Mylore

Well, first thing I did now was go out and look to see if it dose say "Clay befor useing", luckily no, so my wife had to stop laughing at me . I am going to go the route of the flat "straps" as the crack closed up pretty good once it cooled down. And there is no need to "stop drill" as the crack runs all the way from the blower hole to the edge. After that I will add the clay/mortar. Would any type of clay work? There is a fire place store close to my parents house that I will try for the mortar and bricks. Fianaly I am going to my in-laws this week and they have a forge for me to use, will I have the same problem there? Or can I use this one with out clay? Thanks for all the advice folks!

Well then, finally after much procrastinating I reassemble my rivet forge and have m first fire. After a few minutes of struggle getting the green coal to light and smoking out the mosquitos from my yard I get some flame! I am now as happy as can be and once I get it built up a bit I stick a bent piece of rebar in and start thinking of the projects to come, plant hangers, coat hooks ect. I pull the rebar from the fire and it is a nice cherry red in the open air, I put it back in and..... !!!BANG!!! I now have a crack runing half the length of the fire pot. So now I would like to know: a) what would cause this? Did I do something wrong or was it just its time? b)can I fix it? Weld the crack shut? or put a new layer of sheet metal down over the fire pot? I am hope that this is fixable but if not I will just have to scrounge up parts for a break drum forge.

Just wondering if anybody has or dose use wood pellets as their fuel? I remember hearing that it could be done and recently passed a pellet company on the drive to the in-laws so it would be an easy stop and grab on my way to or from the farm. Thanks for the feed back.

Well here are some of the photos: top, side and taken apart. As for what type of blower it is I don't know. Only markings I can find are 556 on one side and 557 on the other. I am sure the wife will have something to say when she sees what I was doing on the patio table. :)

I finally got a good days weather after a week solid of rain and did some work on my forge to get it running. I took the blower apart to try and clean it a bit. (Took photos if anyone want's to see them.) What was there for a gasket was on its way out. What could I use to seal the blower again? Would a high temp automotive silicon work? Any tips/hints are appreciated.

MY father in law got me this vise in an auction! Only problem is that it is missing the foot pedal to close the vise. Anyone have one like this and can give me an idea on what I need to do to get it working again?

Just a couple of things that have or will eventually make it home: My rivet forge, a second forge and a vise. The second forge and vise where won for me at an auction by my father-in-law. The rivet forge was found in an old pig ban I was helping my father-in-law clean out for the guy that bought the property, gave him and me some "salvage rights" to some of the stuff we found and I made good use of it that day. Also not shown is an old hand crank drill press that my father-in-law won at another auction.

That door knocker is great BT. Plus I just got a couple of spikes from the father-in-law's future rail road tie garden supply this weekend, with more to come! Not certain I could get the face on it, but it is now on the project list.

One thing you could look at is an American Bender. http://americanbender.com/index.html The instructor to the course I took is the Canadian dealer for them. They seem to work well for bending hot and cold stock, and it says it will do pipe with the right dies. It starts at $600 and works its way up. Hope it helps.

Just wanted to take a moment and introduce myself. I am from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. I had an interest in Blacksmithing years ago, but dad said no to a 10 y/o having a forge in his back yard. Fast forward 17 years and I found an old, sort of working, rivet forge in an old barn by the wife's parents farm. I took a weekend course in Saskatoon this winter and plan to try working in my back yard this summer. Lets see what the neighbors say and how often the fire tuck shows up! I hope to be able to have this as a hobby that might put a few bucks in my pocket, but I know that is at least a couple of summers away. In the mean time I hope it will just keep me out of trouble.