David Einhorn

I third the saddle answer

I read that other thread and it really did not provide any useful information. My question is about the policies that the various guilds and individuals have acquired through ABANA.

I would like to read a couple sample policies to see what the wording is in them, and what the policies actually cover, not what people may think the policies cover.

The question came up yesterday after a guild meeting as to what insurance policies really cover. Does anyone have policies that they have acquired through ABANA that they would care to let me read the wording of? I would like to see what the various policies cover in the wording of those policies, for guild insurance, individual demonstrator insurance and individual smith insurance.

Some years ago I took over the paperwork for a non-profit group that did athletic activities and found that the policy they had been paying on for over five years was designed for a trade school and did not cover *any* athletic activities!

I am not a lawyer and don't pretend to be one. But actually reading policies can be a good idea.

At one presentation I attended many years ago, the presenter said that an important tool to tell you if you are working correctly is a clock. He said if you are not working as fast as a professional smith, then you are doing it wrong. He especially pointed out not to hunch over the anvil and do little ding ding ding hits, and not to hit the face of the anvil with a hammer while working the edges of a piece.

Yesterday I also noticed one fellow holding a heated iron over the tail of one of the guild's anvils, while two other gentlemen hit it as hard as they could with sledge hammers. I half expected the tail of the anvil to break off.

I expect that the anvils in the guild's school area will have to be replaced every couple of years as they are taking a pretty severe battering. It makes me nervous about taking my almost pristine smaller anvils to guild presentations where other members might use them.

The more time someone spends using a floor mandrel the more useful they become for that person and the easier they are to use. The trick is to use gravity. Drop the non-round ring over the mandrel and tap it where you see light showing between the mandrel and the ring. Work gently but firmly around the ring tapping where you see light. The idea is to bring the ring to round, not smash it against the mandrel. Then flip the ring over and make any corrections on the other side. Use your hammer and tongs to adjust the ring so that it is level with the floor periodically.

I use Marine grade lithium grease rated for winter temperatures in my Champion 400 blowers, as it does not tend to leak out like oil does. First clean out the old junk. Also, I have found that bicycle bearings for steering columns work pretty good as replacement bearings inside the grease cups on the side of the blower. Replacing the grease in the grease cups might be a good idea too.

To find a replacement screw, take the other screw out, measure the screw for size, length, threads per inch, and head diameter. First try Lowes, and/or your local hardware store, then if no-one else has it, take it to your local Fastenal store or check out their website, Home | Fastenal. Fastenal Inc. carries historical type fasteners including unplated square head bolts and nuts.

Still working on this portable forge, according to Government specs. Making the wheels is difficult.

University of Connecticut offered a non-credit intro to blacksmithing course a the smith's house near Storrs, Connecticut, about 35 years ago. I was in the first class he taught.

At the moment I am banding the hubs, for two 57" diameter, 190 lb wheels, for a Civil War era Traveling Forge. So far I put four of the eight hub bands on this weekend and roughed out four more hub bands today. There are four iron bands on each wooden-wheel hub, for a 1860s Civil War era Number 1 wheel. I have been building the Traveling Forge since fall of 2006. I will try to finish and install two of the hub bands tomorrow.

Joseph (CivilWarBlacksmith/Reb) you can always park your Traveling Forge in our garage next to the road. ;)

One of my favorite quicky items is a screw driver with a twist and a closed circle for a handle. They work are great paint can openers also. It gives me a chance to explain how screw drivers evolved a bit since colonial times, how one can fit a screw driver to a screw especially the type used on guns which require fitting to a slot in the screws with straight walls rather than the normal slanted walled screws... that tends to get them to pause a bit and realize that slotted screws usually accept a driver that is tapered on all four surfaces. That can lead into hardening and tempering of tools, as a chisel is not much different from a screw driver.

As far as the question about shoeing horses, I simply explain that my wife never let me try shoeing hers, but I would be happy to give it a try if they would bring their horse around. Of course no one who owns a horse will agree to that! Plus I explain that horses only need shoes if they will be walking across a surface that required their hoofs to be protected. When my wife had horses, they never needed shoes as they never went on rocky surfaces and never walked on hard surfaces such as roads.

As far as not being a real smith, I can only agree since I have only been doing it as a hobby for over 36 years, but I still hope some day to be considered a "real" smith.

I have a handout that attempts to cover as many of the questions that people ask, including information about the equipment used, web addresses to find out information, the basic steps in making a knife, my contact information, and the local guild that offers classes.

As a professional psychotherapist I recommend avoiding traumatizing kids or adults for that matter. Some people are pretty fragile.

I use the swage blocks fairly frequently, and my larger cone mandrel will become essential, hopefully this weekend, when I try to start putting bands on some wheel hubs. If you have to straighten a ring, cone mandrels come in really handy... a tap here and a tap there... and the ring is now round.

I'm am glad you enjoyed the postings that I made to the Traveling Forge Discussion Forum. I have also posted extensive information on the traveling forge and its construction on the Blacksmithing TWiki located at:

TravelingForgeConstruction < BlacksmithInfo < TWiki

An excellent book is:

Making and Modifying Machines (Fine Woodworking On) (Paperback)
by Fine Woodworking Editors (Editor)
18 used & new available from $3.50 through Amazon.com

Well, I used to work a real job as a software engineer but it damaged my hands. So now I listen to people talk about how depressed they are for income.

You could use BGCM school forges on forge nights and meeting days. You could also help out at one of the historical forges in the Maryland area. 12 by 12 is pretty small, depends what you want to do in it. I moved from Maryland to one block north of the PA line. Homes were about half the price and the zoning allows for a home business.

You could also construct some sort of portable set-up that allows you to take your essential stuff to events.

I have placed a lot of information on constructing a Civil War Period Traveling Forge on the new TWiki Blacksmithing Encyclopedia. If you need any other information, just let me know and I will try to add it to the encyclopedia... other than posting whole books of diagrams and manuals of course.

Click Here for Traveling Forge Construction
Here is a picture of my traveling forge, all it needs are the wheels, bellows and pipe to be finished and usable.

Actually, the equipment used by both sides were identical. A majority of the officers, manual writers and army documentation producers were southerners and owed their allegiance to the south. So the Traveling Forge was also used by southern forces, and much of the equipment at the beginning of the war was acquired from battles with northern army units.

It is important to our history not to underestimate the sophistication and skill of the period artisans in producing quality equipment. Neither side used junk during the Civil War, and smiths took pride in the quality of their work.

Hello folks. I have been doing blacksmithing for a hobby for around 34 years. For the past year I have been working on the construction of a Civil War Traveling Forge using a copy of the official US drawings and specifications that were produced by Captain Albert Mordecai in the 1850s.

I don't have a current photograph of my progress as most of the parts are fit to the frame and then removed for easy access to fit the next set of parts. Definitely not a weekend project as there are lots of parts to make. Here is a photo of what it looked like in January before I removed the fireplace to fit the stock and the axle assembly.

I'm a bit slow in constructing parts for it.

Many of the photos and postings on the forum where folks talk about building traveling forges are postings that I contributed: TRAVELING FORGE DISCUSSION - Home

There are some really nice historical photographs and sketches of a Traveling Forge in use on the Library of Congress web site.

And before anyone asks, a common question is where to get a copy of the plans. The answer is that Antique Ordnance Publishers sell copies either directly or through supplies of Civil War reenactment gear. This book called "Field Artillery Traveling Forge book No. 61" is a bargain for $20.00 (plus shipping, Antique Ordnance Publishers, PO Box 610434, Port Huron, MI 48061).
Personally I prefer to purchase copies from the Regimental Quartermaster
store located at 49 Steinwehr Ave. Gettysburg PA 17325 (717-338-1864). But that is my preference. They also publish and sell the plans for the official sheet metal forge designed for mountain terrain use, where the Traveling Forge wagon could not navigate.

No the Union Army did not use makeshift forges, wooden forges, angle iron forges, or any of the other stuff that people normally drag to Civil War period reenactments. But as long as people are having fun, I figure they can use whatever equipment they want. Hopefully though, they will explain to the public that their equipment is not historically correct so as not to rewrite history, and so as not to belittle our blacksmithing heritage.

Construction of a Traveling Forge is not for the faint at heart. It may look like a week-end project, but to build one that is reasonably nice and somewhat historically accurate, takes time. I know one gentleman, that spent so much time in his garage building one that his wife and kids were extremely annoyed with him. Each regulation No. 1 wheel weighs 190 pounds, so the Traveling Forge is not a light project either. The middle board of the bellows weighed in at about 60 pounds on my bathroom-type scale. Inserting the bellows into the back of the Bellows House should prove interesting, especially single-handed.

The TRAVELING FORGE DISCUSSION - Home shows other various parts and progress that I have made. For me, the Bellows Pole and the Bellows Pole Stud (pivot point for the pole) each took about a week's worth of spare time..... As I said before, I am not very fast at this stuff, especially making something for the first time.

If the Traveling Forge is functional by July 2008, it has been invited to the 145 Anniversary Reenactment of the Battle of Gettysburg. It all depends on how well my attempt to construct the 57 inch diameter wheels progresses, after the axle assembly is completed.