Tucker Props

Thanks Drewed! Breaking them into smaller chunks does help. Though over the past few days I've learned that I might want to swap out my brake drum for a larger/deeper one so I can pile on more charcoal. Right now I can only get a thin layer on before it starts overflowing. Doesn't matter too much if I'm gonna be making armor though, as basically I can just set my steel on top of the coals and let it heat up, but today I was trying to heat up a railroad spike, took me a while to find the center of the heat, and took quite a long time to heat it up to glow at all. I could barely get a dull red glow. With better coal, it would probably heat up more, and with a deeper fire it would probably heat better as well. Right now my brake drum is only about 2 inches deep, so I imagine that would make it hard to get good heat.

Thanks Private Entrance! I'll definitely give that a shot. Hopefully I'll have some time to play with everything tomorrow before I go to work, or later today I guess it is now. If not tomorrow, I might get another chance on Saturday or Sunday.

Baling wire! Great idea! I was using some sort of compression clamp, but I think I need to be using bigger pipes for airflow. My dryer duct was 3" in diameter, but didn't really fit on the end of the blower. But I had to crush the other end and then clamp it on the air pipe. I think it was only 1 1/2" and I should probably upgrade to a 2-3" pipe in the future huh?

Thanks guys! I've got a section of rail that I'll be using as a temporary anvil, and a section of about 4 inch diameter steel pipe that will be "almost" simulating the horn of the anvil. At least it will let me do some curves. I also picked up a stump for free, that I'll be carving into the top of to make myself a dishing stump. One issue I've ran into though, is that I don't have any tongs. Can I start off with a pair of pliers or vise grips or something? They won't melt if they're decent tools at all right? One of my early projects is definitely going to be making my own pair of tongs, but I don't have any stock for that yet.

Thanks Mark! I've been so excited this week to get this finished. Several weeks back I had visited our local blacksmithing club in Wichita, and made an "S" hook out of 1/4" square stock and an elbow cop out of 16 gauge mild steel. It was a HUGE learning experience for me, and really made me want to build my own forge. I want to be able to make my own armor. I've made chain and scale maille in the past, so I figure plate is the next logical step. Here are a few pictures of some of my other projects.

As the title says, I finished assembling my brake drum forge today. At first, I had planned on building a table with a box on top, adding lots of braces and support underneath, and pouring concrete into the top of the table. I decided against this plan for now, and went a MUCH simpler route. I stacked up a bunch of cinder blocks to support my brake drum, and I might go buy some more to build more of a surface around it. I bought some black iron pipe and a few stainless steel bolts at Ace, and a dryer duct at Lowes. All in all, I spent less than $50 on materials to build my forge. I fired it up before going in to work just to make sure everything worked on it. It's small enough and pretty simple to disassemble, that I could probably take it with me to shows and stuff if I wanted. I connected the dryer vent to the iron pipe with a clamp that you screw down to tighten, but it didn't connect so well to my Champion 40 blower, so I used a bunch of duct tape to hold it on. Works for now. Does anyone have a better suggestion for the air flow? The dryer duct works right now, but I'm afraid it will come apart at the connection points eventually. Also, I bought some Hardwood Lump Coal. I know its probably not the best out there, but its the only thing I could find locally. I really didn't want to buy anything online since I'll only be using small amounts for now. I know this forum doesn't deal with making armor or knives very much, but I figured I could at least share my forging experience with all of you. I'll also be making an account over at the Armour Archive to display my work. Anyways, here are a few pictures of the forge. That last photo was right after I first started the fire. I let it burn for about 20 minutes or so just happy with myself that I actually built something that works, then I let it die down and covered it with bricks so the ashes won't catch anything else on fire before heading off to work.

Awesome! I'm glad I was able to get ahold of it then! Now I just gotta finish designing my forge and makeshift workshop. Hopefully I'll be able to start on it this weekend.

Thanks lloe01! It felt like a bargain, and I figured a working blower was probably a lot better than no blower at all.

Hey guys, I just got my hands on a Champion blower, not sure if its one of the good ones, or if there are really any "bad" Champion blowers, but I figured I would post up some pictures for you guys to see. It seems to be in great working order, I even took the top panel off to take a look at the gears inside. They looked almost brand new! The previous owner had cleaned it up a little bit and replaced most of the bolts on it. Also, I got it at a steal of a price! He wanted an old broken air compressor out of my garage that I had no use for! So it was a win/win situation for us! And there you go. Did I get a pretty good deal? Now I just need to finish building my forge... Thanks for looking!

Thanks bigfootnampa! I've got quite a few more pictures of scales and jewelry! And Glenn, thanks for the tips! Since the shop will be multi-purpose, not just for blacksmithing but also for my chain and scale needs, I could definitely classify it as an artistic or hobby shop. Heck, maybe even a jewelers workshop. Thanks for the feedback guys!

Hey guys, I'm new here. New to Blacksmithing, this website, and most metalworking in general. I am mostly interested in blacksmithing as a hobby, and hopefully to make myself some medieval armour out of it. From the little I've read around this site, most of you tend to make more useful things such as tools, stands, hooks, decorations and other things used on a daily basis. I definitely will not complain about learning how to do some of these things as well. I'm really interested in the craft of blacksmithing as a whole, but if it can also help me achieve some personal goals of making some of my own armour, then by all means I'm going to take advantage of that. A little bit of background, I've always been interested in history, especially that of the middle ages. I've always loved the idea of knights and chivalry, and have attended Renaissance festivals for years. I've experimented with making my own armour before, I quickly learned that the simplest and cheapest to make as a beginner was chainmaille. Eventually I also moved onto scalemaille, and I make both armor and jewelry from both of these. But still, the dream of creating solid plate armour danced before me. In my eyes, its the next logical step. At one point, I borrowed an anvil from my uncle, bought some sheet metal, both mild and stainless steel, and tried to force the metal into shapes with brute force. VERY quickly learning that a forge is a necessity. Working 16 gauge sheet steel into any type of contour shape is ridiculously hard with cold metal. Shortly after this incident, I looked online and found a local blacksmithing shop/club and went to visit. I've since joined the club, and am now in process of building a simple workshop and forge in my backyard (with the wife's approval of course) I would have done so much earlier, but we only just recently bought our own house. I'm going to check with the city and see what types of codes or zoning regulations I'll need to follow and find if there are any permits required to operate a forge in the city limits. Also, any tips for soundproofing the walls would be greatly appreciated. I don't want to disturb my neighbors much if at all if I can avoid it. Also, is there a type of coal that I can use that doesn't smell too bad, so the neighbors won't complain about that either? Oh, and for your enjoyment, a few pictures of my chainmaille and scalemaille for your enjoyment! Sorry if this is too many pictures for a first post. Let me know what you think! -Ryan Tucker