ThomasPowers

I thought your crayons were cast into a ribbon burner block?

Ah yes kaleidoscope thighs syndrome...I really wonder about the folks who want a sharp point on their anvil horn....

look around a bit and you can find my description of bringing two army dufflebags; one with nearly 50 pounds of coal in it and the other my dirty quad-state camping clothes and all the metal stuff I bought there in the other one.

We always used to cook steak and sausages in our bloomery---keep them in the reducing flames at the top---they can't oxidize that way and cook way quick!

open the tank slowly to keep the excessive flow preventer from kicking in. Some valves seem to need a sharp rap to disengage it after it has engaged AND THE TANK IS TURNED COMPLETELY OFF. If your tank is "fussy" about the excessive flow preventer, exchange it with another.

When we had Thanksgiving with the kids and grandkids I brought a forge for the adults and several small (couple of pounds at most) steel anvils and let the kids forge no lead plumbing solder on them a goodly distance but in sight of the adult play area. One of my kids was given a small metalshop made steel anvil for her 0th birthday by some of our friends...

They are used with a sledge, So you don't have to hold the wedge and start it with the sledge one handed. it also helps keep the log upright as you split it.

Paint some radiation trefoils on it to amuse your neighbors!

got that one nailed!

Tally-Ho! Unfortunately there is still a lot of possibilities in that question. When I teach new students; making their first S hook takes quite a lot of time and that's with a trained and experience smith helping them along. In a class of 5 college students running 4 hours we are lucky to get a 1/4" sq stock S hook, two nails and a chili pepper forged from black pipe done in 4 hours. (Focus and not bringing a phone to class helps a lot!) I could probably work all 4 simultaneously and be done in under 20 minutes... Some people have an innate talent; some people have hammer experience doing construction; some people have to be trained which end of the hammer to hold. When I started I often had Weygers' book in one hand and the tongs in the other hand and things seemed to take a long time...and the book has big black smudgy thumbprints in it.

Blacksmithing has a strong "time in grade" factor. More time usually results in better results even if your equipment isn't "perfect". I've seen a number of people who were quite upset that their perfect set up was producing poor work while other people were using improvised set ups and doing great work---the difference was the amount of time they had put into learning and practicing the craft! You sound like you have a great place to work; can you get your kids to strike for you during vacations?

looks like you have the shakes; too many stress concentrators

I left a couple standing proud at the top of my artificial stump to act as handles for moving it. But I agree that trimming the lower ones will make them less a catch your clothing hazard.

Depends on the dumplings! I've had some in Germany I loved and some that were library paste balls. My wife does a chicken and dumplings to die for; she always makes a double batch of dumplings as we will fish them out and fight over them otherwise. Now we're adding a small can of hatch chili to the pot during the cold months.

Once you have pulled the pin Mr Grenade is no longer your friend! I liked the picture show!