Jeff Lodge

High Carbon steel. If you're looking for junk yard steel old car springs will work. Join up with MABA and they have tuesday night hammer-ins in Romeo, MI. 

That work bench looks way to clean!

I am not much better on the tongs, but I found that practicing with clay really helped me when I was at the forge to create the boss and jaws properly. I suggest studying Brian B's clay blank or one heat tong videos. That really helped me when I was attempting my first pair. At least now I can get them to look similar. Now if I can just get the forge weld part down for the reigns. 

I must say I like the look of how it turned out with the polish vs the aged pitting. 

I believe they need to be wired for a 50 amp circuit. I think the 15amp breaker would probably trip a lot. I am not electrician, but that's my guess.

Also, if the fire pit is a copper bowl it will probably melt when you get into forging temps. I'd look up the 55 gal drum forge or look at the photos of the show me your forge post. Alot of good forges built with scrap material.

It looks like it could be the tube portion of a tattoo gun.

Here's a video from Peter Ross where he created hold fasts for the Woodwrights TV program.

http://video.pbs.org/video/2292087803

Looks good Joe. How does it work?

Dave,

Look up Tinker2. He is out your way and seems very helpful from what I've gathered in talking with him. You might be able to meet up with him and get some hammer time in.

Adam,

Since you're around the area of a few other smiths on this site I would suggest looking up a brian brazeal style striking anvil. These seem to be fairly cheap to build and would probably suit you better then a store bought anvil like a harbor freight, or other cast iron ASO. Also, you might want to get in touch with the blacksmith association down in MS and they'll probably be able to help you through getting started a lot faster.

Jeff

You could also go to the MABA christmas party on the 1st of December and talk to him there. I imagine Tim and Kathleen will be in attendance.

Also, here's Tim's website http://www.blackbearforgemi.com/

I believe that's the correct way. At least that's how I would approach it. Punch the hole for the tenon inset the back out the mounting plate to accept the peened over tenon. I am not sure if there's a way to calculate how much of a tenon you'll need to back fill the space, but good ole trial and error will probably work :)

Good work guys! Thanks for the video's

Great video production! Can't wait to see what you and Dave come up with.

Duplicate post

Looks to be about 150 - 200 Lbs Hay-Budden is my guess. Looks in real nice shape if you can score it for 2$ or under a pound you'll be happy.

It looks like it's also welded to the stand. Not how I'd like to have it mounted, but what can you do. Make sure to bring someone with you to help load it :)

I'd say it looks like a Peter Wright by the horn. My Hay Budden (170lb) horn is a lot thicker almost like a belly then this one and it's listed as 200#. And the feet look like it has a flat ledge on them which PW's seem to have.

Are there any smiths in the U.P.

Welcome Max. Where about in St. Helen? I have a friend with a cottage out on Oak road between St. Helen and Roscommon. I have a small place south of West Branch in Alger.

First off if you list your location in your profile you might find someone in your area on this forum willing to help.

I myself started here by reading a lot of the posts and gathering information on building my forge setup. I would suggest working with someone before you start gathering all the tools to make sure this is something you want to pursue. Once I found out I wanted to stick with it I took a class at a local school to get me started and I also joined the state blacksmith assoc.

As for the professional side I'll leave that to the others.

I know in the past a lot of people looking for Armour work have been pointed to http://www.armourarchive.org/
The reason being that they have a large wealth of knowledge already gather at the site, so no real point to have it recreated here.

I live in Victoria Australia haha

Yeah i got the sizes wrong in my guestimate because im trying to convert to inches and also without seeing the it at the time it can be difficult. they are both quite meaty and i dont invisage them breaking anytime soon particularly the 2nd pair haha The next set i make will be a small pair of 10" approx to use to grip something tighly while bending both in a jig and with a hammar

google image 'roof jack'

I am not sure about an offset, but I would probably just use a rain cap.

Edit: I Just looked again at the plans. I think the off set you see is the smoke shelf which to my understanding helps the draw on the gases up the flue.

Check out Beautiful Iron web site. They have a pretty nice layout listed there

http://www.beautifuliron.com/steel.htm