VaughnT

You don't need a fire pot to have a forge. One of the easiest forges to construct is the 55gallon Forge made from, oddly enough, a 55g drum. No fire pot at all. My personal favorite is the ducks-nest style of forge where the heat is concentrated by the smith wetting the coal or using fire bricks to contain and shape the fire. It's basically nothing more than a table of heavy-gauge metal with a hole in the middle. The air comes up through the hole (there's a grate to stop coals from falling down). The majority of the table is covered with fire bricks that I can use to create a bowl over the grate, concentrating the fire how I like for the job. I'm looking at making a side-blast forge with a flat table I found. Just need to add some high sides to it, but they can be wood because the heat's so far away.

Considering all the variables, I'd say you're doing the best you can with what you've got. Not knowing the type of steel your working means that you have no chance to maximize the performance of the steel with the proper heat-treat regimen. You knife's performance under use is the only way to judge it; just hope that the blade doesn't snap in two some day down the road. I will say, though, that forging to about a quarter inch is leaving a lot of meat that still has to be removed by files and sanding. On a knife the size in the photo, I wouldn't want a spine thicker than 3/16", and that's for a beat-around-the-woods kinda knife. I would suggest that you spend more time with your hammer practicing good hammer blows so you can bring your stock thickness down to almost-finished and have a smooth surface. Make sure your hammer faces are dressed well, and buy or build a flatter. Otherwise, you're burning up resources to reduce the metal past all your mule tracks.

That brass handle is awesome! I was thinking about something like that the other day, but wanted to go with deep cuts in it to make it look like cooling fins. I thought it would be dead sexy steampunk-ish on a blower with black paint and brass accents.....

Excellent use for that bit of rusty metal, and amazing to see how the metal corroded in such an interesting way. Almost reminds me of something Japanese. Getting the old and the new to match, to look right together, is always a pain. I think you did a great job of making the hooks look like they were supposed to be there, and that backer board really makes the whole thing pop.

Looks like you got a great bit of kit. The firepot is fine, and it looks to be in great shape. Should last another hundred years or so. Fabricating a holder for your blower wouldn't be too difficult if you have a piece of pipe the right diameter. Just cut it in half length-wise to get the clamshell part. But you could also do something with flat stock using the blower as a mold of sorts. Of course, an welder is needed..... Still, lots of options. You've got a good start on a smithy!

"Too far" depends entirely on too much. Even the worst anvil face still leaves you with a horn and a hardy that can be used. Or, put it on a low stand and use it as a striking anvil to make bottom swages for your good anvil. And if it's really chewed up after decades of abuse, the heel is snapped off by some idiot's abuse decades ago and the horn wrinkled with thousands of torch cuts.... it can still be used as a weight for assembling projects.

"store" at the scrapyard That's the key, right there! Even if you don't have a scrap yard that will let you pick, you need to realize that some 'found' scraps are not rare and you don't need to secure every single bit that you find. I'm bad about picking up odd bits of rebar that I find on construction sites. Doesn't matter the size, most drops are short enough to fit in a car trunk, and I keep telling myself how handy it is for all kinds of disposable uses. Problem is that I don't seem to ever get around to using the rebar for one of those disposable uses and it keeps piling up.

"don't really need three anvils" Women sooo don't understand.... sheesh! Looks like a fantastic anvil, and that mandrel will come in very handy! Only thing I'd do is cut off the screw tabs and weld on a stem that will fit your anvils. Then you can use it on the anvil or vise. Really great addition to the shop!

Very nice work. That filework really sets it off!

Good work. The tongs will need modifying depending on what you're doing, but they are good and solid. Generally, you want the thickest part of the tongs to be the boss area around the rivet. This allows the handles to clear each other and gives a better visual balance. If they're working, you're a step ahead of the game. Now, use your tongs to make some neat stuff!

Oh, that is nice. Graceful, and cutting the disc like you did really diminishes it's visual bulk. Good job.

The way your legs go flat as they reach the terminus is good - decreases the trip hazard significantly, but gives you a wide footprint. The overall weight is something to take into account as you know your customer. You could put a socket halfway up the stalk and switch from 5/8" for the lower half to 3/8" for the upper half. Strength isn't too critical for the weight of the cups, and it would help lower the center of gravity while making it easier to transport. Overall, looks very good.

"I may be wrong but..." No, no. Always best read the owner's manual or ask experienced smiths when dealing with these new models of anvil!

Oh, she'd work a treat with copper and the like. A little anvil like that, with the vise and everything... I don't even think I'd fasten it to the bench. It's weight would be more than enough to keep relatively steady while working copper, brass and tin.

" I don't know why people bother with them" I used the think exactly the same way, hoss. Then I started thinking about them not as spikes or 6" pieces of 5/8" stock, but as preforms. Like the hooks in Nuge's example, or Red's flippers, the main part could be made out of new stock, but then I'd have to upset the head or fab a head from plate and weld it on to the shaft. With a spike, I have the head already upset and all I have to do is draw out the body. It's a tremendous time saver for a small shop and allows a hobbyist an opportunity to create something they might not have been able to otherwise. That's not to say, however, that you'll ever see me forge a railroad spike knife!

Rolling chairs for sitting around the computer usually have five legs, with a span of approximately 20". If you look at older chairs from back in the day, they only had four legs but folks found that the chair would flip out from under you when you leaned over to pick something up off the floor. The same applies to a tall stand in that a small base has to be very heavy to resist tipping, or the number of legs had to be increased so the distance between them is at a minimum. The weight needed to support a vertical column against tipping increases exponentially as the diameter of the base decreases. Microphone stands have a heavy base, but that base is less than a foot in diameter. Office chairs have a light base not because they get picked up often, but because they span approximately 20" and don't need mass to keep them from tipping over when you lean down to get something off the floor. They are relying on the number of legs (5 not 4) and the spread of those legs to prevent tipping. If they're going to be indoors on concrete floors for the most part, I'd be inclined to have someone with a waterjet or laser cut me out a doughnut from some quarter-inch plate. Cut a doughnut maybe 20" in diameter, maybe 3" wide . Have four arms radiating off of the center post and rivet or weld them to the doughnut. As the legs approach the central column, you can increase their height from the floor and add ornamental scrollwork without increasing the tripping hazard. And if you can't go with the plate doughnut, you can use a hoop made from quarter-inch round stock. Bend it into a 20" hoop. Then take another piece and bend it into a slightly smaller hoop so that the two of them nest - hoop-in-a-hoop. Join them with weld or collar or however, and have legs returning to the center column. How many nesting hoops-in-a-hoop you do will determine how heavy it is, but it would be something very easy for a basic shop to accomplish. In the end, you have a very wide footprint that has some weight to it but is very close to the floor and has a minimal trip hazard. Make it dismantle-able so the doughnut can be rolled back to the car at the end of the show. If the customer is going to have a table or two set up for display, I would try to come up with a way to brace the tall stand to the table. They're not going to want the stand too far away from eyesight or it will make thefts easier to miss. Most folding tables are less than an inch thick, so you could fabricate a c-clamp on the end of an arm to join the stand to the table. This would add great stability and decrease the risk of a tip, but would be easy to fabricate.

"The temporary braces I used to hold the top Arc are some type of adjustable bracket for a house antenna. The arms slide in and out with set screw, and the ends pivot. I have one side clamped to the table and the other side has a large magnet screwed on it." Never would have thought of such a thing, but I'll certainly keep my eyes open for one of those brackets. Might could make something in the shop what with all the scraps laying around. Great idea, hoss.

"so are you saying I need to make it thinner?" Rhett, one of the reasons a lot of smiths are using a hot cut that has a radius to the edge like Brian makes is because it reduces the surface contact area to the absolute minimum, thereby increasing the effectiveness of the hammer blows. For cutting hot metal, yours will certainly work, but it will also increase the deformation of the metal at the cut much like a fuller does. The edge is nothing nothing more than a wedge (one of the reasons they are similar in spelling, maybe) and the wider the wedge the more metal you have to move as the wedge passes through it. Many backyard smiths are making a hot-cut by sharpening the one leg of a piece of heavy angle-iron and welding a stem to the other. All that said, your piece shows great hammer control and a good eye for moving the metal in the right ways. With skill like that, you'll quickly have a smithy full of good pieces of kit.

Beautiful tools. It's inspiring to see folks taking to making tools to make tools.

Buy a piece of round stock 3/4" in diameter. From that you can make a couple sets of tongs without having tongs to begin with. There are lots of ideas in the stickies at the top of the various pages. Read through them and then decide what you have to work with.

Beautiful hammer, Mike. I had the chance to transfer to Michigan not too long ago, and one of the reasons I didn't was the proximity to Matchless Antiques! There's no way I could be that close and not spend too much of my paychecks with them.

Very nice work. I have some larger stock like that, but I dread trying to hammer on it.

Looks like a good one. Soderfors made good stuff, and the face is as good as you could ask for. The holes and such on the sides are typical. A lot of smiths would test the temper of the punches and chisels by striking them into the anvil.

The stand-alone firepot has a crack in it, but the tuyere is solid. That's a win. The two forges are solid, and both have what appears to be working air supplies. That's a win. The vise is missing the gib key, wedge, spring and mounting bracket. All of them are very easy repairs soooooo. That's a win. Overall, I wouldn't hesitate to spend the money. If you were closer, I'd buy that cracked firepot assembly from you without hesitation. All told, you have several hundred dollars worth of parts and pieces, and all of them would make you a nice smithy. Get on t before the next smart guy does!

Nice to know that even trains have to deal with potholes!