Leon.seretis

G'day guys. Im Leon from the Gold Coast, Ive always been interested in blacksmithing yet havet had a chance to do it yet. As i will be finishing my Engineering degree soon (and finally be getting some free time again), i decided to reward my self by learning this age old trade. Growing up dad always had a garage full of wood working tools and together we have made so pretty awesome stuff. Since then we both have had an interest in replicating props from movies and TV shows, the more creative we get the more skills we need to learn and recently we have started working with metal and are loving it. Ideally i would love to make knives, swords and armor (both practical and decorative). I have an old steel weight, 200x150x100 that i plan to use as an anvil and a 2-3Kg sledge to work with. I still have to make a forge and choose a fuel source (I'm thinking Charcoal because i can make it my self) but if there is a better option please let me know. Any tips or advice on getting started would be greatly appreciated. Cheers - Leon

cheers mate :)

Thanks for the advice guys, looks like ill be starting with the weight and a tree stump and see how I go from there. Frosty, you mentioned a "down under" secion in your post, were do i go to find that? Thanks again Leon

Hey guys, I am completely new to black smithing and want to have a go, however before I begin I need some kind of anvil. I've had a look around but no one in my area is selling any so I thought I might try making my own. A friend from work mentioned that you can start by using an off cut section of I-beam as a cheap first anvil. I managed to pick up a section of I-beam 10mm thick 300mm wide and 500mm long and an even wider section of U-beam I was thinking I could weld on top. I was thinking of welding some SHS to support the edges of the I-beam or even some plate steel between the two sections to add weight and stop it from deforming. I'm just wondering if anyone has had any success using I-beam themselves or could give some advice on building mine. If the I-beam idea is no good I also have an old steel weight, that's 150mm wide 200mm long and 100mm deep that I could use however its pretty scratched and would probably need to be ground smooth first.. I know this isn't as good as a proper anvil and I'm keeping my eyes open hoping to find one but hopefully this will do for the basic learning stage. Any advice is welcome Thanks Leon