Geoff Keyes

I talked to my in-laws, since we don't keep chickens either. They said that they leave them out in the yard during the day, but lock them up at night. OTOH, they had a half grown chick snatched by a hawk right at their feet. Dogs can help, but nothing is 100%. One of our friends who lives a bit farther out than we do heard the chicken kicking up a fuss and ran out to find 2 Bald Eagles on top of the chicken coop trying to rip through the roof, and ignoring all four dogs. Fun in the country. Geoff

Even in the city, you need to have them in a coop. My in laws have chickens in Seattle proper, and they lose birds to feral cats, dogs, coyotes, and especially, they've had problems with hawks (redtails, coopers and sharpshins) and raccoons, and of course, garden variety rats. We don't have chickens, because we have bird dogs, but you can't really avoid the wild animals. You must have wild life in Iowa, what do folks there do? Geoff

We're about 30 minutes from the main Microsoft campus. We have black tail deer, black bear, cougar, bob cat, coyote, fox, mink, weasels, hawks, eagles, owls, ravens, and that's just in the front pasture. If by "fairly close to Seattle and Lacey" you mean straight line distance, it's 60-70 miles. If by drive time, last Friday evening, headed south, it took us the best part of 2 hours to clear the lower edge of JBLM, and that is "normal" traffic, no accidents and dry pavement, on I5. Graham to Seattle (if by Seattle you mean the UW), I'm guessing that's a 2 hour commute, each way. I'm not trying to scare you, but Western Washington traffic is bad, pretty much all of the time. There are no good, fast, north/south routes. Is there something in Lacey that means that you need to be there? It's a fine place, but close to Seattle, not so much. If you get a chance to come out for a look, call me. We'd love to spend a day driving around and showing you the sights. Geoff

A number of knife makers (you didn't say what you want to do), Tim Lively and Tai Goo come to mind, have used post anvils set in concrete and it works for them. For something as small as a sledge hammer head I would take a 4x4 wood post and carve a hollow in the top. Fit the head to it and then run a strap through the eye and bolt that to the post. Embed the post in a bucket of concrete. I think Glenn is right, it won't be as good as a #200 piece of steel, but blade smiths have been working on small spike anvils all over the world, and doing good work. Geoff

We'd be happy to. I'm a transplant myself, though I've been here since '59. My Lady Wife is actually a native, born and bred. Let us know when you land. Geoff 425-844-0758

I have used the kerosene trick on second welds and on "dry" welds. I'm too chicken to try it on a primary weld, but I've seen it done. As it was explained to me, as the material burns it sucks O2 out from between the layers and it deposits a carbon film on the surfaces. The carbon seals the surfaces (and might even add a tiny bit of carbon to the stack) and prevents scale. I have superglued stacks of tiles together (to flip a pattern) with good results as well. Geoff

The idea is to keep air (which causes scale) away from the surface of the steel. The oil flashes off and creates a layer of carbon, sealing the surface and burning out any O2. Often in a dry weld (no flux) you spray the billet before sealing up the last welds. WD40 works, superglue works, kerosene works (you soak the billet in it BEFORE putting it in the forge). Often when makers are doing a can billet, they will squirt some oil in the can, or put a piece of paper in the can, to flash off any O2. If you don't have exposure to air, you can't scale. Geoff

Hi there. I live in Duvall Wa (about 30 miles East of Seattle) and I'm an ABS JS. Dan Erickson, Tom Ferry, and Mike Rader all in the Seattle area. There are a bunch of other non ABS guys as well. The well known fish market (the one where they throw the fish) is not the place to shop, but I can show you some of the good spots. There is a huge Asian community here, not just Chinese. Check out the NWBA, Dave Lische has a big tool swapmeet at his shop in the Spring, it's a good place to get tied into the local folks. Give me a shout when you get here, it's always good to meet new metal folks. I've lived here most of my life, so I can point you to things you will need and want. removed many off site sales links.

That should work, it should move the hot spot to the opposite wall, which will help out some. When you go to build a new forge (and you will, no one forge is good for everything) think about a round or oval case, They do work a lot better. Geoff

As I said above, I prefer a vertical forge for knife making. The size of the burn zone and the pass through design are why. In your design you have to heat all of the blade to work the area in the middle. Without some fancy dancing one tends to over heat and sometimes burn off the tip of a piece. The hot zone of a vertical forge is 4 or 5 inches. If you want to work in the middle of a 4 foot bar, you can. The burner comes in at an angle at the bottom of the can (and Wayne is correct when he says a round case works better). The angle promotes swirl and since the flame entry point and the stock entry point are offset, your hot spot and your stock never come together. There are two disadvantages. First, there is no floor to rest your work on. You can fix that with tongs, long stock, or a handle welded on the stock. Second, you can only fit a piece as big as the door into the forge, so it's not a good design for more general work, like scrolls. As you can see, I'm using a blown burner. I like to have the fan of the burner above the injector. I had a case where the propane leaked out and pooled in the fan. When I switched the fan on, it sparked and ignited the gas in the fan case and BOOOF, blew the fan apart. A BTM (Brown Trouser Moment). If you look at the commercial forges like yours, many of them angle the burners 20 degrees or so off vertical, to avoid some of the chimneying issues. BTW, I use a forge much like your design (single blown burner and closed at the ends) as a dedicated welding forge. The hard surface resists flux ( which Kaowool won't do) and the larger box lets me heat 18 inches at a time, which is what I want for damascus. Just my .02 Geoff

It will work, but it will have the hot spot that is common in these designs. The burners firing directly down are the problem. The other issue IMHO, is the use of hard surface materials. It will be durable and will be a good welding forge, but it's going to be fuel hungry ( you'll be burning fuel just to heat up the brick, long before you can start working), and the horizontal design is not as good for knives as a vertical (again, this is my opinion, but I've built both kinds many times). My welding forge is of this design and it takes about 30-40 minutes to come up to a good solid welding temp. My vertical forge takes about 90 seconds to come to a working heat. Geoff

A top and bottom fuller is a good too for setting the shoulders, I made this one from two pieces of truck spring. The existing edge is nice and round. I took a heat and flattened them and left them to air cool. In 10 years of use the top of the top leaf is flattened just a bit, but that's it. You can pinch a piece of steel in half with one of these in just a couple of heats. Geoff

On one of the JYH builds they used 2, 1/2 motors each driving the hammer in series. I can see a way to do that with a tire hammer, but 1hp would probably be better. Geoff

The flame is "soft and floppy", which means either too much gas, or not enough air. As a test, get a small blower (like a hand held hair dryer) and blow into the intake of your burner. You should get a lot less flame out the door and the burn should have a crisp sound to it. I am not the venturi guy ( I prefer blown burners), but either your intake is blocked somehow, or your gas jet is too big. Is this your own design, or one of the "commercial" burners? If it's yours, what did you use for an injector nozzle? Geoff

One of the first things to forge up might be some steel straps, to wrap around the outside of the box. You may not need it, but it will look cool and it's a belt and suspenders approach. Geoff

Sorry. Tup in the hammer head, the part that moves and holds the upper die. OTOH is shorthand for "On The Other Hand". Geoff

As for the bottom support, lay the beast on it's square end and lay a 2x across the flat, overhanging the sloped bit. Now you can cut cardboard to fit the slope, using the 90 degree edge of the 2x as a sight line. Once you know what the slope is, you can cut 2x's to fit the slope and build the rest of the box around the sloped plug you just built. If you're not going to use the big chunk on it side, silicone or construction glue will hold it in the box you've built. OK, that is a terrible explanation, I'll try again if you can't make head nor tail of it. Geoff

The sad fact is, I hardly use the Fisher any more. It's become the student anvil. I have a 250# post anvil that does most of the hand forging work in my shop. And no, it's not for sale! Geoff

Since there has been a lot of traffic about Fisher anvils of late, I thought I would post mine. I love Fishers, the first anvil I ever bought was a #200'er. Here is my baby and his big brother :lol: The bottom is my 1939 #200, it has an L cast into the front foot (I don't know what that means, anyone?) The top is my 1889 #30 with an A cast into the front foot. The #200 has the closed cleats, which I really like. I use the little guy as a bench anvil. I found it in a junk store in Southern Oregon for...wait for it....$30! The fabled $1 a lb for an anvil. Thanks for looking Geoff

One thing I learned after I built my hammer may be useful to you. The anvil should be a single piece, if you can. Any joins will vibrate and steal energy from the system. The tup, OTOH, can be built up from pieces and bolted together, or even just stacked, one on top of the other. Apparently the acceleration of the mass makes up for the loss of energy due to vibrational effects. I would have built my tup differently if I had known that. Geoff

Thomas, What period is the Hausbucher (House book?)? I knew it probably earlier, I was trying to be conservative, and I didn't have your library close to hand, which is a great shame! Geoff

Unless a simple overview is going to do, you're going to have to narrow your focus. The oldest known iron artifacts are from about 2500 BCE, so people have been working iron for a very long time. One aspect of iron work that interests me, as a student of the craft, but also as an amateur historian, is the supply train. How many miners of ore to supply one smelter? How many charcoal burners to supply the same smelter? How many trees to supply the burners? How many smelters to supply a smith with raw materials? How many smiths to supply town of X many people with needed iron stuff? Or, when did smiths begin to specialize? I know that by 1800CE, most iron work trades were specialized, at least in the big centers of manufacture. No one could be good at it all. There are lots of good topics, though many are book sized rather than 8-10 pages :( . Geoff Geoff

What is it that you are looking for? The Blacker is a fairly rare (in the US) machine, but is well thought of in the UK. It is a very sophisticated machine, not as powerful as a LG in the same weight class, but it has lots of adjustments and flexibility. And it's a very small package. It's like a Grasshopper oliver design, nice in that it keeps the hammer head parallel to the anvil through the stroke, What else do you want to know? Geoff

Just to clarify my "other" vote, I have a home built, #50, mechanical, based on a Champion. Geoff

I find that it's a matter of scale (size, not the crusty stuff on the surface). What is a perfectly nice mass in silver, is clunky in iron. Go lighter, go thinner, that is what I find works. Geoff