Ratel10mm

Hammers of most sizes are available at Bunnings, Total Tools, Masters, Trade Tools Direct, Blackwoods, garage sales & car boot sales. Or, as has been said, make your own. Not too hard to do if you have either a striker, fly press or power hammer available. Something in the 1 - 1.5Kg range is probably best to start with. Then, technique plays a large part in avoiding damage to your body. Do your research here & on other sites. Find a time served smith to learn from as well. It's dead easy to stuff up your body in this trade - care & attention is required.

Kicked a metal pole yesterday while chasing my toddler. Spent a large chunk of today at the doctor's & radiologists. It turns out that I broke the metatarsal(?) in ine of my toes, so I'm off work for a couple of days. There's some positives there - more Dad time. I might get to do something about the chaos in my ute tool boxes. Maybe tidy the driveway.

ITC is commonly used in gas forges in the UK. If you search for it on the British Blades forum, I think you'll probably find references to suppliers as I know it's come up on threads there often enough.

Dave, right now my anvil is a handy flat place to store my tool box. ;) My first anvil was a short piece of rail track that I nailed down to a log about 8" round. That rests on the ground, supported by a handy rock wall. As I understand it, the normal way of using rail track is to stand it upright as a post anvil, but this piece was neither long enough nor large enough in cross section for that. Anyway, it works quite well for small items.

Cheers mate. :) Your set up looks pretty similar to ours (ABAQ) when demo-ing.

Yeah, c'mon Andrew! :D What'd you make?

What Jeremy said. Besides, I think you have a good point, especially considering you want a gas forge. And definitely invest in an introductory course. Three days or so of forging will quickly show you whether this is something that you want to persue, or not. If you do, then you'll have an understanding of most or all of the basic techniques & so forth to build on.

I am. :) Phil, when are you coming to Brisvegas mate?

A Happy, healthy & prosperous new year to all. :)

Can EU citizens still work unfettered wherever they want / can find a job within the EU?

Me, as you know. Mike's near the airport. Most of the members are around Brisbane with a few of is on the Gold Coast. When are you coming up?

Come on you lot!! Where's the photo's & film???

Well, I have to skip it again this year. :C We're planning on a long holiday back in the UK next year & I need to save both dosh & holidays. Have a great time everyone, I WILL be there for the next one!

Cheers Phil, it'd be good to catch up if you have time.

Let me know when you're coming Phil. You're welcome to stop here for the night if you want as well. We're about an hour south of Brisvegas.

Go centrifugal over axial. Axials are the ones that look like a propeller, and they can't overcome much resistance. I use a ventilation fan from a car, powered by a small battery charger (with an old battery as ballast). If you have a decent battery charger you probably won't need the battery. A bathroom exhaust sounds like it'd be a winner. One of my company's suppliers does a small-ish one with a 60mm outlet for about $80. If I hadn't already had the car fan set-up< I'd have gone with that.

Andy, since uou're in the UK, get onto the British Blades forum. There's plenty of info on grinders there. And skateboard wheels have been proven to work well, see Ali's grinders. But for Prte's sake, get a qualified industrial sparky to give your grinder a once over before you start it, if nothing else. It's be a crying shame to electrocute or injure yourself through lack of knowledge. And fit an emergency stop, too!

I like that a lot. :)

Jeremy, agreed that they must have been made specifically - at least in part. It's quite possibly an optical illusion, but the scrolls behind the competitor's head in photo 11 look traditionally done, not electrically welded? There's a hint of a rivet there, for e.g? Admittedly I'm looking at this on my phone, not my PC. Drewy, would you mind asking Guido when you're at the forge-in?

I'm just wondering if the metalwork on the set (railings & so forth) was done by a blacksmith or fabricator. Which blacksmith if it was one? Was it done purely for the program, or did the building exist in it's current form? At least some of it is for he program, judging from photo 11 in this link: http://www.masterchef.com.au/masterchef-5-week-1.htm

As above, I'll be there if I can swing it.

Yes to Moony's if possible. Lots on this year. Need to win the lotto so I can attend all the other events too. <sigh>

I recently scored a couple of pairs of fork lift times for free, plus some odd bits & pieces of 'scrap' out of a client's scrap skip. :) A lot of their machinery is seriously heavy duty stuff. I've moved jobs since then, but that skip was quite a large item in the plus coloumn when deciding wether or not to move jobs! ;)

I remember being told that grease is the very last thing to use on these machines as dust & debris gets trapped in the grease & it all becomes abrasive. Always use oil was the mantra.

Hi Leon Come along to the ABA(Q) meets to learn a bit. :)