dablacksmith

I do mostly 1790-1840 time pereods but my shop at the museum ime using 1910 as my timeline ..also looking into doing a few renisance fairs in the future ... My portable forge has a 2 chamber bellows and is a bottom draft..tryed side draft and found it took to much playing with fire for my purposes...( I know its more period correct but....) i was thinking of building a simple oliver using a sledge hammer as a new tool for demo.. ive seen a few dezigns but not much old dezigns .. thanks for info guys

tandy sells a product called dr jaxsons hide rejuvenator ime gona try on my portable bellows..

Ive got the book pounding out the profits and it has got me wondering about olivers .Anyone know how far they go back in history? anyone got any pictures of old historic ones? I do historic reinactments of various time periods so I prefer to use historicly correct tools when I can.. any info is appreciated.

most likeley its your coal..... try some charcoal...(not briquetes) just build a good fire with wood and keep it going till you got a good bed of coals use that in your forge it will take time but it will work..... good luck

in my opinion I wouldn't put the burner at the top facing down... I would put it on one side facing the other side... The reason I would do it that way is heat rises and you could eventually heat up your burner enough to cause you problems...other than that it looks like most propane forges ....Good luck

that is a inpressive looking machine! you will have no problem moveing machinery with that ! in fact the only problem is where your gona put all the stuff you can bring home with it!

I remember the first time i had that happen ... I had a kid tryin to learn blacksmithing and he had started to shut the forge down .. i told him not to so he added a bunch of green coal and cranked hard.. the intake for the blower (champion 400) was above the forge and sucked a bunch of the coal smoke ...BANG I hollerd at him WHAT DID YOU DO!! i finally figured it out nuthing hurt but scared the ..... out of me and the kid .. never had it happen again but now I know why so I dont let the same condition happen...

another thing to remember is the number of times it was heated ...... if you heated it a number of times you can have carbon loss ... usually shows up if it took a lot of heats to punch and forge ...good luck!

That ain't superstition thats wishful thinkin!!!

Ive used a vertical type forge at a friends shop I found it worked ok for some things not so good for others . I believe its mor popular with the knife makers and the reason is the blast is not directly on the steel so theyres less oxidation ... the down side is that short pieces tend to fall in and are hard to get out once that happens! You might try one if your doing alot of high carbon forgeing and are worried about oxidation (scale)..

try cutting a hollow in the bottom with chinsaw it dosnt have to be deep just a slight hollow will help get it to not rock ..good luck and have fun!

I hear people all the time talking about my brother father unkle ect was a blacksmith and died .I always ask what happened to his tools .. The usual answer is "oho we just gave um away " or "we are keeping them to remember him by" usually they are rusting in some field ... I keep asking tho cause I want to be the guy they "give um away "to !!!

we use natural gas for a demo forge at a state fair I attend . I know thay had to increase line pressure so it would work but other than that its basically same as a propane forge (forced air type). The heat might be a little less but basically the same ...good luck !

ok who is st-eloi and do ya barf on him or????

ok here is my shop for the winter .. In the summer I travel hope it works

There are two ways for a blacksmith to go to hell.... pounding cold iron and not charging enough....

not usually if it is a new product or item ile try a few different ways and see which works best .. if its a standard item ive got the dezign memorized so i dont need um generally.. tho i know a smith who has all his dezigns written down step by step with measurements and everything . he can duplicate any thing hes ever produced ...Ile never be that organized but that is the engeneering mind set....

It started for me from reading the lord of the rings and wondering how they welded in midevil times... then the metalshop teacher let me play in the propane forge( I made knives and swords in highschool!) but I reall got the bug when i went to a mountian man rondesvous and saw a blacksmith working.... watched him for hours! then went home and started working... 25+ years later and ime still going strong...

ya I saw that I think its for forming sheet metal...

ya I agree he thinks hes got gold instead of iron! I wish him luck!

I have to agree about finding anvils ... the price has gone up but they are available .I had one come to me in my shop.... the guy stopped by about a month befor saying he had a anvil for sale and wondered if I was interested.at the time i had 4 and wasnt looking so i took his card to pass on to someone looking .I gave the card to a guy who seemed to be seriously looking but apperently not cause the guy inded up bringing the anvil by. he said he would give me a good deal on it or it was gona end up a lawn ornament in his son in laws yard!!! I bought it even tho I really didnt have the money .. Turened it in less than a week and doubled my money ...the goy who got it was real happy with the deal he got! if you are really looking and your in america try craigs list ..

This is gitting WAY too political ! it started about lighthearted post about shop security and now we go to anti protect yourself group hug liberal post ! come on guys if you dont believe in guns fine ! but when the bad guy has one your in big time trouble! and it hasnt changed with time or country its been that way since biblical times ......and might dosnt make right but that dosnt help if your on the wrong end! enouf of that as far as shop security i think just being near or haveing someone near is the biggest deterent . if someone is around less chance they will take a chance to steal .and dont think because your equipment is too heavy they wont steal it.... a friend of a friend had a 450 lb anvil stolen from his shop/ barn along with tongs hammers ect.... it was near the border so its probably in mexaco right now....