Quarry Dog

I'm definitely an Newbie but here's a few things I've noticed after I break down the fire:
-Clinkers tend to stick to their buddies when they're still hot. I've seen a firepot full of em come out as one big lump...I don't know how my buddy kept it burning.
-Clinkers tend to look like rounded copper nuggets when cool. I chuck anything round when I'm screening. I have no idea if the color is peculiar to the coal I've used.
-Clinkers make a "tink" sound when they hit metal surfaces (e.g. anvils) or each other.
-Ash doesn't burn well and sometimes forms little light grey lumps that crumble to dust when you squeeze 'em.
-Coke is substantially lighter than coal, feels kinda like pumice stone, and doesn't have the slick/gritty feeling to it that coal does.
-When I used to dumped in green coal (dumb new guy move), a lot of clinker seemed to form. I found that coking on the sides of the fire left me with almost no clinker from the same batch of coal. I don't even use green coal if I'm out of coke to start, instead I heap up some oak kindling, start the fire, and let the coal coke first.
-You're probably not going to have clinker outside of your firepot. I put the stuff around the pot and the stuff that was in the pot on opposite sides of the forge when I'm done. It also doesn't hurt to spread the remnants of the firepot out so that they die faster.

I also noticed a few things while my fire was going (Currently using a bottom-blast):
-When starting your fire, put the remnants of firepot onto about 1/4"(5mm?) screen and sort out all the crud mentioned above.
-The sides of the firepot seem to congeal into a mass of coke.
-If you keep the coal pressed up tight around the fire pot and pry these masses off of the sides, the coke starts burning, the coal falls in, and begins to turn into coke itself. (I have no idea why, but I just figured this out recently)
-It helps if you add a little sprinkle of water while doing this.
-When sprinkling water on the coal, and for about a minute after, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE AIRFLOW!!! If you don't have airflow it will backblast down the tuyere and make your ears ring from 20 feet away. I saw flames shoot out of the joints of the tuyere on a forge that did it about 2 weeks ago. It sounded like a shotgun when off, and dumped soot down my back off of the chimney I was under.
-Don't forget to feed your fire. If you leave it for a little while, make sure to come back every once in awhile and give it a crank or 5 to get the heat back up and give it a little fuel or it will die on you.
-As your fire gets older it's heart gets colder. Sometimes it's better to just break it down and start over.
-Burning off galvanization in large quantities is not advised. The least it will do is make your life a living he** (vomiting, bathroom, fever, and the worst headache ever, for a few days). The worst it can do is kill you, although there's dispute over that one. I'm not even gonna chance it. They don't call it metal fume fever for nothing, I've seen my dad with it from a welding job he did.
-If you use a fire to burn off even a small amount of galvanized, just kill your fire when your done, cool the remnants of the firepot in water, and throw it in the garbage. I hear you'll never get a weld with that fire and if you get any of the zinc on what you're working that weld won't hold, even 2 fires later. I tried, and the horseshoes i practice on usually break before the welds do. (I made a galvanized lag bolt into a wedge for a loose hammer head and couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong, when the instructor saw what was left of the bolt)
-Make sure you don't breath in zinc fumes, and have a fan blowing it away from you. I also think i heard something about copper and a couple of other metals as well.

This is all stuff I've learned the hard way so far, except for the backblast, and zinc fumes. Hope someone gets some use out of it.

BTW? I've heard someone talking about making a cave in the firepot on another post. What are they talking about(Pictures please)?

I can definitely see how that first set of tongs could be used for sheet metal.
Now for dressing the edges i hear the most I should go is about a 1/4" radius on the heavy use areas 1/8" on the begining of the heel and leave the last inch or two alone? Exceptin' the chip, might flap that but that's it. These numbers seem kinda small to me, but I guess it is only a bantam/feather weight, for an anvil.

Glenn I second that, s'kinda why I'm fishing for ideas.
Michael, I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who liked the idea of a scrapmade tool. I also think a hold down sounds like an excellent tool to make now that I have an anvil.
I realized after the fact that my scroll wrench was too small...based it off of a video (using memory of the process...it'd been about a week since i saw the video) and realized after I was finished that the video was more for showing the process than as a functional tool. So, I guess it serves as proof that I can make one? Or maybe for bending 1/4"? I think I willl bend the toe over a little tighter though.
As far as the reins go, I's got's big, sweaty, soup plate hands and the round reins on the tongs in the class that I attend like to slip around in them, so i only forged them and then knocked that diamond down a bit so that they don't cut in too horrible fierce. So far the gripper tongs serve me well, but I'm sure the design will change as I go.
I think I'll need to do something about a twisting wrench as well.

Well, I've been attending some classes at a local blacksmith shop, and I've made a few tools. I have yet to set up a workspace so in the meantime I'm gonna be doing my work out of the shop down their.
This got me to wondering what all tools other people have made and how I might improve my own?
So I guess I'll kick this one off.

Picture includes:
"Gripper" Tongs with "|X|" bit (sized 1/4")
Bolthead Tongs with "|X|" bit (sized for railroad spike...not a great grip thought)
Chisel
Center/re Punch
Scrolling Wrench
Scrap "Workstand" (used it to keep the bit of the bolthead tongs down on the face so I could mark the "|X|" in it)
Soapstone Dispenser (as a size reference)

I've been thinking for the last month or so that my first anvil was going to be a track anvil.
Well, last night after a local blacksmith guild meeting, I was getting a bite to eat at a bar (best burgers in the county) when the bartender introduces the guy paying his tab next to me as a "horseshoer". Well after a short talk I asked him if he knew anyone with an extra anvil layin' around. Just so happens he did.

I now have in my possession a good condition 152# Peter Wright (by the stone stamps). The only things I see "wrong" are the chip above the stamp (which is very well defined) and a little bit of sway in the horn.

It also came with a stand, 6 tongs (3 gripper, 1 offset rivet/bolt/round stock?, and 2 ???), and a hardy cutter and fuller. All for US$250.

Now I've just got to source a forge/fuel, a vice, and maybe some room in the shop once it's built, but I'm not off to a bad start. As a matter of fact I think I owe old boy a beer or 2 for the lead.

BTW: What are the two sets of tongs on the far left for? I think the second one might be for pulling horseshoe nails out.

BTW 2: I'm still probably going to make a rail anvil.

Tell you what though, if an anvil of mine ever gets struck, I'mma find a piece of wrought iron and forge it into a lightning bolt just so I can make some sort of joke about Hephaestus/Vulcan.

I can see a lot of uses for those. The funny thing about tongs is that the only part you can't change later in the boss, since there's a hole in it. It wont hurt them to break the rivet, re-shape the bit to fit whatever you're working with at the time, or even weld on a piece of channel or half a bit of pipe to one side to keep stuff from moving on you.
Right now they look like they'd be great for heavier stuff like maybe 1 1/2" ², especially if you added a piece of channel to the end of the bit. I will say, though, that my first pair of tongs "had" solid 3/8" * 3/4"reins like that. My hand did not enjoy that so much, so I drew them out (tapered to a 3/8" * 3/8") and cut off the excess, now they're nice and springy.

Awesome tools!
How did you shape the bicks? If you forged them that's some very precise work. If you ran em up on a lathe what tooling did you use?

I could work with that...too bad it's 8 hours away...

Just curious, how is a touchmark normally made? Hand engrave the mark in plate and then pound a punch blank into it?

Awesome work. Considering the purpose as a wall mounted bracket, I'd be more worried about the added weight of an overly large plant ripping it out of the wall than breaking that fine piece of work. 1/2 inch can take a beating.

Zinc fumes aren't just dangerous, they're downright deadly. People have died from doing less than cooking zinc off of a few fence posts.
The most I do with galvanized is through 4 inch lag bolts (making wedges for hammer heads, i still prefer un-galvanized), 1 lag bolt in at a time to cook off the coating. Even this little bit kills my fire to the point where forge welding is hopeless.