Dave M

My shops name is NightTide Metal Works. It got its name because I was doing custom fabrication on boats and at night or on off tides was the time most boat owners wanted the work done. My symbol wich I hope to make in to a touch mark is a New England oyster shell , I use it on my cards and stationary.

This is a great strart, with your help I will build an up to date suppliers list. This will help with people who are new to blacksmithing or have moved to a new area, they will now only have to look in one place. Thanks again for all of your help.

I am trying to put together an up to date coal supplier list for the USA. and Canada. I have taken some info from a search I did of the forums but I think it would be better if I got almost all the info from one place. So what I am look for Is the The name. The state it is located in. The town or city it is located in. The phone number including area code. (please if the supplier is by you give them a call to make sure they still sell coal. This will save me a ton in long distance phone calls.) Pricing if current and if it is bags, bulk or buckets. What I have found from most of the other blacksmith coal supplier lists I have found doing internet searches is that they have not been kept up, so half of the places have gone out or no longer sell coal. I think by having this information and keeping it up to date it would be an awsome resource. Thank you every body for all of your help

2 types of places I can think of to get flex pipe. 1st is HD or lowes or some other big home improvement store, the have aluminum flex pipe used for exuast vents ( this is not the lite stuff used for dryers) I have this on one of my forges and it is 3years running so far. For better flex pipe try auto part store or tracktor supply store, they use it to repair or fab up exuast systems.I will be useing this on my new shop forge I am finishing up. I see you found a drum, We use to get our grease in 20 gal. drums for heavy equipment.

I have been getting a bunch of requests to make old school heavy pipe T style clothes lines for backyards. Keeping fingers crossed that the requests for wagon wheel repairs will also pick up with raising fuel costs. Like my grandfather always said " If life gives you lemons then make whiskey sours." :o

I bought a real nice Jotul wood stove with front and side loading. It is a non cat stove that takes up to a 28" stick, it has a glass front and with a burn time of about 16 hours. It is the cost of double and triple wall 8" stainless chimeny that really hurts ( about $200 per 48" sec.) I need 28':o. I went with a wood stove because I have 10 acres of mixed wood plus lots of places up here give away pallets for free and they are hard wood. With the winter we had last year 160" of snow plus weeks of below 0 weather I am going to need all the help cutting my oil costs I can get. How sad is that it is not even july and I am worried about and getting ready for winter.;)

Living right by the ocean rust is a huge problem with any thing that is metal. In my shop and on the ocean I have had great luck with CRC SP-400 Rust inhibitor. It can be found on line and around here everyone stocks it even home depot.

Thanks for all of the replies. I was leaning towards the double horn style of anvil. I have used a couple different ones and they seemed to do every thing I want and then some. But now with home heating oil being $4.80 a gallon it looks like my new shop anvil fund is going to be diverted to the new wood stove for the house fund:(. Well here is hoping that all good things come to those who wait.

Ok here it is I think I have looked at and read all of the anvil threads to help me choose a new anvil. Like many others I would like to get a 250> shop anvil but have found that the used ones in this weight range are in rough shape and in most cases cost as much if not more then a new one. Now I am torn between which style to invest in, single horn or double horn. Now this is were all of you come in. What are the pros and cons of each. Last question lets name all of the current anvil makers. ( nimba, mouse hole, TFS ) to name a few. I just don't want to miss any of my options. As always all of you are the best supply of informed information out there:). Thanks again.

I am in the process of building 2 new propane forges, 1 small body and 1 large body. These will replace my 1st old propane forge which is not very efficient or well made. The small body is going to be a single burner round body forge made from one of those party helium tanks using a ron reil style burner. The large body forge is made from one of those spare air tanks with 2 ron reil burners. I would like to use the new body fluid soluble non ceramic blanket. This new type of blanket is made as such if fibers become air born and you breath them in the moisture in your lungs dissolves the fibers so as not to possibly be come cancerous. It cost a little bit more but I think it is worth avoiding the health risks. It comes in 1" 8# @ 2300 degrees. Is that temp high enough because I have to buy it by the roll:(? I know koawool blanket comes in heat ratings up to 2600 degrees

I have lots of 36"X36'X1/4" plates, so I thought heck no cutting great size. We use the plates to cover sewer, drain or utility holes in roads so we could pave over them. The company closed and told me to take all of the steel that we use to use. I know it is over kill but its free the only bummer is that all of the 2"X2" and 4"X4" I got are cut in 2 foot sections, too short for legs. I know I could weld them together but I don't want it to look to much like frankinforge.

I am in the middle of building a new forge table but it seems huge. The table is 36"x 36"x 1/4" and it will have a 9" x 14" vulcan fire pot. The fire pot is centered 11" from each side of the table and 8" from the back of the table, giving me 19" of table in front of the fire pot. The 14" length of the fire pot is running left to right and the 9" width is running front to back. I intend to use this forge from the sides with Hofi's side draft set up in the back giving me a nice big work area in front of the fire pot. I know what you are thinking we need pictures but right now all of the parts are just mocked up on my shop floor. I just don't want to weld up the 2"x2"X1/4" angle iron frame for the table only to have to cut it down in size. Once I get rolling on it I will take pictures of the steps.

I was going to say cork or 1 of the other bulk engine gasket materials. My blower drips a little but I don't fill it with oil, I just give it a little oil every time I use it and put a piece of cardboard under it.

It would be big enough for an over head electic rail type crane, with plenty of room for a fork truck to move stock from the full length stock racks. For fuel 1 500# propane tank and a coal bunker big enough to hold 20 yrds. Maybe 3 phase power and 2 sizes of power hammers. Heck who am I kidding, My dream shop would just have to have more paying customers:D Oh did I say a hot tub.:o

I always wear steeltoe leather boots in the shop, heck I keep them hanging in the shop ( keeps the mice out of them). Well monday I got lazy wore flip flops down to shop. Stop I know what your thinking, I am not that lazy. I did put on my boots but I didn't lace them up:(<--- dummy. It gets worse I tucked my pants in to them. To make a long story short I was torch cutting a 2" prop shaft from a lobster boat when you guessed, big old gob of white hot slag bounces down my pant leg and into my boot. I proceded to do the my foots on fire dance over to my slack tub which is a beer keg with the top cut off. Boy that was the longest 5' I have ever run. Now any shoe I wear is going to hurt like heck for some time. Shakespeare said it best " biscuits are the bane of barefoot boys" :D

The New England Blacksmiths asc. has its spring meet this weekend in Brentwood NH. just wondering if anyone is going. I wont make it today as I work from 10:30am-9:00pm. but I have sunday off so I am going to go tomorrow.

I talked with a lawyer and he has suggested the route of LLC. for the differnt things I am involved with plus good liability insurance policy. It sucks but it is worth the cost of being my own boss. The LLC. could even rent its tools and equipment from me;) , the lawyer is looking into that. The last 5 companies I have worked for have been LLCs.

I use grape seed oil and bee's wax it is food safe.

Kingdom of Heaven, its hollywood blacksmithing but its blacksmithing just the same. There is a very old german blacksmith song or part from an opera I have his copy on one of the records that you play on a vitrola but I can't read german.

I am thinking for insurance and liability reasons of becoming an LLC. In these times every one wants to sue somebody:(. I don't want to lose my house because some dirt bag drops a hot steak on his foot while using one of my BBQ forks or flippers:o. What have others done? I have to do something because I am at the point were this is changing from a money making hobby into a full time job. I do blacksmithing, fabrication, small scale welding, knife sharpening and repair. So I think it is time.

Blowers are not that hard to repair. In 2 cases I bought stuck blowers for short money $15.00 & $25.00. The first one some one at some point packed it was heavy grease that had solidified, pull it apart and soaked it in parts washer cleaner. I scrubed it with a bronze or brass brush, and reassembled and lightly oiled with my combo of hydraulic oil and honey oil. The second one had 2 problems. 1st it was locked up with rust and 2nd someone placed some washers on 2 of the gear shafts I think to take out some play in the fan. I soaked the whole gear box in hydraulic oil then I wire brushed each gear to clean away rust. I removed the heavy washer and replaced with bronze washers. Ok I did screw up putting the 2nd one back together:( 2 of the gears looked the same and I got them installed bss ackwards:o I got it figured out. Now I take digital photos of any thing I take apart. In long I would buy it.

I had to use the nitrogen because the compressed air the supplier first gave me was filthy and damp and working building this bridge in the middle of no where had big limitations. Medical grade air or breathable air works great but cost huge coin. Nitrogen is clean, dry and the price is not too bad, but it does not cut as clean as regular compressed, dry clean air. In my shop I run double filters and an air dryer on my cutter.

I just fired up my demo candy otto rivet forge that I finally finshed repairing from the damaged it got this winter. I move it out side to fire it up, I run down to the old shop for some coal. I grab a sack of coke that was there and run it up to the new shop. I build a small news paper dounut fire to get it going, grab a couple of scoops of coke and start cranking then this stinks hits me. It is nasty, I think boy I don't remember this santa coal stinking like this.:confused: So I start to shape my cone of coke with the coal rake, suprise It looks like a dead chipmunk or squirrel? Hard to tell with all the fur burned off. Oh well time to grill a burger & hot dog before work.:cool: " if its not one thing it is something else"

That is my favorite type of tool, one that is not to hard to make and the materails can be had for short or no money. When ever I talk to a soon to be blacksmiths they seem to think you need to throw a lot of money around to get started. To me it seems like you can get started in blacksmithing much cheaper then alot of other trades. Oh by the way it looked like an anvil any one would be proud to own.

This is just a tip I am not sure if this is the right section but it was sure a problem. I have a hypertherm powermax 1000 and last night I needed to cut out some parts for the blower connector and hole for my fire pot for my new coal forge and blower. The cuts looked like garbage very jagged and slagy.:mad: I make much cleaner oxy cuts so I was miffed. I checked my air pressure my filters and grounds nothing helped.:confused: Then I checked my tip and cup they were wasted. I remembered the last job I used this on was a bridge job in which I had to use bottled nitrogen. Nitrogen burns up you consumables much faster and make real ugly cuts. After replacing consumables it made my cuts look like they were done with a bandsaw:cool:.