yves

Thanks everyone.

My vise's screw is dirty ans sounds like I'm grinding metal when I turn the handle. I'll clean it with kerosene but what do you lubricate it with? And when the minus 30 degrees hit us up here what will still turn? Thanks.

I had set aside trying to punch square holes because I could not find a way to place the holes accurately. I was waiting for you no doubt... Thus, two centerpunch marks at two corners "et voilà"! Thanks John B.

salut, Dites nous où vous êtes en France s'il vous plaît. Welcome to the forum. If you are not a blacksmith and want to become one, like me, this is a great place to start. If, unlike me you are a blacksmith, everyone here will be greatfull for your knowledge.

Maybe we can always do better. Maybe. But not on a given object, not on a given piece. We have to let it be at one point. You cannot pound perfection in a piece of metal by hitting it till kingdom come. When you have satisfied function and you have given the best form you can, you can throw it away or give it to your customer. Will it be imperfect even if you decide to give it to the customer? Probably. Will it be flawed? That is another question. An imperfection is not necessarily a flaw. When a hook can fill its function, when you can hang something on it, the function is not flawed. And if you can hang on it the objects you aimed at hanging on it, the hook is somehow perfect. What would it mean for a hook to "better" receive a tool? When it comes to form, the discussion is more arduous. I was a weaver for a number of years. Like in forging, experience permits one to produce professionnal objects. Perfection, however, was a problem : when a client came to pick up a tablecloth one day, she said I was reselling an industrial piece of cloth because the sides of the cloth were perfect. There were none of the zigzags one makes in the first years because he does not throw the thread with the same weight all along the material. In this case perfection itself was not only an imperfection but (perceived as) a flaw. People who buy objects from artists expect to meet the artist in the piece they buy. A client who buys a handle for a garden gate from me is crazy. My handle is 25$ while he can get one from a chain store for 4$. The cheap one shot out of a machine would fill the function. What my client pays for, is something above the function. He pays for a relationship with someone. He wants to be able to say that "someone made this". There must be a mark he can point to to support what he claims. Style is our mark. Our objects have style. Are we happy with our mark? Or does our mark amount to a flaw? Can we proudly sell the piece or not? If we can sell it, our mark, then, is not an imperfection. It is our mark. Our mark can get better in the sense that we will be proud more often, in the sense that the style of the last object has more appeal than the style of the first object. We forge our style as we forge. Our mark itself is not an imperfection. And when it gets better, our mark, more people desire the objects we forge. But our mark is still there. Perfect? Never ever. It is something we cannot achieve. Is it something we can want? Is it something we know or can even recognise? Where do we find it? Who has ever seen it? What would it mean for a forged hook to be perfect? Forging perfection is not a practical plan.

I just started a few months ago. I read books , the ones mentioned and others. I bough all the tools I could afford. I hammer as much as I can. But I will go seek the advice and instruction from an experienced smith in september. I have questions for him. I believe the advice of experienced people should answer question you have. Otherwise some of the instruction is lost. We do not see the importance of something because of our lack of knowledge even if the instructor tells us it is important. So I recommend that you start by heating it up and hitting it. Then seek instruction from a master when you know what you want to learn precisely, things like why does that bar twist when I hit it, things like that. Good luck to you. Yves

I agree with Mr Powers. However, Mark Aspery says that you are not a forge welder until you have done 1000 welds. He adds that the ones you miss, the ones you drop, count. I only try to add a few, checking all that is said here an elsewhere and trying again the next day. I must say that if not succeeding is a frustration, you might want to stay away from welds. But being alone up here I must try and try again. And I am not frustrated with the misses, not yet. It's the only way I have, reading and trying. And I enjoy it. That is why I recommened it.

Hi, Please tell us where you live. As for first projects, being a beginner, I looked at what I needed in my home, hooks for my pots, hooks for all the keys, mine and my woman's,bars around my butcher block to hang towels, all my shop doors have pulls now. I also attempted welding and try to do so (one or two) every day I work. I made tools for the forge, to handle the coal, the fire, hold ons for the anvil. I watch videos of brianbrazealblacksmith and try to copy his horse head. There are also the videos of Mark Aspery to copy. Copying the moves of experienced blacksmiths is, in my mind, a good way to learn while doing. Beginning in blacksmithing is like beginning to sell insurance : the apprentice buys some, sells some to his family and then to the neighbors and then... and so on. Start with your needs. You already do things for friends, you have a good start. Keep on. Good luck. Yves

My smithy is round. You can see what it looks like here : But, like Mr Powers said, it depends on what you do. I make small harware. It is the best set up for what I am doing at this time. Look around this site. It's full of great ideas. Yves

Fee-Wood, Here are some pics of projects: These are my first brianbrazealblacksmith horse heads. I use them as paper weights. I gave some away. This is my first duck's head hammered from the instructions given in Anvilfire. I keep it like the horses' heads as souvenirs. I have used the ducks to hold the gutter above the doors of the forge: and to decorate angle brackets I made as a "commission". I try to always make a copy of what I sell, and create an inventory for prospective clients, something to show. ,. I had another demand for brackets. I will be delivering tonight. I include the screws (black). The customers are always happy because they can set up the stuff right away. , A hook for my woman's straw hat,; Bolt. I made 3 of those as per the customer's requests, A hook. Hooks are helpfull when you begin. They make you believe you can make it! A woodworking holdfast, My anvil's holdfast. I try to make some nails every day either to start the day or to use the last embers in the fire just before quitting for the day. My first try at knotting some steel, A handle, There is also an important project, a table. It is still only a drawing, though it is life size. I have to learn to assemble steel with collars (brianbrazealblacksmith has something very interesting here in IFI) since this is what the design I presented to the client calls for. Collars and welding (Mark Aspery says that it takes 1001 welds for one to call himself a forge welder and that the ones that dont work or that we drop count towards the 1001 welds. I got 8 or ten... attempts not welds...), these are my immediate pojects. Again, IFI is so necessary for some one like me and a lot of us who are alone and try to enter the fascinating world of the smith.

I store my coal on the "first floor". The ceiling in the forge is ten feet high. There is a beam at 20 feet ready to receive the wood and the steel for a second floor if I ever need the space for storage. On the beam up there I have another chain block. I'm too old now to lift 50 pound bags up a ladder. There is a lot of open space up there. It's nice to have.

I will have pictures. I'll try today. I do hesitate to post some when I see what all of you people hammer out. I am a beginning beginner. What I make, you guys hammer with your eyes closed. You can see every hammer blow on my stuff. However, some people have ordered stuff fom me and they want to see the marks of the hand. Ok, enough for apologies. I will be back with pics.

You may eat with the first one when nobody is looking.

No, never hot, rather cool with the cement walls. If I would have a complaint with the silo, it would be the humidity. The side draft chimney helps with ventilation however.

When I work with wood, in the morning, I pick up and put away ten tools. Its a rule. There are ten tools to be put away because the heat in never on and never going away in wood. You have the time to wonder where you left that chisel. This not so with hot iron. The tools must be right there and when you need them. To tell you frankly, I am also surprised at the clean place I keep. Also, the place is so small, I cannot affoard to loose space. It is efficient for me. I am a beginner and need to take some control. Maybe, one day, it will look like my wood shop. Who knows.

Finaly the installation of my forge is satisfactory. I am happy with it. I would like to share it with you in return for picking through the ideas of everybody on IFI. The smithy is in the silo. I made the doors and the benches for my old (older than me) friends who come to tell me about the time their brother was a smith, and their grand-father a farrier and that these days are ... Come on in. It's 14 feet in diameter, which gives me roughly 150 square feet. The anvil, the vise and the swage block are all one step away from the forge. Fumes and smoke are evacuated with a highly efficient side daft chimney. I must thank particularly Uri Hofi and Dave of the "custerfamilyfarm" for sharing their knowledge in this matter. This side draft chimney is highly efficient eventhough it does not climb higher than three quarters of the silo. There is absolutely no smoke in the smithy even when I start the fire. It is probably due to the fact that the silo is round and that wind accelerates to the right when it commes to an obstacle (in our northern hemisphere). At any rate, I had all the materiel to push the chimney over the top of the silo. I did not use it. The flues are 12 inches and the cap is a "Low loss stack cap" as proposed by Jock Dempsey on Anvilfire. My blower. The anvil sits on a sand box made of steel. I do not have to wear ear protection. It was designed so that I may have regular hammers and tools right at hand. The anvil is 125 kilos (275 lbs). The vise is bolted to the floor. It is a The swage block. I have to complete the stand so that the block will not move when in use. The hammers I more rarely use, the handled flatters, punches & friends sit in hooks made from 1/8" x 1/2" flat and bent cold. The same type of hooks permits me to keep the steel I use most in good order, standing on the wall. The rods do not fall out of the opened hooks but are easily stood there and taken away. Of course, I have room for more. It will be used shortly. Swinging on a column, is a "crane" with a chain block. Above the chain block in this pic is the trap I use to hoist my coal upstairs. In this pic, the crane is put away. I use it to lift heavy material and to hold long bars I cut. Very usefull. Finaly, this is the wood stove I use in the winter. It heats the sand box on which the anvil sits and if you drop snow on the box it realy melts. The heat is of course good fot my bones, but it also heats the anvil. I start the fire in the morning before breakfast. When I come back to the smithy, it's too hot! Again I want to thank all of you for the ideas, for so generously sharing your knowledge.

I polish some of my work with fine sand rubbed with a leather mitten. It does not leave the scratches that sandpaper will. It is a way to highlith hammer work.

Paid 350$ for six inch Cleveland in perfect condition. Rare stuff around here.

A car accident has left me with ankle and leg problems/pain. When after thee years I finaly agreed to take some medication for the pain (no side effects on me and not addictive) I was able to work full work days. When we "take" the pain, that's what we do. We are better off working. I wish you the best of luck. Yves

Sir, I never was attracted to scrap metal. You changed my mind.

I cut the metal in ten feet lenghts and stand it along the wall. Each dimension has its own open hook so they neither mix nor fall even standing straight.

I just installed a smithy with an overhead hood and 8" exhaust. ... It does not work well. It's fine for the wood stove but not for the forge. I am getting prices and will order 10" exhaust pipe and will go with the Hofi style side draft super sucker . Look for the subject here in IFI (see BP1048 Side Draft Chimney). The pics posted by one of us on the matter of the side draft are quite an argument to go down that road (http://custerfamilyfarm.com/blog1/index.php?blog=4&title=oh_the_finishing_of_the_forge&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1#comments). ... After lookin at your pics, I believe my comment is out of place.