Francis Trez Cole

an other way is do your design put it in a envelope and mail it to yourself put the letter away in a safe place (do not open it) ever any question and need to present it in court it can be opended then. Post mark will stand up in court. I do this with all my designes will protect them. I use the origional drawings.

I invited the neighbors over for a demo and they were very intrested in what I was doing so every time I light the forge friends come to see what I working on. They understand and look forward to see what I am working on next

I am a FABA member it is a very good group. the south west chapter we are very open any one can come to our meetings. We meet once a month but if you have time you can go to 4 meetings a month. NE,NW,SE,and SW meet on diffrent weekends. there is a lot of info at each meeting and everyone I have meet is very willing to share there knowledge. dues are $25.00 a year. go to the Faba sight this month we are having a demo on armour making. a few months ago we did a trip to Bock tower to see Samual Yellen's work from 1920. great day and good demos on sight. We also do a lot with the Boy scouts and there merit badge program. the first demo I attended was making copper diving helmets talk about diversity. if I can be any help let me know

nice job and you can forge re-bar.

down here mostly get pine not the best bugs love it. Keeping my eye out for a piece of cypress. I spray the underside of mine with auto body undercoating works well.

there are at least 10 different ways to get to the same goal. What I learnd in cooking school it all comes down to putting money in the bank, Mcdonalds,wendy's and burger king Who makes a burger the right way not to mention all the other resturants who serve burgers. You can't teach style, just form. Each person will develop there own style and it is finding people to support and buy it. or you just make lots of stuff for yourself its putting your self out there. I myself am always learning thats why I like this forum get a chance to see how others do the same task. Then trying it out for my self or combining idears to fit my needs. In my area a hundred mile range there are only a few who blacksmith so it is tough to get together with them to exchange idears except once a month. Elite no just a bunch of people standing over a fire sweeting and beating metal sometimes solitary. This is a great sorce of info.

K brain M check out FABA Florida Artist Blacksmithing Assoc. We meet all over the state and a good source of contact and learning.

divermike great responce about grand pa tools, the other one I get all the time is do you shoe horses? no i like to pet them. in my demo I set up 3 or 4 items and make them in order those that are intrested will stick around for a couple of demos. If you have a helper to keep your fire right it is a big help. then all you have to do is hammering anf talking. and if your ambisious chew gum.

Rusty check out FABA Florida Artist Blacksmithing Assoc. good group of people who are interested in all types of metal work good source of local contacts. They meet once a month.

You can fill the tube with dry sand and weld a cap on reach end. This works well. There is some distirtion but only a little. you would be better off with a forge to heat the metal evenly.

there is a great knife maker Jims web sight is salamander armoury. Cable is fun to work with your temp for welding is brite orange not yellow. and the slower you go the better light hits compacting it until it ia a solid then you can turn up the force of forging have to get all the air spaces out of the billett first. It will pop on you like a balloon.

when I set up my torch mark I had started out with an email account which coralated to the area I was in. Then did a drawing I wanted to use. Then went into a web sight nokomisforge.com. I would secure the web sight first and work the promotion meterial around that.

realy enjoyed the class nice work. I have to get more patent to do real small items this will be a good way to accomplish that.

after getting steam burns form wet shirt hot steel on my stomac. bib apron is a must.

Here is an example of a simple forge that works well Arrowhead Tutorial

mcnichols.com is the company I have used in the past.

how I got started In 1987 while in the Marine Corps I was living in the town of Jacksonville NC. I had read every book I could find on blacksmithing. A museum in Richland, the next town over, had a great curator, Albert Potts. He would bring in folk artists on Sunday afternoons to do demonstrations. One cold and icy Sunday, I read in the paper that he was going to have a blacksmith at the museum demonstrating civil war pieces. When I arrived there were about six others who had also braved the cold. Shawn, the blacksmith was just lighting off his forge. He had a bellows and all his equipment was homemade. He did his demo in an hour then everyone else left. I didn’t. I had tons of questions. He looked at me and said I could stand there all day and you could ask questions but instead he handed me a piece of steel and commented, “you are only going to learn this by doing it”. So I started hammering and we ended up talking for two hours. He asked me why I wanted to blacksmith. That was simple. I wanted a set of ice carving chisels. I explained that I was a trained chef with a degree from Johnson and Wales University and unwilling to pay thousands of dollars for something I felt that I could make. I helped Shawn pack up and I decided to just go home and do it. I searched flea markets for tools and found a good vice and a hammer. I built my forge and bellows. I drove to Wilmington, NC and bought my first bags of coal. So Saturday morning came I had worked to do I needed tools for the forge a shovel, poker, rake and water can. Well with in an hour the wooden arm on the bellows broke. Not giving up I made one out of steel lifting the bottom of the bellows by hand I forged my first Eye then forged welded it. Feeling good yes I can do this. So now I could start on my list. Then something strange happened. My neighbor Derwood came over. “What do you think you’re doing”, he asked. “I am blacksmithing”. “No, you are doing it all wrong”, he said. Then he picked up my rake and started pulling my fire apart. “It’s ok. You can light it up again now get in my truck”. Now Derwood was in his 90’s and I had a lot of respect for him. He was still cutting his own fire wood to heat his house. Down the road we went, off the main road and onto a dirt road through woods which felt like forever. The woods cleared and there were thousands of acres of corn. We pulled up to an old tobacco barn. “See that stand of trees over there? That is where I was born. The house bunted down years ago”. In the barn we went. “She’s here somewhere”, he proclaimed, “If you can pick her up you can have her”! There she was in a corner under a tarp… an anvil, battered, chipped and old. I walked over and wrapped my arms around her and off we went. She was now mine and I hers. Years later I found out where the anvil had come from. Derwood told me he had received it from the great great grandson of John Ford the first blacksmith in Onslow County, NC in 1774. After a lot of research I found out it was made by Mouse Hole Forge. I tended to the abuse she had suffered over the years and to this day she still serves me well. A few years later I moved to Chapel Hill, NC to take over as Executive Chef of UNC Hospitals. This is where I met George Berrett of Storybrook Metal Shop. We became friends and I would watch what he was producing and go home and make the elements I had seen in his shop. Every time I lit off my forge I had work for hire from fixing farm equipment to making custom pieces for people. In 1999 I moved to Sarasota, FL. I started working for the Golden Apple Dinner Theatre as the Technical Director. I set up my shop and got my first big commission. The Venice Cathedral needed a fence for a cemetery. I installed it on the morning of 9/11. Since then I have produced pieces for collectors and worked with members of the Histicorial Society recreating and expanding existing pieces from old Sarasota. I’ve also had pieces commissioned by a Japanese cruse line and Bush Gardens of Tampa. I blacksmith for the love of the art. Who would have thought from that cold North Carolina day I would find my self 20 years later under an old oak tree in 90 degree weather with 90 percent humidity (what was I thinking) listening to that old anvil ring and boy does she sing.

thats the way I make mine except I make mine square. I use 4x4 tube for the air pipes and instead of a clinker breaker I welded in a 5/8" rebar great. works real good still working after all these years.

I made one out of 1/4" 5 years ago have been using it every day with no clay liner.

my first forge was a used bbq grill and a pipe with a 90 degree angle poured concret hearth. grill free, pipe free, and concret $3.00 made a bellows from scrap wood Free. took a few days but up and hammering in a week. The best advice anyone ever gave me was "just do it". 20 years later still doing it. my first purchases were an machinest vice with a flat plate on the back (used as an anvil) and a good cross peen hammer.

check out foxfire books there is a section on making blackpowder guns. I think it is volume 6or7. Do not have them with me.

get the neighbor to help once my neighbors find out what I am doing they want to see how it works.

well 6'-2' 240 what is the typical look

depending on the steel I use super quench and a tmermal marker.