TomN

Finaly got the forge fired up and had a go at making a few things quickly to get a feel back, as I haven't hit any hot iron in ages.
Here are a couple of images from the first day of forging: (sadly interrupted by rain)

A hook I made out of 10mm round stock. Just because its something i've made before and wanted to get the feel of hitting hot iron with a purpose again.



Below is a bar with a twist in it and then a section I am flattening out to try and make a letter opener out of.



The twist came out ok in the end, despite my lack of tool and wobbly vice stand. I straightened it out with a wooden mallet , on a block of wood. All the flames made my wife and mum jump. Bit of showmanship practice for if I ever do any shows I guess (many years away yet).
I know the twist isn't the best thing to put there, as its where someone will be holding the letter opener, but its for my Dad and that kind of thing will impress him. Just got to finish it off, this weekend, so i'm hoping for a rain free day.

Sorry the pictures are a little dark. Its the best I could do at the moment!

A few things became apparent. The first is that I need more tools.
So I plan on making some more tongs soon, as well as a bar to make twisting hot steel easier. Doing that twist with a rickety vice and a very small adjustable spanner was 'challenging'.
At least i'm off to a start now. Just need to keep practising!

Here are a couple of images from the first day of forging:

A hook I made out of 10mm round stock. Just because its something i've made before and wanted to get the feel of hitting hot iron with a purpose again.



Below is a bar with a twist in it and then a section I am flattening out to try and make a letter opener out of.



The twist came out ok in the end, despite my lack of tool and wobbly vice stand. I straightened it out with a wooden mallet , on a block of wood. All the flames made my wife and mum jump. Bit of showmanship practice for if I ever do any shows I guess (many years away yet).
I know the twist isn't the best thing to put there, as its where someone will be holding the letter opener, but its for my Dad and that kind of thing will impress him. Just got to finish it off, this weekend, so i'm hoping for a rain free day.

Sorry the pictures are a little dark. Its the best I could do at the moment!

Might be an early birthday present for myself, next year.

Looks great.
Do you need much experience to go on one of your axe making courses? I really fancy it sometime in the future!

Well I got the forge going today. Made a hook to get my 'eye back in', as I haven't hit any hot steel for months. The wife loved watching me do it.
The smell of the hot coke and hot metal was great. I also managed to remove all of my nose hairs by leaning over the forge. Not breathed this clearly in years. Maybe i've come across a new way to get into the male grooming market? haha.

I started making a letter opener as well. Never seen one made, so just made it up as I went along. Of course I had a fair idea on what I wanted to do.
I upset the end a bit, then put a twist in it. This was difficult with my ramshackle setup for my vice, as it was a bit rickety. Plus I only had a small adjustable wrench to make the twist with. I got it to work in the end, but had to straighten it somewhat with a wooden mallet.
I cut a section off and started to flaten it, to make a the blade of the letter opener. At this point it started to hammer it down, so I had to stop. I will post of pictures later of that i've made so far.

I thought i'd just linseed oil the handles, with 3 thin coats, to help them stay in one piece. No varnish or anything!
Should stay unslippy and also last a while.
I've recently got the hammerheads painted and yesterday bought a spokeshave to shape the handles. Just got to get the time to get it done!

Thank you John. I will look up those things and start scouring ebay.
Unfortunately I could not disconnect the heating element from the hairdrier, as its held together with anti tamper screws. I may just cut a notch in a screwdriver and use that, but i'd rather be doing other things if i'm going to get another blower.

It was so disapointing not to get it going. Especially as I was so close at one point! Next time it will be done.
I'm also going to get the wife to help me make a hook, as she really liked the one I brought back from a course. Bit of a fun thing for her to take away.

Once I get over this initial hump, I will be away. Can't wait!

Well that day didn't go as planned.
I got to the workshop with the wife and finished off making my very rudimentary stand for my vice, then attached the vice to it.

Setup and then tried to get the forge going. This is where the problems started. The wind got up a bit and it was a nightmare to get the kindling going. When I finally got that going, I covered it with coke and used my hairdrier, as a blower to get it fired up a bit. The next 10 minutes were spend with getting smoke in my eyes. The coke sounded like it was warming up nicely. There were a few cracks and a lot of smoke and we got a few flames up few the coke. My wife informs me this happened, I was knelt down, basically crying because of the smoke.

Unfortunately the hairdrier was very cheap and kept konking out when it overheated, so I couldn't get the coke hot enough. So sadly I couldn't do any forging. I really need to get a better forge blower!
The wife enjoyed it though and took a few photo's, and I will try and put them up tomorrow.

Thanks for all the information. It is much appreciated.
I have an idea for my bookmark now and will need a clear glaze to put on it. Can anyone advise me as to what would work please? Please bear in mind that i'm in the UK as well.
Also any advice on getting the forge going would be appreciated.

Thank you Coleen and John. I will be taking the wife as my official photographer for the day.
I will indeed bring back a few pictures!

Next weekend could be a quite busy weekend. Going to order a load of steel and get cracking.

I'm hoping to fire up my forge tomorrow for the first time.
I'm hoping to try and make a few things, hopefully to give people for xmas.

I was hoping to make a few little bits and treat them to preserve them a bit. I've got some vegetable oil to use.
I'm trying to remember the process of treating the steel with it, from my beginners course I did ages ago. As far as I can remember it was a case of warm the still up in the flames till it was just too hot to touch and then rub some vegetable oil over it with a brush. (I can't remember the brush type).

Any general tips on making bottle openers, or bookmarks would be appreciated.

I was also wondering that if you treated a piece of steel with vegetable oil, and I then lightly ground the surface off with an angle grinder and flap wheel, would it still be protecting in any way?
Just thinking that the bookmark would look better a bit shiny.

I'm sadly in the group that can't grow a beard!
I want to, as i've wanted a beard since I was around 15. Not due to blacksmithing (as i'm very much a beginner) but more for my love of Vikings.
At 30 years old I get very little facial hair, which is massively irritating. I'm just letting mine grow to see if anything appears.

I've got a bit more done. I've got a load of stuff over to the workshop. I've sourced some steel stock and a source of coke, both near my workshop.
I've got 40kg of coke and will get some steel over the weekend.

I've tried a setup of the workshop and it should work out ok. Could do with setting up make shift 'roof' to cover where i'll be working. I think I will also look to get a big barrel to cover up my anvil, on its stand when i'm not there, so I can just cover it over when I leave. This would save me having to save it up every time I go over there.

My main problem now is getting a blower for the forge. I've got an extremely cheap hairdrier, that i've had to gaffa tape to the blow hole in the forge, as I couldn't find any flexible tubing. I've got a lead on some flexible tubing now and am hoping that this weekend I can get some and some steel and then fire up the forge on sunday and get cracking!

I promise to bring back pictures as well.

I've found that the grinding disc, gives a lovely flat head, without removing too much material at all.
I had a go at the ball peen end, with some sandpaper and a load of elbow grease and its cleaned up ok.

I've also sanded down the handles now, as well. Tonight I will carry on cleaning up the handles and may get time to make some wedges from some hardwood my friend is giving me.

How would you all treat the hammer handles, once they have the hammerhead attached?
I was thinking of oiling them with linseed oil, but not sure about varnishing them. Don't want them to slip out of my hand.

Beautiful and functional as well. Brilliant work!
Could easily be used for a number of things. I think it would look great in a kitchen for hanging pots and pans from.

I got myself a wire brush, for my drill and it seems to polish them up a little, but not get the last remains of the rust off.
The surfaces of the hammer head and the ball peen and cross peens are less than perfectly flat, so I used the angle grinder with a grinding disc on and really lightly went over the top of the flat head of one of the hammers and it produced a perfectly flat end.

Obviously I can't do this with the ball peen ends, as it will change the shape of the end, even if only a little.
Going to try and give them a good going over with some rough sandpaper. Once i've got all the ends cleaned and polished up, I will paint the hammer heads with my hammerite paint. Then I only need to fit them to the handles.
I've got a friend giving me some hardwood tonight, so I can make the wedges.

I'll be interested to see how you do the handles, as i'm currently trying to rehandle some old hammer heads I got from a car boot sale.

Thanks Greenbeast. Looks simple and effective!

Thomas - Sounds great. Got any pictures of that?
I think the dragon head may be a bit out of my skill range at the moment though. Might be worth a throw away go and could lead to more presents and maybe even a product.

All of this info is fantastic!

Those are cool ideas. Do you have any photo's of your bottle openers?

It certainly is.
Trying to think up some things to make for christmas presents. Thinking of a bottle opener for my Dad.
Just need to learn how now and make all the tools I need to as well.

Thanks Phil and Greenbeast. The info is much appreciated.
Hopefully this weekend I will be moving a load of stuff to my workshop and will be almost ready to go. Can't wait!

Here are a couple of images from the cutting of my log tonight.
I let my more experienced friend do it and it paid off, as its quite a nice flat and square cut and I still have all my fingers.

Heres the cut log and the remainder, which will be used as a chopping block.



And heres a top view of the log. The lighter patch in the middle is the dry bit. Still got quite a way to go before I oil it!

A shame that its not closer, or I would have come along for the day.

Got a quote at £5 + VAT for 6m. For 6m of 10mm round bar.
Thats just one section though, so don't know if I would be able to get that down with a bulk order.

Where do you buy from Greenbeast?

The thing is, its just round the corner from my workshop, so its ideal for transport. I guess I could use them for emergencies.

I've been looking into sources of mild steel, as I am hopefully going to soon be ready to start hitting some hot iron in my workshop.

I found this website, which is very close to my workshop.

http://www.frfletcher.co.uk/stock-materials

For mild steel, what should I be looking for?
I'm not sure what 'extruded' mild steel bar means.

And for costing, what would be a sensible cost, for say 10ft of 10mm thick, round bar?

Thanks in advance!
Hoping to get myself going over the winter and maybe even get some chirstmas presents made for the family.

Should be going out soon and cutting up the tree log and carry on cleaning up my hammer heads.
I've got one more thing to fix on my tool rack and I can take it and my tree stump to the workshop and get more set up.

More photo's to come soon!