HWooldridge

Strine, I'll bet you were not uppity to your elders...that seems to be a personality trait that varies from each individual. I have had younger respectful apprentices who did what they were shown and old blow-hards that didn't know their bellows hole from one in the ground. The worst one I can recall was an old guy in our forge club who would run his yap about any subject. We were doing a group project and each smith had a task. The two of us were supposed to make some long colonial gate hinges but all he wanted to do was stand by and coach. Finally, I handed him my hammer and said "Go to it because you can obviously finish faster than I can - my time is better spent elsewhere." I went to another part of the shop and watched from the corner of my eye. He beat around on a piece of steel for half an hour but finally put it all down and walked away. One of the other guys asked what was wrong and he launched into a spiel about his heart medication, the heat, the phase of the moon, the anvil's poor shape, etc. A few minutes later, he slipped out to his truck and departed. He came to subsequent meetings and still talked a little too much but never again volunteered to work. I espect my elders and never rubbed his nose in it but I really can't stand "experts" - at any age. The guys who know what they are doing talk with their hands and it becomes apparent pretty quickly.

I have two ABC types that will probably expire this year but the gauges show they are still good. I really don't have much that can catch fire beyond the coal box and my propane tanks because I have a steel building but it is good to have an extinguisher around. About ten years ago in the middle of summer, I was working in the shop and smelled smoke from outside. I ran out the door and saw part of the field was on fire. It was already too big for an extinguisher but I jumped on the tractor, which fortunately had the shredder mounted and cut a break around the blaze. It burned itself out and no one was the worse for wear. Near as I could tell, it started from a piece of glass lying in the field that got some dry grass going. Any out of control fire can move very rapidly so it pays to have some insurance (both physical and monetary protection).

I think "billowy" is what you wanted but bellowy is a nice double entendre for a blacksmithing board... 8) Questions: Is it unstable when the forge is cold or hot or both? Can you post a pic of it burning? I think what is happening is the burner is running rich and starving for air so it starts to lose stability, but the fuel pressure stays the same and overwhelms it - that's when it "huffs". The explosion pulls in air and starts it burning blue again. They usually work fine but the problem with naturally aspirated burners is that they do take some fiddling to burn right - a blower helps even out the hiccups. However, I would try a smaller orifice first and see if that helps with the mix. I ran a #68 on my home made single burner and it burned well except on hot dry days when it could have been a bit leaner. In general, it's better to start very lean and open the orifice as needed. Try something in the range of a #63 and see how that works but keep the pressure around 15 lbs. Please note that a properly adjusted burner will often sputter and huff when you first start a cold forge but will even out and burn correctly when it gets warm.

...or perhaps some sort of riveting tool.

Try the "Goode" restaurant chain if you get a chance. They have Goode Seafood, Goode BBQ, etc. Also any of the Pappas eateries - Pappasito's, Pappadeaux and so on. Both are locally owned chains and serve good food. Good luck on the hospital visit.

And if it gets hot enough, just use it as flux... :lol:

I used to subscribe to the "make a tool a week" theory but I now only make what I think I'll need in general use or for a particular job. I often rework old tongs to get a different jaw profile and may have made the original pair 10 years ago for something but if they are sitting and gathering dust, then they usually get remodeled. Same thing with chisels or other set tools that aren't getting regular use. I once had a very long hand punch that only tapered 2 inches for the working end so I cut the body in half, redressed the cut end and used the leftover for a rivet set. Both are still in use.

Nobody in my family is/was famous but we did find out thru genealogical research that my Wooldridge ancestor who immigrated in 1697 was apparently a trained blacksmith. The family trade was blacksmithing in England when the family moved to Scotland for a while, then he left for America in his late teens. He listed that as his trade and indentured himself into servitude for two years to pay for the boat passage, then went into business for himself. Apparently, he did quite well because the smithing made enough that he was able to buy several thousand acres and become wealthy in tobacco farming later in life. His children found coal on the property and eventually built up a very profitable coal business - sadly, none of that profit (or coal) ever made its way down to me... :cry:

After July's debacle, I went to another craft show this past weekend after spending some time building a display. I'd already made a couple of light-weight custom tables so I built a frame from 2x2's about 3 foot tall and overlaid that with a piece of 1/4 plywood, designed to attach to the table in an upright position. Stained and finished the wood with semi-gloss urethane, then mounted a variety of products - both custom examples and from my standard line. My wife also found some nice fabric to make table covers that accented the iron. The tables were then covered in product. The difference in traffic from last month was like night and day. Although sales were not mind-boggling, we probably stopped at least 300 people and gave away about 100 cards. I don't have the film developed yet and will eventually post a pic but I can tell you that the trick is to catch the public's eye and stop them in mid-stride. Thanks to all for the earlier tips...H

The first "craft" I tried as a youngster was jewelry making. My dad and a cousin were rockhounds so when I was 9 or 10, one of them bought me a tumbler, followed by a wet grinder and small diamond saw. Soon, I was buying silver and making cabochon mountings. However, before too much more time went by, I was trying to make knives from files on the wet grinder. Never mind that I already had 3 or 4 good pocket knives - I just had to make one. I still remember the first one was from a 6 inch file and took several days to grind on that slow stone. I also ruined the wheel for rock work and had to buy another. My point is that almost all young men in their early to late teens want to either make or play with weapons. I think it must be natural human behaviour to burn off all that testosterone. However, as said earlier, very few kids who start one ever finish it. I have a nice shop with all the bells and whistles and none of my sons ever finished a knife - they all started one but it either took me to finish or just wound up in the scrap pile. They find out pretty fast that it's harder than it looks. BTW, many people do collect knives by the score. I had a professional knifemaker tell me that he considers it jewelry for men. He builds knives in the $1500 to $2000 range and has a 6 month backlog - many of the buyers are repeat customers. Guns are sometimes considered controversial or too hard to exchange with all the rules and regulations but anyone can buy and sell high-end knives. I have one pocket knife and one hunting knife - both are very sharp and cost less than $100. I suppose I am no knife collector... sigh... :(

Thanks, Jr., I'll change it today...Hollis

My permanent coal forge with hood: This is a material hopper, turned upside down, with a lid welded on the former opening, then the feed end was cut to accept a 12" round pipe. The cutout has a short (3") lip above it that helps when the fire is just starting but is short enough to not be in the way. The light colored items are firebricks that I put in just before the picture was taken as an experiment to see if they would hold heat and let the forge stay warm longer, thereby pulling smoke better while the forge was idle. They do seem to work on long runs once the bricks heat up. This hood pulls well. I have a window off to the right that sometimes makes for little wind eddies but that is the only thing that disrupts the chimney. Sometimes with a big fire, I can hear a roar from the air cyclone moving in the round duct and every couple of months, I sweep an inch or so of very fine coal dust out of the back of the box, where a lot of it seems to cool and fall out of the air column.

For pure skinning, a curved blade with not much point is best but that same design isn't good for general work around areas you want to cape out. My grandma's brother was a taxidermist and had only a couple of knives to do all his work - one was a "Green River" style skinner and the other was a common, small pen knife. With those two blades, he could peel anything from a sparrow to an elk. He kept a kitchen steel handy and kept the edges in good shape as he worked. BTW, another uncle was a rancher and made whips as a sideline. He said kangaroo made a great whip although I believe he only ever worked with rawhide. I'd love to have some 'roo hide for a gunbelt but that's another project for a later date.

Don't transport in a closed car trunk and don't transport the acetylene tank in a horizontal position.

I once saw a Peter Wright (2.50 cwt/280 lbs) in a collector's stash, which was little used, if at all - a pristine face with no work marks on it anywhere. It had belonged to a farmer who didn't like smithing so he stowed it in the barn but I also expect he didn't dress it either, so the look was very likely from the factory. The face was flat along L&W and all edges uniformly rounded to maybe 1/8" radius or less. The hardy hole edges were also radiused to about 3/8" to 1/2"r. I have also seen and used a Hay Budden (350 lbs), which was flat along the length but slightly domed across the face and the edges heavily dressed to a large radius. This anvil was purchased new by a large professional shop around the turn of the century. This local family had 4 boys who all went into the trade in the 1920's and they did a lot of plow work but the bulk was done on a smaller anvil (200 lbs) that eventually developed a sway back. The smaller anvil disappeared but the bigger one was donated to a local historical site along with some period photos and shop inventory records showing property listings for accounting or insurance purposes. In years past, I think factories offered a service to dress a new anvil the way a smith desired for his particular work. It would be interesting to look at old records and see what different people ordered for their trades.

3/32" is not much over 10 inches but is quite noticeable over a 3 inch area. There is much merit in what both Finn and Thomas are saying but I have to say that I am particular about anvil surfaces and do not like any dip or sway along the length of the face. However, both of my anvils are very slightly crowned across the face and the corners are heavily radiused. In fact, the only place I have a sharp shoulder is back near the heel - the corners near the horn are probably 1" radius and gradually get sharper moving back. I dressed both of my anvils with a 9" grinder and sanding discs so was able to get a surface polished to about 220. They don't stay that way but develop a nice polished patina from use.

Just buy a black oxide, square headed machine bolt.

Quenchcrack, Don't worry about it - I have a 5/8 thread die and I would have gone to the hardware store to buy a bolt. Too much work to do otherwise.

I have a bigger PW anvil (250) and the plate was about 3/8". It had a bunch of other problems so I replated with a piece of 3/4" spring steel and rehardened. I say this only for a relationship to size and plate thickness. I also have a 100 lb wrought "no-name" with a 5/16" top plate. It's a good anvil with a very hard face. Anvils were typically plated with the equivalent of plow steel - about 60-85 points C so they should harden deeper than just the surface but they should also get softer as you get closer to the body because that area cooled slower than the material near the surface. I assume your anvil is nice and hard now because if the whole plate is gone (and that has happened more than once from a bad weld) then you are wasting time. If you have access to a Blanchard and it won't cost much, if anything, then I'd say go for it but you can also do a good job with a big right angle grinder and a cup wheel. Use a straight edge and be patient with the material removal. It will probably take 2-3 hours to do but that might be time well spent.

Everything Irnsgn says but I'd go more on mileage due to gas prices ($.50/mile?) and I'd make sure to take plenty of pre-made products. This type of crowd will probably be impulse buyers so they'll likely never follow up if you don't get the sale right then. I personally donate what I make during demos to the place where I am working - they can either use it or have an auction. I used to give away everything I made that day to the public but that can cause a couple of problems - one is that they figure the labor is cheap and the end product worth nothing; the other is that some little kid won't get his knick-knack and start complaining. How much you demo is up to you - but it's very helpful to have a second person to run errands and spell you if need be. Re the stated times, I personally would arrive at 9 and be working by 10, then break for lunch at noon but eat there at the demo site so I can continue to talk to folks, then finish the meal and go until 5. Also bear in mind that you'll kill 2-4 hours just loading and unloading.

Gracias, mi amigo - those are exactly what I needed. Neat design for a traveling coal forge. It looks period and easy to move about. Thanks again.

It's doubtful you will find a law to either allow or condemn working with a forge. If asked, most fire marshals will say 'no' to everything - especially in a big city where there is less leeway to variations in policy. Some years ago, San Antonio banned charcoal BBQ grilles at apartment complexes because a couple of people left them unattended and started structure fires. Now personally, I have grilled meat for almost 40 years on a charcoal cooker and never started an accidental fire so how did these knuckleheads do it? No matter, it happened so the law was passed and would probably apply to forges. However, many of our club members live in San Antonio and work in their garages or yards with no incidents of the fire marshal showing up, so a lot of it boils down to what has already been said - make friends with the neighbors and don't be a nuisance with smoke or noise. It will never be an issue if no one complains but if the Law does show up, be polite and explain the situation because they may say the same thing - be careful and keep the noise to a minimum. The issue of not having an ordinance on the books that addresses forges might work in your favor because you may not be ticketed if no law was broken. As a safety note, gas is pretty safe but coal sometimes will throw sparks depending on the type and charcoal will usually throw a big shower of embers. A good tall chimney insures they will burn out before getting outside plus it throws the smoke up to a level where it is less objectionable to people at ground level. This is something to consider if you use solid fuel plus making sure every time you work that nothing is around which will start burning if an errant spark lands where you aren't looking. Be sensible and you should be fine.

Go to a commercial fastener company for black oxide bolts - not Lowe's or Home Depot. It will probably be a high strength bolt but that's OK in your application.

Strine, You have a pic in the gallery of a smith with a little tricycle style portable forge. Can you tell me what the undercarriage consisted of and the approximate hearth diameter? I can see the wheel, the handles and the feet, but I can't see what the "X"'s are. Could you tell if this thing collapsed or was it a complete fixed assembly? The reason I ask is that I am planning to design a fairly light, portable forge around a new Centaur 12" round firepot. I am looking for something that looks "old fashioned" since it will be for public demos but sized so I can handle it by myself and wheel it for a distance (like 50-100 yds to get to a site). I can handle more weight but I'd rather keep the whole thing (or components) to less than 50 lbs each. I already have a 100 lb anvil with stand, a 75 lb vise and barrel assembly and a good large blower but it all needs to fit in my truck and be portaged by 'moi' with no more than a two wheel dolly. I'm looking for ideas so please chime in if you have a good portable design or have seen one. Thanks, Hollis

Send a letter to the DA and (without using profanity ) tell them what happened and that you feel this person is a menace and should be prosecuted to the full extent the law allows. Locking her up won't fix her meth problem but it might save someone else for a while. Glad you are OK - take some "pain medicine" (for me, that's Glenlivet) and get a good nite's rest.