Michael

I just recently made this out of 30 inchs of 1/2 round stock. Not interchangable dies but useful for fullering. Another smith gave me a dead simple diagram and it took an hour, a hammer and a vise. . Need to make one out of spring steel next

Local garage sale. $60. built in 1988 according to the tag on the machine.

The lovely wife got me new boots!

This is brilliant! Gonna work up a few rebar openers this weekend.

Knocked out a pair of holdfasts for a woodworking gift exchange this holiday season. 5/8 stock (hard to find unplated 3/4 stock locally) Good square corner practice.

Thanks for this detail Frosty, when I put my gas forge together, 5? 6 years ago, a helpful hardware store employee swaged a water specific quick connect on the end of my propane hose. It has worked like a charm for all this while but the propane hose is getting a bit stiff in its old age and I doubt I can convince anyone to fab up a replacement. Great old hardware store, since closed. The going out of business sale was epic! Drawers of soft iron rivets from the 1930's followed me home, along with Yankee screwdriver bits by the bag and more soapstone holders than I've been able to give away to fellow smiths. I'll start looking for copper flare tools and tubing at garage sales.

Spent the usual Black Friday at the forge. Gratefully raining in the Bay Area, so dodging drips in front of the gas forge till the propane ran out. Made a couple of hooks, paw/leash for dog people, big hook from a big nail for a co worker. Found a space for the dragon, on top of the case forge (he was going to be a gate handle but he "bites" a little too much for that) The coal forge is under a leaky section of roof and I have concerns about rain water and coal ash destroying my firepot, so it stays covered in the rain till I can fix the roof/chimney junction.

Made this half a dozen years ago, as a prototype for a metal version. Mounted on the roof of my smithy. Made out of teak it has weathered the winters well and hasn't fallen apart yet. I have the patterns still for the likely sheet copper and steel version. Next one may have smith and striker. smithgig

when I was using charcoal I'd go thru a 5 gallon bucket every 2 hours or so. If I recall correctly that was about 8 lbs of charcoal, more or less, so another hour for 10 seems reasonable within my own experience. I did find I went through a LOT more water, damping down the fire and keeping it from spreading, working charcoal. Easily half of my 4 gallon quench bucket would be gone after 2 hours. My forge was bottom blown, don't know if that makes any difference. The difference switching to coal/coke was astounding! See how small a fire you can still work effectively in. I walk away from a charcoal fire and come back in 5 minutes to find the whole pile of fuel burning.

Lit the coal forge in the suburbs last week, hammered out some legs and feet on a figurative sculpture, some flower finials that will be come hooks for the lovely wife's trivet collection, and finally got 200 lbs of coal out of those UV degradable bags and into a bin before they became a spontaneous pile of coal.

I leveled my anvil stump(LiveOak) with a router, and routed 3 "feet" at roughly 60 degrees around the base of the stump, a little less than an inch deep so there's a tripod-y sort of base to the stump. then I set each "foot" into an empty tuna can with a bit of polyurethane in it and left it for a few days to wick the poly into the end grain. Flipped the stump over to let the poly dry and painted the last of the poly over the end grain between the "feet". Stays pretty stable on the uneven concrete of the smithy and no rot from the leaky patio roof.

There was a demo of this Seahorse form at a Hammer In in Santa Cruz two weeks ago. the one on the left was done at the site, the hot one this past Saturday at home when I should have been painting the house. 5 inches of 5/8 square to start, there's also a 3/4 square one I started. The demonstrator was doing a big version this past weekend in 2 1/2 inch stock with a power hammer and team strikers

Corner of the Patio, forge, blower, tool rack and 104 lb PW, Pair of leg vises on a stand. May have posted this before but I don't see it on the thread

Brian and his brother are in Africa (Kissii in SW Kenya that last time I heard) teaching for the foreseeable future. He talked about this at the last CBA event I saw him at. Lyle Wynn has taken up the mantle of Brian's style of teaching, and if you in California, John Williams of Guildwerks has a modified version of Brian's classes. I took a Brian hammer class in Templeton CA back in 2014. He frequently points out 'you know a 12 year old could do that in a 2 heats!', specifically referencing the Young Smiths that included Alec Steele

One guy I know, he demonstrates at a restored railroad, has the smallest tool bag you can imagine. A round leather satchel just big enough to hold two hammers, 3 pair of tongs and a couple of punches and chisels. Said he got tired of the ever growing lug fest of a tool box and this forces him to bring a minimal kit.

Tool boxes and bags for blacksmithing tools always fill to capacity, and when you switch to larger they get too heavy to move very far. do you wear an apron, an apron pocket for the soapstone and calipers, with the apron wrapped around them in the tool bag might work.

Thanks for the tip, that vid was the tail end of the sledge work, when things went a little parallelogram and I switched to the hand hammer to correct before taking another heat. I worked too cold for years of self taught fumbling before meeting other smiths who set me right. 12 lb sledge is a straight peen(6 lb in the vid), won’t even think about one handing that hammer EC0F43B0-9F71-4839-9329-CE7DE309CE67.mp4

Made the worlds ugliest little swage from a drop of some one inch plate. Working alone a 6 lb sledge is a nice balance between striking “gently” on my 100 lb PW and one handed use for cutting. 9/16 swage for tenons on a tommy bar for a bookbinders vise. Fun playing with ir thermometer C134F958-90BB-4F70-B563-82C8295E5471.MOV 7AFDFA03-FC26-4256-807A-9B3DCAEB8E8A.MOV 3E0AE041-2BD7-4581-B308-6869CAA211B9.MOV

I made this one in a Brian Brazeal workshop in Templeton CA back in 2014. 3.5 lbs. Cheeks could have been done better the the grooves deeper but it was my first hammer. Brian is in Africa but Lyle Wynn and many others teach his techniques.

Been meaning to make a sign that says carpe frigus finem (Sieze the cold end)

most of this stuff is printed out and hung on the sheet metal walls with magnets, along with an ever changing collection of printouts of things I am making or aspire to make, or am inspired to try to make.

Not sure what this is, but it's 75 lbs of steel. 22 inches long, 3x 4.5 inch cross section. I figured from the holes it's a weight from a piece of machinery. Garage sale in the neighborhood called it a "stand" and marked it down to $10 at 5PM on Sunday. I'm figuring to use it as a backup to my 100 lb Peter Wright. Had a smaller chunk of 12 inch long, 3x3 steel that was gifted to a newby smith friend of mine, so I needed another chunk of metal to stand on end as a makeshift anvil, if only to show another newbie you don't need a London pattern to forge on.

Alligator Shear, my local scrap yard uses one to cut up Aluminum radiators.

Made these from leftover bolts. Getting the balance right is tricky

20 sets of tongs, fitted to 1/2 inch square and riveted in a very old flypress, group project. Set of Ken's Iron Quick tongs finally done for my shop