Rob Browne

Brian, Thanks for that video. I have been "working" on tongs for a while and this arvo I knocked out the best set I've ever made in about 30 minutes thanks to your video that made it absolutely clear. Thankyou

Dave, Good video, really enjoyed it. BUT, I have to say I LOVE your trailer, now that is a nice setup. Cheers

I often wonder if we ever have the skill set to achieve what we do. In the old days smiths worked day in and day out to get their skills but most of use do it on every second weekend for a couple of hours. You should be very proud of those tongs BTW :)

You could put it in your table and build the fire up by stacking your coal around the fire. This would make the pipe the base of your fire and the depth achieved by the coking, green coal around your fire. Very adaptable set up.

My bit here would be. If the blower does not have bearings then be careful running it too fast and controlling the air blast with a gate. Much better to have the fan run slower and not wear out the bushes. Cheers

Good luck with your search but you forged for about 4 hours on about $4 worth of charcoal? Not bad value in my books......

Thomas is probably looking at getting the depth in your fire you need. With coal its easy as it will not burn too fast around the "edge" of the fire, a bit of water and its contained. With charcoal, however, you need a deep fire but just staking the charcoal around the fire to build its depth will result in all your charcoal burning, it just burns and you can't really stop it. So I would say that is a nice setup for coal but not for charcoal. For charcoal you need deep sides to allow you to put in the minimum fuel to get your fire depth without burning excess fuel. Cheers

Only one word - FANTASTIC! To make pattern welded steel then weld it into a ring with no obvious change int the pattern is something I could not even contemplate. Congrats.

After weeks of spending all my free time, and that is not much, on building my lean to I decided not to build today but to actually use the forge. The forecast was for possible showers and, you guessed it, I had a beautiful fire going, was banging away happily on a set of tongs then dark clouds, thunder, lightening and HEAVY rain. Tried to carry on to the end of the storm but it virtually put the fire out. Had to give up. Suppose there is next weekend, or should I keep working on the lean to???? Wish I didn't have to work. It sure gets in the way of hobbies and drinking beer. Now I feel better................

Before even starting that project, make sure you will not end up in trouble with the law. Those things will get you a trip to the cops VERY fast here. Cheers

$300 starter price!! For that money you could make a real beauty out of bits 'n pieces.

Go to a good hardware and get one of each flat bastard, mill and flat file. A half round bastard and mill file. A round/rat tail bastard and mill file. All up seven files and you should be able to take on almost any filing project with that lot. Remember to keep your files clean and covered so they don't bump together. Don't force them into the work, let them do their job steadily and use your strength to guide them not force them. Once the filing is finished then its down to stones and emery paper. Remember, practice makes perfect BUT they are talking about a LOT of practice.

Boy, there must be some money in horse shoes to allow tooling up like that. Imagine the overheads and the cost of a different set of dies are used for each size. When comparing those shoes produced to the hand forging no wonder I used to modify commercial shoes when I used to shoe horses. Cheers

Just make sure its thick!

It will work but the cutouts in the side may be a bit too low as you will have to build up the fire to get the necessary depth. I do this in the rivet forge just by filling it with coal and pushing it in to the fire as needed. If this is the case do what I did and weld a couple of strips into the cutout at the correct level once you have used the forge a fewe times. This may be made a bit "worse" if you end up lining for forge with some clay, while it helps shape the base of the fire pot it also raises the fire level. The tuyere will work but I find a few bars of rebar welded in rows works better than holes in a plate. I found just holes get clogged too easily. The size of your ash dump should not matter to your air volume. Just seal it up and the air only have one way to go. Better too large than too small. Consider welding a couple of bits of pipe on one side at the cut out so you can mount a frame for long pieces to lay on while heating. All up, a functional forge from bits 'n pieces. Cheers

You could use some fire cement to seal it up, especially if you are using a hand cranker. Many often have valves on electric blowers to reduce the air flow so it would not matter if you were losing some air here, just open the valve a bit and you would have plenty of air. Basically, it depends on how "neat" you like your forge to look and what type of blower you have hooked up. Cheers

I'd stick to your rail anvil for the moment. Keep looking around as that one is in VERY ordinary condition and US$200 is a lot of money. Cheers

Great set of tools you are building. My only comment would be to smooth the saddle so it won't tend to leave as many marks on your work that you have to fix up later. Cheers

That is a nice functional knife. I'd be proud to call that my first one!

If its industrial coke you are using and not breeze (coke from coal in the fire) then I would be lighting it with a small kindling fire. This will give it plenty of time to really get going, then you only have to keep the air up to it. Cheers

If you are getting into really/fairly heavy hot work why not build your own pot out of fire bricks. Or does your forge have to be portable?

After the other feedback my comment would be to keep an eye on the location of the rivets. The first one is very close to the edge of the timber handle. Bet it does not cause you any trouble but its weaker and, to my eye, does not look as good. Cheers

Great idea for those of us with small anvils. I spend lots of time setting up hardy tools to sit on top of the anvil body where they rattle around but are sited on the strongest part of the anvil. Why I never thought of this is beyond me..........

Try sitting it in a drum of diesel for a few weeks. Every now and then pull it out and try turning it. Eventually you will succeed.

My two boys are 13 & 11. Both forge on and off but they have plenty of time to get up to speed if they want to.