Clay

Hey guys, haven't been on in a while but I'm back with new found welding equipment. I'm looking to pitch my breakdrum forge and fabricate a new forge. I remember seeing several impressive and promising designs posted, however I can't locate any of them, and i only have access to the first 200 blueprints. If anyone can give me a link to their favorite design or help me with the blueprint problem I would really appreciate it. By the way, I'm looking for a coal forge. let me know if you need more info.

what exactly is a bicken?

Has anyone ever tried forging a ring for jewelry? Right now I've been drawing our some steel extremely thin and wrapping it tightly around a piece of round stock and just twisting the ends together. If I hammer it while it's on the round stock it just deforms the circle, so I don't know how I'll be able to weld the ends together. Any ideas? I couldn't find any blueprints on it.

Well, I worked my first piece of iron today. But I was having some trouble with the blower, I was using a hairdryer but it wasn't getting the steel past cherry. Then I upgraded to a leaf blower and started getting somewhere, bright yellow. But I can't seem to find a good permanent blower. No one around here carries any squirrel cage fans. Any suggestions on where to look or another type of fan I can use?

Hey everyone, just started out and a friend and I have built a forge that we're pretty proud of. We got a hold of an anvil and a railroad rail, and were all ready to go--we even have some coal. But we start the fire like we've been told; newspaper, then split wood, then dry coal. We get to the dry coal part and we were pretty excited about that. But we don't have any breeze or coke or whatever your supposed to call it. We read that you add water to the outside of the hot coals, compact it, push it a little closer to the fire and then repeat until you have like coal bricks. Unfortunately our fire pretty much died when we poured (very conservative amounts) or water around the edge. Any tips for making coke? Some things you should know is we are using a bellows(very small 2X3 ft), and our coal is of low quality(not sure on the stats but it has like 3% sulfur). Any tips would be appreciated. Thanks guys.

Another questions, I always use leather glue to reinforce any area that I will end up stitching. Is that a bad Idea to use any kind of glue for this specific case?

Hey thanks irnbndrs thats the info I was looking for!

Well, first of all I'd like to say hello. I'm new to the site and I'm still building my forge. Right now I'd take any tips for just starting out. But more specifically I was wondering about aprons. I do leather work so I was planning on making an apron while I try to pull together everything for my forge. However, I'm not sure what kind of leather I should use. Could I just use some Rawhide or should I go for something a little more pliable like some thick suede? Any discussion in the area would be appreciated, along with tips for just starting up. So far I'm having trouble finding the right steel. I have a huge scrap yard/recycling center in my town but I don't know what I'm looking for. Anyway, I'm really interested in Blacksmithing and I've already checked out 'on the edge of the anvil' from my library.