hicks

great thread mark!! much appreciated thanks, i think i understand this anvil effect also would i be right in thinking that if i am just drawing a bar out and dont beat the top and bottom equally that the sides will be angled due to this?, as the top or bottom will have spread more, requiring corrective blows to square it up on the sides, thanks again

the idea of square trough like shape is good man the idea of air in both sides as i tried it bofere is also good however as i said the heart will stay close to the bricks on either side (well thats what happend with me) so i ended up with two long hearts with cold running the centre so i was just caining fuel and destroyed it hahaha,, erm but it would work if the trough was very narrow however then you will be limited to what you can stick in it,, and as for adjustable you could always slap a lump of clay in the holes of the firebricks to adjust it like the washtub forge , i would stick to the one side myself, having tried and failed,, but it was a good plan, as for a clinker breaker you wont need one with the trough design as long as you have a couple of inches below your inlet holes on the side then just put some ash and fines in the bottom and the clinker will settle in that,, let him cool down and scoop him out of the ash in one lump, all the time you still have air coming in the sides and theres no mess!! though every now and then you gotta clean the buildup of ash in the bottom but its no probs as you want some in there. when i tried the double sided blast i had a mad idea about putting a large tube through the bottom of the forge with a big hole in it,, and then a secondary pipe that fitted into that with a hole that would line up,, idea was that the clinker ran into the central pipe then i turned the central pipe 180 degrees which would seal any more fuel from dropping out then slide the pipe out the front and clinker should drop at my feet with a tap or something,, probably clog up and stuff though and the forge didnt work anyway and i smashed the beast up:) heh good luck

just out of interest here, couldnt you do something similar to the lively knives for but have the black pipe and holes on the side ?then your clinker will settle in the fines and ash and all you do is let him cool down and scoop him out in one lump as he(it) has settled in the ash which is free with no sticking and clogging? it just takes some ash out too no biggey,, there is a coupla problems one is the heart will be pretty xxxx close to the tue pipe so you gotta be able to slide in quite close to that, also there is the whole water cooled thing with the side draft ,, or you could gamble like me and just drill holes into fire bricks and use them instead of any steel pipe , working good so far (fingers crossed)

well doesnt seem to match up with any in the price list xxxx!!

hey all , thanks for responses well ive just gone and measured him up and it appears my waistline is only very slightly slimmer than the face so sorry bout that almost an optical illusion bit is slimmer but only by just over an 8 of inch ill go check vaughns hope works now ,, as for the weight im not sure if its possible at the mo well philip in china i bought him off ebay and went to birmingham to collect it was out of an engineering place so its possible althjough the markings look rather similar on both sides and are well centred on the flanks, that is all i know of its history which is a bit annoying, so noone has ever seen this x on the bottom then? also im sure she is cast but the face protrudes kind of so am i correct in assuming that it is welded on ,, is this good?! thanks again

well gave it a quick rub and took some more photos definatly something on ther just looks like blobs forming a window shape maybe 4 characters and an x on one side,,,

thanks guys ,, well just went out and checked my charcoal this morning ,,, and damm its pretty much all ash!!!!! thought i could suffocate it last night there was a nice four buckets or so there and now ive got probably less than one!!! live and learn ay,, back to the drawing board well my blast is relatively controllable as im using a battery charger and is has 12v 6v and high and low charge settings on it so i have 4 speed settings i had read i must ease of on the air when using charcoal and was but i was waiting so much longer for the bar to heat i got impatient and gave it the full whack a coupla times ,, should i just be waiting longer with charcoal than coal then?? think some more practical experimentation is needed on my part , although ill have to wait till i do a few more batches of charcoal because ive probably only got enough for less than an hours forging at the moment!! oh the wood is boards and bits of bobs from outta another barn we are building on its bone dry but some has rotted a bit from age ,, i have acces to the odd bits of kiln dried oak so ill have to give that a go when i build up enough thanks again guys

thanks for the input guys,, well i cant see basicly anything heh the waist is definately narrower than the face tho,, and frosty if i sand it flush the paint will remain on the indentations right , which will give me a better view than using paint stripper or something i guess good thinking,, the surface looks so knobbly think ill have to sand off quite a bit heh , thanks again guys

well yeh i know there isnt that much in there firstly cos im scared of burning it up in seconds also that was the last heat as it was my last drab of charcoal left. however ive just gone out to check a batch i prepped earlier and i loaded it as high as i could and from openeing and having a look it seems i have got a lot lot more than last time, although my impatience in opening it has got it burning a bit again i checked a bit of snow on to it (it was at hand) hehe and am worried that drabs of air are getting in and i pray it will go out otherwise ill be left with loadsa ash i guess dont know whether to go out and spread it about and sprinkle it with water although its dark now just out of curiosity how long should i be waiting for my bar to get to temp? thanks for the sound advice;)

nice man, i need to get doing these kind of exercises instead of trying to make something complex and spooning it up half way through,, good stuff i wish i could be doing forge welds with some success i need to get my practice hat on

this is probably a tough one as its coated in paint and god knows what else, it was like that when i bought it although it has an x down towards the bottom, and i think its got a face welded on (i dont know ) just hoping that one of yopu knowledgeable people will see it and say hey thats a ,,,,,,, have tried to work it out and searched forums on here but i cant work it out also being in britain perhhaps doesnt help thanks again guys

hey , have been hobbying away at this blacksmithing malarky for a a little while now with not much to show, anyways have built a bit of a wierd forge in my barn beats being outside rusting away ne day although my bucket of water is constant ice at this time of year:( ,, its a wierd forge as i built one before outside with a barbq bricks and mortar in a bottom blast configuration with no ash dump gates and all that,and an old car fan at the base of the brick tower on a board so you could just "open the fan door" and shovel all the ash and crap out , worked pretty well considering i thought of it without looking at any blueprints or what have you and i think you US guys firepotting it up over there mite like its simplicity,, but anyways, was noobing and it cained my fuel big time,also the clinker would get all over the place with my inexperience, i rebuilt it a coupla times with some wild ideas that didnt work too well, so now ive moved inside and wanted to assemble a new one ,,,,,again,,,,,,,,, meanwhile i went to my local college at hereford which does a blacksmithing course and he showed me the whole side blast with basicly a tub of crap and ash for the clinker to settle in ,,, no real smothering to air inlets and ripping your makeshift firepot up, so i thought hey this is the way, i then researched allot on here ,, btw A VERY BIG THANK YOU TO ALL YOU GUYS, all this free info for the lapping is a commendable thing,, godspeed. heheh anywasy i read and saw at the college of the water cooled jacket and others here mentioned about using cast as its more resistable to temps,, well i cant weld and im a skint soooo, it dawned on me what can take the heat ,, so i just drilled a hole in a firebrick ,, boom a tuyere (kind of), right back to the thing i actually wanted to talk about first i had been coking my coal in the fireplace inside the house which was all good just a pain picking out the coked bits and running to the barn spreading them out so they go out,, because i cant put fresh coal on this forge as i have no flue or hood or anything but the barn is big and has plenty of ventilation, now ive ran out of coke and thought i would like to use the ole charcoal like our ancestors did , i have made a small amount and ,, i am struggling to get my iron past an orange , and like cain a bucket in an hour this is insane !!! three days of forging will mean a small wood clearing,, mind you the wood i used to make it is softwood (which i thgt was good for heat) but some seemd a bit rotten ,, anyways again,, any help much appreciated with gettin some decent heat outa this stuff because i do like it , i can only think that clearing trees to make way for farming for our ancestors was wrong ,, maybe it was just a few smiths here and there hehehe;) here are a few pics of the latest forge which will probably fall apart in due time hah

i thought it would only be fair of me to intro myself seeing as ive just been scanning and absorbing all your knowledge thanks by the way hehe,, i dont reallly have a clue what im doing im eager and never seem to have much time to practice but i made a makeshift forge last year that has died now and am currently tryng to make a new one and have finally got an anvil !! i was using a large flat stone for a while to not much avail hehe thanks alot guys