David Einhorn

I confess to having and using a hand-cranked blower, but I really enjoy using a bellows when it is available. I am working on having a bellows driven setup as shown in my Avatar. You might want to give a bellows a try.

Mid-1800s clothing shown in this photograph shows the central smith wearing a Mississippi Work Shirt, and the other smiths wearing French Cut shirts, leather aprons, brogans or boots, and period button front pants. The forge is a government issue traveling forge wagon with a sheet-iron fireplace, cast iron fireback and a leather covered bellows. These clothes are readily available from suppliers of clothing to Civil War reenactors and people doing living history, and can be found though lots of web sites selling to reenactors.
This photograph lives on the Library of Congress web site:


One smith uses his version of a wagon type forge. The wooden wheel shown is period correct for your purposes, the iron spoked wheels are not period correct for your proposed time period. The forge shown is probably late 1800s and not mid-1800s:
Cobblestone Forge

Hoffman uses a traveling forge that would be fine for either the 1600s, 1700s or the 1800s, and would be especially nice for use at your local museum and/or craftshow:
Hoffmans Forge - SERVICES
The main technological change, which few if anyone would notice, is that by the 1850s wheels tended to have banded/tired wheels instead of the older straked wheels.

But the least expensive option for a period correct blacksmith's forge would be the wooden forge with bellows shown on this web site:
Blacksmiths During the Civil War However, I have personal doubts if wooden forges were common, and I really doubt that they would have been commonly moved from site to site, as a portable forge.

For a catalog of stuff, I recommend "Early American Wrought Iron" by Albert H. Sonn: # Hardcover: 750 pages, Publisher: Blue Moon (2007), ISBN-10: 0970766467.

I hope this information is helpful.
Dave

Ohio also has a great yearly blacksmithing event. I expect that you would find a selection there.

Try this. Take a sheet of posterboard and roll it into a cone at one corner. Adjust the tightness of the cone until it matches what you want, cut off the excess paper, unroll and use the posterboard that you formed as your template.

I highly recommend taking a weekend course at: Blacksmith Guild of Central Maryland

This is the government drawing of a backplate for a side-blast forge (shown as my Avatar on the top left). It is bare iron with no clay or lining. As you can see from the drawing, about 3" sounds about right. The bottom of the 10.5 by 9 inch rectangle is the opening for the cast iron fireback to sit in. This drawing shows the airpipe actually about six inches above the bottom of the forge (a bit of the side-view drawing is sort of visible at the far right of the drawing). The size of the fire is controlled by use of a sprinkler can of water, not by the size of the forge, so one bucket of coal each day should plenty of coal. The coal-box only holds 250 lbs of coal. The drawing is part of U.S. Government specifications drawn by Capt. A. Mordecai circa 1850s.

A number of years ago the smiths at Williamsburg made a clockwork mechanism for turning a spit in a fireplace. Of course they made it the period authentic way.... by using files.

Yes I believe a smith could make the splines, with a lot of patience, elbow grease, lots of test fitting, graphite pencils, and files. Wherever the graphic rubs off, you gently file and test fit again. ;)

I guess it depends where you will be doing demonstrations. Around here most of the demonstration opportunities seem to be at history oriented events where they prefer both the equipment and clothing to have a historical flavor to them.

A few years ago a cat that we had dragged home an iron spring trap on her leg. We own most of the woods behind us but poachers put traps out there anyway. The cat died from the trap. My wife loved that cat.

Nice toy. Do you think that they have an extra one that they want to give away?

id ask how this guy still has fealing in his hands Dampfhammer, Dirostahl, Remscheid, Schmiede, Forge.

Yes, I have a tendency to combine wood and metal. The enclosed photograph shows how I am currently working on a horizontal borer device to work on a project that combines wood and iron.

Can you guess what the wood and iron object will be?

Very nice. I like them so much that I ordered the book.

I would suggest taking a piece of modeling clay and a crosspeen hammer so that you can illustrate how iron moves depending on how forge is applied to it. Examples your thumb pressing in the center of a clay/iron bar, and how the clay moves when a straight edge is pressed into the clay (or clay-like nature of hot iron).

What pictures?

Note: pictures don't post successfully if they file size exceeds the maximum allowed by IForgeIron forum software.

Well, I finally got to post these pics and I hope that they help. My Mudder and fadder always said that I was a little slow.

No photograph is shown.

I had this happen each time I tried posting a photograph that was larger then the web site allowed to be posted.

I prefer cast iron firepots. Centaur and other web sites that service smiths sell a variety of good cast-iron firepots. A good firepot, a good/great hammer, good safety equipment and a decent anvil, you can skimp on everything else.

I use white marine grade lithium grease in my Champion blowers on the main gear and in the grease cups. That way they don't leak oil all over the place. .... But I also don't use them very often.

I would not suggest running these blowers without lubrication.

I have heard of people using a Civil War Traveling Forge to cook meals in places that don't allow pit-fires. Just clean out the forge, add a grill and charcoal. If it works as a forge, and a grill fits over the fire, then it can be used to cook food. I plan on making a grill and utensils for the Traveling Forge.

Form follows function. It depends on what you are heating. If you are heating rivets, horseshoes, small knives, then an enclosed mini blast furnace may work for you.

At the other extreme, if you are heating large objects such as iron wagon tires, then any obstruction in front of the chimney prevents heating the large iron project.

The local historic shop at the local museum has the firepot within the brick chimney structure. This prevents heating projects much larger than a horseshoe, and drives me nuts.

As you can see from the replies to your question, price varies. It depends on where you purchase it, flea market, auction, guild/club meeting, and how quickly you want one. If you want one immediately then you will have to pay premium prices. If you are willing to scrounge around for a couple of years, you might come upon a very good bargain. The more people get into blacksmithing, the more demand, the higher the prices will go for a limited supply of antique blowers.

Your efforts are wonderful and should be commended.

we have built the structure for a small (open on 3 sides) shop for period-life demonstrations.

I have yet to hear of a blacksmith shop that is open on any side. Sounds like a problem with both accuracy and functionality.

We do not yet have a design for period accurate forge:d

Depends on the type of work he did. General smithing including fixing wagon wheels would require a side draft forge where you can lean large tires against the chimney and rotate them. Function determines form. Determine the smith's use of the forge and the available materials in your location at that time and that will determine its design. Were bricks available? Was field stone available? What were houses during that time period made from?

Once you have determined whether brick or stone is appropriate (dry stone only, not stone from streams or riverbeds) then everything else follows. The basic masonry forge is an arch with a flat top and flat sides. The arch allows access to the firepot and removal of burned fuel. At the back of this masonry table is the chimney. A general purpose blacksmith chimney that allows repair of wheels is a side draft chimney that draws from the side, and does not have an overhead smoke hood because a smoke hood would prevent leaning iron tires against the chimney as they are heated and rotated in the fire. The flue pipe would be 10 or preferably 12 inches in diameter in order to have enough draw to pull smoke in from the side. The firepot would be located close to, but *not* inside the chimney opening... so that the smoke is drawn into the chimney and the firepot is not obstructed by the chimney.

For the past few years, we have had offer of some local blacksmiths that said they would help, but so far, no one has come through. If there is any one out there that could help, i would appreciate it!

That sometimes happens. To encourage active participation, your best bet is to:
1) Contact a local blacksmith guild/club.
2) Join the club yourself and go to meetings.
3) Take at least a beginners course.
4) Get a local guild involved in the design of the smithy from the ground up. As a woodworker you would probably not find it rewarding to work in and otherwise be involved in a historic woodworking shop designed by someone who has never worked with woodworking tools, especially a shop and tools without protection from the weather, theft and vandalism.

Blacksmiths are attracted to volunteer and help with historic shops that have four walls, lighting, a good forge setup with enough tools that they don't have to unload a truckload of equipment each time they visit, and enough space to be able to work without tripping over tools and historic displays.

My shop is designed based on a wheelwright's shop. Smithy at one end. The other end is woodworking equipment with two wood lofts.

Local guild in NC mentioned on the ABANA web page is the NORTH CAROLINA CHAPTER at ncabana.org

Contact information is:
Pres:Jimmy Alexander
922 Lakeside Dr.
Durham, NC 27712
(919) 477-8701
jima136040@aol.com
*
Ed: Marty Lyon
220 Fearrington Post
Pittsboro, NC 27312
(919) 642-0098
ncabanaml@earthlink.net

A stone anvil, a really rocking shop!

I have been a humble hobby-smith for about 35 years. In that time I have seen and read about smiths such as Francis Whitaker. I don't recall any of those fine professionals referring to themselves as master-smith, but everyone active in the blacksmithing community and guilds seemed to know who they were and respected their skills.

I have seen a large number of beginner-smiths pump out volumes of work beyond their ability and skill level (less than well made) prance around announcing their presence to all who would listen. Because they did not take the time to learn the basic skills they eventually reached the limit of what they could produce, lost interest in blacksmithing, and faded away.

My feeling is that you know a smith by his/her work. If the smith is consistently producing a wide range of masterpieces, his/her work will speak for itself.

If a person has to tell others that they are a "master smith", then perhaps their work is not speaking for them.

If you want to become a master smith I humbly suggest to *begin* the path by learning:

- hammer control. A person who is hitting the anvil as well as the iron is not a master smith.
- fire control. A well controlled fire does not put out a lot of smoke. Coal is moved in from the sides and allowed to coke. Water is used to help the coal coke, to control the area of the fire, and to control the flow of air within the coke walls.
- develop an eye for your work. Burned, bent, and dented iron are not part of a desired end-result.
- have patience. Work on projects designed to refine your hammer control and other skills. Skill building is a life long process. Master the basic skills, the rest will come in time.

Have poor work habits, do work beyond your ability, brag, and puff-up and people will just nod their heads and wait for you to fade-away.

Check out;

Guru - Bellows

Bellows

BP0127 Bellows Construction

BP0141 Building a Bellows

As others have mentioned wrought iron comes in differing quality. Wrought was made by taking a mass of iron hammering it into a slab, cutting the slab, stacking the pieces and putting it back into the fire to be forge welded. The more times the stack was drawn out, restacked and forge welded, the finer the wrought iron. Low grade iron was drawn out a couple of times, and higher grade was further refined.

I once cut the ends off of an old pair of tongs and tested the two pieces. One piece fell apart like rotted wood, while the other piece forged nicely like soft butter.

If your piece is large enough, you could cut off a small piece and test its quality and the range of forging temperature.

One local smith's secret was that he would purchase "drawing wire" in spools from companies that provide almost pure iron to companies that draw out wire for screens and other stuff. The iron is very much like high grade wrought iron and is wonderful to work with. The draw-back of any iron without carbon is that it is very soft. We tend to be used to iron that is stiff. When using soft iron you will have to use more of it if you don't want it to bend. This can be seen in specifications for iron for the military during the American U.S. War Between the States, as the specifications call for heavy forgings of the contractors providing iron objects due to the soft nature of wrought iron. Wrought iron was still available and still being made in the 1970s, but became unavailable due to lack of demand for wrought iron.

If you find a source of spools of iron wire, especially wire of 1/2 inch or larger, please please please share the information!