the iron dwarf

welcome to the mad house, im not local to you but I expect someone will be along soon who is

yup, go talk to your doc. your posts here are always ones I read and make me feel better, wish I could make such nice stuff.

but how old was the stone? yes we likes to forge underground

sometimes you need to know about different measures, at my place we sometimes make historical replicas for museums and others so we need to know about the Queen anne wine gallon, the bushel, we just made a half bushel vessel many different inches ( the US uses 2 different ones at the moment ) and the last time the inch was changed here and in the US was within my lifetime, one of us gained a millionth and the other one lost a millionth to make them the same as the international standard. inches were based on a number of barley corns originally and varied quite a bit hence napoleon was thought to be short but was exactly the same height as wellington but at the time french inches were bigger so less inches anyway I hope you have a speedy recovery and also get to spend time on here to learn lots

dont forget shaftments and els

welcome to the mad house, last weekend I was at tewkesbury selling forges and tools, back home in northants now and getting ready for a show at kelmarsh next weekend

welcome to the mad house I am from a bit south of you but if in my area any time call in for a chat and maybe the forge will be going NN14 1QF

some odd stuff followed me home today a tig welder a blue point gas analyser a firebasket a few small tools tried the welder and it works fine paid 20 uk pounds ( about $25 us

the forges I make are similar, bottom blast through a 5/8" thick cast iron tue with a single hole just under 1/2" dia, for coke no firepot, for charcoal or coal some firebricks to make the pot

there is a formula for open area to diameter so you will want to restrict the space between hood and forge

mine is 6" and it goes near horizontal for over 6' then up over 10', at the bottom of the bend I have added a venturi with surplus air from the blower, it works may get some pix tommorrow

Most of the things on youtube are wrong and a lot of them are dangerous ANYTHING BY 'KING OF RANDOM' MAY EVEN KILL YOU do not rely on false information.

a quote from your post, most of us have told people many times about concrete and plaster of paris

it is for dyeing cloth, I did not make it but just helped my associate make it for his customer, he is on here but rarely visits and goes by the name of the copper elf

at my place we do commissions of historically accurate pieces, one recently was a large 'Lead' (a vessel made from lead or copper or brass) this one was made of brass but not just any brass, it had to be a historically correct type then over 200 copper rivets with the right shaped heads and then soldered with a tin based solder as that is correct. this vessel when filled up holds one third of a ton of water we have made anvils and tools inspired by ones from the 11 century

medieval covers a long timespan, which part of it as things changed a lot ( a decade, or even a century helps ) which part of the world do you want to recreate as that can mean many things are different ( a country or better still a region of a country ) to do it accurately you need to decide these things first or your research will be wasted if you are researching " midevil " then you will not find much that is correct you choice of coal and bricks shows that you actually need to do some proper research before wasting time and money on making the wrong things

there was a copper age before the bronze age but I would doubt much armour and that was long before medieval

copper is not the best metal for armour, can you cite any original details of the armour from that period made of copper? a friend of mine works extensively with copper and its alloys making historical replicas from archeological reports, recently having made 3 brass kettles for the mary rose museum. I will send my friend a link to this thread so he can comment what type of forge are you thinking of making? by 'midevil' I presume you mean medieval?

you could tap the area around the damage with a small hammer, the sound will change if there is any more damage you cannot see, mark any area where the sound is different and post a picture of it. use the rest of the anvil, it is a small anvil for small jobs, it will work well for that and using it will shine it up, areas not used would be made to look better by rubbing in some linseed oil. do not use the anvil for big jobs or with a big hammer and it will still be in good condition when your grandchildren inherit it.

78 degrees F here this week, that is warm for this cold wet island

trees are cool, lots of shade under a tree

the details posted with your blower show it as 3 phase, if I had known I would have dug out one of the many 3 phase ones I have, they would be going cheap. this weekend we are doing an event where we will be demoing and doing a have a go, it is a land rover event near northampton. if you know someone interested you may be able to get a free lift and for the cost of admission watch us, ask questions and learn a bit john ( copper elf ) will be there and smoggy from here

never use an extension lead coiled up, it can act as a transformer specially if it has steel in the middle of it, seen 16 a leads melt with a 2 a load on it like that. a large clinker only stops us for a few minutes then its back to work have made some 8" across in the past you are less than 2 hours drive away from me and probably less than 10 miles from other online helpful smiths, some on here may be 20 hours drive away from other members. make some hardy tools if you need them, that is what I do, I need a tool to make a 6" nail into a hook, I may need a lot of them so in the morning I will make the tool if I get time

pipe threads are often measured on the nominal bore of the pipe a 3/4" pipe thread will be about 25mm the outside diameter of 1" pipe is 33.7mm but inside is about 25mm depending on wall thickness

these are not cleaned up and the welds are below too