schilpr

Good luck to you! Make sure when your smithy is up and running make sure you pass your good luck along by sharing your knowledge to others and gifts of your craft.

Harold, most of these tools will be used by my son Sam, he is the gifted blacksmith in the family, he took some classes from a blacksmith you may know, Gordon Williams, I think he lives somewhere close to you.

Sorry to say, the visit didn't happen today, going to try again later this week.

While the shop has been in operation since 1630s the original building is long gone, the tools are now stored in the hobby barn at the house of the new owner of the business (still a steel business, but no blacksmithing), the place was a working blacksmith shop until the late 1970s, I remember hanging out there as a kid.

I'll post some pictures when I get out there, the collection of tools; anvils, swage blocks, blowers and so on is staggering.

Exciting day today, I get to visie the local OLD blacksmith shop (pre 1630) and get my pick of the tools as they don't do blacksmithing anymore.

I know I'll get a nice solid (but not too big) anvil and possibly a swage block, but he said he had lots of thongs and hardies and other handtools I could have.

Earlier this week someone else gave me a very nice post vice, it is now mounted to an old oak stand, works very well and is portable.

We moved about a month ago and couldn't take much of our blacksmith gear, so we are rebuilding our shop, the burner for the forge is almost done and is just waiting a 12-24 tap so I can thread the gas nozzle, at that point we are up and running.

I'm so excited I just had to share :-)

We are restoring an original Delage right now, the predessor of the DeLaHaye, the body on the one we are restoring is not as exiting as the one you build, great work.

Joe beat me to it, but same thing here, born in the Netherlands and native Dutch speaker but an active smith and teacher in the US I think I have the lingo down in both languages.

Actually moving back to the Netherlands soon, setting up my blacksmith shop there from scratch.

I use S7 rod for the tig welder when facing or repairing an anvil, high impact tool steel, works very well and grinds down fine with a rough grit on the angle grinder.

Current plan is to go, I'll send you a PM with my mobile number so hopefully we can say hello.

I'm thinking about it, but haven't told my wife yet, that's a decent drive for me and we have a lot to do to get ready for the move.

quick introduction.

Blacksmith, machine shop, custom car builder.

Member of the North Texas Blacksmith Association, often do demos at the Frisco heritage museum.

Building some custom armor for a friend, build cars for fun and have lathe and mill.. so I can make pretty much anything.

Leaving much of my tools behind to move to the Netherlands in June, planning to setup another shop there.

Would be VERY interested to meet people into metalworking and blacksmithing in the Western part of the Netherlands, we're moving to De Lier, oh yes, en we spreken Nederlands.