Aral

Heh bentiron, well he hasn't done it yet, but i suppose he will pretty soon
He likes doing stuff like that, his hoby is fixing/making various stuff, like fixing cars, electric equipment and similar stuff, and he is a bit interested to see how this blacksmithing hobby of mine will turn out, so its fun for him too :)

Hey its the free version, though I havent done all of the sketch myself, downloaded the rail piece, and modified the top part to what i need, and did the rest myself. So, the rail might have been done in pro, im not sure.

Hey guys, I was bored today, since I'm at college until Christmas I made a 3d model for my forge and "anvil", it isn't very precise, I was just playing around with google sketchup, but now I can send this model to my dad and tell him to mount the rail, sharpen/blunt the pieces on the side of it, and weld a "hardie hole" on the back of it, aswell mount my brake drum on a table like that, so I have it all ready once I get on winter break
I am really new to google sketchup, and cant be bored with reading the tutorials online, so my brake drum doesnt look like one, and some pieces on the RR are distorted, so take it easy on me








Sorry about the size of the images, i really couldnt resize them, something bugged on the site, so i just uploaded the large ones .)

Great work! I wonder how many hours (days) he has in it? Just amazing.....

Apparently it has around 2800 hours put into it.
You can order one made for you if you want, but i guess its not going to be cheap
I think they made some for some sheik from the UAE, just with different design, something arabic.
Oh, and the sheik wouldn't have problems with rain and wind i guess .P
On the other hand, sand isn't quite fun, is it? :)

I hate being so many time zones away from most of you guys, since i have to wait for ages for a reply, or just can't join a forum conversation mostly :mad::)

Hey, I saw this guy's work on TV ages ago, just remembered it and thought i should share it here
Volkswagen Beetle

Hey, welcome to the boards. I like you am just a beginner, unfortunately I don't have access to my forge at the moment, so I'm just reading a lot of theory
I made a blower from an old vacuum cleaner, I disassembled it, took the motor and i put it in a 110 mm diameter, 30ish cm long "sewer plastic tube", something like the one on the picture (the top right corner, sorry couldn't find any better pictures .)
and fixed it in firmly, I then "reduced" it to 75 mm tube with another part, and put all that on a metal tube that leads to my forge.
Sorry if this hasn't been helpful, English is not my mother tongue, so I have trouble describing what I mean, these plumbing terms are really not my specialty.
What I was trying to say, you can really do a lot with improvisation, i can get a proper working temperature with my small brake drum forge i made in 30 minutes, it might not be optimal, but your second attempt will surely fix most things that were wrong with your first one. So try a lot of options, and i am sure it would work .)

pic of the "tube"

Hmm, there is a lot of text to go through, and a lot of terms I'm not familiar with
But from a few quick glances i noticed this:

"The vast majority of railroad wheels in use today are formed entirely from 0.6 to 0.7 percent plain carbon steel cast in permanent graphite molds."

and:

Conventional railroad wheel fabrication includes processing the rim portion of the wheel through a quenching process. That is, the rim is austenitized at a temperature in a range from about 1700 degrees to 1800 degrees Fahrenheit by rapid cooling with a liquid, such as water spray. The rim quenching process provides a fine perlitic microstructure for the steel and a desirable residual compressive state of stress in the rim about a circumference of the wheel. The fine perlitic structure is harder, and thus generally is more resistant to wear than coarser microstructures and the residual compressive stress on the wheel rim resists cracking due to fatigue and other stresses.

While quenching the rim portion of the wheel provides some contrast in the properties of the body and rim portions of the wheel, there is a limit to the different characteristics that a single material can achieve. Furthermore, there is an inherent tradeoff that is made to balance the desired properties of the different wheel portions.

So, it looks like only the rim is quenched, and the middle part isn't, does that mean i should try to harden the entire wheel?
Or, is the middle part steel still good enough to form a good anvil?

Hey guys, i may be able to acquire a train wheel, or even a few of them.
So i was wondering, does anyone know anything about their properties? I'm not even sure about the dimensions, but about the quality of steel, it should be pretty good steel (if its not, i'm not traveling by train anymore:)).
So, if i got a few of those, i might weld them together to try and make an anvil?
Or, just use a wheel as a top plate, and do the rest of the anvil some other way. Any thoughts? :confused:

Oh, and don't worry, it would be completely legal :)

Thanks for the input guys :)

So, guys, obviously i have decided my first project would be a pair of tongs, ill keep trying until i get a good ones if that doesn't go so well from the start
But, what do you suggest as a second piece? I would like something useful, not necesarily for blacksmithing, just something that can be used, since i am motivated by making something I/someone can use, and not just by making it so it can collect dust around :)

I suggest you read this for the anvil, since you seem to be working on a horizontally placed RR.
RR-rail Anvils : Making anvils from Rail Road Rail

I was just wondering for general blacksmithing, not something extraordinary
I'll use the thermometer at first, to better grasp the differences between colors.

Yes, i know about the magnet test, and the colors, i was just wondering, isn't it better to use a thermometer if available?

A new question:
I noticed, when talking about temperature, people describe them in the color shades, but, wouldn't an Infrared thermometer (non-contact thermometer) be a better idea to correctly measure the temperature of the steel?

Thanks for the info guys
Unfortunately, as i said before, this is all theoretical for now, since i don't have access to my forge, and wont have until around Christmas, but I'm trying to gather as much information I can for now, so I can just start forging once i have the opportunity :)

Also, could this "stone chisel" i mentioned before be used as a fuller? or modified into a cutting tool maybe?

And, bnew, i dont want to modify the "tongs" since those are not tongs, and have their purpose (cutting wire) so i dont wanna ruin a tool that is good for nothing, i should rather make new tongs myself
Though i think you need an anvil to make them, because i cant think of a way of forming the rounded parts without the horn?

I can borrow a hacksaw for now, and yes i have thought about sharpening a part of the RR, you suggest i do it with an angle grinder?
So, the part that i would sharpen, it doesn't need to be hardened?

Yea, i know its enough to get started, but what would you recommend getting next?
I thought of making a chisel, when i tried forging a bit, i noticed a need to cut a piece of metal, and couldn't do it, so i found a "stone chisel" (in the lack of better words), made from a car axle, its pretty big, so i don't know if i can heat it up in my little forge, but by the time i get home and start forging again, ill get a better forge probably.
The worst part is an anvil, since i don't have a lot of money to spend on blacksmithing at the moment, new one is out of the question, and most people in my hometown don't want to sell their anvils, though they dont use them.

I found out that one of my friends had not one, but TWO anvils, i was totally thrilled when he told me, and xxxxxx a bit, i was like: WHY THE xxxx DIDN'T YOU SAY THAT BEFORE??? and he said he never knew i needed an anvil.
So we went to his place, he showed me the anvil, (looked great to me) and said that the other one is rotting outside, well it looks like his old man gave it to someone... and he needs the other one for himself... so i was xxxxxx that day, but he promised he will lend it to me for 2 weeks in the winter holidays, i cant forge sooner anyway, since my college started now.
Ill post a pic of that chisel thingy once my sister gets up and mails it to me, for some advice on how to make a hardy tool out of it

Oh, and another question, i noticed when forging, an oxide layer forms on the surface of the metal, and when i hammer it, it makes marks on the metal, and it tends to have little cracks from it... how do i remove it? Using a "steel brush" (again, lack of better words)?

Hey guys
I am new to blacksmithing, so i have a few questions id like to ask.
What tools/equipment is essential, what should i have for beginners blacksmithing?
I have a brake drum forge, and a RR anvil, and i am planning to get a real anvil soon i hope. I have a small hammer (not sure about the weight, but its pretty light) that needs its handle replaced, and a larger one (around 1-1.5kg i would say) with no handle. Both of them are the same shape, something like this.

I haven't got a pair of tongs, i plan to make them as soon as i have access to a real anvil, so im using something like this.
So, what do you suggest me to get as the next piece of equipment?

Hey, sorry I'm new to blacksmithing, so no info there, but for the pictures, they seem to be blurry because your camera has trouble focusing items so close.
If you have a macro focus, you should enable it, if not, you should take the picture from further away from the blade, and zoom in either with your camera (if it has optical zoom) or with a pc program.
And, if you could turn off your flash, and take a picture somewhere with a lot of light (sunlight lets say) but the blade should be in a shadow, that should help with the reflection.
Anyway, i hope some of this helps :)

Thanks guys .) (and girls )
I tried a to forge a bit yesterday, although my tools arent complete, but since im going away tommorow (exams /sigh), i just wanted to try it once.
I am pretty satisfied with the RR anvil, even though i havent bolted it to a piece of wood yet, but my forge is not so good. I knew it wouldnt be good, because the firepot is really small, the brake drum is a really small one, because the only larger one i could find was from a pretty large truck, and it had a huge hole in the middle, something like 60% or more of the outer radius. So, im stuck with this small one (around 20 cm diameter i think) until i find a new one.
I used petrolcoke, since i could have an unlimited ammount of that available to me for free or at a low price, but its pretty hard to start up with a torch, and smells a bit bad, but gives a pretty hot flame.
Well, see you around here when i learn the basics and come swarming the forums with loads of questions :)

Thanks for the move to the appropriate forum mods, i really didn't see it the first time, i was too sleepy at the moment .)

Sorry for the eventually misplaced post, but i havent seen the "introduce yourself" subforum .)

My name is Peter and I am a 20 year old student from Croatia, i study in our capital, but i used to live, and still live at a really small town during the holidays.
Well, i have been interested in blacksmithing for a few years now, it started with a bit of a sword obsession, but then, after realizing that swordsmithing is not something you can start doing right away, i got more interested in blacksmithing in general, and swordsmithing is a far goal someday.

So, basically, i could only practice blacksmithing during the summer and winter holidays. Since i am studying, and therefore broke almost all the time , i do not have the money to invest seriously in blacksmithing now, especially in an anvil. I am currently looking for an used anvil in my town, but most of the people that have it, won't sell it because it has sentimental value them, because it belonged to their parents.
I am currently in the process of making a small brake drum forge, and i have an almost finished a rail road anvil(its standing vertically and weighs around 25 kg), i finished the top (except welding something like a hardy-hole) and i just need to bolt it to a piece of wood.

I know any of this is not exactly good, but i think its a small start, until i can get a real anvil somewhere cheap .)

Well, thats all from me, i am looking forward to learning from your forums :)