Private Entrance

Cliff, when I ran a particularly loud ski grinder, I put earbuds on underneath my earmuffs. Shut the noise from the machine out and made the music easier to listen to.

Agreed - I figure I spend about an hour between set-up and tear down. That's a big chunk of the 3-4 hours I might have to work on a given day.

Depends on the day. Some days classic rock like The Who. Others it's 80's alternative. On others it's classical. For work, I'm very partial to both techno (like Crystal Method) and Gregorian chants. It's amazing how stuff created hundreds of years apart can be so similar in how it feels. Good stuff to have in the background - no words you can understand and helps me get focused on what I'm doing and shut the world out for awhile.

Haul the forge and the slake bucket outside. Then the hairdryer and the coal bucket. Next trip is the extension cord. Set the forge up, load it with coal and start it up. Fill the reserve box with coke from the box it sat in to dry. While that's getting started, haul out the anvil. Check the fire. Probably re-light it at least once. Once it looks like it's going again, go pour something to drink. Grab the apron and gloves (why is the left one so much more jacked up than the right?) on the way back to the forge. Check and make sure the path to the vice is relatively clear. Re-light the fire again. Get whatever it is I'm going to work on that day, and a tool I've probably forgotten at least once. At some point in the process, put a pinch in between the cheek and gums. Shoo the wife and kids away when they come to wonder upon my insanity. Bang on stuff for awhile. Hopefully make something that actually resembles what I intended it to be. Shut the forge down, and basically reverse the setting up process. Scoop out the remains of the fire and dump it in the slake bucket. Separate out the junk, toss the coke in the box to dry for the next forge day. Not much of a meditation, but certainly a long drawn out process.

Retook the test on a different computer with better monitor settings - 3.77. Much more gooder. Apparently, if your monitor is not set correctly, it will distort things in the test, especially the right angles.

Well played, sir. Well played. Then I must have a pretty good eye for 'close enough.' :?)

Thanks to both of you. The extra frame space on the near side will eventually be a tool rack, but that is a project for another time. I really want to get it done enough to fire it up first. Been nearly 3 weeks since I've had iron in the fire, and I'm starting to go into withdrawals. :)

5.67. Not bad, but expected to do better. I used to have to freehand/eyeball stuff all the time in the ski shop. Discovered I'm pretty bad at judging right angles.

Here's where I'm at on the forge rebuild. The frame for the forge and table have been mostly finished, and the table top itself is done. There is still some work left - braces for the legs on the forge and table legs, and fitting the top to its frame. Should be done this week. I'm going to keep it in two pieces - table and forge. I have to move it in and out of the garage when I want to use it, and the two pieces make it manageable for one person. Considering the mostly jury-rigged tools I had at my disposable, I'm pretty xxxx proud of the result.

Was afraid of that. I may have to just split it open and use the metal on it for something else.

Thanks, Willis. Good to hear my bright idea actually has precedence for being successful. Michael, I have a washing machine lid that I considered using as my forge table. Then I saw the metal from the cabinet from the same machine, looked at the angle iron from the bed frames I scored, and figured I might as well skip a step and go straight to the next size. It looks like it's going to be about 28" x 22"-ish wide, with a tong/tool rack on the near side. At least that's the current plan. We'll see if it survives 1st contact with the enemy.

Congrats. Give me something to aspire to. At least the quality of workmanship, even if I never do anything on that scale.

Just a quick mini-update. I'm working on the actual table top, and I remembered (again) how much I hate sheet metal. I'm going to try and jury-rig a make-shift press brake tomorrow to get the folds done. Tried it with a hammer and the edge of the anvil, and it wasn't pleasant. Hopefully I can come up with something that will make some relatively clean folds, or a good start on the folds that I can finish with the hammer. I'm thinking a long piece of angle iron, a flat table, and some c-clamps ought to do the trick. We'll see.

There a couple of methods for tongs on Anvilfire. I used one of those for my first two pair. There is a link to the basic tong making tutorial in a thread about tongs in the tool section. Lots of good stuff in the tool section. Your knife looks like my first three, none of them finished yet. One is close to done, and I'll post pics if/when I feel it vaguely resembles a knife. :)

Those are pretty trick. Simple, yet effective.

Same-same. I'll give you a heads up once I've got a better clue as to my situation.

Agreed. My efforts at smithing have filled a hole that has been empty since I stopped working in the ski shop. I didn't realize how much I missed working with my hands and using that part of my brain, even the pull-my-hair-out-and-cursing part.

Sure thing. Sounds very good, and I get where you're coming from. I was planning on having everything slapped together by this weekend, but having to take the kids to events evenings this week has slowed the process down. If I get REAL lucky, I might be able to get things working enough that I can run the forge Saturday or Sunday. I'm not anywhere close to really having a clue, but I've got an anvil and hammers and metal to beat on. It's enough to have some fun and try and figure things out.

Flatlander, I didn't bother calling CARB or the AQMD. I just went ahead and started burning and banging. I was more worried about bothering the neighbors than anything else. I don't see how me burning or not burning 10# or so of coal on a weekend is going to make a difference in the grand scheme of things. But that's just me. I should have my forge rebuilt soon. You should come down and try it out when I have it squared away.

Electricity is given to us by magic. That's all you really need to know. :) I don't understand it either - it might as well be magic.

Flatlander, sounds like you live in SoCal. I grew up in Big Bear, and remember running into the Mountain Men when my Scout troop was out hiking in the woods a couple of times. Good bunch of guys. This is the first I've heard of not being able to burn coal in California. I run my forge in my side yard (being considerate of the neighbors - always) and have not had a problem with the Air Quality police coming down on me yet. I figure if I wasn't allowed to burn it, the guy I buy it from wouldn't be allowed to sell it out of his store, and he sells about 10-15 tons a year. A friend of mine's favorite saying is, 'it's easier to ask forgiveness than to get permission.' Just my $.02. ;)

Thanks, Mark & BB. I am going to start work on the table tonight (I hope). Soccer tournament all w/e with the kids and too tired out to do much by the time I got home. Hope to have more pics up in the next couple of days.

That makes sense - it looks like a cap I could pry off if I tried hard enough. As to artillery of the period discussed, wasn't most of it cast similar to a bell and the barrel drilled out to its final dimensions? If I have the correct type of gun in mind, there wouldn't be a plug, just the smooth cast exterior at the breech/touchhole end.

I scored a couple of bed frames from Craig's list this afternoon - about 32 linear feet of lightweight angle iron - perfect for the table support, cross braces for the legs, and some kind of tool rack. Suggested dimensions for the table? I was thinking 20-24" x 30-36" ish, with the fire pot more towards one end of the table rather than right in the middle.

:o :blink: :)