Glenn

The photo shows a RR rail, a 2 pound hammer, and a piece of 1/2 inch round bar.  There is plenty of area to work the 1/2 inch round bar on the end of the rr track. When standing on end the mass of the rr track is directly under the hammer, which is where you want it to be.  

What is the color of the metal when you work with it?  Both when you first start working and when you stop and reheat the metal?  Photos of the project would be a great help.

Make a pitch fork and tines as practice.  Bigger is sometimes easier and helps you understand the process. 

You can always say that the Eastern Oklahoma frogs grow BIG.

It's not the special equipment that makes a great blacksmith.  Just helps make it a little easier along the way.  jlpservicesinc

Why not post it on IForgeIron?

Merry Christmas y'all

The fire, fuel, and use will determine the size of the crater.  

Use only as much gentle air as is needed to get the heat that you need for the metal you are working.  You can only work 4-6 inches of hot metal before it cools off and needs reheated.

The side draft pipe here is about 4 inches from the bottom of the pipe to the bottom of the forge.  The crater extends in front of and maybe just a little below the end of the pipe.  This is for bituminous coal.

Thomas, you are correct. Where is the proper spell check when you need it?

No one ever said you could only have one forge. 

Think of forges as tools, such as wrenches or spanners.  Each one is great for a specific job and one size does not fit all. 

No one ever said you could only have one forge. 

Think of them as tools such as wrenches or spanners.  Each one is great for a specific job and one size does not fit all. 

Some of the swage blocks hit 150 pounds and more. 

One swage block design that was posted a while back had a socket welded to the side of the stand to accept a small jib crane with a boat wench for lifting and turning the swage block. 

Use you anvil for a year (2000 hours) before you do anything to the anvil. 

Never do anything to the anvil that can not be undone later.  You may find the little things you worry about now make no difference in the use of the anvil. 

Look for a 25-30 gallon grease or oil drum that the anvil into will fit and fill it with sand.  You can then raise or lower the height of the anvil as needed.

How large are the plant hangers?  Do you have a heated room large enough to hold the hangers, and maintain the proper temperature to set the power coating?

Powder coating looks good until the first chip or crack in the coating.  Then moisture gets under the coating and pops it off.  There is no way to fix the resulting damage other than to remove all the power coating and apply another type coating.

Contact your paint supplier and ask about the proper paint and proper paint viscosity for dipping.  Is that an air dry paint and how long does it take to air dry?  Will it be thin enough to get into all the small spaces?  What about the paint drips that will form on the plant hangers?

You may want to review the section called Chimneys, hoods, and stacks. 

 Forge Hoods Explained,  Chimney size and height, and other topics may be of interest.

Suggestions for minimum of space between the chimney and cap is 1-1/2 to 2 times the diameter of the chimney.  Draft can be improved by an inverted cone under the cap (with the 1-1/2 to 2 diameters stand off).  This helps divert the air flow out and away from the cap. 

There is a thing called a high velocity chimney rain cap which is a larger pipe placed over the existing chimney.  I do not recall the suggested increase in diameter and length of the outside pipe.  The idea is to allow the chimney to produce draft and the outside pipe to act as a booster, sucking and introducing additional air into the draft.  By the design it keeps rain from getting inside the inner pipe.

I ordered hammers directly from Hofi in Israel.  Each hammer was paid for before they left his shop.  This way he had full control of his standards on his hammers.  

Suggest you contact him directly, and place an order for a real Hofi hammer through him.

Round bar, square bar, etc works.  Use what you have on hand that is safe.

Open up the air supply to the forge.  I use 2 ea 3/8 inch bolts across a 2-1/2 inch opening, or 2 ea 1/2 inch bolts across a 3 inch opening.  I often use fines or coal dust with this set up and have no problems.

You may need to sut slots in the forge walls in order to get the metal down into the sweet spot of the fire ball.

Fill in the open spaces of the sides of your forge with clay.

Is this what they call a half hood?

First, open a door or window to make sure you are getting enough air INTO the shop to make up the amount of air that is going up the chimney.

A 8 inch circle has an area of 50 square inches

A 10 inch circle has an area of 78 square inches

A 12 inch circle has an area of 113 square inches

The suggested chimney size for a solid fuel forge is 10 inch and 12 inch in diameter.

It is suggest that you use 2 ea 45 degree bends instead of a 90 degree bends so there is less restriction in the air flow in the chimney.  A straight chimney is preferred as a horizontal run can kill the draft.  

The top of the chimney should be 4 feet above anything within 10 feet of the chimney.  Check for any air currents or eddies that may be caused by buildings, trees, or other objects that would affect the air flow around the chimney.

As frazer said, we need photographs before we can make any suggestions.

In case your keeping count.

Today is the final 21st day, of the 21st year, of the 21st century.

And so winter begins.

Then you use a stick welder, notice the new rod has metal showing on the end of the rod.  After using the rod, the flux forms a donut on the end of the rod.  You need to remove the donut to expose metal so you can make electrical contact again. 

Sometimes you can break this donut by dragging the end of the rod, or by taping the end of the rod on a hard surface.

11 feet would be 607 pounds.

See updated information below

That pipe actually weighs a bit over 5.12lbs./linear inch. Say about 678lbs and change for the piece you have.

You know you are hooked on blacksmithing when the neighbor asks why your project has square washers.  You reply because I ran out of the round ones.