Michael

Couple of years ago when I checked with the AQMD (Air Quality Management District) in NorCal, the benchmark for regulation was a 'less than a half ton of coal on the property, you are under our radar'.  

That said, if you've got space for a ton, I can't imagine you've got neighbors close enough to complain. 

Smithing once or twice a month, 100 lbs of coal last me six months or so.

Off to get some more this week.  Lazarri Fuels in Brisbane.

I put this table together a couple of weeks ago after outgrowing, again, my previous set up.

the base was.......something, tossed to the curb, nice heavy steel casters on 1 inch thick walled tubing.

The 1x2 framing is all nailed thru holes drilled in the uprights, and the table surface is sheet steel.  Sturdy enough. I'd have preferred to weld it up from steel but didn't have the capabilities, either the cutting or the welding.

if the past is any prologue, I should outgrow this one in a year or two.

Haven't used a Diamond, but got a 2 lb Nordic in trade a while back. It was tempered a little hard, even after dressing, a small mis strike took a small, 1/8 inch chip out of the rounding face. Same think happened on again about a week later, again on the rounding face.

Both should be able to dress out, but I was surprised to get chips.  New hammer, shipped from the manufacturer (traded a 3 lb sinking/boilermakers hammer for it)

Nice find, and at a good price too!  I have a small Columbian like that, Also with the single pipe jaw.  Use it well.

After 2, maybe 3 forging sessions, you'll have enough light fluffy coke to start a relatively smokeless fire. Then you mound up your green (unburned) coal around your burning coke fire and as long as you have a little flame to burn off the smoke you won't be making too much of the green yellow smoke. 

Along with poking a hole in the top of the fire, I often have to get the poker Under the fire and lift up a bit, just to keep the air flowing, do this anytime the fire doesn't immediately respond to air from the blower or bellows.

Like a lot of things in blacksmithing, I'd read about leaving yourself a little coke ready to go next time you lit the forge, but until I lit a few coal fires, and saw the leftovers and how little smoke they generated, then what I'd read made sense.

Nothing specific, but the Clinker Breaker projects took me down all sorts of roads I wasn't planning on. Great way to get smithing ideas when work required my presence but not necessarily my brain. The FABA archive was the largest I've found on the web. If anyone knows of any other large repositories of smithing projects, magazines, ideas I'd like to hear about them.

Thanks for the update.

Nice start! See if you can find an large, 16 lb sledge hammer head and use the face as an anvil.

for a couple of weeks now when I try to log onto the FABA articles website

http://www.blacksmithing.org/Articles/Find.aspx

I get a 404 Error code, ie 'you can't get there from here'.

I've gotten a lot of good projects out of that resource and would hate to have it go away forever.

Any FABA members have any info?

thanks,

Wow, you are set up!  No black boogers in your future ;-)  Nice height on that forge, much better than constantly bending over to see inside.

Very well done, I especially like the full firebrick floor on the forge. Hardly looks "Homemade" at all.

Nice version of a Hofi chimney, how does it draw?  I see you also have a rusty leaf spring set tucked into your smithy.

These parts can be made in a forge with no special tools.  All it takes is time and a willingness to keep tiring till you get it right.

"A willingness to keep TIRING till you get it right".    

I'm going to route that in a board and hang it in the smithy.

There's some great information available on the 'net.  I really like a lot of what's said on that site, but not the brake drum forge part. I learned a huge amount about smithing with the brake drum forge I built, for, I think, $50, and I was impatient and paid for 1/2 square for legs. Second and third versions of the brake drum had trays/tables around them.

So, lots of good information, but my own (and I suspect many others) experience is in direct contradiction with the beautiful iron opinion on brake drum forges. 

Everyone has an opinion. When that was said to my then 2 yr old daughter the response was "I'm not a pinion, YOU'RE a pinion!"

Nice work. Love that ash dump!Are you doing all this in a gas forge? Any plans for a table top or tray in your plans? In all of the renos i did to my brake drum forge, most were about getting some "counter space" next to the fire.

Nice work. Love that ash dump!Are you doing all this in a gas forge? Any plans for a table top or tray in your plans? In all of the renos i did to my brake drum forge, most were about getting some "counter space" next to the fire.

Not that I do demo's but my vise stand is sort of portable, the base is a heavy, cast iron wheel with 4 grooves for V belts. A pretty sturdy steel cafe table is attached to the wheel with long U Bolts around the spokes.

table top is bolted thru the larger vise bracket, and both vise legs are captured with yet more U Bolts that are drilled thru the cast iron wheel rim.

the whole contraption is pretty heavy, yet rolls on the edges of the cast iron wheel to pivot around the concrete floot while well.  I usually pull the vise stand out and add a leaky bucket of scrap and a bag of coal piled on the base to add some more weight.

That looks like a Painting!  Were there any filters or photoshop manipulations going on?

Nice with the swivel. Great find!

A friend on the oldtools list had a question about an anvil that his father dug up from "a collapsed 18th century smithy on my father's estate"

"My mum used to  talk about an anvil in there but my dad was convinced that it disappeared before the collapse, lots of stuff has gone "missing" over the years! I remember old wooden work benches and lots of interesting old tools and bits of farm equipment that probably got dumped in the buildings over the years. Anyways he  found the anvil in the rubble, it looks a bit like an Alsop to me, but I  wouldn't know. Any tips on cleaning it up? Or does anyone recognise the maker? The place was built in 1750 by a French man by the name of David Latouche. Heres a picture of the anvil"

He's trying to get some better pics and will get to his dad's to clean it up as soon as possible.

Any pattern recognition going on for anyone out there. I can only recognize PW's and ASOs

Thanks in advance.

ooking forwars to applying lessons learned and trying again in the near future :D

I'd have to say that about a third my forging sessions end up this way. 'what have we learned to do differently today?' as I shut down the forge.

  i wish i had thought to treat it as forging two at the same time connected by the chin!

Just did this with some dragonflys, working on two at either end of a bar. It seems easier to get similar details working like this

If its one of the Chas. Parkers that has a small set screw in the end of the knob the handle goes through, its an adjustable screw to hold the handle in one position, movable but it stays where you put it.

I had mine over a year before I found that feature.

Good luck, I got about as far as you did, using far too heavy plywood and naugahyde as a covering. Ended up with a bellows that was too heavy to pump and put out too little air. 

How very Roubo of you!  Nice work.

Here's mine, from a smith who was moving. She did all the work of welding it up. The base is a large section of RR track.light enough to flip around easily. Mounted on my first anvil stand. Sort of useful

Here's my space, a corner of the 15 x 22 covered patio. The vise stand and anvil get tucked in near the forge and tool rack and everything covered in tarps (the patio roof leaks) when I'm not working. Recently got rid of the smaller of the two metal carts, it had my original brake drum forge bolted to it, passed it along during an Iron in the Hat event. the vise stand is a steel cafe table, bolted to a heavy iron wheel. Swage block I got from another smith (along with a whole pile of scroll jigs).  Behind that pile of firebricks on the cart is a little gas forge made from 6 inch pipe, Kaowool and a MAPP gas torch, I'm working on larger propane gas forge from a Freon Bottle, Reil EZ burner to provide the heat. Still getting my brain wrapped around propane use, I've always been a charcoal guy when it comes to grilling.  I try to keep it to the little gas forge on the weekends, only firing up the coal forge during the week, when most of the (very residential) neighborhood is at work.

Here in Ventura County, Calif, coal forges are not allowed by the AQMD.  Their thinking is that as long as there is an alternative fuel, propane, they won't allow those smoke breathing dragons. Even though I explained that they weren't the same, they didn't buy it.  If you were out of the city, in the country area, you probably would get away with it.  But, all it takes is a call from a neighbor down wind to report you and your done.  Good luck.   

That's funny, up here in Contra Costa County, Calif, I checked with the AQMD and was told less than a half a ton of coal on my property was OK. No emissions restrictions. Of course I'm a hobby smith, and still subject to the "Spare the Air" days when all burning is banned and fined.

I still try to keep a low profile, lighting the coal forge only during the week, and using the gas forge on weekends, when neighbors are around. It only takes one grouchy neighbor to bring the authorities down on you.