Everything Mac

I normally struggle as well. My buddy lives a 5hr drive from me but happened to be coming up my way for something else so decided to pop by and stay the night. We took it in turns to strike with a fairly short handled 7lb sledge. It wasn't too taxing on day one but on day two we were both knackered. Punching through the 2" bar was ab absolute chore. All the best Andy

Pretty much as JMC says. I got lucky on a bearing race and got some superb steel that has made for a fantastic knife. On the other hand I forged a much bigger bearing race out and got a lot of cracks. Likely operator error but I believe it can be hard to forge at times. Cheers Andy

Very well done sir. I'm glad to see you put the time in to fix it. All the best Andy

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves Nick, that's for sure. And yes it was very gratifying to make our own tooling. Like I say neither of us had made top tools before so it was a bit of fun for sure. Ok they might not be the prettiest things in the world but they certainly worked, and we will most definitely be making more in the future. The slitting punches we made were perhaps a bit thin, next time I'd make them with a steeper profile. We started off a hammer on 2" bar and it was a real mission. They went through in the end but would heat up quite quickly and were bending after a while which was frustrating. No such issues on the smaller eyes though. I've got some H13 that I might try and forge into a slitter but it's at least 1 1/4" diameter so I'm not looking forward to it at all. All the best Andy

So me and a buddy of mine had a mini forge in last week. We wanted to have a crack at some tooling and I had some steel ideal for the job. We decided to do it out in the garden so the little 100 lb Fisher really earned its keep. The poor girl took a real hammering and at some point a miss strike took a small chunk out of the edge. A bit annoying but it's not worth crying over spilt milk. My ghetto forge was doing a grand job heating up the EN19 (4140 equivalent I believe) We were too busy having fun to take many pictures but we made the following: From left to right - a drift made from old pry bar, two Brent Bailey style slitting punches which worked very well on the 30mm round EN19 to the far right. We switched over to my large anvil to hammer the drift through. We were both very happy with how the slit punches worked. They went through without any issues what so ever. And the drift did an admirable job of creating an eye. The entire session was a learning experience for both of use as we haven't made tooling like this before. It was clearly much easier with one of us being a striker but I think we will both be having another go alone in the future. We slit and drifted a hole in each end of the bar I had before cutting it in half to make a tool for each of us. I had a 45 degree chisel I want to use for making lines in bars and my mate made a slot punch. Thanks for looking All the best Andy

Awesome work Nick! Well done mate. Oddly enough I had a buddy come visit the other day and we had a crack at making some tools too. All the best Andy

Sounds like a good idea Tim, I'll get a couple of sets of those. I need to get a chimney fitted to the roof at some point too. All the best Andy

Cheers gents. I'm very much in two minds about painting the floor. Some folks have suggested painting the floor - others say not to bother. Sealing it might be a good idea just to keep any dust down to a minimum. We shall see. I'm away for the next three weeks so it will be slow progress unfortunately. And I've a lot to do when I get back ashore to do with my wedding. Just in time indeed Charles. This means I'll be able to build a bigger forge than I was thinking so there goes the plan out the window once more... All the best Andy

Hi Guys, I've landed myself a workshop. As it stands it's an empty shell. (Or will be once the guy on site using it for storage clears out his stuff) - it measures 25' long by 11' wide. There is an angled wall at one end with a little office behind it. Plenty of space to get on with and a huge improvement over my current set up. The owner is happy to fit a chimney in the roof so that's good. Beyond that it's a blank canvas. - The power is single phase, there is water on site just round the corner but not in the building. Toilet on site but again not in the building. I can live with that. I'm going to clear it out and paint the walls white and will likely paint the floor as well while I'm at it. I'll be kitting it out over the coming year or so. Current priorities are painting the walls and floor and then fitting a forge and work benches. It's going to be fun. All the best Andy

I've got the Aspery Plans in a PDF yes. I was considering doing the side draft hood modification as well though I'm not sure on that front yet. Annoyingly there have been a couple decent looking forges pop up on ebay so if one stays within budget it would save me a lot of hassle to buy one. Typical eh? I'll be making the vast majority of it up as I go along. Andy

Well that's encouraging. Thanks Kubiack. Andy

I've had a thread I've created removed with no explanation in the past. I doubt you'll get a reason Spanky.

Sorry mods - disappearing post is doing my head in... Morning all, Hopefully my reply won't disappear today. Jim, there is a picture floating round the forum by Alan Evans that explains the side blast far better than I could. - In the thread linked below. I've never built a water cooled side blast though I have used many "dry" tue side blast forge's over the years. I'm sorry to say this will be a very drawn out WIP as I have another week ashore just now before leaving for the rigs once again. I also don't have all the materials I need to continue the build, but I will do what I can. Right then: I had spent some time drawing up plans for the forge over the last couple of months, with the idea that I would but a large sheet of steel from my supplier and have them cut it up for me. The hearth was going to be 600mm square originally but this slowly became larger and more rectangular as the design went on. This all went out of the window completely when a few days ago I visited my local scrap yard and found a good portion of the sheet steel I'd need to make the box / hearth. At scrap prices I couldn't really pass it up. The bottom of the box will now be a piece of 1/4" thick - 20x23" plate. And the sides are 2mm (inch measurement??) plate. - These are both thicker and thinner dimensions than I had intended but at £10 for the lot, including the box section you see in the stand above I really couldn't argue. The hearth will be a little smaller than I wanted but I can work with it as it is. I plan on making the design fairly modular so I can simply remove the back bosh and build a new hearth if I want to in the long run. I need to visit my dad's workshop to machine the donut that will sit in the end of the cone, but that won't be for a few weeks yet sadly. The entire thing will have two large wheels attached to the base of the forge for ease of moving it around for now. Little blacksmith - thanks. That's actually today's job oddly enough. I'm going to put a plate on each foot. All the best Andy

Hello everyone, Yesterday I started some work on fabricating a new water cooled side blast forge. I thought I'd take pictures along the way for those of you who may be interested. I started off with a length of 1/4" thick - 4.5" did pipe. About 12" long. I then measured the outer diameter of the material I plan to use as the plug - in this case 81mm. I used an online calculator to work out the circumference of each then took the smaller away from the larger one to in theory make them the same - I'm not sure what I did but I made the end of the pipe too small. So I'll need to cut some material back a bit. No big deal. I'd suggest cutting smaller pie slices out of the pipe to start with and increasing as necessary. I didn't take any pictures early on as I was busy getting on with it. So once I'd cut pie wedges out of the pipe I stuck it on the forge to start the shaping. You can see I've already started to bash the fins inwards so they meet. The pipe was really just resting on top of the forge initially. You want the sides to meet together as tight as possible, I left a slight gap here and there which became problematic when welding things up. Once it was pressed together I welded up the seams as well as I could. Grinding things flat and running a second or third bead over everything just to make sure. The welding could be better I'm sure but it will do for the time being. Again I don't take any pictures here as I'm sure you can imagine a weld bead easily enough. This is the pipe all welded up - sitting on top of a new anvil stand I fabricated the day before yesterday. The dog is unimpressed. At this stage it's just a simple cone, and an awful lot of work already. But I'm hoping it will be worth it in the long run. Please let me know if you would like to see more as the project progresses. Cheers Andy

No worries, please do let us know if you do try one out. I for one would be very interested to see if it works and what it runs like. I'd expect there to be a pop pop noise like on those little boats. You never know - might inspire some guys in the USA to build a proper forge Andy

The water cooled tue's in the UK are open and have the tank attached but those look like they work very much like one of these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_pop_boat water gets hot- expands blows out the steam which creates a vacuum and sucks in cold water. It might make a few noises while it's running. There's only one way to find out I guess. I'd give it a go just to see if it works. All the best Andy

The axle hub will be fine I should think. Is fabricating a water cooled tue out of the question? Andy

HI Austere, Small world really. I've lived on the Wirral for a few years now. I'm a big fan of future proofing kit when I can. If you can slip it over the existing pipe and secure in place with a grub screw for example then future changes would be a doddle. - Just unscrew the old on, drill and tap a new tube, slip it on and tighten it up. Done. That pipe should work pretty well, it won't last forever but it will last a good while. The pipe I used was only 3mm thick and would last a while. I can't recall how long exactly though tbh. It's been a while. All the best Andy

You don't see a bolster like that very often. Very nicely done sir. All the best Andy

Hi Tim, Fancy seeing you here. I was just looking at your amal burner threads over on BB. I had been building a DIY burner but I think I'll just bite the bullet and get an amal injector bought. I only found one place that sells the 160kg/m3 and that was out of stock. I'll get some 128kg/m3 blanket for now. I don't plan on welding in it for the time being so that should be ok I'd have thought. Cheers All the best Andy

Que the hammer weight debate. Nice hammer you have there FC Andy

Hi all, I'm about to pull the trigger on buying some ceramic blanket to line my forge. However it seems there are two densities available? 96 and 128kg/m3 Which one should I go for? I'd have though the heavier blanket would be better? Cheers Andy

I've used solid tue side blasts like this for years. That should work just fine. If I were you though I'd collect a few of them together and pile them up near the forge, so you know they're going to be replacement tue's at some point. I'd also make it so you can replace one easily when the time comes. Perhaps tack weld a pipe inside to act as a sleeve or some threaded pipe so you just have to unscrew it and change it over. Andy

There is a time and a place for doing things the old way. But I'd say embracing new technology wholeheartedly is the way forward. No more bickering or you'll go on Santa's good list and won't get any coal next christmas. Andy

Nice one Havoc. Certainly looks like she runs rather well. All the best Andy