Doug C

Looks good Paul. Shop looks way to clean. You need to get busy and make a mess out there.

Derek, The blue print for this came from Alex Bealer's book The Art of Blacksmithing. This has been a fun challenge. I will finish my latch up this weekend. Waiting to see what Tom has dreamed up for the next challenge. Doug

Bill, Trying these challenges forces us to learn some new stuff. I still have some work to do on this project but working on it has been fun. If your up in the Lawrence area give me a call. Maybe we can work on one of these or some other challenge. Tom did a great job on the challenge and the video. He says he has a nother good challenge for mid-january. Can't wait. zDDoug

Good stuff. The puzzles are a great idea.

There are going to be 8 very happy people for Christmas. I like the way the branches tie the textured corners to the rest of the frame. Nice touch.

Joe, Nice job on both the video and the letter opener. I made a letter opener for a friends wife and she raised a few good points which caused me to remake the letter opener for her. Letter openers are generally no longer than an average table knife and many times shorter. The end has to fit comfortably and naturally into the users hand. Needless to say my second letter opener was shorter and daintier than the first. Keep up the good work.

This is a technique known as form folding which was invented by Charles Lewis-Brain. There is a forge near Boston that teaches the technique. I have seen this applied to iron as well

Some here showed me that you can adjust them pretty easliy by heating the whole thing up and putting it in the vise at one end then use a couple of screw drivers to get the shape right. Unfortunatey even that requires practice.

Robert, Like Francis mentioned use the search feature on the green menu bar at the top of the screen. Come up with questions on what you don't understand or need clarification on. Coke is what is left from the coal when the volatiles like sulfur have burned off. It burns clean and hot. You save some of this from each fire to have available the next time you forge. As for fluxes, well, you'll have to try for yourself to tell that one. Many of us just use Borax to start with because it is cheap and easy to get. I have used one or two other types and saw no real benefit but my experience is pretty limited. Send me a Private message if you want.

Last winter I forged outdoors. Same as other folks a heated up a piece of scrap steel and laid on the anvil. Not sure it made a big difference because as soon as it was off the anvil the heat got sucked out anyways. Does anyone have any historical reference for what was done in the past. Folk must have been dealing with this for centuries.

If the parts tempered in a vacuum turn gold what was the chemical process at play seeing as how there is no oxygen to create an oxide?

So where is anthracite used? Do Power plants just use what is mined locally? If the are always using low quality, lignus, coal doesn't that seem very inefficient? Just curious about how reality varies from what I have read.

Coal is either anthracite, bituminous or lignus. Quality is in that order with anthracite typically being the best quality. "Blacksmithing" coal as we talk about it here is a bituminous (soft) coal that should be low in impurities (carbonate, phosphorus and sulfur) and high in its abilities to coke (plasticity). It tends to burn faster than anthracite coal and stays lit longer when no air is being applied. Power plants also look for coal that is low in volitiles like ash, carbonate and sulfur as it produces less slag. I am assuming that they probably use Anthracite coal.

Look good. I do not wipe off the beeswax. If it is pooled up I just heat it up and let it evaporate off. Letter openers are pretty good too. Keep at it.

My set up is like yours. I open the doors to my shed (8' high) and run a tarp across them and then just put the forge far enough out that the stack passes by the tarp. Works ok in a light rain, fails miserably in a heavy rain but at least I am clean before I get into the house.:D

Start googling web sites for blacksmiths. Here is one with a few door knocker patterns. I am sure that you can find inspiration on someones site. Ian Eddy Blacksmith

Here is a thread from earlier in the week. Use the site search as this topic comes up every year and there is more than one thread out there. Also go look in the gallery. Lots of inspiration there.

Mark, New England blacksmiths covers a large area. There is a monthly meeting (Mar-Nov) in Brentwood, NH (20 minutes up route 125 from Plastow, NH. We have our own building (post and beam) with four very nice forges and lots of gear. We also have a spring and fall meet as well as a winter event at the shop of one of the professional guys. I think there are several folks in Mass for NEB that you could contact and see if there was some place that could accommodate monthly meetings and random get togethers. Do you know of anyone with the room to handle a monthly meet?

30 to 40 years ago would have been about the time that Thor Heyerdahl was sailing the Ra and Ra II. While not Norse ships they were evocative of that style of vessel and were all the rage when I was a kid. National Geographic did several articles on him and his boats. Maybe that got his creative juices flowing. What ever his muse he did nice work.

GLOVE: Leather hand coverings that let you hold on to hot objects much longer than you thought possible causing a strange dance when the discovery that you should have let go 30 seconds ago dawns on you. Works best when gloves are sweaty insuring a nice steam burn as a memento.

Looks pretty nice. Better get forging before the snow flies.

Yes you can. Do a search on the site here for "break drum forge" and you should see a whole lot of info that will get you going. You might also try BP0133 55 Forge.

Frosty, I must be the one with head trauma. I knew you had stopped posting but just today realized that you had been hurt when I found this post. Glad you are feeling better and are well enough to be posting again. Get well.

Pun Alert. Can't help myself..Dave nice work, you really nailed that one.....