Glenn

I can just imagine someone working in or watching the wok being used and then all of a sudden *seeing* the snake.

Although you may have all the safety issues in your situation under control (and I am glad you do), the IForgeIron site is a reference to all that read the material, today, next month, or next year in the site archives. Many times the new blacksmith is not aware of there being a problem with safety, and the experienced blacksmith sometimes needs reminded about the dangers. I would rather read about the dangers (or any other safety issue) one more time, than read the obituary of someone that was uninformed. Jim Paw Paw Wilson was an experienced blacksmith that knew better, chose to ignore the dangers, and is no longer with us (yep it killed him). It does happen.

With mild steel and coal, soak the heat into and through the entire piece of stock, at high orange, wire brush, then bring it up to high yellow and soak again. Get everything ready, practice the way your going to move from the fire to the anvil while it is being brought up to welding temp. Watch for it to throw only a couple of sparks and go for the weld. All you need to do is bump the two pieces of metal to achieve the weld. If you hit it hard enough to throw those beautiful sparks like you see in all the photos, those sparks are your weld being scattered all across the shop. Just bump the jiont to achieve the weld, then hammer to dress things up.

My condolences to you and your family.

If there is enough interest we can carry Sikaflex in the IFI store. The product has a short shelf life (6 months as I recall) due to the quick set feature of the material. So there would need to be enough orders to fill within this time frame.

forging a tong You notice how close that his hand gets to the fuller that was left in the hardie hole? That is scary !! making a candlestick I guess power hammers are like any other hammer, you need a couple of them so you don't have to change dies all the time (Grin)

What about an metal band aid box and a magnet. Put the magnet somewhere under the anvil, table, vise, etc and attach the metal band aid box to the magnet. It will be right where you need it. (grin)

Ten, Sanitary napkins, Kotex, etc can be used as dressing for large wounds in an emergency.

go to the top of the forum page and click on User CP click on edit profile go to the bottom of the page and enter your location and save. It would be nice to know where in the world your located.

R Funk Your post is excellent and has been added to the wiki. Thanks.

fossilmaniac Go to the top of hte forum page and click on User CP Click on Edit profile Go to the bottom of the page and enter your location and save. We would like to know where in the world your located.

Cut, split, and stack the firewood. Stack it two rows deep and cover it with clear plastic leaving the ends open. This will keep the wood from getting wet and acts as a solar collector to dry the wood. Collect the limbs and cut them into 4 inch lengths or chip them. You can forge by using raw wood. It takes a lot of wood to keep a good bed of coals going the the radiant heat is a serious factor to deal with, but it can (and has) been used as a forge fuel. Not efficient, but it works. Buy the coal and be happy.

Hammerkid Weird is still remembering what the welds "should" look like and trying to slow down enough to make each weld as strong as possible. It is like opening a present when you chip off the slag to see if the weld is pretty enough not to require a grinder to dress it up. Ox/ac is a beautiful weld when done correctly. But Ox/ac is still a bit of a challenge as mig has taken over for welding thin metal. For me, forge welding is still magic, even today.

As a kid I learned by helping my uncle hold things while he welded. He used ox/ac to repair the family cars etc. so I wore goggles and watched how he did it. When he used arc welding (6 cylinder flat head motor on a DC welder), rather then turn my head to avoid the welding arc flash, I wore a hood and watched. There was a lot of learning by watching. I collected the spent ends of the welding rods to practice my welding. As I got better and better, I was able to practice with the "long" rods. My senior summer I hired on with a company that built tug boats. The fellow ask if I could weld and I said I had "some" experience welding. He gave me a 50 pound box of rod and a stinger and said we need a welder HERE and pointed to the deck. You were expected to burn that 50 pound box of rod and and then come back for more, and that was on the FIRST day at work. There was a lot of rod burned that summer.

bigjohn go to the top of the forum page and click on User CP Click on Edit profile Go to the bottom of the page and enter your location and save. We would like to know where in the world your located.

I did not loose track of the 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch material, I tried to suggested that if a exhaust pipe from a automobile can last for 3 years at welding heat in a forge, a thicker material would be expected to last even longer. The forge proved my point, then dropped a single disk brake rotor into the 55 Forge to create a fire pot. That lasted until I found another rotor that was a bit deeper and I am currently trying that combination in the forge. BP0518 Making a Forge Pot That forge uses a different ash dump. It is shown in the BP.

Digr Go to the top of the forum page and click on User CP Click on edit profile Go to the bottom of the page and fill in your location and save. It would be nice to know where in the world you are located.

bluecarpentar Look at BP0133 the original 55 Forge. That forge and simple tuyere took 3 years of welding heat. The forge was kept outside all year long in the weather. At the end of the 3 years, I lost maybe 1/2 to 3/4 inch of metal to the heat. I just drilled another hole for the grate and put it back in service. YMMV

Small anvils are nice when you do small work. They are nice when you need a different radius on the horn, thickness to the heel etc. Not everyone works with 2 inch square stock. The 2 pound hammer is there for size reference.

This will get you started till you get the forge up and running. BP0531 Forging with Clay

There it was, thrown out with the rest of the trash at the curb. Now who would throw away a good Barbie? (BBQ grill). So it followed me home. It has to be a good grill or they would not have put the "Aussie" name on it. Even comes with it's own thermometer. For those that are looking at this wondering, see it as a heat treating device for knives, complete with its own temperature read out device.

These 3 water meter covers followed me home. I am sure there are others uses but all I need is one more and I have some solid feet for an outside work table.

Any of the tools used in working with sculpture clay can be used. A ladies hair pin will cut a grove in clay. Your a blacksmith, you can make any tool you need (grin). Rains, the folks from Oz were discussing that very topic (damascus clay) last night in the chat room. Several good ideas were thrown into the conversation.

Be careful what you do with the rag used to oil the steel. They can generate enough heat after use to start their own fire. Play safe.

There was a recent thread on using propane forges in a shop with open doors and still setting off a CO detector. If you do not have a CO detector, get on and use it. There is no free ride, if you need more heat you need to use more fuel (burned gases). This can be done by adding oxygen for a more complete burn or adding more gas and oxygen. If your short on oxygen from the elevation, then you NEED to check the CO levels early and often.