capnroo

I went to the alabama forge council meeting for the wiregrass region on Saturday. Had a blast and traded Mr. Bob Portman some materials for instruction on building tongs. We used a jig to line everything up, used fullers, etc. I learned a lot from Mr. Bob, and am looking forward to next month's meeting (and using the tongs he and I built over the weekend). here is a pic. very versatile tongs. :)

whatever machine he used, it was a monster. ive got a machine shop at my disposal, the biggest cnc mill machines being a mori-seiki MV55, and a samsung mcv550. the only reason I wouldnt try it is because of tooling cost if I wore inserts or endmills out. thats no small project lol

Dodge, thats really nice. was it burned out of 1 piece of metal, or multiple pieces and then welded together? and how did you form your horn? im gonna be building a horn for mine soon, so i need some advice lol. Martin, thats a very innovative way to build one! now I have another idea... :)

Got 50lb of high grade bituminous coal from the Alabama wiregrass region forge council meeting today. 2 hour drive for me each way, but Bob sells(I think that's his last name) showed me how to build my own tongs, as a trade for a little material I had. Will post pics Monday. I had a great time out there, and came home with some Metalworking experience. Don't get better than that!

Got 50lb of high grade bituminous coal from the Alabama wiregrass region forge council meeting today. 2 hour drive for me each way, but Bob sells(I think that's his last name) showed me how to build my own tongs, as a trade for a little material I had. Will post pics Monday. I had a great time out there, and came home with some Metalworking experience. Don't get better than that!

Is anyone going to the wiregrass meet this saturday in Enterprise? I am. Itll be my first meet and I cant wait!

If youll also notice, most Lathe pictures look like the guys are hand feeding... no worm gear auto feedrate on conventional machines back then? the biggest i have seen was a horizontal lathe with a 15foot diameter 4-jaw chuck, chucking on a 9foot square block... HOW DO YOU EVEN INDICATE THAT?! A 4.5 FOOT INDICATOR?!

ha. I would have known if you had said water tub. thanks for the jargon lesson.

nice, Micheal. I didn't think about I-Beam when I was gathering materials. this may sound newbish, but i havent learned the lingo yet... whats a slack tub?

I have two stands that Im thinking of using. I actually like the wider one because its shorter and a little stouter. may have to weld some feet on the bottom for added support, but I think Ill be ok. its either way, they are stout and heavy. the wider base is below

Charles, in Glenn's pinned post above, Thor says both of those pieces came from a rock quarry? And I just now welded the pieces together and found a stand. Gonna post pics tomorrow. Even without the anvil attached to my stand it doesn't budge when I hammer on a cold piece of metal. I figure all together it'll probably weigh about 150lbs. Gonna get the stand sawed at work tomorrow. Will post pics tomorrow too.

craven- thanks. i looked up the brazeal striker and it was really neat. thor- cool stuff, man. that giant metal post looks like it would be one awesome base or something! Geoff- thanks for the sand info. also, those look like some really nice anvil setups! my top plate is tool steel i think. i might check it on the hardness tester at work, might not. doesnt really matter, i think.

craven, thanks for the suggestion. I haven't gotten around to thinking about my anvil's stand yet. I didnt think about a sand filled container. interesting. If you'll notice the rectangular slotted section in the 2nd pic on the bottom 'part' of what will be my anvil, I was thinking that I could build a jig with a hardie hole that would slip into the slot so that it is removable. good idea? Also, the top face is about 8-10inches wide by about 20-26inches long. it should definitely work until I've gotten off my feet.

thanks, man. I like the fact that this setup will be very versatile. If I come across a specific need, I will be able to mount things to it through the ends of the bottom piece. I thought it was pretty nifty.

I didnt even look above at the pinned post by Glenn. Im sorry for the similar thread. it can be deleted if I made anyone mad. sorry, glenn

I don't have money to spare to buy an anvil, so I figured I would build one out of scrapped parts and such. the piece of metal on top weighs about 50-60lbs, and the bottom piece weighs about 20-25lbs. If I offset it like in the picture before welding, the big hole in the bottom piece should be nice for bending hooks, or prybars, etc. what do ya think? and show me your homemade anvils! cheers! this is a prybar I used the big hole to bend :) (it looks really bad, because it is. but I'm just beginning, and teaching myself. so yea.)

Aah. Will do, Charles thanks for the idea!

Is a bick the same as a horn? (Sorry if it's a newbish question)

I've got my eyes on a block of hardened steel that's about 60lbs. Maybe weld some other bits and pieces to it for added mass... I really want to forge my first set of tongs, but need to build a better setup before I can do that.

So, yesterday after work I went back to it. Set 2 thick blocks of steel on either side of the firepot in an attempt to cut down on fuel consumption. It helped a lot. I would like to point out that the coke actually Burns out a cavern beneath the layer of unburned corn, and this is when it's hottest. I got a piece of 5/8 hot rolled rod to yellow heat in 3-4 minutes. With corn, there is plenty of 'coke' left over I have 1/8 of a 5gal bucket of the stuff after 2 fires. I probably need to quit playing with the fire for a bit and work on my table setup, build something to use as a decent anvil, etc. Lol. But I love fire! Also, the corn doesn't burn until it has all moisture burned out of it, so I doubt the oils have much to do with it.

Thor.Yea, I had trouble managing the fire. I will modify my forge to make management easier, and with practice, I believe corn would be a really good fuel. And the stock was just what I had close at hand. I also stuck a piece of 5/8 hotrolled rod in there, and it was cherry -yellow in about 3-4minutes. Really, yesterday was to prove to myself corn would, in fact, work. And that my basic forge design would work. I blocked the air from my blower off while hammering.

My purpose for posting this is to help people who are in the same boat that I am- there's plenty of people on the web that say corn acts like coal and charcoal mixed, but nobody seems to say how to get the corn started. I have to say, it was pretty hard to get going at first. I tried it tuesday evening, but didnt have any luck, and tried it again yesterday afternoon. hopefully this info will help you guys who dont have good access to coal, and dont want to go through the trouble of a charcoal retort. also, a 50lb bag of feed corn is what I used. it only cost me $10 here in extreme lower Alabama.

Ok, here is a rundown of starting corn in a forge. what actually burns hot enough to forge is not the kernel, but the black, charred clumps of kernels that are stuck together. to start the fire, having a clump of this to start with is very nice. you can either use a propane torch on a handful of kernels, or build a fire and suspend the corn on a grate above it to get it burnt. Once you have a clump to start with (about the size of a 2 year old's fist or a little bigger), place it on your grate above your air hole. place balled up paper on top of it, and small wood strips (kindling)on top of that. i used small pieces of broken pallet wood, and split them lengthwise. light the paper. once your wood has caught fire and burned about halfway, turn your blower on. let it run for about half a minute. when your clump has started to glow a little, dump corn kernels around it. keep adding wood strips if it has gone out at this point. the flame will help you clump up more corn. when more has been clumped, break it up with a poker and add it on top of your air hole. this will flare up when it gets hot enough, so be careful. dump more corn around the center, and voila! you have a white-hot volcano of corn that sounds like an acetalyne torch! I went through corn very fast. about 3/4 of a 50lb bag in about an hour. this probably has something to do with my fire management skills, though, which will improve. Here are some pics. the piece of heated rod is either 3/16 or 1/4" stainless rod. I heated it up to near white-hot temp, flattened it with a hammer on the sawed (flat end) a piece of 2.5inch diameter 12L14 steel (I dont have an anvil yet), and twisted it with hammer blows. I am hooked on smithing now!

It doesnt really explain how to get the fire started and keep it lit. this was a big problem of mine- people just say "it cokes up like coal". I have no experience with coal, so i didnt know that you have to burn that part of it, not the kernels. But, with some experimenting, i was able to get it going. will be posting a (sort of) in depth recount shortly.

Thor-thanks for linking that thread. I've done searches and haven't come up with that thread yet. It was a success! When I get time at work tomorrow I will post pics and specific fire actions. I had trouble controlling the fire and burned through A LOT of fuel. Probably just because of my fire management skills, but whatever. I'll improve. Like I said, MORE INFO TOMORROW! goodnight, guys. And... would you fellas rather I started a new thread for corn? Or no? Later.