Charles R. Stevens

I don't type fast enugh

Well, looks like some one set up house in your blower. I bet with cleanup and oil you'll be in business. The degre if rust is really of no consternation, fire in the pot and hot iron on the anvil will take care if most of it. Fix the blower, mount the fire pot, mount the blower and you're good. The "tonges" are actually pull offs, for pulling horseshoes off. Work great for pulling nailed too. I'd keep them for wood working when your trying to pull nails, they can be re forged to make tonges, but you might want to just start from scratch.

Oops double post.

. My better half asked why I was crying.. Thank you, I'm truely honored.

I'm truely honeored. Thank you.

I'm glad that my thoughts and words gave you and your family some comfort. You are certainly welcome to share them with any one you wish, and I'm honored that your mother would consider using them as part of his eulogy. Please give her a hug for me, infact ask her to give you one for me too.

One thing to note with gassers, it's more difficult to localize heat. You either resort to a torch or selective cooling with water or very heavy tongs. You'll see what I mean when you start working. Take the classic bottle openner. You punch and drift a hole, now to flatten the outside edge of the hole. With your gasser it's hard to heat just the right spot. So you have to cool the other half of the hole. I actually find solid fuel less expensive to build and run. Plus it's more versatile. Not to say that my pro forge doesn't see daily service. So don't discount a hair drier, a peace of pipe, a box full of dirt, and a bag of lump charcoal. Infact build both. You'll have a blast. Of further note I have burnt up more steel in a solid fuel forge than my gasser.

What type if steel are you using? Might help with with helping you with the process.

Lol, I would recommend sheep, they actually do eat weeds. My experience is goats like brush and trees much more. I guess depending on wear you live you may want both. Lol, I do. I'm afraid I resemble the above remarks. Love all the stuff that falls off of flatbeds in the oil field :-D

Pictures would help us identify the degree of rust, as well as the type of fire pot. Is the blower truly broken or just non functional? Some times rust and dried up oil have renders it nonfunctional but repairable. Another good idea is to put your location on your profile. Just might have some one with in half an hour of you who can help you hands on.

Coal is denser, and goes out on its own when you stop feeding it air (usually). So coal lasts longer for the same volume of fuel. Charcoal is cleaner burning and lighter. No clinker to speak of, no noxious smoke wile its coking and generally easy to come buy. It is lighter, so it will blow out of the forge with to strong a blast, and it likes a deaper fire than coal, that and it creaps, and it's hard to manage with water. Generally you won't want to just dump a bag on the forge table.

Looks a heck I a lot nicer than the factory ones I've seen. Fine looking knife any way you look at it, I especially like to see the notch wear th blade transitions to the tang.

We try

Georg, I hope we can answer questions from our black smithing brothers and sisters, exange ideas with other farriers, and share what we do. Thanks for chimeing in,

Neil, I can field you an opinion, and hopefully others will share their insite. Usually the dammage attributed to cold working a shoe is on the off side below the face or to the horn. This is a faily late development, as untile faily recently 99% or so of farriers worked out of a shop, and didn't go to the horse. After Mr. Ford and Co. Replaced the horse as a nessisary part of society and future exaserbated by the universal adoption of the tractor after WWII, the serviving farriers went moble, or the DIY type "cowboy" picked up an anvils cheep at auction or a flee market. Factory shoes have been around for a long time, but originally they were heated, heals cut to length and the shoe shaped to fit the horse. When the newer "keg shoes" became available it was often easier to modify the shape cold, adding or taking out curve in the branches, widening or nerowing, and adjusting the heel. Ok, now to address the why, first it takes time to haul out a forge, set it up, wrangle a good fir lay and start your fire, then you have to break down your fire, wait for the forge to cool so you can reload it. Some ingenious farriers used bands in the 60's and I've here stories of the local law stopping them because there vans where smokind. Then there are the DIY croud, and until the reasugence of our craft as a a hobby and an art form old anvils where little mor than scrap iron, and cheep to acquire. Modern farriers anvils don't have soft horns and bodies, taking this abuse much better, and the gass forge is much easier to mount in your truck, and fast to fire up and cool down. There are still DIY and part timers out there and with the advent of front and rear pattern shoes you still see cold shoeing. As for me, I carry relatively light hammers and fire up the forge, I run light on shoes, hand making what I don carry.

Lol, wouldn't expect anything less from you Mister Turley! Thanks for chiming in.

As I understand it A36 isn't a particular steel, it's an engeniring standard. It may be just about anything that meets the standard for performance. Some times you get inconsistencies that bite you in the butt.

Had a conversation with Glenn that got me to thinking... Yes that can be a dangerous thing. Frosty and I have just about hijacked a thread by a new member, we are talking about horses and horse trainers. Any way, I thaught I'd start a thread for those horseshoing and farrier questions and comments. I'm not the only Farrier here, and many of them have more experience, or different specialties than I do. I hope they will chime in. Like any other time you get blacksmiths together your going to have more than one way to skinn that cat. I know that there are farrier spacific sights out there, but not a blacksmith eccentric descusion. Hope Glenn forgives me for opening this can of worms... Too start out let me ask you'll that do public demo's how you handle the inevitable question about blacksmiths shoeing horses?

Lol, I didn't mention the new kids, just the old timers, Ray hunt and The Dorrance brothers are definantly old timers, Buck Brennahan and Monte Roberts aren't quite as old, my generation is Patt Perrelie, Dennis Reice, Cregg Cammeron and I'll leave the guy the Aussies sent us out, (kinda like Fossters if you ask me) as to the new kids, I don't have a clue either, but I know there is a woman ridding bare back sands head stall kicking butt and taking names!

Lot of good horse people out there. Roberts and Brennahan, or Hunt and the Dorrance's Some times it's hard to understand them, as like blacksmithing horsemanship has its own vocabulary, and most of them have a northwestern accent ;-)

Yes it does, that reminds me I have a standing invitation for some one on one in Gerald's shop...

Irregardless of your interpretation, some kind of guard is always nice on a weapon. You almost always cut yourself when using a knife as a weapon (yes I know you made a sword). Another consideration is making the hilt more "grippy", sweat and yes blood (yours or theirs) will make the grip slick. Loseing your weapon can make for a bad day. Even if your just showing off and your buddy's laugh at you for throwing it away. Worse if it hits one of them. But hay, the point is you made it, you enjoyed making it and you learned something in the prosses.

After looking a bit closer at your pictures, I would suggest a few other things that might be casing you problems. The 90 deg. bend out of the blower should be eliminated, the friction reduces air flow, as should the reducer going to the forge, use that large 90 (after a good some in viniger to get the zinc off of it) now you h e minimum restriction, again you may want to eliminate the small floes flange and go with a 2" with a 1/2" bar across it. Charcoal likes high vallume low presser.

Charcoal likes a deep fire, say 8" all up. Say a 4" bowl and 4" mounded up around it. The fire it's self needent be more than the size if your fist, too the size of both nested together. A hair drier is more than sufficient with a 2" inlet pipe, and a grate. You may try sticking a coupe of bricks on edge on eithe side to make a deaper fraught to keep it hot, and efficient.

One of the other smiths, uses deheaded 55 gallon drums on their side, I'd imagine 5 gallon buckets would work too. You could rack them and use the grand bin tin as a cover for the rack.