gobinu

G'day! Welcome to the site. Lots and lots of Blacksmiths.... if you are ever up Ottawa way check out Upper Canada Village. Boy, I really need to send my app into OABA... :)

Thx! Oh, and in case it wasn't obvious from my comment, really nice looking shovel.

Would you like to share some details of the construction? I'd love to hear em.

Well, I wasn't going to get all technical about the words I choose but yea, what you said. If you add too much water(sprinking on the fire for effect isn't enough but over do it and I understand it does)

There is another issue with water, sulfuric acid (leached from the coal itself)will age your forge.

G'day all, So, it occurs to me to ask this question as I've not found a good solution to both preserve coke/coal and "quickly" get my fire put out for the night so I'm sure there won't be a problem. I have to return my forge inside each night in case of rain and such.... Starting a forge fire is easy now, thanks everyone, but how do you put your fire out at the end of the day?

I think that I'd like to see some pictures too. My next task is to make some tongs myself and would like to see beginner tongs.

Thak the Blacksmith & Armourer 2282 Floradale Rd., Floradale Ontario Canada N3B 1V0 519-669-0721 info@thak.ca Will ship anywhere for a pretty good price, $30CND a 70lbs bag. Just placed and received my order early Aug 2008. More details at Thak the Blacksmith

Amen, smallest I can get shipped is 350lbs.

Very Cool. I don't believe there is any cure if what I experienced my first time is an indication. :)

Okay, some of these are quite silly so in that vein here is mine, "Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do."

Yea, a little after I posted I realized that normalized made sense. Sometimes these forums are a little too convenient and circumvent thought. Of course, I was also reading a blacksmith book when I came to that conclusion. So it probably was in there somewhere and popped into my head. Thank you all, and I'll let you know how it turns out.

G'day all, Found a nice big chisel at a junk shop yesterday and my plans are to turn it into a hot cut hardie. The edge needs to be completely reworked so I'm going to have to anneal it. My plans are to rework the tool to 30 degree cutting angle. After reading the Hofi stuff about cutting a straight edge with such a beast I think it'll be the most versatile. My question, what temper should I draw once I harden it back up? Is is necessary to harden a hot cut hardie? This will be my first time at doing any tempering, btw.

Sometimes Cheep is use more for when people really mean easy. Often easy is only just the advertising perspective, and not truely any easier. I buy Canadian as much as possible but I have a hard time finding all these auctions, sales, and "found" steel like you guys talk about. :)

Some people have only ever done cheap, and simply don't understand quality. Of course, that's because even the "expensive" stuff that is sold the normal retail route is pretty much poor quality. Something I've learned in the rest of my life. Set your price according to what effort you put into it, not what you think you can get. Cheap is as cheap does. (My wife tells a story about a guy who didn't think his wood carving was worth that much, and he didn't sell any of it. He priced it based on suggestions he got on line from professionals, sold a good deal of it for much more than he ever thought possible.)

With my recent experience, I'd have to second this. Luckilly, when I decided to start I had the cash and the opportunity to get a nice small anvil. I started fixing up my forge which turned out to be the hardest part.... Charcoal, a light hammer, and something to hit it on would have impressed me just as much, I think, especially if I had the forge you do. Go ahead, you know you want too. :)

Thank you for your words of encouragement. I feel that I had a good first time too, especially since I've only ever read about it. (My preferred read is "New Edge of the Anvil", btw, and I recommend it.) I also feel that it will be a matter of practice to get the speed and quality out of me. When I've done other trades, like carpentry and such, I've always found that I never have had the feeling that practicing will make things better. To this day, my cuts with hand saw, table saw, or power saw are all over the place.

Okay, so I finally have a half hour to sit down and describe how the day went yesterday as promised. It all started the day before when I cut a nice stump from a tree that fell last fall. It was the perfect width for the anvil and I cut it to about 20.5" to give me a nice height to the anvil. I can rest the iron I am using on it with only a slight bend to the elbow. Once I was done with the morning chores on Sunday I went out and fabricated up the 2'x2' base out of some 2x8 pressure treated scraps. The anvil I acquired from a friendly local smith a PW (0 3 23) at 107# for about 2.50 a pound. The forge was a find in an antique shop, and only required a case of beer to get the blower welded back together. I had the setup above under my chestnut tree completed pretty quickly and poured the coal into the forge. Hmmm, how much I wonder? There was a layer about 2" deep all the way around the pan by the time I was through pouring, it looked good and blacksmithy. Of course, it was anthracite coal, so very hard and in larger chunks than I had thought it would be. So, I set about to light this puppy. Two balls of paper as per the blueprints, careful now, pump the blower some, not too much air, scoop some coal over, a little air now, pump. Nope. Okay, the wife carves and has been saving the hardwood chips for kindling, a ball of paper and some kindling, just like that other blueprint said. Careful now, not too much air, scoop some coal over, little air now pump the blower, more air, oh, pump pump, oh! Nope. Hrrrm. I read a suggestion on the web somewhere that a blowtorch might do the trick. Out comes the small plumber’s butane torch that I have. Five minutes of blowing with the torch, is this thing even warm yet? I pick up a piece of coal from the middle and hold the torch to it. Barely gets warm, so nope, that ain't going to work either. Now what? Well, I'm going to push that coal to the side; I was iffy with it anyhow since it was anthracite. I have been saving all the charcoal from my wood heater for the last year and read that traditional medieval smiths used it. So, paper balls again, a little wood kindling, and a mountain of charcoal over the top of it all. Light her up, careful now, just a little air. Good, good, pump a little harder, give it more air. Very good, the charcoal is catching. Pump my boy, pump! Slowly, almost imperceptibly, a low roar starts in that forge. It grows and grows as the coals turn orange, then white. Did I mention that Anthracite has to be heated thoroughly to 900F to catch? Yep, one blacksmithing type fire, with a nice cheery glow, and some music too it. Whew, luckily, I knew this was going to be the really tough part. I take my 18" long 3/8" rod and put it in the fire, letting the first 3" get up to a nice orange colour. Says here in my book, think while in the fire and drawing out is the basis for most other smith work. Okay, so how do I draw this thing out? Out of the fire, impressed that I can easily hold the other end of this glowing orange rod in my hand. Tap bang tap tap bang KLUNK bang tap. Okay, hammer control, exactly what is this medium hammer strike they talk about. I think it's about a bang, but I also begin to realize that my hammers are a little big for the work I'm doing. Oh well, only got the three hammers. Flip it over quick, before it cools, draw out the other side and make it straight again. Couple of quick taps to make it flat and back into the fire. Pump pump pump. Whew, okay, think in the fire. Well, that was kinda neat, actually, more fun than I thought it would be. The metal is so plastic on the anvil I almost imagine grabbing it and forming it like play-doe. The feel of it through the hammer and in my hands is not what I expected. Next step, draw out the 90degree face so I have a point. Out of the fire, and ting ting clank! Xxxxx, hit to close and not over the edge of the anvil, least I still hit the now bent work. Straighten it out, tap tap, over the edge, ting ting, flip, ting ting ting tang tang. Heat is leaving, it is getting too red. Okay, really pump that blower, think in the heat, get it good and hot and I'll neaten it up and put a curve in it over the horn. Too much thinking.... ooooh sparkler! A little too hot, good thing this is just plain steel and nothing special. Flatten, flatten, start the curve, WOW that curved a lot and quick, invert, uncurve, over the horn and volia, a nice little curvy end. Let's see if I can get some of the hook curved with this heat. Nice, wonder if I can tap on the end there, sizzlesteamsteamsizzle into the slack bucket with the end. Nope! Too thin going to have to hammer that open again, but at least the hook is looking good, back to the fire. Pump pump, think in the heat, the curved end will have to wait now, let’s get the rest of the hook done. Just two more hits on the horn ought to do it, then a flip over the edge and make the 90 to go into the wall. Bang bang, flip, bang bang. Darn, wasn't paying attention, the 90 is too low. No problem back into the fire.... Ummm, fire? Hello, pump pump, why won't you heat my metal anymore? Oh well, I'll fix her up next time. I'm still happy with how this all went. Hope you enjoyed reading my first experience!

It's big item pick up day here for the garbage. The thing I notice most is that the iron gets picked up long before any garbage men show up, but the plastic from distant lands remains.

Lol, you tell me Stonetrooper, but they warned me that it is an addiction. I can tell you just the way the metal felt under the hammer and the shapes of it as it came off the anvil are worth the effort, THEN you get to also create something unique. I'll try to get the time to post a more detailed account of what I did tomorrow, my chores took longer than I expected!

Yea, I bought "nut" sized coal, but it came in much larger chunks than I expected, I had planned to crunch it for next time. I couldn't find any clinkers while I was working, and I had my ash dump refuse to open for some reason. I had the blower open last week to weld a blade back to the fan and the ash dump didn't seat properly apparently.

As a matter of fact, yes, it does just happen to be a horse chestnut. I thought it was fitting. As for the coal, it is heating anthracite, all I could get for now but I did notice that once the fire had burned down some it lost all its heat. I have a good stash of charcoal to use at the moment, but I suspect that will be burned through pretty darn soon. Thanks for the tip.

G'day all! To celebrate International Blacksmith day I finnaly got a chance to put hammer to hot iron. Okay, I didn't realize it was this much fun. Here are some pictures of the set-up and I'll try to get a write-up of the experience for everyone to read if I can get away from the chores I didn't do this afternoon. :o

Hey ,having just bought my first Anvil last year and not having a clue how to find it I did check out the Ontario artist blacksmith association web page and found nothing. Then I did a search on anvil and some of the local towns around here and low and behold, a world of classified ad web sites had listing for anvils. Your money may vary, but I'd suggest trying to find such a classified ad site in your neck of the woods. It has the advantage to ebay in that it's local so shipping is not a problem and you don't have to compete with thousands of people to get what you want. Maybe just one or two cheapskates. :)

FreeDictionary "Tuyere" has pronounceations for most words. Click the little speaker icon next to the work and you can hear it. Twee-air is what I hear.