piglet_74

Very nice. Much better than my first table of thin sheet. That stand looks sturdy. I'll post a pic of a simple hot cut that works pretty well on the web of the track anvil. If you weld some tubes to the sides of the stand and bend up a long piece of bar stock, you can make a rest for you work too. That was the problem I had the first time out. Not enough table space to rest the longer stock. Nice job! Rob. Here's what I was talking about:

Do you have any links to the youtube vids. I've been trying to view as many as I can find. Thanks. BTW Good job Moose!

Thank you for the idea Goatman. It was so long ago I forgot who had posted about it. The one I have is a 9" model. I'll have to measure the depth of it. When you use it with coal, what do you use for a tuyere? I used some expanded metal. It seems to have held up OK so far. Thanks, Rob.

Well, today I torched out an opening for the bell trap in the plate that I picked up. I think it worked out really well. I'll set the whole thing on top of the rim stand and I should be good to go. I can't wait to get it fired up again. I figured that some day if I feel like spending the 150 +/- for a centaur firepot, I could torch the opening for that and drop it in. Maybe Xmas... :D

Frosty, thanks, I didn't know that. That'll open up some more options for me. You may have noticed a design idea or two of yours in the construction :-) thanks. Josh, I didn't do a very good job with putting together the table out of sheet. I put two pieces of flat bar stock on the rim to support the bell trap. then I tacked the sheet to the bar stock to hold fuel. Pretty much right away it seemed like a light breeze would blow my fuel around (cowboy charcoal) and I felt like I needed a little more depth so I stuck some pavers I had around the edge. The pavers are what killed it. I threw that table together on Friday and as luck would have it, ran across the turntable thing Sat morning. I had been looking for a piece of scrap like it for weeks. The experience was good I think. Gave me an idea of how the setup will work for me. I have two more bags of Cowboy to play with and then I think I want to grab a bag of coal to try. That's what we used in class. The charcoal seems to be a faster pace since it burns quickly. One minute I had the fire like I liked it and then I would turn around and it was half gone. Even with the air off it seemed to go pretty quick. The most important thing I think was it had to be the most fun I've had in a while. Rob.

I had to think for a minute where I might have used galv. in the construction, then I noticed the tub. That was only a temp thing I used to pull apart the fire and water it down so I could take off for the afternoon. I need to get an ash bucket and a slack tub and I'm hoping they have plain steel buckets at TSC. Other wise I may continue to use plastic. I had a kitchen trash can with a gallon or two of water for a slack tub but I was afraid of burning a hole through it. As for the shed, unfortunately it has to house the yard stuff so i have to share it. The rig is pretty portable so it shouldn't be bad to setup and tear down. I was thinking of welding two tubes to the bottom of the new table. Then have a sliding tool holder / rest on the front. Are there any design consideration for that? I tried to look through the gallery but didn't get many hits. Thanks, Rob.

First Fire What I made scrap yard score The piece above I got from the recycler today. It appears to be something for concrete but I'm going to torch out an opening for the firepot since my sheet metal didn't hold up very well. Can't wait to put that to use. It will be great to rig up a rest and tool holder at the front of the forge instead of constantly picking up the tools off the ground. Thanks, for looking! Rob.

Finally I took a day to get together all the bits and pieces that I've been collecting and using the immense amount of info from Frosty and others here, I rigged up my first backyard smithy. I used a cesspool bell trap that was listed in another post by someone as the fire pot. A piece of expanded steel was the grate. Black pipe tees and nipples made up air delivery. TSC supplied the stack cap (ash dump). Sheet metal and flat stock for the table. So here it is... Whole thing Workstation Forge rig Fire pot Continued on next post...

Ouch! :mad: Luckily the guys at work took care of hauling and cutting mine for me. Let us know if you put it to use! Rob.

I took a wire brush to the shaft. The shaft screws into the inside of the cone. Stamped into the shaft was "warning, wear safety goggles". So I'm leaning toward some sort of driving tool or expanding tool. The end was slightly mushroomed when I got it. Rob