Chestnut Forge

It has been a few (15) years since I've felt the need to do any forge welding. A couple of months ago, I turned an old porch post into a coat rack for my father in law. The nails I pulled were old iron cut nails. The post is 149 years old. Anyway, I stacked up the nails, twisted a wire around and went to the forge. A few cold shuts but I think it went OK. Now to decide what to do with it.

I did not get a full char on some of the logs on the first burn. For the second time, I put about 4" of dirt on top of the outer barrel. I now have my charcoal bin about 3/4 full. I need to get more barrels and set up a couple of retorts.

Yesterday, I built a retort like Marksnagel's. Fired it today loaded with some pine from a brush pile. 1" to 5" logs cut about 8" long. I used hardwood scrap from a sawmill for fuel. At around 2 hours into the burn, I could hear the gases burning. I hope that in the morning that I have charcoal.

My Father-in-law worked there in the late 60s and brought some work home with him. I know that they forged it at a bright yellow and mostly with 200 ton presses. My buddy and me worked for over 20 min with an 8 pound hammer to flatten the end of a bar. We wanted to see if it would make good blades. My mother uses that bar as a pry bar. It does make good firing pins, no need to heat treat. Lathe it and install it.

Not sure if this is the right place, however.... Back years ago there was a local company the produced sucker-rods and the like. I have some of the steel that they used. It is air hardening. And red hard. The company called it "L material" It will not take an arc weld unless it is pre-heated. If water or oil quenched it will shatter. It shatters while quenching in water, even hot water. I have it in 3/4 and 5/8 rounds,and thought it would make good chisels and punches. I just don't know how to heat treat it. Any ideas?

In my first shop, really just a large shed. My buddy and me had a "Fatso" wood stove for the winters. Somehow I got tar on my gloves and needed to clean it off. I grabbed a can of acetone and kinda washed my hands with the gloves on. I put the up to dry and an hour later the palms were still a little bit sticky. So, being the genius that I am, I had the gloves on and stuck my right hand in the ash pit of the burning wood stove to cove the tar with ash. There was this noise, a WHOOMPF sound and my glove was in the very back of the stove. It seems the leather held enough of the acetone for combustion. The hair was gone off my are clear to my elbow. No burns but a lesson was learned.

Since I suck at forge welding. I would make the blades with a long tang, like a file and make the socket more of a bolster to keep the handle from splitting. Think file handle. I have wood chisels with bolsters on both ends of the handle. May not be or look period correct though.

I'm 99% sure it is WI. They came from my buddy's property. They were there when his great granddad bought the place. After I thought about it, the loops were at yellow. The points, I tried to do at orange. I guess I can clean them up and try again. Probably wouldn't hurt to use a bit of flux on the ends.

I have some oil well sucker rods and today, I threw loops on the ends of two pieces. The third one got bent in to a crank handle. No problems there, however, when I tried to taper the ends the metal started splitting a little bit. Turns out the rod is wrought. IIRC, wrought need to be worked at higher temps, right? I had it a a yellow heat.

The sides are made from sections of an old hot water tank. I had to cut them an stomp them on the floor to flatten them. Some bed frame angle iron and a hunk of steel tube, and it is a (kinda) forge.

Got it done and had a small fire in it yesterday. Sure is an ugly beast but I think it will work for me better than my old riveters forge.

Really neat. I have one some place that I made from a big lag bolt. It was my paperweight at my office.

Thanks Folks, I haven't met with the client yet, as the house no.1 is in Erie and the yard is 3 feet deep in snow. Although, I could use black paint to mark out where the fence will go. I had planned on doing the 8 foot sections for the fence, mounted to wooden posts. That way the can be fab'ed in the shop and taken to the site. The clients lives almost 4 hours from house no.1, so a meet and greet is pretty much on their terms.

I ran a search and could not find what I need. I was just offered commissions to do a 40' x 5' fence, supports for an 4' x 8' AL awning and porch rails on one house. And porch rails, possibly fence around the whole yard on another house. House no.1 is 80ish miles from my shop and no. 2 is 125ish. It wouldn't be a lot of back and forth travel. I just haven't done this kind of work in so long that I don't know where to start with pricing. Any thoughts?

I'd say it was cast steel. I would pass on it if I were you. I think the brake rotor would fail with heavy use.

It is almost done. Just need to pack some clay between the firebrick, like mortar, and fire it up.

I use an old riveters forge. When I burned coal in it, I would put an old cast iron pot upside down over the fire at the end of the day. The next time I fired it up, there would be a nice pile of coke.

My buddy has his 300 pounder sitting on crushed limestone.

Frosty, I plan on filling it about 3/4 with the small stones and then sand. Actually its not sand. I have a bag of coal slag blasting grit and a big bin of ceramic grog. Since my compressor died I have no use for the grit. The grog on the other hand, I hate the thought of using it. It does a nice job in the sandblaster. A guy brought me a M-14/M1A magazine that had a wet rag lay on it for awhile. I blasted it with the grog and cold blued it. Looked like a phosphate finish. I re-blued my .22 the same way after that. Takes the shine off.

I got started like most. Cup hooks, plant hangers and such. My buddy and me set up a table at a craft show once. We had our usual stuff out. We had made a whole camping set, Tripod, trammel, roasting fork, some lantern hangers...pretty much everything one would need for a camp site. We were asking $200 for the set. We had 6 solid days of forging it. This guy says to his wife/gf "That's too much. I can get all that stuff cheaper" He was right. Could get it cheaper if it was imported to one of the "SuperMega Marts"

About 18 years ago I had a chance on a BIG anvil. $1 a pound at 1500 pounds. Guy over near Philly had it. It came out a shipyard. We were travelling and no room in the truck. As soon as I got home, 6 hours away, I called him and it was gone.........

I started building one today. It won't be pretty but it is just a test to see how well it works with charcoal. Witch by the way is all I use. Stated building a gas forge but I can get charcoal almost free.

I've been using hardwood charcoal, a lot of ash.

The ladle is the first thing I ever made. The brackets I made this Sept. for my wife. She had a pair of lanterns to hang. I didn't do any smithing for about 12 years. Just got back into it so my skills have degraded.

Sorry, I should have said what it was. It is a wood or charcoal forge. not worth $140 IMO but I thought about slapping something together like it to try out. The add says that it is kind of self feeding. The fuel is supposed to slide down the sides to the bottom. With charcoal, I just see a bigger fire.