philip in china

Where can I get a plan for a bear trap?

Under 200 square feet you can do easily. How many sheds does the code allow you to have? Could you have a second one pretty close to the first? Then use one for, say, forging and another as a welding and fabrication shop.

SwageBlocks is worth a look for anything to do with swage blocks. It isn't clear to me why you want to redress the face anyway. I certainly wouldn't.

I have got a price for a 25Kg Anyang. A guy who knows a lot about them says that the 25Kg (55lb) is the best of their small machines. Does anybody have any experience of this model please?

A 1 0 8 anvil is 120 pounds. Yes a hundredweight (cwt) is 112 pounds or 1/20 of a ton. A 120 pound is a nice weight for a mid sized anvil. Don't take it anywhere near a machine shop. Just clean her up with a belt sander and leave it at that. She will be great.

If your shack were in a location where distilling was allowed how would you make your still?

A couple of times when I have lost my lighter I have welded over a stack of paper and used the resultant fire to light the forge. Here the traditional way to light the fuel blocks is to take a fresh one to a neighbour who has a fire lit and exchange it for one of his which is already alight. So possibly one fire in China could be retraced to a prehistoric lightning strike. (Maybe not).

So Jnr it must have been good news to you that the manufacturer never did take up your design. Would have cost you a lot of business.

Forgot to mention......... of course if you are making a hot cut chisel or a hot cut hardie for that matter hardness does not need to be extreme. A cold chisel needs to be much harder. Hot steel is easier to cut.

I make my chisels out of 1"rebar then just treat as described above. The rebar I got happens to be very good stuff. If you have unidentified junk yard steel the secret is to experiment. If it is too soft just try again. My first chisel I had to try a couple of times before I got it right. Nowadays the manual workers here are always coming to me to have new chisels made or old ones rehardened. I know nothing on the subject really but use the experience I have accumulated.

Following those postings I suppose I ought to get some photos of my forge and post them. Just don't ask to look at my work. It is not a pretty sight.

Glenn, So you want photos of me not being able to light a fire? OK I suppose I can manage those. I am sure they will be instructive. Farmer Phil, I think from what everybody has said I am just being too hasty and expecting results too quickly. What sort of size do you use for your pieces of coke?

BTW on a small anvil I agree with your comments about the upsetting block. It is steel in the wrong place. I would far rather have it in the anvil. In a small one every ounce is needed where it works. With a 500 pounder it is not as necessary of course. Even with my 280 pounder I am happier with my upsetting plate which also serves as an anchoring device.

Jymm, $8.25 a pound for a new anvil doesn't sound expensive at all to me. Good luck to you. Certainly especially any beginners who don't know what they are looking for would be better advised getting one of those than ending up with a heap of junk either a wrecked "antique" or an iron ASO.

John B- it is a bottom blast forge. Thanks for your thoughts everybody. I think I am adding it too early from what you have said so I will go back and try again. It is annoying to have free fuel and be unable to make use of it!

I can forge with smithing coal. It works best. I can forge with low quality coal but that isn't too good. I have forged with charcoal and even animal dung but not very often. The one fuel I cannot get to burn is coke. This is particularly annoying as I have an abundant supply of free coke here. So what is the secret please? I have even considered keeping a few buckets of coke to use as fire extinguishers since evry time I put any on a fire the fire is out within minutes.

I have got some wire rope here and want to cut lengths then put a loop at each end. The idea is to make the loops secure so I can padlock stuff together to stop it from being stolen. Is there an easy way to do this please? I have a stick welder and basic blacksmith tools.

Jerry, That looks like a serious blower. How many CFM does it produce?

BTW there is a better way to ensure a good ground. If you PM me I will let you know.

Jnr briefed me on constructing my welding table. I just have the ground from the permanently installed welder bolted to the table. Actually the table is welded to some 2" angle which is attached to the wall by rawlbolts. The ground is simply connected to the nut holding one of the rawlbolts in place. I never have a problem and do quite a bit of welding. Why not just include ground straps on the clamps you use when holding work together prior to tacking?

Mine are just commercially sourced blowers of the type used for inflating childrens bouncy castles. As you are in USA I would suggest: A shop vac which will blow as well as suck. Probably no need to buy a new one though. For a small set up maybe a hair drier. I heard of one guy trying one of the hot air hand driers like you get in a public toilet. Imagination is the thing. You will find something, probably free, if you work at it long enough. Stuff like the above is good for a bottom draft forge as all the heat is going away from it. Be more careful if you construct a side draft though as the tuyere will get hotter and might lead to damage to the blower so either use a water cooled tuyere or make sure there is a long pipe between that and the blower. I regulate the speed on mine by connecting them through a dimmer switch. It is cheap, simple and it works.

A piece of tungsten welding rod. Works fine.

I would use the two interchangably. Yours sounds to be a fairly lightweight one which makes me suspect that it is probably fairly modern. The older ones tend to be fairly hefty. Open and close it and see if it works. Put a bit of something soft in the jaws and see if they impress a fairly even pattern onto it. The jaws will nip most at the top. If it has had a lot of use this is where the jaws will wear most. If it works OK and the price is right then get it. They do not grow on trees! Even with minor repair or maintenance needed it will still be worth having and if you can't fix it yourself plenty of the guys here or over the road will be happy to help.

Somewhere there are some pics of Uri Hofi's chimney set up in Germany. It is braethtakingly simple and has increased my aready profound respect for that man. He uses stainless because it outlasts everything else.

I use a high grade low sulphur blacksmithing coal.