Archie Zietman

I have a few pictures on my camera, but it's a day or two from completion looks not that great (needs another day or two to complete it) and I can't find my cable anyhow...grrr... tomorrow, then!:-)

I just tried some old dry rice from the back of the food cupboard, and it works really nicely, it smokes a lot, but when the smoke catches, it cokes really quickly and sticks together like coal coke, and burns darn hot! I definately want to try corn, and chicken feed too, now I think about it. Thanks for the cave info!

How does one form the cave? Thanks, Archie

ugh! It is taking longer than I expected, today I did the bulk of all the branch shaping. Tomorrow is finishing touches on the branches, and roots, then the next day is tighten the twist in the trunk (maybe insert a knot or two in it), and bend the trunk a bit and add the brass fastenings (they are ready) After that is raising the copper bowl and fitting/assembly. I've got my work cut out! :-)

Hello, I have have been thinking about using corn for a fuel, and I have a few questions: How much smoke does corn produce when you put it on the fire green? Does it make a lot of sparks? Is it clinkerous? How fast does it burn (what are the dimensions of your firepot and about how much corn do you go through in an hour of forging)? And would "cracked corn" (dried kernels cracked in half) work in a forge, or would they burn too quickly? sorry for this hail of questions, but I am very interested in alternate solid fuels. Merry Being, Happy Forging, Stay cool and hydrated, Thanks again, Archie

I didn't get terribly much done this morning, because I have never done any hot cutting before, and just figuring out how to do it without a second person to hold it took a lot of fooling around. In the end I used a cold chisel to start the cuts, and hot cut almost all the way through, then finished the cuts off with the cold chisel. It took a very long time, also because I was using wood to forge with, I ran out of charcoal yesterday, and wood is a more finnicky fuel.

I live right near the center of the city, across from the local College. My garden is fairly wide, so I keep right in the center, under the deck. I am kinda paranoid about smoke, because my neighbors are the crabby sort, and called the cops on us for our chickens when I was in the 3rd grade. Now we don't talk to them, and I make sure to start my fires with charcoal, which is far less smoky (but can still make smoke) and once it is going and I am forging, I pack small pieces of wood or dried spheres of chicken manure around the edge to "coke". Their smoke is burned up by the charcoal, and I can push the resulting charcoal into the fire as needed. My anvil is a 2.5 foot tall railroad joiner (which has more evenly distributed mass in cross-section than rail) sunk vertically into a 30 gallon bucket filled half way with heavy rock/ smashed concrete scrap and dirt, and in the top half with concrete. It doesn't ring at all, just goes "thunk! thunk!" Come to think of it, I ought to forge a little something for the neighbors on all sides, my family hasn't been very neighborly for a good 9 years. :-o

Hello. Today I just forged the iron componant for a piece I'm working on. It is a multi-media goblet: Steel tree with brass accents on a blown glass orb base, and instead of leaves there is a raised copper bowl. The top is fairly large and has to be meticulously balanced (the glass piece shrunk in the annealer and it is smaller than I would have liked, oh well ), I'll post pictures tomorrow when I finish up the tree, and later pictures of the whole piece. It is due August tenth, and is coming along quickly, so it should be done soon. Merry Metal Pounding, Stay cool, Archie

wow! is'a preety!

Happy 230th Birthday USA! Proud to part of your nation for the first time this year!

Welcome Brian! we shall not release you from the forum if you make mistakes, I hope. (Monty Python ref.)

Welcome to the forum!

Welcome to the forum Davina!

welcome reoryx! That's a very cool name! I saw the pictures o' yer forge in the gallery, looks good! I don't know much about coal forges but it looks like it'll work. :-)

Dear Rivergazer, Link removed at the request of anvilfire please please please read "sword making generation X" and "swords of iron swords of steel" I think these will help you get a far better and more...realistic grounding in bladesmithing. I am sorry to be so blunt, but what you have posted regarding metallurgy seems not to make sense at all and is a bit...well, if you are well researched, you are well researched in Conan the Barbarian and such Hollywood film's processese of swordmaking which are not in any way how iron/steel swords are or were actually made, the way you are going now, I don't think you will end up with successful blades, but a lot of cast iron bits in the quench tub.

Hello. what is the advantage of having a heavier anvil over a lighter one? Also, why is it better to have more mass beneath the hammerblow? I'm finishing up my anvil today. It's a 60-70# railroad rail sunk vertically into a 30 gallon steel bin of concrete and large rocks, and I'm putting a chunk of leafspring on the top as a large heavy striking surface, I've been working over the rail's raw end which hasn't been very rewarding nor has it yielded any usable pieces. Does this seem to be a good anvil? Alsoalsoalso, I've been glassblowing at the studio at the community college across the road, and after 3 days, I've already got a set of fancy drinking glasses, a cream jug, innumerable sculpted birds and fish, and a simple soup bowl of my own design (apparently I'm learning very very quickly) and I want to do a few useful things in iron to keep my iron:glass aorund the house ratio less lopsided, what would be a few good projects to do around the house? Thank you, sorry for so many questions, Archie

I was fixing my sharpener in place today when I saw a huge bug thing glaring out at me from right near my hand, antennae waving. I was a bit shocked and leapt away. I then tried to get it out by turning on the motor, it didn't move, shook the machine, it didn't move, so I tried several other ways of getting it out until I finally bonked the table with a claw hammer and the thing, which turned out to be a moth flew out from behind the grind wheel and it flew away. So I decided "Moth-Man Forge" had a wee bit of a ring and made the sign. Thank you for the suggestions!

Hello. Now that I have very decent permenant setup under the porch in my house, I decided that what I need to do now (apart from putting a waterproof coat on the coldwork table which already got rained on through holes in the cieling ) is give the place a name. I am going to paint a big sign and hang it over the doorway/opening which is some ten feet high and 5 feet wide, the walls are open too with diagonal slats oing at 5 foot intervals, but I will put the sign over the entrance. What should the sign say/name of the forge be?

I just moved everything around and polished up and remade and spiffed my forge setup completely, and setup my coldwork table about 10 feet away against the house. I call them the "cold shop" and "hot shop" right now.

He is a very nice guy and extremely talented not to mention a great teacher. He is very good friends with my art teacher, it was odd seeing them fooling around together.

Chris Winterstein. He used to run the blacksmith's shop at Penland but he now has his own studio called :"Dirt Circus Ironworks" I can't remember the name of the woman who runs the Penland shop now.

Hello. I just got back from a 2 week trip to the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. The trip was the last 2 weeks of school, 9 students of different ages and 2 art teachers, one of whom had already lived for 3 years at Penland come back to MA for 2 years and was going to live down there and teach at Penland again. I was the oldest student, everyone knew everyone already (the school is 150 people and covers 6th through 12th grade, so is tiny.) but we got to know each other better living in a cabin for 2 weeks together. For 2 days, groups of 3 went and apprenticed with a local artist, doing manual labor for them in return for a basic lesosn in the craft. The main lessons i learned which have made smithing a lot easier for me now are: 1) Blacksmithing is almost all tapers and bends, if you're not tapering or bending, not much is happening to the metal. He was always yelling at me and my 2 fellows "tapers! tapers! tapers!" 2) It is easier to move metal when it is screaming hot (yellow/white heat) and it is just a waste of time pounding dull red/black metal, you might as well heat it up again and not waste arm power. A big fire really helps with this, but don't burn your metal. 3) Lift the hammer with your shoulder and let it fall down on the metal, don't just push it down onto the metal from the elbow, that hurts and is tiring and wrecks your arm. 4) If you don't know what you want, you'll always get it. Have a plan. While you heat your metal, plan exactly what you will do with it when it comes out of the fire, What do you want to achieve in this heat? 5) Wearing gloves when weeding (on both hands) and forging (on the tong hand) is a good idea. just thought I'd share. All of these lessons have helped me immensely, and allowed me to smite hot metal with confidence and purpose, so that I can honestly call myself a blacksmith. Thanks, Archie

Hello. After a good 3 weeks of work with a midget-hacksaw and 3 boxes of carbon steel blades (weld em up later) I have finally cut through a chunk of railroad joiner to use as an anvil, and built a stand out of pine beams and a birch log, as well as finished my gasifier, which I will hopefully use to fuel my forge. Pictures coming after dinner...

True. Has anyone tried grinding up tree and tree like thing-matter (like leaves, roots, straw, twigs) into blocks to use that? My mum just got the garden cleaned up and I realized how much waste-burnable-dry-plant-matter there was which could be soaked in water or sticky stuff and crushed into little chunks which could be either used on their own or charcoal-ed. might give it a try...that could cut down on tree chopping.

I am not saying that smiths will ever cointribute substancially to CO2, I am just thinking in principle, y'know, more sustainability than emmissions I guess, though the two do seem to be going hand in hand these days. I am more talking of not using fossil fuels, though the conversation is more towards global warming now.