Good evening IFI.
This is my first post so I guess I should tell you about myself.
young (27), reasonably well educated (I know enough to know I dont know much), bit of a tinkerer, love my hobbies and my wolfhounds.
I have been lurking the forum for a month now gathering information for my first forge.
*incoming wall of newbie questions*
Hopefully you will allow me to pick your brains for a few questions I have regarding layout, before I start building.
Specifically I will be doing iron work for the family farm and I want to make sure that I have room to work on large gates or stall doors.
I have designs for a side draft masonry forge but I want to make sure its not too small (I'd love to make it smaller but I dont want to find out it is insufficient for later projects.) so far the plan is for a 3' x 4' forge surface, and I have zero clue what size of firepot to build or if I should go with one of the vulcan firepots from centaur forge.
also I dont really have an idea of what sort of area should I leave around the sides of the forge to allow me to work longer peices of metal.
and a shopping list for beginner tools (beyond the basic anvil, hammer, first set of tongs, fire tools poker/shovel)
-vice (bench or legvice? both???)
-anything else you can suggest (cross peen hammer? sadly I cant afford to even think of air hammers etc. But if you could point me to design plans for a manual treadle (sp?) hammer or a grinder I would be super appreciative.)
I will be at caniron this year looking for tools and watching the demos.
Thanks so much for spending the time to read this.
tldr
-what recc. space (forge and shop) for gate forging
-what firepot size / shape
-beginner tools list
-see you at caniron
