Michael

I'm still not quite getting how you get tension on this mechanism. Is the handle threaded and tension adjusted that way?

So all of the very cool lineshaft belts and wheels are just for driving the power hammer?  I saw a power hacksaw in there, the post drill, gas forge, but nothing else that would be lineshaft driven.

I built this box a while back when I had fewer tools. Lots of clenched nails and reinforcing, especially on the handles. Small tray on the left to hold soapstones and other tools that would be lost in the bottom. Not too deep. with a tool roll screwed to the underside of the lid to hold punches and chisels.

I outgrew it in less than a year, but brought it with to a smithing conference and it was just fine for a weekend's forging. Next time I'm going to bring one of those camping stove/cooler stands so my tools can be at bench height, not on the ground. I think its 22" by 16".  Just small enough to lift when full.

I found these a couple of years ago at the scrap yard, there was a whole bin of them.

There's a threaded boss on the backside of both, looks like 1 inch 12 tpi. Great for dishing and raising leaves and such. No idea what their original use is. Should have grabbed a couple of sizes when I had the chance. I was further up the scrounging slope back then and didn't realize how useful they might be.  Maybe its time to make a ladle?

Finally, as you realize, it is easier to do it right than it is to rectify a mistake.

I'm curious as to how many TIMES I'm going to learn that lesson.  Seems to come up when I try something new. Thankfully I'm not trying to make a living at this, that would take all the fun out of it, for me.

Experience, what you get when you don't get what you want.

The steel is S2 according to the smith I got it from. I'm in no hurry, just wanted to try it.  I think the slitting chisel in the direction I want the hole to go is the the way to attempt to fix this. Thank you for all the info and direction, gave me a lot to think about.

Thanks for the tips, the hole is all the way through, but only about a 1/2 inch wide on the off center side, that's why I was hoping I could drift it more towards center. The centered hole is just started with the long tapered drift, not even halfway thru the head yet.

So I got my neighbor to come over and strike for me, not the strongest striker but willing. The plan was to taper a jackhammer bit and make a hammer head.  We got the bit shaped, its going to be a mandrel for the shaping the hammer head.

Lesson learned, I should have marked both sides of the hammer head blank before we started punching. The result, a crooked hole, centered  along the length of the blank, but leaning more towards one face than the other. Its fine from one side and offset about a half a hole on the other side.

I'm wondering if in the process of drifting the hole out to full size for a handle, can I bring it back into line?

I've got smaller drifts, 15, 13 and 11/16ths that I could drive half way thru and try to knock the hole back into line at high heat

I think these are actually tapered shafts of some sort, but they make great drifts.

This is the only chunk of hammer sized stock I've got at the moment.

I think I'll pull out the play clay, see if this problem lends itself to some visual modeling.

thanks.

Nice work. There's several good techniques in that design.

Link removed at the request of anvilfire
 
Here's a link to a trailer based smithing setup on Anvilfire. A lot of work to build but it looks like a breeze to work from

Couple pairs of double knee Carrharts

They make wonderful long punches

That looks less like a forge burner and more like a pulsejet engine.  Good work!

In my neighborhood its also more of the smoke than the noise. I try to use the gas forge on weekends and only light the coal forge

when I take a day off during the week to forge.

When the green live oak stump rolled from my friend Kirk's truck to the back of my Volvo wagon...I thought the front wheels were going to lift off the ground. Put the back seats down to get the weight over the rear wheels. Live oak is heavy, 55 lbs a cubic foot dry something like 90 lbs wet and the stump was 16 inches in diameter and 30 inches long, 300 lbs I think in one compact mass. Drove home slowly that day.

Also loaded a big cast iron forge, Tiger blower and post vise in that car, all coated with oil that kept them from rusting in the shed they were in. Ruined a good tarp and pair of gloves that day. That was another load that would have crushed my puny self between it and the engine block!

xxxx I am paying too much for convenience. A 50 lb bag of Elkhorn is about $28 at Lazzari Fuels in Burlingame, near San Francisco. Which is a pleasant 10 minute drive from work.  I have been told by an official at the Air Quality Management District (who tells everyone they can't light fireplace fires on clear high pressure days) that less than a half a TON of coal on my property is beneath their notice.

Very good for a first forge! It looks like you've got all the basics down, don't worry about the blower, one will find it way into your line of sight

before you know it. There's very little that's "junk" to a blacksmith. 

Have to agree with Mr Powers about the ash dump. Screw on will have to be cut off before too long as it rusts/heats/cools in place.

Easier than a sliding or counterweighted ash dump is an open ended pipe that sits in a bucket of water under the forge. Doesn't let air thru, ash sinks to the bottom and anything burning is immediately extinguished.  You're off to a very good start.

Here's mine, a bit undersized at 10 inches, bone stock HVAC parts and sheet metal. Mostly it works well.

I'd love to build a Hofi style vent stack so I could try and get the patio roof sealed up. the leaks and the buckets under them do keep the slack tub full though.

Welcome aboard, while everyone is drooling over the axe issues, I'd love to hear about the rattle!. Can you comment on dimensions,

history and your process?

as  a woodworker I've made a LOT of toys as gifts for family, friends and co workers and as I got into smithing and metal work, I could never find a way to make a small childs toy in steel or iron that wasn't an injury or broken window waiting to happen.

When Brian started using the term die in his video, it took me a bit to understand that he was using the term to describe the DIFFERENT shapes all present on the rounding hammer head and how he was using them.  Took a bit of head scratching but I figured it out, understand the process better and used that understanding to make use of the techniques he's demonstrating.

thank you Brian, that leaf video advanced my meager skills and brought a whole new level of hammer control.

no issues with the use of the term die.  I've always found it useful to shut up and listen, often stuff mentioned when I started listening doesn't make sense until I'm done listening, sometimes not even then.

It certainly would work well for drawing stock out over the horn. No idea what its really used for.

The heavy firebricks cut very nicely with an angle grinder. Makes them easy to fit into the a brakedrum firepot and get another couple of inches of fuel under the iron.

Don't get committed to a style of forge early on. Forges are like light sabers, you need to build one to get you started, but with some skills
and some practice under your belt, you will find you can build a better forge in a couple of months, or a year from now. By then, that pile of bricks you put together might not fit the work you're doing.

My first forge was a brake drum on wobbly legs with a furnace fan providing the draft. A year or two later that same brake drum was mounted in a modified plant stand that had a table on one side and a tool rack on the other side with a hand cranked blower attached. 2 yrs after that the same brake drum was mounted in a rolling service cart with a wide steel table and fire bricks deepening the firepot for charcoal.

Now I've got a big cast iron table with firepot and am forging with coal, but 4 years prior I wouldnt' have recognized the value of THAT forge when I saw the lousy picture on craigslist. That original brake drum in its third base went to a new smith at an Iron in the Hat event a couple of months ago.

How the forge looks is meaningless to how it works and the work you produce with it.

The hook also lets you hang it from the back of a chair or the top molding in a wainscotted interior wall.

I knew I had a picture of this somewhere. Erin Simmons of Cloudy Draw Forge in Placerville CA makes these. I'm pretty sure the plan is to throw a leg or knee onto the long handle to hold work for hot rasping.

I believe he taught a class making them. Calls it a Tong Vise.