Glenn

What did the seller suggest when you contacted them?

J hook is just a S hook with a twist.

The spam issue has been addressed.  A couple of duplicate memberships were found and addressed in the process.  

Thanks to all that made reports.  It helps us catch things early.

You can run the JABOD on wood.  Any wood forge will go through a lot of wood until you learn to only add gentle air and only enough air to heat the metal your working. 

Wood takes a deeper fire as you are burning wood to make charcoal and using the charcoal to heat the metal.  You keep adding wood to the top of the fire as you burn the charcoal a the bottom of the fire.  It is a dance that you learn to do.

Use what you have now to make what you can and your skills will improve.  Those skills will serve you well in the future.

Just secure one side and bend against a stationary object or fulcrum.

3/8 inch round bar and smaller is easy.  1/2 inch round bar you may want a pipe to slip over the material over the stock as a lever.

Pat, for soft vise jaws, split a piece of copper pipe the long way and flatten it out.   Different size copper pipe will give you different diameter sizes to fit most any vise.  You can make it what ever length you need.

Another source for soft jaws for a vise is aluminum angle.

Did looking through the 7,300 post in the bellows section of IForgeIron not provide an answer?

You may want to look at circular and box type bellows to see if they suit your needs.

If you are replying to the post we just read it is not necessary.  Otherwise simply type in the name your replying to followed by a colon.

Looks like something you could use during the summer to cool a blacksmith

Forge on a stand, that puts the forge at a comfortable height to use, is needed.  Making the stand mobile is better, as you can get it to where you need to use it, get it out of the weather, and or into storage.

Hot things and propane hoses do not play well together.  Even a small hole in a propane hose can and will cause problems, from loss of propane to BOOM !  Put the propane tank in a protected area as far away from the forge as possible, and protect the propane hose from hot things and getting caught, hooked, or pulled on.

Turning off a propane tank is simple.   Disconnecting the propane tank from the supply line is simple.  Storing the propane tank outside of a building (NOT inside) is recommended.  

Think of everything that can go wrong and fix it so it is not a problem.

To make the river, you are rounding over the end of the metal.

For many rivets, you can use a sledge hammer head to back up the rivet.  Depending on the project, the sledge hammer head can be hand held.  

Rivets can be intimidating at first.  You want to get them exactly right, but are not sure how.  After 25 rivets you start to catch on, then figure out it is several not so hard heavy hammer hits that work better and a lighter weight hammer for setting the rivet.  After 100 rivets or more it is why was this so difficult when I started?

To avoid a flat side on the rivet, create a slight depression in some metal to receive one side of the rivet while you hammer a head onto the other side.  You can counter sink a hole into the metal usually on the unseen side, so the rivet lays flat if need be.  Rivets are not just for thin metal as they use rivets to hold ships and bridges together.  Next step is to use rivets to hold tongs together. (grin)

Please ask the question again. 

Do you mean mold spores to make bread, certain cheeses, and even medicine (Penicillin), or to reproduce mushrooms?

Or a mold for making a mushroom from say concrete?

You should try to learn at least one new thing every day.  What did you learn today?

Today I learned that :

The points of a 24 tooth saw blade are exactly 15 degrees apart.

Find a fuel that is available in YOUR area, and cheap.  Build a forge to use that fuel.

A company will sell you anything you want to buy.  It is up to you to select the item YOU want and purchase THAT item.  The more research and reading you do, the less expensive things become.

A 2 pound hammer will do everything you want to do for several years.  An improvised anvil will serve you well for many years, or until you are have researched and read enough to know which anvil weight and style will work for the projects you are going to make.  

What are the items, tools, opportunities, that you either passed on or got away?

Mine was a large industrial lathe at the scrap yard, sitting out in the rain.  3 phase motor, very long end to end distance and could handle very large diameter stock.  Came with a T slot bed.  The hand controls were broken on with a hammer so no one could easily use it.  No way to transport it back home, or even a place to store it.  It was taken out of service working and scrapped.

Cost was scrap price.

The problems of having two anvils, and not two hammers.

After the first couple of electric bills, there will be a major shift to LEDs.

Thomas, are induction forges in your future?

Not including ALL options only reduces your chance for success, or being able to think outside the box.

Put all the options on the table and then choose the one that best works for the job at hand.  

Look for pipe, or large sockets to use as a form to make the rings round.  If you want to just butt the ends together, make the stock overlap and then cut the both ends of the rings at the same time.  This eliminates the flat portion at the beginning of the forming of the ring.  

If you need more than one ring, then make a several wraps around the form and cut the rings apart all at the same time.

Found out the hard way that rusty pipe does not mean that it was not galvanized at one time.  

Welding on galvanized pipe can release zinc fumes from the galvanized coatings on the pipe.

There are lots of things to learn about metal in order to stay safe.

It is always nice to teach in such a way that the student must succeed, no matter what.  One success inspires them to do more, again with a they must succeed project.  Now they think they can conquer the world, and they are correct in that assumption.

Use sand for fill.  As it settles you can add more.