larrynjr

Hi Chris! Welcome to IFI! You're initial projects, hook and fork look great. You'll find more than one of us here are also IT people. It's great to get away from mind numbing computer issues (usually end user issues!) and just deal with hot steel and hammer. Depending on how complicated a fire poker you plan to make, that might take you longer than you think. While it's great to work on more complicated projects and have a finished product. You might want to just concentrate on basic things until your hammer control is better. Make lots of those hooks and forks, give them out to friends and family. There are many variations of bottle openers you could also do. What you can also do for idea's is to browse the photo gallery here, see what others have done and use those for project idea's.

Best of luck and welcome to forging!

Larry

Very nice gate! Are those vertical pickets partially mortise & tenon jointed into the bottom rail? If so, I have never personally seen that detail before. It's a very cool look.

I forget what Darryl called the technique, we punched the top of the heel bar with a pointed punch to form a pocket for the pickets to rest in. The pickets are pointed and just rest lightly inside the pockets.

Start exercising with a hammer so you will be back up to speed by class time!

Thomas, I wish I had followed your advise, I've been away from hammering too long and just about wrecked my hammer hand. Blisters and pain in my wrist. But I completed my gate. Check it out!

Thanks Frosty, I won't stay away so long again.

It's be awhile since I've posted or even picked up my hammer but I'm back and have a gate making class scheduled with Darryl Nelson of Meridian Forge in Eatonville, Wa. in 2 weeks I've taken a forge welding class from Darryl before and he is a great teacher. I'm excited to be back at the anvil again! Hi to all the old time IFI'ers and Hello to all the new members!

I have all three and they are great. There are at least 6 complete lessons on each DVD and every step is expertly covered. You can't go wrong with these DVD's.

Just outside of Yakima, only use gas though.

Here is one that I made during my very first blacksmith course. So disregard the roughness of design. They are based on ones made by Jerry Culberson at Old Cedar Forge. It is supposed to be a dragon head.

I forget if you mentioned it with Darryl's other video's or not, does he either step you through creating the chisels and punches or at least show each one for each step of the process?

Thanks for posting this Mark!

Sarc, Thanks for the bio info on yourself. I'm glad to see we didn't scare you off with all the "help". Now all you need is a heat source, some type of hammer and something hard to pound on and you're in business! Never stop learning!

I don't think I've seen anyone else post this yet.

WELCOME TO IFI, glad to have you here.

A great place to learn and share blacksmithing info.

Anything I post here is free for the taking. If I were interested in keeping "secrets" I wouldn't post the pictures. Enjoy.

Frosty, there is 12" from the top of the eye to the bottom handle twist and they are actually kinda short handled. I'd say barely 4" of grabable handle. It probably would have been better to draw them out a bit longer and thinner.

I'm working on some more for others at work but trying a different handle design. I'll post some of that when I'm done.

Most of the one's I know of, are related to being a member of a blacksmithing organization. ABANA has the Anvil's Ring and one other they send out quarterly. There's a German one that I've heard of but don't know any details on subscriptions.

I made these custom for a friend at work. started with 4' long 1/4" mild from the hardware store.

I blacksmith as a hobby, and it is 180 degrees from my "day job" as an IT Administrator

Same for me, IT during the day. I'm doing some cost of materials jobs for people at work but prefer to keep it my fun hobby!

I don't have direct big brother experience but a friend does that. My advice is if you get into that, is not to expect them to be interested in blacksmithing. Find out what they are interested in, try to broaden their horizons but don't try to force them into your interests.

My hammer hand stays bare cause I need all the control I can get, I do go through lots of left hand gloves though.......and get burns from holes in those gloves.

Just about every member of this website! The pictures of their projects are a constant inspiration.

I haven't tried to back read all of Brianb's posts but I see nothing on the original post that indicates he intending selling these, he was posting his design and rational behind it. Others started talking about selling it.

I've thought about the Rusty/Crusty hammers before but wasn't really in the right place mentally to get into something like that. I'll have to revisit those and see what I think now. There is the tire hammer too that I've looked at but haven't bought the plans for yet.

A power hammer would certainly speed up the process...........hmmmmmm

I made a matching hook to go with the first one. I need to tweak it a bit more so it "matches" a bit more but overall I'm happy with them.

cool, looks good. other than modifying an existing hammer, I haven't tried to make one yet.

I made this chop tool today after church. And yes I realize the rear fuller is lopsided. It should still work though.

you need a power hammer!!

I agree, but it's not in the budget for me yet. We'll see how the year goes.

Welcome to IFI! Sorry for skipping the welcome by posting my comment(s) first.