jayco

Archie, I had an incident several years ago that this thread reminded me of. I had only started learning blacksmithing, when a friend convinced me to do a demo at a local festival. I was totally unprepared, didn't have much of anything to sell...crude pokers,leaves, and hooks was about all I knew how to make! Besides all that, there was some kid who kept wanting me to make him a knife. ( The only stock I had brought was some old bolts and some pieces of rebar!) Needless to say, I was having a difficult day! I was determined to make a 'show of it', if nothing else. ( I was quite noisy with my hammering and had loaded a lot of green coal onto the fire.....thick smoke everywhere) While all this was going on, an old fellow walked up and asked "What are burning in that forge, DIRT?" "What are you making?" (a knife) "What steel are you using?" (I don't know.....just an old bolt) "How do you plan to quench it?" (water.....)? I had no answers for any of his questions. After a few minutes of watching, he strolled away to the next demonstration, and as he left he wished me "Good Luck". I never saw him again, but I've always remembered the meeting. During that brief exchange, I realized that he knew something about blacksmithing,.......and that I didn't Around here , we would call this "Getting your come-uppance", and I did! I now look upon the old guy's comments as a gentle reminder to do better Just thought I'd share. ( I,m at that age when every incident becomes a boring little story :)

chefknife,welcome to Iforgeiron! On the front page,there are sections titled "Getting Started" and "lessons in Metalworking". These will get you started and contain much information. And if you have questions, just ask..... Enjoy!

tribal forge, I'm in Greenup Co........but that's a pretty good distance from you. From the little map I looked at, you're 150 mi. or 3 hours away. Although I have not met them, I'm pretty sure there are other members who are closer to you. I'm 110 miles east of Lexington Ky.

Hmmm........."hitting hard on hot steel" That sounds somehow familiar! Just kidding:) Welcome to Iforgeiron! Enjoy!

FTB2, welcome to Iforgeiron! If you've got forge,blower,anvil, and hammers.......you've got the basic tools to get started. The fun begins when you need another tool to make something and realize that you can make it yourself! If you have questions , just ask.........there are lots of friendly folks here willing to help. Enjoy!

jwfletch, welcome to Iforgeiron! While you're learning to make knives, your experience as a machinist/millright could come in handy around here. We're all interested in learning new things (especially when metal is involved') Enjoy!

Enzo, welcome to Iforgeiron! As you can see, there's a whole bunch of us here who like making things. Especially with metal! Smithing makes a fine hobby...I've been a 'hobby smith' for 35 years! Welcome, and enjoy the site!

Shadey Lady, if I had waited until I 'got it', I would still be lurking Come on in....join the crowd.

The forging station in my old shop was only 8 ft, x 8 ft. and the ceiling was only 8 ft at the highest point........a lean-to shed. It was permanently enclosed on 3 sides, open to the front in summer. In winter the 'open' side was boxed with a few sheets of roofing metal or 2 sheets of plywood...whichever was most handy. I had a flue made from 6 in. stove pipe and scrounged sheet metal that didn't draw all that well, acctually........but if it did get smokey at start-up, I just opened the door for a few minutes. Once the fire was burning hot.......no problems. I had a coal/charcoal forge, and anvil, post vise, and bench grinder in there.......there wasn't a lot of room, but was adequate. The one time when I feared the little shop would not be large enough was when a guy wanted a 6 and 1/2 ft. digging/prying bar made. It took some effort to get the stock in the forge and to the anvil.

Fdisk, welcome to Iforgeiron! There's a lot of information on this site about everything, 'Metal'. The 'search' feature at the top of the page can be used to find that information. You can do searches on 'leaf spring', ' temper', annealing, etc, and get specific info. I don't get results on every search, but when I choose the proper 'terminology' I usually get 'hits'. If one search term , or set of words doesn't yield results, I just try another. Also, being semi-retired, I can identify with the 'fixed income' part of your above post. Luckily for me, I can scrounge or make most of my forges, tools, etc. without spending that ever scarce 'cash'! ( The scrounging becomes part of the fun.......just look at the 'It followed me home' thread) Enjoy! James Flannery

Joe, welcome to Iforgeiron! Now, you can join all the rest of us who are fascinated with the endless ways hot metal can be shaped into useful and beautiful things. By the way, please use the 'User C P' thing at the top of the page and place your general location with your posts. It helps us keep track of where folks are in the world. Who knows.....you might have neighbors who are blacksmiths! Keep enjoying!

I use coal and charcoal........occasionally I experiment with wood.

Glenn, deer are shy creatures........I think they were waiting for the guy with the camera to leave so they could try out the swing set!

Chris, your new shop is looking good! I've been working on my shop and thought I'd take a look at your progress. You will enjoy having a warm dry place for your tools and yourself.....it makes the work much easier having a good place to do the work. You've probably discovered the same thing I discovered a couple months ago.....that building a new shop is a lot of fun.....but also.....a lot of work! Do you remember being in the chat room a while back? ( I think there were about six of us....all of us building new shops! Maybe it has to do with winter coming on.......and needing a place to work on those cold January days......... Hope you get that roof on.......and good luck with the new shop! James flannery

I haven't done a lot of aluminum casting, so I am no expert by any means, but here's a couple things I learned from experience. If you melt aluminum in some kind of ladle and plan to move it and pour it in a mold, be sure you keep the handle and your hands above the level of the ladle. A little slosh of molten metal that gets on the edge of the ladle will run downhill. In other words, it will run down the handle to your hands.......and you don't want that! I also learned that when you empty the ladle into the mold, keep the pouring distance as short as possible, best to put the lip of the ladle right on the edge of the mold Molten metal, when poured, splatters in all directions! I even melted some soda cans once, but I found that to be a poor way to get aluminum. By the time you melt the little thin cans and rack off the 'dross', there isn't much left Of course you also get that nasty smell of burning paint and burnt sugar.....not pleasant! There are so many unexpected things that can happen with molten metals........I think that's what makes metal casting so dangerous. At the least, I would recommend that anyone who has never done any metal casting before should practice moving the ladle around with only water in it....just to get used to the movements. When you can move the ladle around and not spill a drop....and do that consistantly, then you might be ready to try with metal. (Be sure the ladle is bone dry before using to melt metal) One fumble or missed step is all it takes to create a terrible accident.

Johannes, I've never heard of taxus........maybe it doesn't grow in the U. S.? Can you please describe the wood?

Justin, welcome to Iforgeiron! There's a great section on the 'home' page ( or front ) page called "Getting Started". Just follow the links.......lots of good information there. Do a search on the '55 forge'........there's a bottom blast version and a side blast version. Both are easy to make and inexpensive. If you have any questions, just ask..... Enjoy!

There's a pawn shop near where I live that has files, rasps, odd wrenches,battered hammers, etc in the back of the shop. I'm guessing that some folks pawn entire tool boxes full of tools(maybe whole truckloads), and never come back to reclaim them. The rasps ,screw drivers, etc, are priced separately and sometimes can be had reasonably.

Promotive,I used the 'search' at the top of the page. I typed in "small items to sell" and I also tried "demo items". I got lots of hits on both searches. there's lots of info about small demo items in several different threads. Hope this helps!

I got a post set and the post vise mounted yesterday.I even made a little tool tray to mount on the post.....a place to put tongs,hammers, small tools,etc. I even got my old bench grinder with the heavy frame carted from the old shop to the new. All the major tools are now in the shop. Oh, there is still much to do.......battening, adding lights where I need them,shelving and hangers for tools.........but as of now, I have a working shop! Due to my being really cheap and having a deep resource pile, ( I've been saving up stuff for many years), the total costs have been minimal. $209 for the metal roofing and screws to install it . Everything else, I had on hand. About the metal roofing,.......if you're not picky about colors, you can get a considerable discount on price.....so what if half the roof is beige and half is light green! The new shop, the new layout, and the new forge are a pleasure to use and much better than what I had before. A big THANK YOU to all the members of IFI for helping with this project. I used ideas I got from folks in the chat room,ideas that came from threads in the forums, searched in the archives, and studied pictures in the gallery to formulate the design of the new shop. In short, Iforgeiron.........WORKS! You study some pictures, read some threads, ask a few questions.....(that's what I did) and you go to the shop knowing more than you did before. How cool is that!? Again, thank you........ James Flannery

Well, I got the side draft flue installed today. It worked really well dispite the fact that I only had 8 ft. of 10in. pipe for the vertical part. The horizontal section is the casing from an old pressure washer. 10in. x10in. x 30in. It all fit together surprisingly well. I'm now on the lookout for a couple sections of 10 in. pipe to add height to the stack. It worked well enough today, a clear weather, high pressure sort of day.........but I'm not sure how it will be on rainy , low pressure days. We will see. I now have power to the shop, and lights. Moved my main anvil in.....gotta set a post for the post vise. I've done a little trial forging in the new shop, but I'm resisting the urge to bring all my tongs,hammers,chisels,hardy tools, and other assorted smithing 'stuff' in until I have proper hangers or shelving to store stuff. That's what the problem was with the old shop.....no organization! Here are some pics.......(there are more in the gallery) The work.......continues! James