tzonoqua

I love this!!! It's beautiful.. amazing. Thanks for sharing, it's inspirational!!

Very nice, she's really becoming alive now!! Great stuff!!

Now, that is probably the prettiest Anvil I've ever seen!!! That's it, I'm going to have to go out and get some paint and do mine too!!

great face on that ewe!!! can't wait to see it evolve. !!! post more pics as it happens! check out Helen Denerly, she's another awesome artist in scrap!! http://www.helendenerley.co.uk/index.htm and another brilliant scrap artist is joe rush http://joerush.com/sculpture.html

ah, and what woman would NOT want an anvil as a present??? Awesome gift!! For working silver she'll want that face polished though!!! Has she seen it yet, or is it a surprise?

Thanks John, hope to catch you sometime soon. At some point I will be looking to buy/build a solid fuel forge so if you know of one, or one comes your way at a reasonable price, please let me know. and beth, well, i like that my daughter calls my little 25kg anvil "her" anvil and she has "her" little tiny ball pein hammer.... Change the world, one person at a time

I have a suede welders apron that is similar to what grant has posted but has a cross strap at the back and buckles at the back of my waist. Works for me, and is cheap. I would advise not to have a pocket on the outside, for obvious reasons. Also I can see a that a hammer loop might get caught on anvil horn, or anything pokey outy in your workshop,and in blacksmithing workshops there tends to be a lot of pokey-outy stuff. :D

Frosty, that is possibly the prettiest vice I have ever seen!!

you know the funny thing about these "gender barriers" is that it's surprising they are there at all. In all my bsing career, I have never ever had someone say "you can't do that you're a girl" or any such statement, nor have I ever encountered negativity. Possibly a little bit of disbelief, or thinking I'm joking about it. Mostly surprise, and then support and often respect to be doing what most people perceive to be an "honourable craft" No one has ever said to me "you can't do that"-- It is just the perceived view that if you are female, "why would you WANT to be doing that?" (Actually, I take that all back, because when I was in school I wanted to take "shop" rather than "home economics" but was not allowed to. I was very unhappy sewing and cooking, and still am... but times have changed now, and in schools students get to choose) But really it's just the perceived notion that girls would rather not get grimy and dirty and fix things and drive tractors, or like fast cars, or do any other of these supposedly male things. To quote Lisa Simpson, famed feminist "Girls only know about fluffy kittens and embroidery" but then I suppose the majority of women don't really want to get dirty and grimy and fix things and drive tractors. I am constantly inspired by the many female smiths that are out there, and when you start to look, yes, we are everywhere!! and the men smiths too, inspire... hey I'm all about equal opportunities Jake your forgings are pretty sublime, the candlestand in the beginning, it's assymetric but balanced, and the hooks- the hooks are fantastical!! I love that very worked chiselled look- there is a smith in the ukraine i'm friends with on facebook, Oleg, his work is like that and just to die for, absolutely incredible, all-forged and awesome!!

misfit asylum? might as well make myself comfortable then! Jeremy, as always with your golden-touched work, love that element, absolutely wonderfully all-forged!!! will have to try that at some point even though my forge welding skills leave much to be desired, count me in as a research assistant, I am sure I will make lots of mistakes for us all to learn from beth HELLO!! no I've been mostly absent from iforge, I been really swept away with my other life- no workshop for 10 months apart from a week of work in that time, gave my hand real time to heal, and in that time I needed to find work, and ended up scoring a great part time job at a secondary school as a "design and technology technician" which basically means I look after the workshops which includes wood/metals/plastics and some CAD stuff-cutterplotters, engravers etc. Most of the job so far has just been sorting through a workshop that hasn't been organized in about 10 years... inches of sawdust/debris in drawers, finding lots of gems like old textbooks from the 50s and tools that I have no idea of the purpose, think I'll learn a lot through it all actually. And hope to inspire some girls that we can "actually" operate machinery without asking a man to do it for us, put up shelves... you know, smash some gender barriers. And finally I have a workshop on a really lovely small farm, was definitely worth waiting for, serendipity and a hungry otter made it happen for me! all very good except true to form I need to sort out like a million zillion things to make it work for me, fix my mig welder, build shelving, tables etc etc. I did get the forge fired up yesterday for the first time which was a very nice feeling, and I finally got some curtain brackets adjusted so we can finally have proper curtain rails in our house (they've been pinned up/strung up for months!!!) and yes, sheesh, kids running around like barn mice all over the place... it's a wonder how anything actually happens at all.... Would love to come and do that course actually but doubt my finances/time will allow, cost a fortune to move my workshop down south, I swear I will never move it again. It's all just too heavy!! so now, deep breath, calm, focus, oh, eek, can't decide what to focus on... hehehe

Well, well, this is what happens when I go away for a while, a 29 page thread??!! Seriously interesting topic, have to say I've not read all of it, might take a while to get through... not much to add at this point other than I am also a sufferer from the deforming tool syndrome...

great stuff beth!! Nice to see what you have been up to!! He's lovely!!

I've got a two burner metal artist one. Love it. Was the best price by far even with shipping to UK and import duties, as I can't be bothered to build one myself. Only complaint is that the ceramic fibreboard is very easy to damage, as I work with a lot of odd and usually flame cut shapes, it has taken a beating. Yes it can be relined, would love the fibreboard to be hardened but I guess this is not possible to retain it's refractory properties. Anyway, would recommend and would buy another.

great stuff!!!!!

I've got a galv quench bucket, no problems there, apart from mice going for a swim in it and lets say spending a bit too long in the water... which is a bit gross to have to deal with, good thing there's lots of tongs handy to do that!!

wow, I didn't realize artist is a dirty word!! I call myself an Artist Blacksmith, seems to be more apt for what I do although just recently I was told I'm not really a blacksmith... and perhaps they're right, not that I'm bothered, I'll admit to loving my mig welder but I do my own work! I'm thinking "Artisan" is a good term, implies craftsmanship as well as aesthetics. I understand the rant though, I went to Art School, which are typically filled with untalented "conceptual" types... This argument about ideas and ownership of work applies also to people who say "i built my own home" when really what they mean is they commissioned an architect to design their vision and then employed tradespeople to do the actual work for them.

Yep, I'm in !

Yes, (Beth) I did make it on Sunday! Thanks John for your hospitality. Really enjoyed the demo, was definitely good to see how versatile the guillotine tool is, and lots of techniques packed into that little pretty thing! Great facility you have there at Westpoint and very much enjoyed the discussion.! Kids had a good time but are hassling me to make stems for their flowers! (and my man said the pub nearby was quite enjoyable also!!) Was nice to meet Steve and Mark (who was a leaf making machine!) Shame I could only make it for the Sunday as it would have been nice to meet the rest of ya! Colleen

Hi John, most likely will be able to make it for Sunday? Have sent you an email. Maybe see you all there!

updating iWeb is as easy as whenever you want to... that is the bonus about doing your website yourself. As long as you can ftp to your host server, it's really whenever and as often as you like, and that goes for most other DIY web tools.. (i think!) and yeah, forgot to mention dreamweaver, doh! its probably the way to go if you've got the time to invest in learning it. Just get the latest version that works with your OS and system spec and i think you're good to go.

If you're using a mac and want a simple site you can use iWeb, it's pretty easy to use, I've used it for years, I throw away the template and start with a blank white page. Some things you can't change on it though which is quite annoying, but good for beginners or people like me who'd rather be forging than tapping keys on a computer. You can also get applications that add on the code to allow google analytics, paypal etc. Some issues with loading web pages on the new ie microsoft browser... but that may be because my version of iWeb is outdated, (my g4 is from 2003) but have been told that it's because there is a setting in the new ie browser that you have to alter the preferences to allow it to work. otherwise you can also use Wordpress, another free and fairly straightforward solution. Flux is another one, can't remember if it's free or not, I didn't really get on with it. I'm getting a new mac soon, so will be updating to the newest iWeb and also going to be looking for other options so will be good to hear how you get on. :)

awesome!! can't wait to see the lock you build to put it in... :D