Dave M

Some cast iron cookware has become very very collectible. at auctions and antques shops:o. I also say old brake drums work great, I just got one for free from a school bus from the junk yard when I told the I was making a coal forge for a kid who wants to get into blacksmithing. 1 brake drum, 1- 4" schd 40 cast tee Y, 4"cast iron drain grate, old weber grill frame and a busted up shop vac. Every thing was free except for the tee Y and drain grate. You should have seen the kids face when we fired it up and when we were done I told him and his dad to load it up and take it home with a set of tongs we made and a modified ballpeen.

Non cash deal are some of the best, I just traded custom stainless meat hooks for 10lb deer jerky & 10 lb deer burger. I am in southern maine I am finishing up construction of my new shop. I am building a new gasser as I sold mine to pay for tools needed to build the new shop. I would like to hook up with local smiths once my shop is done. Right now I am trying to come up with more cash for vent pipes and roofing, I think by mid to end summer. New England Blacksmiths has a smithy in Brentwood NH. New England Blacksmiths I know they have classes and open forge time, thier site has all the info. Also New England School of Metal Works in lewiston ME. use to have open forge time you could rent plus they have Great classes:)

So last night I am moving my blacksmithing tools, stuff and supplies out of my basement and make shift shop in our old small garden shed into my new shop which is 85% complete. I try to pick up this dirty old box out from under a bench, well it is heavy and I have no clue to what is in it. I open the box and to my suprise:o there is a new centaur forge heavy duty vulcan fire pot asy. with dumping ash gate and clinker breaker. Ok ok it gets better inside the first box is a second box and in this one there is an air gate and a dayton blower with speed control. I bought this stuff from some guy on e-bay 5 years ago, he bought it for his son who thought it would be cool to be a blacksmith and make swords well he changed his mind and got into paint ball, he never even opened the boxes. So I find the invoice in the box, Hang on to you hats I paid $115 with shipping for all of this. Now the hard part I have to wait until I get the in side layout of the shop set up before I can weld up a new table for it.:(

I don't just shut off the power switches but I shut down at the breaker box. The only thing left on all the time in my shop is a fan that stop condensation. I too tie all of my driving together in 1 day if I can like the dump, scrap yard, post office and food store one big loop. The high prices are changing customers budgets in a big way, they don't have to have custom wine racks, candle holders, boot scrapers, ect. or garden ornaments these are luxuries in tight economic times. Not all doom and gloom my welding and sharpening services have taken a jump up. People are trying to fix and maintain instead or throwing out and replacing.:D

Some types of rods are AC. or DC. only. I am a bit rusty on stick welding but I think that DC. reverse polarity for welding over head and out of position with 5 P rod was the best way. I thought that it penitrated rust and paint better and that DC. the welds are cleaner with less splatter and you have better arc control and start. Lastly I think that DC. straight polarity welds thinner stock better. The down side is stick machines and tig machines that do both AC/DC are almost always twice as much money. The good thing about AC. only machines they are almost imposible to kill.

Up date. I built a 10" ring jig I have tested it ot on some scrap flat stock and it works good. I will post pictures when I get a chance. Now lets hope they except my bid. I would really like to get going on this project as it will be high profile and could bring more work. Thank you all for your help. I will be fabing up 1 of those benders also.

20 ft 2"X1/4' flat stock $35.00 on friday, same piece $38.00 yesterday:mad: 1 foot schd 40 pipe $48.00 and none of it made in the USA. Canada & China:o stamped on them. I no longer give job quotes based off of past jobs because the steel mill that I purchase my steel from told me that the prices change ( go up ) daily and some times twice a day. Oh and they use to deliver any order over $200.00 now it is is on orders over $350.00. It looks like its time to build a rack extender for my truck or trailer so I can still pick up full length sticks.

Once a year I pay to dump it off with 1 of those hazardous waste companies that offers a public hazardous waste day, that way I have a end user's certificate from them showing I did the right thing with my waste. Later on in life if I sell my shop and house when a buyer asks what did you do with all the chemicals and waste your shop made I can show them the paper work. The cost $40-$150 US. that includes some unused household chemicals too.

Thanks for all of the replies. The rings are going to be part of a support for a store display system. I can't go into more detail at this time of what the display is for. The 10" rings have to be round as there will be another piece that will fit into them but the tolerances do not have to be perfect as I left my self some big wiggle room. I did price out having a bigger fab shop either roll the rings for me or bandsaw cut the schd 40 pipe for me either way it would cost about $120.00 and I would have to pass that cost on to the customer, making my bid much less competitive. I think I will use the suggestions that most of you made about forming the rings from flat stock. I am going to take the risk of making a jig for this job because if the store likes my work it might lead to them purchasing more of these displays for me. I may be jumping the gun but last night I drew up full scale prints for this job on my shop floor for the layout. Now lets hope I get the job. As more money comes into my shop I will be looking at a bandsaw and a boss pedestal ring roller. My blacksmith & fabrication shop is part time for me at this time but I am right on the edge of being able to make it my full time job.:cool:

I need to make 4 - 10" diameter rings by 2" by 1/4" . I don't know if it would be easier to plasma cut them out of schd 40 pipe or form them out of flat stock? If I form them out of flat stock I don't have a ring roller, what would be the best way to form a perfect ring? I think I have been at the rest of this project to long and I am over thinking this part.

I will recomend against using gold lens welding hoods. Here is the reason, the gold coating on the lens is easy to scratch and if you don't know its scratched or can't see the scratch or scratches you will get flashed through these scratches and not even know it until it is too late. Last year I was welding new floor plates into the beds of Cat rock trucks & end dumps all day with my fancy gold lens welding hood, by bed time it felt like I had ground glass mixed with sand in both of my eyes. Now before you think I may have gotten back flashed of the surface I was welding I modify all of my welding hoods with a snap on leather throat protector, this cuts down on fumes getting in my hood and my throat getting flash burned. Upon shinning a flashlight through the lens I could see light coming through the scratches.:mad: Now that hood has been refitted with an auto darkening lens.:cool:

I think that most peoples images of blacksmiths come from movies & TV. So if they see westerns then blacksmiths shoe horses or if it is a fantasy movie or some show based on historical events then the blacksmith is a sword maker or armorer. It is the same for me also when people find out I am a blacksmith & fabricator they always ask what type of knives I make. I let them know I have made some knives but I make more hardware and art elements then anything else. The archery pro shop I work at part time has a large knife department, I am amazed at how many people are fasinated by knives. It is not just young men, it is everyone women, men, boys, girls old and young people love knives and swords. I guess they make people feel safe and a little dangerous like a outlaw or rebel. To me they are tools and works of art.

Thanks everyone. I already welded the table with some cast rod but I did drill relief holes at each end of the cracks and I preheated the table. I think I will try lining it with the thin fire bricks just to protect the pan from heat but only because I welded it.

Today I went out to my porta-shelter where I store stuff that I don't use as often, only to find a tree limb had come down through the roof. The hole can be fixed but the limb hit and broke the pan of my portable candy rivet forge, this is the forge I use for demo's. So I have to weld the cast iron pan and I hate welding cast because even when you do every thing right there is the chance that either the cast iron cracks or the weld:mad: . Well now I will use this time to clean, repaint and rebuild this forge:rolleyes:, so down to my questions. 1st what do people like to use for oil in the crank blower gear box? ( it was packed with heavy grease ) 2nd question what do people like to line the pan with because every time I line the pan of this forge the clay always cracks and spalls. Oh did I say that upon pulling the blower apart I found the the blades are made from vintage Shlitzs beer can well that explains why this blower was always loud. Any hints or tips would be great. Thanks

Being a part time archery tech. I have just finished some bow vises. I am now working on a spider web trelliss.

Do anvil prices make any 1 else scratch thier heads? I mean lets face it, they are big gobs of steel. I know it is a process to make them but there is zero new technology in them it has all been pretty much done before. I have purchased mig welders, tig & stick welders and a plasma cutter for less or the same as a new 400 lb. anvil. Heck I bought a diesel 4x4 farm tractor for less and I am not sure but I think the tractor might weigh more:rolleyes: so it should have a higher scrap value. I am just venting because when people ask what is my most expensive piece of blacksmithg equipment I have to laugh and tell them pound for pound it is my anvils. I know there are a lot of good scrap and home made anvils, I have a bunch but once you use a real nice heavy shop anvil you then know what you are missing.

I have an old candy rivet forge that looks just like the one you have pictured except on mine the blower is still hand cranked. I use it to do portable demo work and it works great. I would have to say your problem might lie with the coal you are using. When I first started I thought coal was coal so I burned boiler or furnace coal that I smashed up in to small pieces with a coal hammer. I found the coal I was using to be dirty, damp ,hard and smokey. It was very hard to keep lit, then I found 2 or 3 hardware stores that would order bagged blacksmith coal for me ( santa clause) from pocahontas vain, stuff changed my life:D. I now drive to 1 or 2 different coal yards to buy my coal by the ton. You could buy a bag of lump style charcoal to test your forge out.

Home of the Kittery Trading Post.

Can the anyang hammers still be purchased in the USA?

I have had to cut up some nice old farm equipment for scrap to be hauled away because the first owner of the property would not part with it because someday they were going to fix it up, well that day never came and now they are worthless hunks of scrape.:mad: I had a neighbor with 40 vintage cars & trucks on his property, I asked if he would like to sell any of them that I would like to fix one up. He told me nope some day I hope to fix them up, HE was 80 at the time. The EPA steps in and tells him he can't store all those cars by the stream because they were leaking stuff, state steps in and all of them hauled to the crusher to go to china:o. Here is the sad part his family could use the money but they didn't make 1 dime, they had to pay to have them hauled away:(. estimated scrape value alone $6000 But what are people paying for modle A fords or T's or 52 chevy 2 doors it was just a waste. I too have had stuff stolen ( 40ft stainless steel 10" chimmeny). We are all just lamenting on how sad it is to see tools go to waste.

It breaks my heart every time I drive by some yuppie house or fake farm that has perfect anvil just sitting on a stump or rock or just sticking out of the dirt rotting away . There are so many blacksmiths that could put these to good use and they would be used for many years . These are the same people who drive the prices up at the auctions because Betty Big Bucks thinks " boy that anvil and leg vise will make my house look like a cute little farm. Boy I need some cheese to go with my whine. . A 200+lb. trenton is what set me off this morning, just sticking out of the snow and mud infront of a condo.

I read in a knife making book that the author had used a scrapped grave stone piece with good results. I have used the teeth from some of the excavators I have run and of course RR rail. A lift arm off of a D8 dozer and the cutting edge off the same D8 welded to the top of a section of rail or the pads off of that same D8. Heck when you are cutting up a machine that big everything looks like a good anvil. And off road forklift forks. I do have some factory anvils ( hay budden, fisher, peter write and a trenton) some real nice others not so good. the fisher is missing the horn:( but yard sale $10.00 paid $5.00:D They all came from barn sales, yard sales or auctions.

if you already have an oxy unit I would braze the plate to the top of the anvil. I would use a flux covered brazing rod made for cast iron or dissimilar metals also I would preheat both pieces and after brazing allow to cool down as slowly as possible

Most metal suppliers carry hot rolled steel T stock and chanel stock of differnt sizes, this looks like the stock that they galvanize for sign posts so it would look realistic. Just sand it up to give it a shine but if it is the end of the world movie goers expect every thing to be all rusty anyways. Heavy metal poisoning is not worth the risk.:(

For detailed weather vanes you could cut them out with an oxy rig or band saw, for not so detailed work you could use an air or electric cut off wheel or a throatless shear or go hardcore old school use hammer and chisel. I have used all of these but now I do have a plasma cutter which is sweet because I can now cut any metal with just 1 method. I always cut my shapes bigger then the final size because I use 2 sides cut out the same and I found when I start dishing them out to give them shape you lose some size. When I weld the 2 sides together they now have depth. Once my steel sheet metal starts showing through the 2 feet of snow I am making an anvil shaped one for my new shop.