larrynjr

Welcome, bring on the food!

Welcome Tom, another thing for your girlfriend, tell her that at least you aren't in a bar chasing other women!

Welcome Michel, this is a great resource and community.

excellent score's Bruce. I'm still looking for my first anvil from "scrounging" to find it's way home with me.

No Worries Frosty, I don't feel discourages or put down. I appreciate having people that are interested in my safety! I didn't realize that it would be this much of a project. For short term I'll see if I can get one of the guys in the bus garage to use their stick welder to do that part of the project. Long term I will continue to try to find any of the local community college classes or vocation schools that even offer welding. It's been a few years since I looked but back when I was first starting to blacksmith I tried to locate a welding class, even asked the Oxarc welding supply people about classes and no one could help. The Ag teacher here had a notice up last year for a 2 week long course in the summer offered by another school district. Maybe he can hook me up. Thanks to all for your guidance and suggestions.

Well sounds like I need to get a good mask before I start messing with this thing so I don't inhale chrome fumes. I'm thinking that I'll give it a go with the MIG anyhow and if that isn't sufficient, I can always grind off the weak welds and rent the stick welder. As I basically have 0 experience with any type of welding, I'll probably practice on some basic welding small pieces together before jumping into the treadle project. Along with the MIG welder I ordered, I also ordered a DVD on how to weld so hopefully that will give me a few more basics that I "think" I know about now. I'll be sure to ask here for more advice. Thanks again.

Thomas and Jr. thanks for the info, I didn't know that about chrome. If I grind the chrome off the weld area's will MIG work? I don't have access to a stick welder and wasn't planning on buying one.

I picked this up at the farm auction yard yesterday, it's the piston from a hydraulic lift. Weighs about 105 lbs. I'm planning on using it for the anvil on my treadle when I build it. Actually I'm thinking of cutting off the top 12" to use as the hammer and the rest as the anvil. Just waiting for my welder and other tools to arrive from Harbor Freight!

Welcome Freddie! Your English grammer is fine, I've gotten emails from my U.S. relatives that were harder to decypher because of their lazy typing habits. Enjoy the site and I look forward to seeing any blue prints you post! Larry

Welcome B.J. Even using a gas forge there is still lots of iron dust (Black Boogers!) in the air. You might want to wear a mask to filter out more of the black stuff. I've tried cheap paper masks and still get the black, you might look into surgeon type cloth mask. Larry

I've set up a piece of RR track in a bucket of sand for my daughter to use as an anvil. It actually has better rebound than my Russian cast steel anvil!

I say build your own. All you need is a piece of well piping and a smaller pipe to feed the air and propane, some copper pipe for the propane line, a small fan (hair dryer) and some firebricks and kaowool, inswool, etc. This is how they do it where I've taken all my blacksmith lessons and he forge welds from it too. Mine is built on the same design, and I think I paid less than $50 for the whole thing. The biggest expense being the kaowool and firebricks.

Welcome Bibble, sounds like you have lots of experience smithing. Glad to have you here!

Welcome to IFI Carl, a great community.

Welcome to IFI Steve, I know you will continue to enjoy this fine site as I have!

I've been virtually pain free for almost 3 weeks now and have done 2 short smithing sessions. Paying particular attention to how I hold the hammer and how I swing the hammer. So far so good. I saw the Neursurgeon today and reviewed my CAT scans and while there is some "tightness" in my neck around C4-C5. There appears to be no damage to the spinal cord itself. The doc says if I'm feeling better that we should just go with that. There is no indicator that it will get any worse as long as I take care of myself and use better forging technique. I also went downhill skiing yesterday and while my neck aches a bit from a fall, it feels muscular and not nerve like pain. I want to thank everyone for their help and support! Larry

mine lays on the bench next to the drill press.

It sounds like they are stealing it from you! I would have guessed at least $5000 for a piece like that. Definitely post pictures.

Hi Dan, that was a great video. I like your stuff, far beyond what I can do at this point. Is your gate a commissioned piece or just something you wanted to do?