Bottomgottem

New acquisition from this past weekend. Our first real anvil! Appears to be a Peter Wright.

Even bad blacksmiths never run out of four letter words. Case in point... fart

I am the machine shop supervisor in a factory that makes roller bearings. Really big ones. Most of our races and rollers are made of 52100. These are typically through hardened. Many, if not all, of our tapered bearings are made of 3310 and 4320, and case hardened to a depth of around .100". I have a pretty limitless supply of 52100 scrap, and can attest to the fact that it is difficult to work with. You will want to anneal any rollers or balls that you have scavenged.

"The farmer in the DALE"

But you can smell it a MILE away.

It was my FEET.

soap. Preferably Lava.

That ol' COOT?!

I am a bass guitarist. This used to be my profession; now it's a paying hobby. You gotta love hobbies that pay for themselves. Anyway, often groups will introduce the band members during the performance. One night, the singer was introducing the band, and when he got to me, he said, "...and on the bottom, we got 'em. Bass in your face." For the non-musical, being on the bottom refers to the bassist's function of providing the low frequency tones that make guitarists and singers more tolerable. ;>) So, for some reason, from that night on, musicians in the area have called me Bottomgottem. That's the story.

Your pictures tell a great story. You've done a heck of a job so far. I hope that the metal isn't too far gone. Did your grandfather build the forge? It looks like an old boiler.

Dutch oven stand! Brilliant!!!

I know a musician who can juggle three drum sticks and play the drums at the same time. I think that the hammer guy has him beat.

Don A: I called Grace Fuel in Asheville, NC. Their prices as of 08/02/07 were $10.60 per 50 lb. bag or about $248/ton. (I know that the math doesn't exactly work out between those two numbers, but that's what the lady told me.) If you buy it by the truck load, they can weigh the truck before and after. They do not ship. Heading on in to Asheville is a little farther for you as opposed to stopping at Kayne & Son in Candler, but the price may make the trip less painful.

Most definitely art! Very nice.

Thanks, everyone.

We scrap several tons of 52100 per week. Most of it in the form of small chips; some not. My mom also thinks that I'm above average.;)

Thanks, Don A. I bought my first batch of coal from Kayne & Son. It will be cheaper for me to drive to their store and buy it. Shipping was a killer. I'll check out Grace Fuels and let you know what they have.

My name is Jay and I live in a small town in western NC. I have a wife and three kids. I have absolutely zero experience with blacksmithing, but the art has fascinated me since I was a kid. I cannot go to the fair, Dollywood, or any of the historic local attractions without getting stuck in front of the blacksmithing shed. So I have finally taken the bait. After searching around the library and the web, I found this site. It has been an extremely helpful resource. Glenn and anyone else involved with maintaining the "I Forge Iron" site should be very proud. We owe them a debt. Now, I said that I have no blacksmithing experience, but I do have a fair amount of metalworking experience. My living has been earned for the last eleven years at a roller bearing manufacturing plant. We do everything but make the steel. Turning, milling, drilling, heat treating, grinding, cussing; the whole nine yards. I am currently the third shift supervisor of the machining dept. They have been very supportive of my little blacksmithing venture, allowing me to carry off barrels and scrap steel, as well as utilizing our machinery or welding dept. to create whatever I want. My boss is as intrigued by my little project as I am and wishes to see if there may be any way a smith's skills can positively benefit the company. We are betting that it can. So, gathering up these resources and studying the BP and Lessons sections, I have built a Supercharged 55 forge. I am merely finishing final details and tracking down a blower. Then I'm gonna start taking out my frustrations on innocent little scraps of red hot steel. A note about my online name. The name Bottomgottem stems from the fact that I also work part-time as a musician. Specifically, I'm a bass player for several different groups. During our shows, the singer or front-man usually introduces the rest of the band. When he gets around to me, he uses the line, "...and on the bottom we got 'em. Bass in your face." At this point I let fly with a blistering and overly impressive little bass run that usually no one pays attention to because, well, I'm the bass player. Oh, well. I want to take this opportunity to thank both Glenn and Richard Thibeau for being so much help, Irnsrgn and Hofi for intimidating me half to death, and everyone else for listening to and answering my annoying newbie questions. :)

All of the horizontal lathes that we use at my job are programmed to cut in the ccw direction. However, we do have several large vertical lathes (by large, I mean a 68" spindle) in which the turret or ram will cross zero in the x-axis and allow you to cut on the negative "x" side of the workpiece. We do this to more effectively use our tooling space in the turret or tool carousel. In these instances, the spindle will turn in a cw direction. Interestingly, we recently puchased several Daewoo horizontal cnc lathes. They came with some tooling already installed in the turrets, but the tooling was installed upside down. This would also necessitate that you program the spindle to turn cw. The Daewoo rep. who did the initial setup of the machines in our plant said that this was the typical turning method in S. Korea, where the machines were made. The turrets were designed to adapt to either method of tool installation, so we turn them over the right way first thing.

Those sculptures probably look exactly the way the artist intended them to look. You may not "understand" it, but you can still appreciate the skill that it took to create it.

That looks like one heck of a resource. Maintaining that library must be a huge job.

I have on several occasions seen hardened steel shatter, though it wasn't a hammer. It can be a pretty spectacular event. Invariably, it was due to an internal defect in the steel, either a crack or a void and involved the grinding process in the manufacturing of bearing races. I suppose that may be possible for a shattering hammer to cause a lethal injury, though I believe that it would be extremely unlikely. You could definitely lose an eye.