carlson

I took Travis and Al's beginner blacksmithing class last weekend. I'm needing to get some stock to play with. Is Park City open on the weekend? I know you said the guy at Limestone Steel is open Saturday mornings.

In addition to normal size stock I need to find a big 1.75 in diameter rod about 2 ft long to put through the hole in my railcar coupler anvil and make a horn.

Is the pre-cut stockyard the same place as Park City Recycling?

Wow! No kidding. Now your only problem is all the steel and coal getting sucked up and scattered about the yard.

Wow Frozenforge that's beautiful! For the circle/flattened circle style what diameter do you open them up to?

Hmm...wonder if you could forge with charred hemp stalks. Apparently hemp is pretty much good for everything .

Just throwing this out there. Could you make a bundle of 1/4 square ( 2 across by 2 down looking at the bundle head on ). 4 welds with a mig welder for each piece then forge as you wood has you cut the slices out of 1/2 square.

At the Athens forge meeting a lady mentioned there was a guy who sold steel in/or near Athens, AL. Don't know how many people from the Athens meetings frequent these boards but if anyone has some recommendations it'd be helpful. She mentioned that he was open on Saturdays for a few hours. Thanks, Brian

I think I might start boycotting white mans matches and starting my fires with flint and fire steel.

thanks Glenn that's the thread I was looking for. I found the Whitesmith tutorial searching google for simple tongs among other combinations but Poz didn't come up.

Some time ago I ran acrossed a thread with plans for a simple pair of tongs using flat bar stock. I want to say the name started with a P but can't for the life of me remember. There was a picture that showed step be step. They had v groves cut into the edge which was upset to thicken it I believe. Anyone know what I'm thinking about?

Glenn where would you position the side blast pipe in relationship to the brake rotor? Lay it on the edge? Or does it need to be a bit higher up. Angled up or down any? In another thread I believe you or another poster said to have the end about 1/4 of the way inside the inner diameter of the rotor.

Also, would keeping the lid on the top and adding 4 feet or so of 8 in. duct do anything more draw wise than just removing the lid? I don't have another 55 gallon drum to connect for the Supercharger version.

I was thinking of using 1 in. EMT conduit for the legs of a 55 gallon drum forge but wanted to bounce it off you guys to see if you had a feel for whether or not they'd be stout enough. I have a brake rotor my brother-in-law gave me and I picked up a 55 gallon barrel last weekend. I still have a section of 3/4 inch black pipe from my previous side blast forge attempt. I'm thinking of rigging it up as a side blast and spending some time at it and possibly changing it to a bottom blast as funds and/or necessity allows it. As it is right now I have a cheap 5 gallon bucket shop vac that I can use for a bit. I would like to do the cut out hole version shown in the blue prints '?do=embed' frameborder='0' data-embedContent>>. All this just to give you a feel for the weight involved. Assuming you think it'll work, If I buy a 10 ft section and cut that into 3 pieces that are 3ft 4in long. Should I hammer the 4 inches flat and bolt them to the body of the barrel? Or would it be more likely to bend that way and I'd be better off with longer bolts that go through an unsmooshed conduit end. I feel like angle iron would be better but unless I can find some laying around the conduit is significantly cheaper than brand new angle iron. Thanks for the help, Brian

Go to photobucket.com and upload them there. Theres a place to the right of the picture once its uploaded where you can copy a html img link to your photobucket pictures. This link can be posted right in the message body.

These look nicer... http://www.envirosafetyproducts.com/uvex-ambient-over-the-glass-safety-glasses-shade3.0.html But these explicitly say Protects against harmful UV and IR radiation in welding, brazing, cutting, and soldering environments http://www.safetyglassesusa.com/360-i3.html Would either of these work? Seems like my understanding from reading through the thread is that the main hazard is with forging at welding heats. Is that correct?

While I'm filling it in should I make it taller you think?

I might have been getting to fancy for my own good but I was thinking about some time in the future if I was ever working with something with a 90 degree bend and two long bits. The more I think about it though thats probably not necessary.

What kind of eye protection are you talking about in this post Glenn? And is it only required for wood or also for charcoal?

I'm second guessing myself a bit. I'm wondering if I should have a clay lip up to the level of the pipe outlet? And then fill this with ash or dirt so I can form a small depression in front of the pipe. I still have about a wheel barrel full of clay that I can add onto with.

I won't be forging in my garage, just storing the forge there after it cools down. I thank you for your experience though and will definitely consider additional inspection the price for not having to purchase and learn welding just to get started. I'm hoping wheeling it in an our of the garage will work because that puts me on the side furthest from my daughters room and it seems like the times I get to play are during her naps.

Pictures from last night before firing anything up. I bought some casters from harbor freight so that I can roll it in and out of my garage. I put two 1ft square pavers as the base. The other mounds are built up on a base of bricks. I've been twisting the pipe around every once in a while to make sure it can move freely.

Pictures coming. Spent all day in the garage so gotta spend some time with the wife and daughter. Got it pretty much done. Is there any rule in how long if at all I need to wait to start the wood fire?

The Great Bungholer is an ill fitting name for a powerful wizard.

So this weekend is forge building time. I looked around at hair dryers and new ones were running $20 bucks for a model with a cool running feature. Add to this most people seem to have to add a dimmer to that because it moves too much air. I needed to come up with a freebie solution. Here's what I came up with. Formed the square tubes out of empty plastic baby wipe boxes. The blue tube was a poster holder I've had since college. I cut square holes to line up with the square tubes and then proceeded to apply liberal amounts of duct tape. Top of a soda bottle brings it down to just right for a little duct tape to connect it to the 3/4 inch black pipe. It started out life as a tower fan air filter similar to this one. On a side note, this thing was put together really solid and was a chore to tear apart to get at the electric blowers if your in the market for one. This one was passed on too us free and had sat in my garage taking up space for over 2 years. It's going to get attached to 3/4 in black steel pipe going into my soon to be side blast forge. It's already got three speeds. I'll see if it works in the forge this weekend and if it does I'll put together into something more permanent.