rand3596

Brian,
As always - thank you , thank you!
Tim

Nice, I was looking for a good way to transfer lay-out lines to my workpiece so that I could still see them when hot, and presto...
A simple yet brilliant post shows the way. Thanks to everyone who shares their successes and failures, trial and error works so much better when you don't have to make every mistake yourself to find a success.

I have used muratic acid a bunch to power wash stains off of drive ways, great for rust and oil spots, cost under 5 bucks a gallon at lowes/ home depot. in the cleaner sections,

Oh as a side note, you'll need to be over 18 to buy it as it is a main ingredient in a aluminium foil/draino bottle bomb that kids blow up mailboxes with.

Just an added note. That would be printed circut board etchant not the nasty toxic pcb found in transformers.
Ken.

I have used muratic acid a bunch to power wash stains off of drive ways, great for rust and oil spots, cost under 5 bucks a gallon at lowes/ home depot. in the cleaner sections,

This design can be used for all solid fuels, and the tub is a galzanized washtub. the clay combo mentioned by zampilot will work, as well as just plain old out ofthe back yard clay, mixed with sand, or you can buy refractory cement. I'm just not sure where to find the cement.

I have made a livey style forge this month also, one thing I altered was the blower system, I made the mine with the straight pipe also, but instead of capping the end off, I made a swivel plate on the end. The reason for this was that I use a 20 dollar vacuum (wet/dry vac cap for 5 gallon buckets) on exhust to push the air into the pipe. the plate acts as a governor on the air flow, The more I block the end of the pipe the high the air pressure exiting into the forge. Biggest draw back so far is the noise of a small vac while heating metal, but the process works great.

As for the adobe mix I used potter's clay from a craft store, sand, and a couple of handfuls of wood ash to make it. Equal parts sand/clay, just enough water to make it mix together, and the two handfuls of ash. takes a good 5 days to a week to dry enough to put any fire into it. And while the adobe is a great insulator, you'll prolly want a bench or stand to mount the forge on so you're not bending over all day while working. great examples in the pics above.

Wow that is a beautiful hammer.

Minor update, it now has a new stump to sit upon.

White oak 20" tall by 18+" diameter. Not quite as old as the anvil but pretty close. Probably heavier, though.It's a piece of a tree that used to be in my front yard, the state took it down when they widened the road, and I convinced the tree crew to leave it. My kids and I counted the rings and came up with a rough guesstimate of 1895 on the tree's age and that was about 6 years ago. I knew I wanted it for a reason. I still have about 20 linear feet of log left, I'll get it sawn up eventually. On a practical note, there's a reason that lumberjacks don't use electric chainsaws. Somehow I managed to cut this chunk off with a 14" bar ele and it'll take about ctric chainsaw. Only took two days worth of work, and just about killed the saw. Don't laugh, it's all I had to use and was much better than a handsaw. Not reccomended.

Hey if you want to make that log into usable planks, look up a local woodmizer owner, their saws are portable and it'll take about an hour to cut it into what ever size planks you want. I have a beautiful stack of red oak planks that I had milled to 2" thick and range from 16" wide to 20" wide. I also use alot of the cut off ends to make my hard wood charcoal. It cost me 100 dollars to have it cut, but well worth it.

Been working on building a Livey style of forge, did all the work myself and had the first fire today. I don't have a nice hand crank blower so I used a bucket wet/dry vac. on the exhust mode. I had to make a swivel plate to have control over air volume, which works really well. I also bolted mine to a nice raised plate from the scrap yard to make it have a base that can set pretty much anywhere without worrying about burning anything.
I also finished a bench to set the whole forge on, made it out of a large oak tree I cut down a couple years ago. All in all, a pretty nice work area.
My biggest problem at this point is getting enough wood to turn into charcoal, I have been burning off the wood gases in sealed containers to produce it. That part is working great, and the charcoal is a very smooth burner.
Hoping for continued success, and that my adobe making skills hold up to the heat of the forge fires.

Oh I have a large one foot square of steel for larger work, just thought for the price this was a must buy, I am looking for a larger anvil for normal work.

Okay I cleaned it up yesterday, and put a new coat of paint on it. the hammer is to add a little scale to it's size.

Was able to get my first anvil today, it's a small 24 lb one, but is in great shape. asked the man at the scrap yard if they ever came across any of them, and he happened to have one. Perfect timing as I just finished building a small charcoal forge.