ironrosefarms

Thanks, trying to arrange my schedule to go pick up my bricks. James

How do you get started and then avoid burn out? Well the hardest part for me is getting started, the fact I have to haul all my stuff out and set it up under the shade tree means I loose a lot of time in set up and tear down. This causes my total time available to be reduced significantly. As for burn out, my problem there isn't mental as much as physical. I'm still working my way back from my motorcycle accident and my body tells me that it has had enough after about 4 or 5 hours of steady work. So I have to pace myself somewhat, be sure I take a real break and let my body rest before picking up the hammer again. By resting I can usually double my amount of work in a day... As for what to work on I sketch anything I see that is of interest and keep those in a sketch book along with photo's and such. I find also feeding my mind with the craft in places like IFI is valuable in this process as well.

DARN, foiled again is what the villain always says...

BARN, the place where I go to think...

Jerry, congrats on your new forge! My cast iron rivet forge has clay right out of my backyard in it (we have some good quality clay, we have 4 brick plants within 20 miles of here), I worked with it with no clay for some time but had fits keeping the fire the size and shape I wanted. The worse part of my forge isn't so much the clay as it is the spacing on the legs. Mine uses a ratchet handle and wheel and it doesn't take much to pull the whole forge over. I have created two stakes that I use to hold the forge down to help cure this. The other problem is I use a two wheeled hand truck to move my stuff outside to my working area, the legs are just exactly the wrong distance apart to be able to put the hand truck under it and move it. So for this I keep a piece of plywood around for the forge to be moved with for now, but I do have plans for a metal bar that will run between two legs that will be installed about 1 inch above the bottom of the legs so I don't have to use the plywood anymore. My Cast Iron "bowl" was cracked when I got it, instead of trying to have it welded I bolted 1/4" by 1" flat stock formed to the side of the bowl and bolted it in place. Then at the start of the crack near the center whole I drilled a small hole to keep the crack from furthering. This has held quite well now for about 18 years. Be sure to allow the cast iron to cool slowly or you will be finding the need for just this such a repair or worse... James

Jr. I was asking about the brick forge you are in the process with. But that info on the other forge is sure to help someone! Thanks James

LARD - what you'll turn to if you stay in bed all day too often~

Here in the US it would be common to pay $2 per pound, so for a 45KG anvil (100 pounds) that would put you to about 140,00 euro? However the difference in value of an anvil here and any place on earth will likely be a bit different...

JR, Looks great, can you answer a couple questions? What are the dimensions of this forge? Height, length, width? Any idea what your brick count is? Thanks for sharing! James

Oh goodness sakes, I never realized how easy it really was! Thank you Philip for sharing that awesome training video! James

ptree, I feel for you today... I got called (by my wife) to go over this weekend to my sister inlaws to take down a couple trees that got damaged in that same storm. When I got there that couple trees turned out to be; 2 Tapulka trees each about 34" diameter each and 9 maples at 28" diameter on up to 39" diameter... My math has never been great but a couple always meant 2 or 3 I thought... I'm a sore sore boy today... The only good thing was I got to use my new Husqvarna... There is no way I could have cut as much wood with my old homelite saw, the weight difference alone is amazing no less the difference in 40 CC (homelite) and the 50CC (Husqvarna)... I like my new saw...

If you do this in a clean fashion (not leaving or scattering any trash) I would think you will find yourself not only a source of fuel but will likely find park employees who will be quite kind and generous. Our scouts volunteer to help the workers out twice a year to clean out the fire pits in each campsite (386 sites). Our keeping the employees from having to do this job has brought a good relationship with the workers and they have been very generous to our troop. I'm just ashamed that I didn't think about the use of the charcoal that is sometimes left... Thanks for the great idea! James

Kovacija, I can't wait to see picture of your finished project, thanks for sharing the photo's as well James

Very nice, thanks for sharing with us...

50 times X minus Y carry the 4 divided by B multiplied by the square root of... Heck it sure is good to have guys like Finnr and Rich around here that actually know the answers to things like this!

I checked with my pastor tonight about the cost involved in having the skaters here. We pay a $750 per year fee to obtain a rider on our insurance policy due to the liability. This sounds like a fair amount but if your worried about the $ the year before we started this we spent $1600 in repairs from graffiti and other vandalism. So although our intentions was not to stop the vandalism but to reach a group of kids who are often shunned and alienated by society, the benefits that came back are kind of nice too... We have been beginning talking about a long range goal of building a indoor skate and activity building that our youth could dominate... The plant hangers might be the quickest easiest and perhaps cheapest route. Let us know when the life stuff settles down what happens... James

What I think is so funny is if you go through and look at who they say gives them their accreditation the website you'll find when googled is as identical as can be even the font and pictures are the same! I'm interested in seeing if Microsoft will take exception to the use of their name and training... I personally would be very suprised if they are really in Nevada, Colorado (another place they claim as home) or Phoenix as their name represents... I wouldn't be surprised if they was actually from Elbonia or some other exotic cartoon infested land... James

Read the blueprint that Glenn offered BP0060 Rebuilding a Vise, it is how a now deceased friend rebuilt his vice that was missing the screw box. It was efficient and worked very well. He used a piece of black iron pipe to house the newly wrapped threads if I remember right.

chyancarrek, exactly... I have no problem with a collector, but the collector I spoke of is very prideful and a braggart of how he takes advantage of people. When you figure a guy buys an anvil away from an auction at $5 a pound, that isn't a sin... I do believe though charging someone $8 a pound for that same anvil the next day then bragging to folks how they "duped the sucker and made $450 dollars off the deal" for a 150 pound sway backed anvil. That is where I have the problem. It is wrong no matter how I try and slice it... It is a true shame too that a number of guys (or gals) who are searching for an anvil loose hope as they see anvils go at auction for far more than the normal market would bear. I think this in the long run negatively effects our craft and how people view blacksmiths in general (this guy claims to be one, though I don't see evidence as such). Now if we could somehow reach out to all of those frustrated folks looking every weekend for an anvil and hook them in to this site maybe we could convince them that they could make do with something other than a genuine anvil and give them a good start??? James