Michael

I wouldn't bother with the brake drum. A rivet forge was designed for heating rivets on building sites, a really deep fire was not required. Just use it, mess around, make things and get the experience under your belt. If this craft sticks, it certainly won't be your last forge. Its important to get working, so much of this craft is about doing and as your experience builds you'll have all sorts of ideas for other forges. Personally, my brake drum forge went thru 4 different incarnations, two firebrick modifications before I found a great deal on a cast iron forge and gave brake drum version #4 to an Iron in the Hat event for a newbie to use.

BillyO wrote: So....I agree with the thought the thoughts that you can call yourself a Blacksmith if you are smithing, but realize that for those who actually make a living at it may not agree with you. And they have good reasons for pointing out the differences, their livelihood depends on setting themselves apart from the rest of us. I don't make a living smithing, I do it for fun, as an antidote to the sit very very still in front of a computer way I make enough to live on, and smith in my spare time. Just this weekend at the fleamarket, I was wearing my CBA (California Blacksmith Assoc) T shirt, and I had two separate people approach to ask if I was a blacksmith, one wanted to learn and another had a railing commission to explore. I explained it was a hobby for me, and I steered the guy who wanted to learn to IFI, and the CBA website for the next event (Placerville in April) and the railing commission person I gave the names of some of the professional smiths I know from CBA. The smiths who do this for a living. I'm not interested in ruining a perfectly good hobby trying to turn it into a business. To the general public, I certainly qualify as a blacksmith, my family sure thinks I am one. But standing next to Shawn Lovell, Tim Cisneros or Toby Hickman? I'm barely qualified to hurt myself. Kind of depends who's asking

There's a guy in San Francisco, Tony Roselini, who is 81. I don't think he working as hard as this fellow, but its nice to know you can get a ripe old active age as a blacksmith

Charcoal will work in a bottom blast forge, I forged that way for years. But it should be a deep forge. 8 inches deep if you can manage it. Firebrick to take up space at the bottom so the fire doesn't spread, as charcoal is known to do helps as well.

When Peter Ross came to the CBA demo back in October, he made mention of some disagreement among the West Coast smiths about the historical provenance of butcher tools. According to Mr. Ross, there is no historical evidence of butcher tools being used in 18th century smithys.

you could fit a smaller diameter section of pipe, maybe a a foot or so, into the rusted hole and then slip your new gas pipe over that to form the fourth leg. Might be a little wobbly at first, but if the ID and OD of the pipe sections are close, it might just work. Good luck, nice forge by the way.

That is a neat old style of camelback drill press, it would have run flat belts and looks to have been converted to lineshaft use at one time. Its missing a few parts, notably the idler pulleys, which were probably taken off when it was switched to running on lineshaft. These date from the late 19th century up till about 1920's or so, I think Here's a link to the Old WoodWorking Machines page that shows that particular drill press http://vintagemachinery.org/photoindex/detail.aspx?id=7728 and another http://vintagemachinery.org/photoindex/detail.aspx?id=3421 I've got a similar one made buy Burke that I've been trying to get running for a while.

Nice work, an attractive variation on a blacksmith's or viking knife. My own first knife attempt (from a RR spike no less) was far more laughable that yours.

Thank you David! That makes a whole lot of sense given the nature of the scrap yard I got them from and the industry around it. I never would have guessed.

Kitchen implements seem a good way to get forged work into the house. Nicely done. Did Peter specifically demo a spatula? I saw all the dividers/calipers demo, Came in towards the end of the box joint demo and the latch demo.

That'll get you going. Good job not getting to involved in building your first forge. There will be others.

Do you wrap the helix around a rod? or twist it up tight and expand ala Hofi style? Love the big size, there's got to be a big corked jug of something at the BevMo!

Teach yourself to forge lefty? Could come in handy some time. First forge weld I ever made (with help from a CBA instructor) I was moving so fast I grabbed the hammer lefty and hit the weld. It worked, I might have even hit it too hard in my excitment had I grabbed it right (normally I'm right handed) There have been a few long term sanding/grinding/filing projects where I've learned to switch left and right just to be able to keep going.

I think he was trying to build a steam powered boat.

Thanks for the clarification. Looking forward to that article.

Thanks, I think I get it.

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.