EricS

Fluid I do realize the difference these are part of a wagon in a front yard that has finally rotted and left the tires leaning against the wagon and the wooden spokes in the ground. I'll go pick them up tommorow.

Thanks Thomas I will look for the grain on the inside. I was looking for the weld but could not find them on any of the tires. He was wanting $10 each ill try to talk him down to $5

Thanks Thomas I will look for the grain on the inside. I was looking for the weld but could not find them on any of the tires. He was wanting $10 each ill try to talk him down to $5

I have a chance to pick up a few wagon wheel tires and was wondering if they are generally made of wrought iron. He will not let me cut them to check the grain unless I buy them.

Dick, I have used my practice hearts for the same thing. Around hear we just make do with what we have on hand. Eric

Looks great so far!! The fire pot look very similar to mine. I built a triangular clinker breaker and use it withe peak of the triangle facing up. This allows me to have a concentrated fire and good fire control. Here is a link to some picks from my build

David I'm glad your filming the drifting of the hardy hole. I have got my drift made and 3/4" hole drilled and am waiting untill I have some help available. It will be good to see what I have waiting for me. Hopefully you get it posted before I give it a go. Thanks in advance for the pics/ film.

It is amazing 500 years later and the smithing methods haven't changed They must have been doing something right to produce such quality. I'm still trying to figure out how they survived without Ipads,pods and apps and CNC(sarcasm)

so where does everyone find wrought iron and in what form? ie: scrap yard -wagon wheels, railings

I was at a friends this evening and took some pictures of his old anvil.I think it is a colonial anvil.not sure as im just a rookie. this anvil was passed down many generations(exact amount is unknown ) but the anvil was used or maybe even created at his families furnace. It was the Ormand-Washington furnace here in NC. believed to be the second oldest furnace in the nation. it was located near Bessemer city named after the fellow that created the Bessemer process. He tells stories of how his grandfather used to have mishaped cannon balls from the civil war laying around and used them as door stops. and he used to find them out back laying around and would play with them when he was a young boy. heres some pics i hope they turned out ok i took them with my cell phone.

thanks for the clarification!!

The fire pot is 13 x 9 with a 5 x 6 bottom

Thanks for all the comments. also thanks to everyone on the forum that has contributed the wealth of information that i have tapped into to build my forge. I have taken many of the ideas i have seen on here and made what i thought to be a good forge to last my son and i many years.

i finally got to make some progress on the forge and hood. don't laugh at my welding im just a rookie. I have just a couple of things to finish up (clinker breaker handle and counter wieght on the ash dump) and i should be ready to paint and install it in the smithy. here are a few more pics

I got some material the other day and I was finally able to make some progress. I welded up a clinkerbreaker out of 1/4" plate i have about 3 hrs into the clinkerbreaker between welding and grinding. I also welded up my firepot drilled the holesin the bottom and taped the breaker holder so i can bolt it to the bottom of the pot after it gets welded to the tuyere assembly(4"x4" with 3" tube for blower tube) i also picked up a piece of 2"x6"x12" steel plate for a striking anvil. here are some picks let me know what you think and weather you would change anything. thanks eric

thanks to all who have contributed to this site and given me information and inspiration. Mike Tanner gave my son and I a 176# anvil to start our blacksmithing adventure. Thanks again Mike. Eric

my son and i finally got around to mounting our vise yesterday. i cut a 2 1/2' chunk of 8x8 and nailed it flush to the bottom of a 5' piece of 8x8(sorry for the confusion) put it in the ground 2 1/2' so the smaller piece is flush to the floor. plumbed and leveled put in a 80# bag of ready mix. then i drilled a 1" hole in a 1/2" RR fish plate to mount the post in. i cut my post flush to the bottom of the mounting bracket and laged it down. shes as solid as a rock!

I really wasn't planning on building a forge but i was at work and the mechanical company was getting ready to scrap a return air fan mounting frame. it was made of 3" square tubing and 2" square tubing cross members and other bracing it was 5 1/2' x 6' x 4' tall. so i offered to pay them scrap price for it and the foreman said take it so needless to say they set it in the back of my truck with the crane and it was on its way to its new home. I had my son Eli cut it apart yesterday and i started cutting the pieces to size today and was able to weld a couple of pieces together today. I have some 1/4" flat stock that i will be using for the table and the fire pot. I also plan on using the super sucker hood plans over on anvilfire. looks like the cheapest and simplest hood. I will post more pics as I progress. here are some pictures of todays progress. thanks for looking, Eric

Here are some pics

It must be true. I have been cruising craigslist for a while now looking for a good deel on a post vise. Saturday night i put vise in the c-list search box and one of the results stated "vise $30" i usually skip over these because it generally not what im looking for.so i checked it out and it was a bad pic of a rusty moss coated post vise with a bunch of other metal hanging off it stating it was 2' long . I made the call and the man said it was part of a deal he got at an estate sale and he had to cut the the tree down it was attached to to get it free. he said it was rusted closed and could not open it. so needless to say my son Eli and I drove the 50 miles to get it. it looked pretty good when we got there light rust and complete. got it home and hit the handle with the palm of my hand and the jaws broke free and revealed the grease packed threads.cleaned it up and it turns out to be a 6" Iron City :) Did i mention $30!! We cant wait to get her mounted and put to work.

mark I hope i will be able to forge nice clean tenons like that some day. Your client will be quite happy.

Grizzer, i have the same blower and the "plug hole" is the adjustment for the blade shaft. mine has a bolt with anut on it to lock it in place once its adjusted correctly. i will send you a pic if i can get it to attach eric

Hi, my name is Eric Smith, My 15 yr old son Eli and I live in NC. We have been gathering up the materials and tools to do some blacksmithing together. I was extremely excited when my son came to me and said he wanted to try forging some iron( something i have always wanted to try). I've tried for years to get him to come out to the wood shop and build something with me or help me fix up some of the old "arn" i use in the shop. but I couldn't pry him away from the video games. We went down to RR tracks that supply coal to the steam plant a couple of miles away and were able to pick up about 30lbs of coal in about a quarter mile. so we fired up the forge and managed to bang out a few things for the first time. we did burn the tip off the rr spike knife my son made but it ended up ok for the first time ever. we learned how the coal burned (never had a coal fire before) and how to manage it a little bit. I made a slitting tool for future forgings. I think it turned out pretty good for the first piece. We don't have an anvil right now or the cash to by one right now so we used what we could scrounge up i sharpened an edge on the flat plat we were using to make a hot cut i'm surprised at how efficient it works. The pick of the forge has the coal pushed away from the tuyere to help it cool down we had about a 4" deep fire ball. Anyway thanks for all the info on the site from everyone and looking forward to posting more. any critiques will be appreciated. Thanks Eric and Eli