I've been lurking here for a little over a year now and thought I might as well introduce myself to folks. My name is Tim Holloway and I live in So. Oregon. I started pounding iron about 10 yrs ago with the help of Jim Rich of Takilma Forge and Wagon Works. Jim sold me my first forge, anvil, and vise and with the fire tools I had made, was on my way. During that time I attended several Hammer-in's put on by Jefferson Smiths which sent me careening farther down the slippery slope of blacksmithing:) Unfortunately my smithing took a back burner to my day job working in the woods( treeplanting, cone harvesting, fuels reduction thinning, and various tree and critter surveying) and before I knew it all my tools were put away and smithing was something I "used" to do. My work was pulling me farther from home for longer periods of time which is difficult on a relationship so now I'm in the process of "reinventing" myself into the blacksmith that has been waiting this whole time. Maybe I'm crazy, but what the heck, life's too short and I get so inspired by some of the "crazy" stuff I see here on this site.
My friend Russell, known on this site as "poleframer" has been enabling these crazy notions by designing and building a hammer/press combo that I've been calling my 3R combo. Basically you take a Rusty style hammer, a Randy style press, give it to Russell and see what happens:) Russell posted some info and pics here of his first Rusty hammer that is powered off a hydraulic motor and this is similar but has a forging press and punching press inside the frame of the hammer. I'll work on getting some pics and video of it at some point.
Anyhoo, I'm in the process of figuring out what I can create with this contraption and loving every minute of it except that it opens up so many possibilities it's kinda overwhelming at times. I am very thankful for the wealth of information on this site and the willingness to share. I'll try to post pics of some stuff, we'll see how that goes.
-Tim