01tundra

First off, thanks. 1. Yes sir I did, the build thread is in the anvil forum - http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/28153-another-anvil-stand-build/page__hl__%2Banother+%2Banvil+%2Bstand 2. I did design it for portability since I'm having to forge out of my current shop for the time being, someday I'll build a dedicated smitty with a hood, that's the primary reason why I put casters with locking wheels on my forge. I will be able to wheel it indoors under the hood during bad weather, and take it outdoors when it's nice out. Build thread - http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/27634-forge-opinions/

Well my 2nd attempt at a snake didn't turn out how I wanted it to, but I was successful in folding the end of the stock over and forge welding it on the first attempt, which was a win in my mind :D . My new rounding hammer also arrived on Friday and I can already tell that it's going to be my primary hammer, definitely like the feel of this one.

I agree, I've had a lot of people on this forum help me get started and keep me out of the ditches. Frosty has consistently been one of those people and I really appreciate it. Of course, there's a few people that have helped me out a lot, but at the cost of giving the newb some lumps along the way.....but I just take that in stride and keep on pressing forward in my quest to learn this great skill.......not going to run me off that easy :)!

Or perhaps be careful and watch where the cut off piece lands as Glenn suggested...........

My first time using a cutoff hardy was this weekend and I search everywhere for that 1" long piece of 1/4" round stock I had cut off.......worried me for a long time.......finally found it yesterday burned into the sole of my brand new work boot.....lesson learned :rolleyes: ! Good point on the corrosive issue, I should have picked up on that when I had the brilliant idea to put all my coal fines in water in a galvanized bucket, found it rusted badly a few days later and switched to a plastic bucket. I suppose if any water is not flashing off the coals after being removed from the pot, then I'm doing the exact same thing to my cart table. I'm beginning to think that since I'm still having a hard time identifying the clinkers in my forge, maybe dumping it all in a bucket of water and keeping everything that floats would be a better option for me all the way around. I'm assuming all the coke and green coal will float?

I take all the coal/coke off the top of the fire pot and put it on one side of my forge table, lightly sprinkle it all with water until the hiss is gone, then shovel all the fuel from down inside the fire pot to the opposite side of the table and do the same. That way I'm isolating the clinkers on a single side of the table, which results in less fuel to sort through trying to find clinkers. Not sure if that's a good approach or not since I'm still a newb at all of this......but it seems to be working for me so far. From now on, once I'm finished for the day, I'm going to rake all the surrounding green coal onto the fire and blast it for a few minutes to get some of it on it's way to turning into coke for the next fire.

Talked to my instructor last night during class and he basically said the same thing all of you did, could upset it, but it would probably be easier to forge weld it and then forge it into shape. I have some Iron Mountain flux headed my way, this should be entertaining to say the least! I'm quickly becoming addicted to forging, I just hope I can eventually gain the finesse and skills required to produce work 1/100 as nice as some of the work I see on this forum. I always try to look at it with inspiration in mind, but at times in the back of my head I can hear that little voice saying you'll never achieve work even remotely as nice as what most of these guys throw in the scrap bin :rolleyes: ..... The good news is that I completed and passed this week's and next week's projects last night in class. I feel like I'm learning or furthering a skill set on each project. My biggest problem is I tend to not want to strike with authority on the small work, I'm trying to not damage it, but they're slowly getting me over that misconception. I also got to use some of my new forging skills while making one of my oil candle stands this weekend, the forge makes bending metal so much more efficient, I didn't have any waste like I typically do while using my bench bender.

Thanks guys. I've been reading books, searching on the internet, watching videos, and also taking classes at our local forge in an attempt to soak up all of the knowledge I possibly can. I'm also to the point where I'm ready to make my own mistakes and hopefully learn from them. I finished my forge and smitty up a few months ago, but I've waited until now to fire it up in hopes that I knew enough to be dangerous and hopefully not waste fuel and resources. I've lit my fire twice with no problems, once with green coal and once with coal/coke mixture, so that in itself is an accomplishment in my eyes at this point. Still having an awful time distinguishing which are clinkers, not sure why it's so hard to figure out in my forge, because it's fairly easy to pick them out in the schools forges. I'm happy with the amount of heat my little forge can produce with very little effort, I found this out by making a few sparklers out of stock and also melting the first head off my snake the other day, I even quenched it in water and tried to keep it out of the fire as much as possible. Even though I'm barely cranking my blower, I think there's times when I need to be a little more patient and keep my hands off the blower all together.....I guess I'll learn all of these things eventually. I've read a lot about forge welding, and since my first instinct to fold the stock over seemed to be heading in the right direction (dumb luck there), I'm going to study welding techniques a lot more this week. I did teach myself that heating and beating the folded pieces into submission is a pipe dream....and also to watch where that little piece flies off to after cutting it off with the hardy, finally found it last night...............burned into the sole of my one day old work boots.....oops! I hammered out the head of the snake with a ball peen hammer (since my rounding hammer is still making its journey to me on the big brown truck). Then used a combination of the pritchel hole and horn to shape it with multiple attempts. The biggest let down is that I had my mind set on making a 3-dimensional solid head and even putting eyes on it somehow, and ended up with a 2-D flat head. I'm still not sure how to effectively use all my punches, drifts, & chisels for adding features like eyes and whatnot. My ultimate goal is to make a solid head with features and a forked tongue on it....I know.....pretty high goals for a newb huh :D

Well now I know where I screwed up. I haven't learned to forge weld yet, time to start studying since it's the last topic in our class and I know I won't be able to wait that long to make another attempt at this. The funny part is that on my first attempt I heated the rod and folded the end over, thinking if I got it really hot I could beat the two pieces together. When that didn't work, I used my hardy cut-off to remove the folded portion. So I was on the right track, just didn't have the experience or knowledge to actually realize it...... Thanks everyone for the input.

I fired up my recently built coal forge yesterday to get a little more familar with fire management and decided to mess around with a piece of round stock in the process. I know my first mistake was starting at the tail end. I also learned a lesson in overheating/burning up steel in the process, after melting the first head completely off. It was a good self-taught lesson in "what not to do" for sure :rolleyes: . My question is, how would an experienced blacksmith go about making the snake's head solid, instead of 2-D like I did? My first thought would be to heat the very end and upset it until I had enough mass to form the head, then work down the body and finish off with the tail? I got to the end and then tried upsetting it, working from the tail, and that proved to be the wrong approach. It's bugging me now and I'm ready to try to get some redemption on my next try at this one. I appreciate any opinions, suggestions (and for the record, yes I realize this is an aweful example of work, but it was more for me to just try different techniques that I had learned from my first two classes).

Well, I completed my first class assignment on Tuesday.....it isn't pretty, but I got it finished and signed off on. I need to slow down and also learn to put more heat on my metal, I caught myself trying to work it too cold a few times. I'm going to be doing a lot of practice work at home this weekend.........

Finally fired up the forge last night and got some coal coaked and played a little with some square stock. I figured since I attended my first class last week and have my next on tonight, I may as well see if the forge was even going to work and try to learn how to bring up and take down a fire by myself. I was surprised how easy the green coal started up, all I did was make a mushroom shape with newspaper, poked a hole in the center with the anvil horn, and threw a few chunks of Cowboy's charcoal on top. Lit the paper on the bottom side and slowly started cranking the blower as I raked coal in from the sides. It didn't take long to get going, had to poke down in the center once or twice. I piled the green coal up about 2" high around the fire pot and wetted it down while I messed around with my metal. It didn't take very much cranking to get the metal glowing, it surprised me how quickly it heat up. When I decided to take the fire back down, I raked the coal off the top of the fire pot back onto the hearth and wetted it down. There was a center ring clump above the tuyure cover that I had to break into chunks before raking out. I then used a shovel to remove everything below the grate level and put it in a separate pile on the hearth, thinking that it would be easier to separate out the clinkers. The problem is, I'm having a hard time figuring out with are clinkers. I didn't get any of the smooth, heavy clinkers like I saw during my first class. I did find some chunks that looks a lot like pot metal, wasn't sure if those were clinkers or not? Nothing felt noticeably heavier than the coke pieces. Here's some pictures, the last picture is what I felt looked a little different, but weight wise it was the same as the rest.

Went to the local scrap yard for the first time to pick up 24' of new 1/4" square stock. The guy working there told me "you might want to go check out that material over by the fence"........2 hrs later I was pulling out of there with my square stock and a load of 1/2" stock, 1" flat plate, and other random stuff. At $.25 per pound I couldn't resist, even snagged a stick of triangle shaped stock, never knew they made such a thing. Now I've got plenty of metal to practice on, even though i did leave about $50 poorer than I had planned on :)!

Great tips, taking notes - thanks! I've been dying to fire up my new smithy for over a month now, heck, I don't even really know if the forge I built is even going to be worth anything, but I'm adamant on working with an experienced smith prior to doing anything on my own, which is scheduled to hopefully happen this coming weekend in my smithy. I'm also going to start formal classes next week at our local forge. I know from past experiences over the years that I'm notorious for teaching myself bad habits, especially when it comes to physical activities. I grip the paddle too hard in my kayak, which has taken a while to try to correct through classes, I used to grip the racquet too hard and muscle shots when playing racquetball, I used to grip the softball bat too hard, I used to grip the weight lifting bars too hard, resulting in some carpel tunnel......in other words, I try to use brute strength over technique if not taught the proper ways to do things. So that's why I'm refusing to even attempt to start out on my own......I'm the guy that has to use a torque wrench because I'm notorious for twisting the heads off Grade 8 bolts otherwise.... :rolleyes: . Even though it may not be rocket science, I feel that in my particualr case I could cause myself a lot of harm (both physically and mentally) by starting off on the wrong foot. Heck I've waited 43 yrs to get into something that I've been interested in as far back as I can remember, so I figured I can exercise a little patience to ensure that I can continue doing it and enjoying it for many years to come. Plus, I really want to learn how to maintain the fire correctly, I see that as a vital thing to know. I've read a lot of the books that have been recommended on this forum and also watched some videos, but I'm more of a "hands on" kind of learner, so I think working with experienced blacksmiths will be a good thing for me to do starting out.

OK thanks. I've already sifted the fines out of the bag I bought online with my makeshift sifter. I placed anything under 1/4" in a metal bucket and then wetted it with water to use around my fire. That may have been a mistake, but I convinced myself to do so after reading about other people doing similar on here and figured since the air holes in my tuyere cover are 1/4", that it would help prevent fines from dropping through.....again, that may have been a wasted effort? I can't wait to attend the Fiddler's Grove forge class next Tuesday.....being a clueless newbie gets old at times, but at least I usually learn from my mistakes :)

I bought some coal from a guy last night for $25, it filled up my little truck bed to the rim (approximately 25 cu. ft.). The best I can tell, it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000 lbs.? I know I could hardly move the 96 gallon trash bins after filling them, so they definitely felt at least 500 lbs to me. I have a 50 lb. bag of blacksmithing coal that I bought online and this coal "feels" and looks similar, but I'm not sure if it's really Bituminous or not, if seems to be fairly soft. It seems to have a lot of fines, but so did the bag I bought online. The fines aren't as bad as they look in the picture, since everything on top was the last thing out of my truck after sweeping the fines up. The coal appears to be really clean, there wasn't any trash in it and it was stored in a big wooden bin. Other than being an experienced blacksmith and forging with it, is there any general way of figuring out what type of coal it is? I'm hoping I didn't waste my time and gas moving all of this last night, but he did also give me a bucket full of old RR spikes (maybe 20 or so) and a 6' long piece of 3/8" rebar, so really to me that alone was worth the 30 mile drive.

I just used 3/8" drop-in style anchor and grade 8 bolts, that way I can remove the three bolts any time I want to and will only have three small holes in my slab. With those in it the anvil isn't going anywhere fast.

I got the idea from somewhere on this awesome site, so it's definitely not a new concept that I came up with. As I was filling the legs with sand, I was tapping on the legs with a brass hammer to settle and pack the sand in as tight as possible, you wouldn't believe how striking the legs went from sounding like a very load church bell to hitting on a dense log as they were filled. So this is a double positive in my opinion......added approximately 20 lbs of mass to my stand and dampened the legs really well, all for a very minimal cost. I drilled 1/2" holes in the metal foot plates and then tapped them with NPT threads, filled with dry sand, then used flush-style plugs with pipe sealant to avoid ever having that "beach" feel in my smitty :D ! I guess now that I really sit back and think about it.......when you consider the sand, two layers of 30# felt between the anvil and base, mechanically clamping the anvil down tightly on each end to the base with preload, the 2" hard wood blocks between the metal feet and concrete slab, and the 3/8" anchors into the concrete slab on all three legs......I guess it's not so much of a miracle that my anvil is very quiet now afterall....talk about overkill......oopsie....it's the stupid "engineer" in me....what can I say :unsure: .

Thanks, actually those 3/8" bolts going through the feet are concrete anchors that run through the metal feet, wood blocks, and into the concrete slab. I used 3/8" drop-in anchors with 6" long, 3/8" Grade 8 bolts, so if I decide to move it there will be nothing sticking up to have to cut flush with the slab. Believe me, it's not going anywhere anytime soon. So all-in-all, it's a 155 lb. Hay-Budden anvil clamped to a 150(ish) lb. steel stand that's mechanically fastened to a 5,000 psi, 6" thick reinforced concrete slab ;) .

I filled my stand legs with sand, then put 2" Oak blocks between the feet and concrete floor. I put two layers of 30# roofing felt between the anvil base and mounting plate. It's solid as a rock and almost completely killed the ring, I was shocked how much the ring was dampened, it's now just a dull "thud" when struck. I studied all different types of anvil stand designs and tried to incorporate everything I liked from each into this stand.

I am sending in my application to join the Appalachian Area Chapter of Blacksmiths tomorrow and also plan on attending the Fiddler's Grove meeting in September. I have completed my smithy, but I want to work with some experienced blacksmiths first, instead of possibly teaching myself bad habits right out of the gate. I'm also planning on attending a weekend class at John C. Campbell in November. Since we're practically neighbors and getting into blacksmithing at the same time, it would be great to have someone local to work with on occasion.

Not at this point, I'm going to run it as is.

My newly built forge -

Yeah I understand it's not the best mounting location and I may very well change it at a later date, but it kind of makes sense with the rest of my shop layout right now and I'll mostly be working with very short/small pieces of steel. So hopefully it will work out for me as is, but point taken. Thanks.

I think the best thing to do at this point is for me to leave it alone and learn to use it like other's have suggested. Then, once I actually have a little working knowledge, I can make somewhat educated decisions and adjust things as the need arises. It's way easier to grind later if need be, rather than adding back. Thanks.