may find it difficult to keep the coke alight... there's some fairly good forging coal out there at the minute, one of the sources is Scotland, can't recall off the top of my head where exactly it's from, but you can get on with plain old house coal, I think group C is the smallest, maybe mix that with the coke so you can keep the fire going.

well....haters gonna hate! Can't think of a professional shop that doesn't have a rack full of grinders... just another tool...