Cory

Shop name(Dragon Lake Forge), this name comes from the Largest man made lake in the mid west that the locals refer to as Dragon Lake. The Osage river was damed at what is now Lake Ozark Missouri 1929. I live about 5 miles from the lake and thought that as fitting a name as any.You can look at the map and see why it got that name. The lake has about 1150 miles of shoreline.Much of the power in this area comes from this dam.

I just finished welding up my new forge pan for a 400 whirlwind firepot & 400 blower on stand. I have recessed the fire pot so it sits level with the forge pan all the way around, where the metal slides in the firepot trough.The firepot is supported by 1/4 x 3/4 flat tacked to the bottom of forge pan 1/4 in. plate. My question is how much of a gap should I leave for the firepot to expand.I have about an 1/8 now, thinking thats a little tight thought I would ask. Thanks for any input

I bet the only reason they are not made that way is beacuse they wouldn't sell as many tips

Rual Heritage had a half hour show with a blacksmith this week, he made a long horn staek turner out of a RR spike.The same guy was on a couple of weeks ago making leaf key rings. I cant tell by the schedule if this is going to be a regular thing just have to tune in, its always a good show anyway.

Just watched a show on HGTV called dream builders that had a segment featuring Enrique Vega, he was making a dragonfly for an element in a handrail. You can check hgtv.com for schedule.

Ed I used to work at a place that did nothing but handrail and long dock sections.They had I beam tables, these were 6 or 8 inch I beams.They were 20 feet long to do dock sections but could easily be shortened to do rail only.This set up is nice because it is open in the middle and you have no welding spatter that collects on the table.We did straight pickets only not much good for scrollwork rail.The way they had it set up was on pipe pedestals with a 4 foot lenght of beam welded horizontal on the pipe pedestals and the long beams run across the 4 foot beams.One long beam was tacked down and the other was not so it could be moved and then clamped down for different applications.The end of the table would need to be squared for doing angled rail.Any handrail I ever worked on never was as straight as the table anyway, always a degree of warpage no matter how you jig or clamp it down.

bought three nice 2x8 whet stones ( oil stones ) for knife sharpening the other day at a farm auction. Can anyone tell me the best way to get the dirty junk off of them. Looks like they were in the guys blacksmith shop for years. Thanks for any advice

Sounds like both of you have seen it. If memory serves me I believe the girl was making a bowl from the copper disk Glenn. There was also a student making an axe and it showed the process of drifting the eye

Had a real bad fly problem this summer in the shop, hundreds if not thousands. I remembered seeing and asking about the bag of water hanging from the wall at the local watering hole, they said it was to get rid of the flies. Well the skeptic that Iam I didn't give it much credit at the time. I never did figure out what they were after but they didn't stick around long after I hung a large zip lock bag half full of water above the anvil and one by the slider on the shop. Almost all were gone by the next day.

Mouko I have been on campus many years ago. Had friends that went there for other classes. I did catch a program that the history channel ran a while back and there was a 20 minute segment on the metals, blacksmith shop. It showed a girl working in a coal forge and she had two male strikers helping her. The shop looked very well equiped. The program was all about metals and is well worth watching if you ever get the chance to catch it.

Dan, Mouko The courses offered at SIU are well worth looking into. Courses at Carbondale have been offered for 30 years or so and have had some well known blacksmiths & damascus bladesmiths get their start there. Carbondale was only 55 miles south of where i grew up, if it weren't for a priority disorder ( I.E. full time job and full time girlfriend ) I would have gone fresh out of high school. Oh to be 18 again. Don't let things get in the way of your dreams if you are seriour about this craft! I would guess that the courses at Edwardsville are about the same but research is always a good idea and much easier than it used to be. Sorry I don't know about the fine art degree part of it. You may be able to get more info. from SIU website as well. I am sure I am like many others here that wish they would have gotten started at such a young age. Best of lick to you, it sounds like you have a good goal