Nobody Special

That would work. Fire clay generally goes something like 7 or 8 bucks for a 50 lb bag at a building supply company. Might find it at a masonry place. I dunno. I use homemade refractory in mine, using the recipe from backyardmetalcasting.com (since i started into this from doing casting, portland cement, sand, perlite, and fireclay). Worried that the portland would slag, but I've only had to patch it once, two years ago, when it cracked a chunk off near the pot.

Mine's about 2 to 3 inches deep (brake disk in an old lawnmower, so variable height). I like mine throughought the pan so that it's an even space and easy to move the coal around. Not sure about over the pot. I wouldn't have thought so, but the dire tales around cast iron are making me paranoid....if it's a cast iron pot and not steel.  Somebody will surely correct me. :)

Hooks, triangles, hooks, cheese slicers, hooks, door knockers, hooks, bottle openers, hooks, drawer handles, hooks, tools like punches and tongs, hooks, feathers, hooks, nails, hooks, split crosses. Oh yeah, and hooks.

I like hooks.

Seriously though, depending on the style of hook (say anywhere from simple j hook, to s hook to fancy coat hangers) it can be used to focus on drawing, tapering, twists, rounding square stock, squaring round stock, bends, straightening, using the edge of the anvil, flattening, and peening. All depends on what you want to make.

A lot of the time if I'm stuck on something, I'll crank out a hook or something simple and fast I know I've got down to keep my hands moving while my brain is catching up or until my frustration's drained off.

Good idea, right now mine's stuck on the side of the forge.

True, but talking about for a specific project. 

Like, in a recent example, grinding a small rod, to serve as a "negative" to forge the end of a new punch onto to get the right shape for the eye on an animal head on a door knocker I was working on. (only two layers in this one.) Sure, I used a hot cut, and a hold down, etc. but those were already made.

So, I saw a cool pocketknife based on a Gary Huston style folder (on here of course), and decided to try one this morning (left mine in Texas!), and got annoyed.

I was cheating with some pliers (yeah, I know) teeth ground down so not to mar the stock because I didn't have the right tongs, and got fed up after I dropped the stock for the fifth time and decided it was a good morning to catch up on my tool making.

And then I didn't have the right size tongs to hold the bar stock for the new tongs after I finished the first half and cut it off the rod, so...........

I guess my question is, what's the most layers back have you gone into making a tool to make a tool to make a tool to make..........etc, for a specific project?

Melted marbles into split crosses. Let it sit on top and run down into the gap. But I usually dunk mine to crack 'em deliberately. Cool crazed glass effect. Word of caution, can shoot off little glass splinters when ya do it, or break off more than you want. Sometimes comes out right, occaisionally not. 

Tried pushing it with a rod, but it doesn't work well unless it's good and hot. If you put it onto a coal fire, might want to put it on a piece of steel bar to keep pieces of coal from getting stuck in runny glass.

Busy busy, love the curves on the hook rack.

I seem to remember cheating when we made electromagnets for the kids. You can use prewound stuff like a transformer coil or the guts of a old school (car) starter solenoids they used to mount on the firewalls instead of on the starters themselves. The solenoids are pretty much already an electromagnet anyways.

Or, you could.......pick up a rare earth magnet, very strong, and not THAT expensive,

or, stack together a bunch of normal ceramic type magnets. Not uber strong, but stronger than one or two by themselves, and fairly cheap.

Farrier's supply'll have bitumous coal. Sometimes find it at a welding supply. Nice, easy to light, easy to control. More expensive, but ya use less of it.

Anthracite heating coal works in a pinch and is cheap, but takes a lot of air and burns very hot and fast, so less control and easier to burn the metal. Used to get mine at a feed store.

Making lump charcoal in a 55 gal drum is a fun project, I use lump charcoal a lot of the time to cheat when I first light my forge.

All of it seems best to do best for me at around .5 to 1 inch.

Look for limonite and ochre too. Ochre's basically iron oxide, and limonite is a common ore, often yellow, or sometimes a brownish color.

I put a pic of some hematite I pulled out of the ground near cartersville, ga, but iron ore comes in a lot of varieties and appearances. Mine varied from reddish brown to almost a brownish black, and was very mildly reactive to a magnet. It may not be very magnetic until you roast it.

If ya want ta make something pointy out of low end steel, railroad spike knives are fun to play with. They don't keep an edge (because they're very mild steel and don't harden) but they're cool looking, make good letter openers, and offer a lot of possibilities to mess around with. Just don't steal 'em from the rails, they're really really sensitive about that. Can be found cheap at garage sales, flea markets, online etc.

For cheap steel, try going to a fabricator, welder, or steel supply and ask them for their "drops", or their drop pile. It means the leftover cutoffs from other orders or bits that are a bit mangled and cut off. They sell real cheap next to buying full bars of virgin steel. Beer is a good tool for bribery, so are simple forged items, hooks, bottle openers, etc, that are also good projects for a beginner.

Hot rolled steel (milled through rollers into bars while hot) is generally cheaper than cold (ditto, milled cold), and mild steel (low carbon) moves a lot easier under the hammer, but doesn't harden, so not good for a lot of tools, like knives, chisels, etc. You can also get busted coil springs from a junkyard or mechanic and straighten them out, but you won't necessarily know enough about the heat treatment and what kind of steel you're getting yet.

It's not so much that their judgemental, but you asked THE newb question - asking about rebar swords here is akin to going to a room full of mechanics and asking if it's okay if the gas and oil leak out of the car every day if you add more in and by the way you'd like to drive it in a pro-Nascar race.  Only it gets asked at least10 times a week on here. Don't sweat it, a lot of people start by trying (and failing) to make a sword. I did and still haven't made one yet. It takes a lot of expertise and practice on knives first. Rebar sucks, and'll break on you, even for tongs. Maybe, maybe as a coal rake. Good luck.

I used to use sodium bentonite cat litter in a casting furnace using the backyardmetalcasters.com recipe with portland cement, sand and perlite.

(yes, I know the portland slags in a furnace at much above brass melting temps, or in a gas forge when it gets crazy hot, but I've forged with this mix on a coal forge and it works well with patching once in a blue moon.)

For about the same price though, you can get a 50 lb bag of fireclay at a masonry store (I know there's one in huntsville that sells it at $7 a bag.) or if you have to have bentonite, it's sometimes sold at feed stores as a clay pond liner, and....it's not pelletized and baked like cat litter. 

(dunno current price, last time was about 10 yrs ago at 4 bucks a 50 lb bag in texas, dcraven it's easy to get in texas cheap because it's mined in west texas.) 

Also, I've found it makes a pretty crumbly refractory no matter what the mix, but the dryer the better when mixing it and ramming it. Adding too much water is always a bad temptation because it makes it easier to mix. Also, ram thoroughly, let it dry well for a few days and warm SLOWLY the first time, as trapped air or steam explosions blowing out chunks of refractory shrapnel are scary and can tend to hurt. Not that I did that the second time I built a casting furnace or anything (too much water, fired too soon/fast)......and good luck!

Local radio stations like KAXE out of Grand Rapids Mn. a listener supported station with paid and volunteer DJ's. Wide range of music, NPR news that tells you more, local programs that listeners call in on. One of my favorites "Car Talk" with Click & Clack was discontinued because they retired. Another great program "Green Cheese" which listeners call in on trivia questions. All  around great station.

What???!!! You miss a few saturdays... :(

Nothing. I forge outdoors, and I always wear clamshell ear protection.

What????? Huh?????

Too late for me. No power hammer, so unless I'm grinding, ear pro's not as much of an issue; but the Army got a lot of my hearing, so classical, folk, or rockabilly, my music has to be LOUD.

Now I'm sad. Excuse me. I have to go outside now. My one tiny anvil is lonely and needs a hug.

So, simple question, what music do you like to play when you're forging?

Zepplin? Bob Dilan? Bluegrass?

I've known people to beat metal to Slayer, and I always get tickled watching a Technicus Joe video with jazz playing over the top. It's a nice feel and adds a touch of class.

Me? If I'm hyper and full of energy, Irish rock. Say Flogging Molly, Pogues or Dropkick Murphys. If I'm feeling more mellow and gonna be at it awhile then classic rock or old school country. I can keep a nice rythm to Hank or Johnny Cash.

How about you?

Thanks for this, been doing it on the rainy days around here. Made one out of a quarter and all my kids wanted one.

Been using a bunch of my old leftover army issue ballistic eye pro from deployment. I figure if they were meant to stop shrapnel............

Not sure if you're addressing me Mister Powers, I was answering Joe111, definitely not arguing with you. You've given me nothing but good advice.

Also, still to Joe111, I believe you've made lots and lots of iron, that's a fair, if simple description of melting iron, and that's a lovely cupola, but you're missing the point.

I'm not making a puddling furnace, I'm not doing a cupola, reverbatory furnace, a Bessemer process  blast furnace, or even a Catalan furnace.

I'm trying to make a bloom, using a bloomery.

I am familiar with cupolas. And making different grades of iron by adding carbon or burning it out with the oxygen. Really. I'm not vastly experienced with using them, but familiar with how they work.

Deliberately primitive. Deliberately semi-primitive methods and full of slaggy crud and silicates. I thought about using a kite bellows, and clay tuyeres, but really, really didn't feel like pumping for hours on end. The fact that it's made  of clay instead of a metal  or  firebrick shell is a  big indicator.

While I enjoy casting metal, goal this time - bloomy bloomy. Consolidate/knock slag out, forge weld. Cut, fold, weld again to refine. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. I say again, no melty melty.

Joe,

First, of all, I'm not trying to melt the ore. I'm making a bloom, just melting off the slag, which that much at least it did in abundance, and let the iron sinter together. I can melt steel or make pig iron now with coal, it's not what I'm after.

If it's like most blooms, I'll probably get varying amounts of carbon, mostly wrought iron, but some all the way to some cast iron depending on location in relation to the tuyere.

This one failed for a couple of reasons.

One. Hard to maintain temperature. My fault, not enough oxygen, it needed a larger tuyere, or better yet more and larger tuyeres. So the tuyere would get blocked up, and the temp would fall. I'd clear it, and it would go back up to a light lemony yellow for 10 minutes or so, then fall off and have to be cleared again.

Two. Didn't go long enough. I got hit by a thunderstorm. Nothing was wrong with the clay, it held up fine......until 50 degree raindrops hit the side of a 2100 degree furnace during a hour and a half downpour. If ya read the earlier post, I used red Georgia clay and sand, fireclay, and some wood chips for the burnout material. I had failed structural integrity from thermal differences with the rain making the walls spall. I might have run out of charcoal anyways, but I had enough for two or three more hours at least.

Three, I'm a newb at bloomeries, and it was a first try. I'm tickled pink as much went right as it did. Inexperience and trying to do it on my own. Basically, I ended up with some half-cooked hematite, that was a LOT more magnetic/reduced when it was done, with a few pieces that had some metallic streaks through 'em in places when ground, but not a decent bloom.

Oh well, I saved it, slag and all, will improve the tuyere design, use thicker walls, plan for weather better, and take more of Steve Sells' advice prior to running it again. He was spot on on what went wrong. I'll try to set in on a bloomery or two with someone more experienced than I, then post my next experiment when I get the inclination and have made way too much charcoal, probably in a couple of months or so.

I found the adjustable reg for my casting furnace at a mom and pop hardware store that had a lot of gas and pipe fittings. It was naturally aspirated (one burner) and I think it usually ran at about 12 or 13 psi. Not sure, my wife "lost" it during a previous move.

Also, go army. Beat navy.

Mine's not as smoothly executed, but i like the troll cross with twists.

Cheese slicers are easy and look cool too.

So......a long while back,  before I discovered IFI, I made a good ole lawnmower kitchen knife blank.......and it's been sitting there......and sitting there, while I made other stuff, including the occaisional spearhead or Knife Like Object.

Finally decided, forget it. It's not perfect, don't sand or polish further, put a simple handle on it, stick it in the kitchen and use it. So, several knives later........my "first" knife.

And before it comes up, I've been reading the knifemaking lessons and tips.......and they've been extremely helpful, just too late for this one.

Knife is from 1080-ish (i think) lawnmower blade, Handle is pecan cordwood from my firewood stack, and the pins are cut down from a stainless steel peg from my pegboard. Probably woulda looked better with a simple bolster.

Buffalo Forge? Not sure if they used hundredweight though.

If the eye is to the rear of the axe, and he hasn't gone too thin on one side, could he

-cut it near the front corner of the eye - -bend it straight - draw "sides" to same thickness - rebend around a bar or the anvil horn - reweld at front of eye and then drift?

Similar to making the eye by wrapping flattish bar stock around a oval or round bar and welding, instead  of using punch and then drifting. Grant you, for that much work, I'd probably toss it and start fresh.

(and I really am asking, not suggesting, I haven't tried it yet, and might need it for my mess ups if it works)