danguite

Check out http://www.central-wi-coal-sales.com/ About 70 miles from Wausau, but they look to have decent prices/options.

As Jim suggests, I went to Home Depot and grabbed some 4x6 lumber( they even cut them to 4' sections to fit in the car ). I used threaded rod and some angle iron and put it all together like the attached picture. I've had people suggest that I should install some anvil hold downs though. I did route out the shape of the anvil base though.

Yup, I've been living on this site for several months. =) I've been looking for some local classes and I think I'll be lining some up shortly.

It seemed like I couldn't get much metal to move each heat. When you heat, do you wait until it hits the right color and take it out or should you let it reach your color and wait to make sure it is heated all the way through?

The fine folks at Wall Drug took care of all the hard parts.

Yeah? I routed about 3/4" down on the stand for the base and I haven't noticed it moving much. Or are you refering to something to hold down material? The unit I have only does CO. Looks like you can get fancier ones that will do more, but mine won't.

I got my CO detector installed and tool holder attached to the anvil stand, so I decided it was time to give things a go. After suggestions from several people I decided I would attempt a leaf as my first attempt at forging. It seemed to get away from me and stretch out too long leaving me too thin to make it a bit wider. Had a good time though and that is what is important.

I'm have a bit of time before I attempt any welding, but thanks for the advice. I got the doors to try and get around the possible size issues. I have no idea what I'm going to be making, so I just want to be ready for as much as possible.

I like the versatility of the doors. I might never need them, but I like having the choice.

I have been working on building a coal forge slowly, but after getting a nice bonus from work I decided to jumpstart things a bit by buying a gas forge. I bought a two burner Metalsmith model from Diamondback Ironworks and it got here this week. First start: First metal being heated: I just wanted to play for a bit this time: So it worked great. I still have to figure out a proper fuel solution, as you can see I'm just using a 20lb tank for now. I also didn't want to run for too long before I get a CO detector. How does it look?

Do you have or could you throw something together quick, to show how that gate, breaker, etc all work? I've been wracking my brain for awhile and I can't come up with any good way to keep that breaker centered and still attached to the handle.

I'm still tracking down a motor for this thing, but before I do that, how does the belt get ran through this thing? I've got it apart and I'm cleaning it, but I assume I don't take the case apart every time I want to change the belt?

Yeah, definitely pretty neat so far. The guy appears to have a patent on some sort of portable forge: http://www.google.com/patents?id=IfRtAAAAEBAJ&pg=PA2&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false I was actually able to find the patent filing for it: http://www.google.com/patents/US314901

I found this blower this weekend and picked it up. It rotates well and looks to have originally been belt driven. I can't find much about this other than that the inventor(JF Winchell) also has patents for forge hood designs, and a bunch of other things. Anyone seen something like this before?

Just purchased my first anvil. Didn't think I should create a whole new thread for it. It is a 120# Peter Wright which has a chip as you can see. I've been looking for awhile and finally found this for $250. Any thoughts on it? The guy I got it from was great and showed me all his metalworking tools and even some super rare tractor that he restored.