Alwin

It seems like it hasn't been mentioned, but my understanding of the reason wet forging removes scale is because the scale on the surface of the steel will be cooled by the water much faster than the rest of the material causing the scale to contract and pop off. I know a lot of us do the opposite by running a torch over cool ironwork to expand the scale and pop it off. If you don't forge the scale into the steel before you pop it off you get a very smooth surface.

Your description of the way the steel looks when you're done may indicate that you are working in an oxidizing fire. Changing where you place your steel in the fire (if you're using a coal, coke, or charcoal fire) or adjusting the propane/oxygen ratios if it's a propane forge may solve your problems.

I believe BP1003, a Hofi Blueprint, is what you are looking for.

Blacksmithing is about graceful movement (of both the smith and the steel) and that comes from using technique that is sustainable in effort and affective in moving steel. It is not about "my hammer is bigger than yours". It is about producing a product efficiently and repetitively, and one key to doing that is finding a hammer of the best size and configuration for you. There is a point at which a small hammer requires more effort for less effect, and it seems like that point tends to occur when you start getting below two pounds. There are many factors that influence one's hammer size and I am not telling anyone what they need to do. I recommend studying technique, and figuring out what works well and why.

I am skeptical of the advice you were given. It is often more taxing on the body to use a hammer that is too light. One tends to try to muscle the hammer to get more effect with a lighter hammer, often causing more damage- tendonitis. It is impossible to make a judgement without being there, but pay attention to your body. If you start hurting, other than sore muscles, stop what you are doing and change your technique. If the heavier hammer wasn't hurting you use it. You'll get a little stronger using it, and you'll move metal faster and easier. The limitation to hammer weight in my opinion has a lot to do with the strain it causes your wrists and arm when you are working at angles and starting and stopping a lot. I find that a three to three and a half pound hammer works best for me, but that is after 10 + years of forging.

When forging a leaf shape use the pein of the hammer and work from the center of the metal out towards the edges. That will allow you to make leaves with nice shapes and no sharp edges.

I make corkscrews often. I forge the steel to the desired taper- one that is small enough that it doesn't tear the cork but large enough that it doesn't deform easily. Then I bend the taper where it begins being the right size for the corkscrew at an angle a little less than 90 degrees. I heat starting from the base of the taper. When the base of the taper is glowing brightly I take it to the anvil and hold it so that the taper is pointing at the sky. I use my hammer and gently push the taper clockwise looking from the direction the tongs are holding the steel. While the steel is really hot you'll get a nice smooth curve. Once I get as much of a loop as the heat will allow I use the edge of the anvil to keep the slope of the corkscrew consistent and the flat of the hammer and anvil to keep the diameter consistent. It is a quick back and forth as the loops of the corkscrew form. The steel is thin so it heats and cools very quickly. With a little practice they can be made so that little or no adjustment is needed after they're formed on the anvil.

The videos I like the best on youtube are the 5 or 6 part series on the reproduction of a Samuel Yellin gate overseen by Francis Whitaker. It is found very quickly by searching for "ornamental wrought iron". Another one you might enjoy is a brief video of Bea Hensley playing music on the anvil. He is an 86 or 87 year old smith in Western NC who learned from Daniel Boone VI ( Daniel Boone VI was the uncle of Daniel Boone VII who is famous for his dragons. Daniel Boone VII is also the father of Mike Boone whom some of you may have seen demonstrating or in articles in the Anvils Ring. I always find the interconnectedness of this world fascinating.). To find Bea search for "B Hensley". I've seen him play quite a few different songs on his anvil besides just making nonspecific music on it. It is one of those skills I'd love to develop.

Drop tong welds are no problem in gas forges? I just have never seen one done with gas. They are different from the weld knife makers are usually doing which is a faggot weld in which clean surfaces are placed together and fluxed around. Knife makers are also using high carbon steel, usually, which melts about 400 degrees lower than mild steel. I am asking if you have done a weld in which two pieces are taken from the forge, put together on the anvil and welded. If so, I would like to know what the forge you used was like and how you set up the steel. I do those welds all the time in my coal forge so I am familiar with the process, but there are many variations that make a difference.

I am curious about whether people have had much luck with drop the tong welds in a propane forge, and if so how they set the forges and steel up to do it. I also wanted to add that I use an 8" pipe for my side draft coal forge and my shop is smoke free even when I'm starting the fire. One just has to keep coke in the middle and coal on the edges.

Glenn, I edited my profile. I'm in Asheville, NC. I teach two weekend beginning blacksmith classes at John C. Campbell Folk School. I also do a great deal of demoing, largely with the Southern Highland Craft Guild which promotes crafters in the Southern Appalachian Mtns.. I have a website which hasn't been updated in two years and lacks pictures of custom work but still will give you an idea of what I do; www.wagenerforge.com..

Setting the anvil in an inch or two of sand which you put on top of the baseplate will have the same effect on dampening the ring as what you are doing now.

I would guess that the reason the hard hit allowed the metal to stick is because it broke through the layer of oxidation that had formed around the steel. In my experience the welds that only take when you hit them hard are quite weak. To forge weld, you heat the metal to the point at which the surface of the steel is starting to turn into a liquid but the core is still solid. At that temperature, you can take the metal from the fire and mix those surfaces with hammer blows. Hard hammer blows force much of the liquid( or almost liquid) metal that you are mixing out from between the pieces. Light fast blows work best for mixing the liquid metal surfaces and allow for the most molecular bonds to take place between the surfaces. When forge welding half inch square mild steel with only a little upset into one piece on which it is hard to find the weld, I find that when the steel is at room temperature I can consistently bend the bar almost 180 degrees before the weld starts separating.

I do a lot of forge welding. I have had the experience of having metal in the fire where it looks really close to being at welding heat but just won't get sticky. It generally is caused by a clinker or occassionally a full ash dump blocking the air flow. The metal will just sit right below welding temperature and develop a thick layer of oxidation. Make sure you have at least three inches (depth that's needed will vary with air flow and the size of the material-bigger material needs more heat to get to temperature and therefore more coke) of coke below your metal, an inch of clinker and two inches of coke will cause your metal to be in an oxidizing fire. The key to getting a really strong weld without reducing the stock size much at all, is using a few welding heats with only fast light blows, and only hitting the steel when it is at welding heat. A very short scarf overlap will make the weld much faster than a longer one and is generally easier to blend in.

I have been very happy with my nc tool whisperbaby. I've had it for about 5 years now, and still go about 15 hours on a twenty lb. tank. It used to be about 17hrs. I can work on long pieces using the door in the back of the forge, and it has plenty of room to work on multiple smaller items. It is also very portable which makes it an ideal demo forge.

I made a stand for my anvil out of steel following suggestions from Elmer Roush. The sand is ideal for setting the anvil in, and the way I prevent my anvil from sinking is by first attaching angle iron on opposite sides of the inside of the stand about 4 or 5 inches below the anvil. Fill the stand with sand to about two inches above the angle iron. Next make a plate that will fit fairly tightly into the box; I put a slit in the center of mine to allow me to remove it more easily. Take the plate, set it on top of the sand, and tap on it to make sure the sand has filled all the space below. Take the plate out, add more sand if it looks like it needs more to have 2 to 3 inches of it over the angle iron, and place the plate back in. Add a few inches of sand on top of the plate and seat the anvil in it. The small distance between the angle iron and the plate makes it very hard for the anvil to sink because the sand doesn't compact and has no place to move. I have used a stand of this style for probably about three years and I love it. The stand is too heavy to walk around easily when I'm working on it, the anvil stays level, and with just a little sand around the base the ring disappears from the anvil.

I bought the 335 lb. euroanvil in 2003, and I've been very happy. The face dented fairly easily at first but after 4 years of use it seems to have gotten a bit harder. It takes a lot to dent it and the size is just right. When I'd dented it in the past I would just use a flap disc on an angle grinder and lightly go over the whole face to keep it smooth-you can stretch metal faster when you have less resistance. For a solid stand that reduces the noise of an anvil better than anything else I've seen, I took the advice of Elmer Roush. I made a steel box with four sides and a bottom out of 1/4 inch steel. I made the box the size of the anvil's base. Then I welded two pieces of angle iron inside the base on opposite sides; I welded them about five inches below the height I wanted the base of the anvil to sit. Then, I cut a piece of steel to sit inside the stand. That piece of steel should fit inside the box without a whole lot of space on the sides. I did cut a slot big enough for my fingers in the center of the plate to allow me to hold it. The stand was filled with sand to about four inches above the height of the angle iron. Next, the steel plate was placed inside the box and tapped with a hammer to compress the sand. The plate was removed, a little more sand was added, and the plate was put back in. About an inch of sand was added on top of the plate, and then the anvil was placed on top of it. The anvil was adjusted to level. The final step was adding about an inch of sand around the base of the anvil. After working on it briefly all the sand compacts and all the high pitch ring disappears. The squeezing of the sand between the angle iron and plate prevents the anvil from sinking into the sand- keeping the anvil level, and the weight of the sand and anvil makes a stand so heavy that it doesn't move easily even when working on a smooth floor.

It is like the water cooled side blast forges. The fire pot and the table around the firepot are cooled by being in constant contact with water that circulates underneath. You just have to keep the water level above the level of the forge table top, which is why you make the water tub to hold a large volume of water.

I made a fire pot from 1/4inch diamond plate steel, but I have no desire to frequently rebuild it so I built a water jacket underneath the fire pot and forge. The water jacket is 17" wide, 6" deep and extends for 36" with the last 6" going past the back of the forge. On the 6" that extends past the back, it is open on top and extends an extra 6" up, making a total of 12" in depth for the last 6". There is enough volume to use the forge all day and just top the water off the next day when I start again. I have been using this forge as a primary means of heat in a fulltime blacksmithing business for a year now without trouble. I had priced firepots, and it seemed like this design would be cheaper than a cast fire pot and easily fixable by myself. As a bonus it is an excellent humidifier for the shop in the winter.