Chris Pook

when you talk about oldtime shop the anvils you'd find here in North America and what you'd find in Europe are different story's. An Friend of a good friend of mine who is a German trained blacksmith had his master give him a 350lb german patterned anvil from the 1800's when he finished his apprenticship and was going off to work in other shops. I personally prefer the biggest anvil I can get, and am hoping to get a 600lb german patterened anvil my friend produces

Thanks guys, how tight of a mesh are you running for a spark catcher?

Whats everyone running for a cap on there chimneys to stop the rain? The balcksmith shop I went to school at left them open and let the rain come in, which is what I have at my current shop, both had dirt floors in the forge area, the new shop is concrete and I don't want the puddles.

I call it the "Shop" since Its not only my forge. But I'm thinking of changing the business name to "something or other forge" after I get settled into my new place.

Good thread, I'm going to be putting the chimney in the new shop in the next couple weeks. I bought some insulated chimney pipe at a used building supply store for real cheap, I'm sure you could find some in your area. What is everyone running for caps on there chimneys? I have an typical ashpalt shingle sloped roof.

T-Gold, no need for pics I understand what you did, gives me some ideas. Thanks.

Alot of shops making those railings these days use c channel for the cross rails, then they are easy to punch.

So how do you guys store your short pieces? 4' and under? I bring in alot of 20' and unless for a specific job I cut them in half so I can store them verticaly in a rack grouped in rounds,squares,tubing etc., that way I can store pieces that are 4' plus without to big of a mess. The smaller stuff I just have a shelf on pallet rack dedicated to the shorts and I just throw them on there and try and keep the groups somewhat organized, real small crops of the same thing I try and throw in buckets with similar pieces. I am asking because I'm trying to think of a better system for my new shop for the short crops just to keep them more organized, I'm thinking about a 4' wide 3' deep by maybe 6' high heavy duty rack with 6 shelves divided as needed so I can make each shelf for a specific shape or type of steel. How do you guys do it?

I use wire brushes when doing small parts and hand hammering but when your feeding large quantities of pieces to a power hammer wire brushing each piece isn't an option, fuels to expensive to leave sitting idle and when the next batch of steel is ready to go you got to hit it.

Thats pretty close to what I was looking at building, thanks for the link. Thats also a pretty cool forum, never been there, I'll have to do some looking around.

I'm in Langley, British Columbia. I don't know now, It does seem like alot of money to watch other people work... I'm almost changing my mind on going, wife suggested I save the money and go and attend a few one on one workshops instead.... which I do enjoy and for me I get more out those than watching and not doing, I'm am a much more of a hands on kind of person rather than watching from the sidelines. decisions decisions :)

Yep I think this is a close as it will get to me and why I am going to attend. I was dissapointed they didn't have single day passes just to get in. For the whole conference plus accomadations is $750 for me and my wife. If I was to add the two meal tickets it'd be $1200 and they aren't selling any individual meal tickets so we can't get in for the big opening ceromony...kinda actaully a bit of a xxxx off. on the other hand i can see the cooks wanting it that way so they know how many people are coming and how much they need.

The second set from the left look like there for holding rivets or something else with a ball on the end.

Anyone fom here going to seattle? The wife and I are planning to attend, just trying to massage the finances to make it happen. Its hard to take money out of the budget for building/moving my shop home to go, but I'd kick myself for missing a conference only a couple hours driving distance away. Planning on staying on campus, but don't have the $180 a person for meals, so we'll be bringing the camping bbq for the tailgate of the truck and a big cooler :)

That sounds interesting... got any pictures? How long does it take to clean a fireplace set or something similar with that setup?

looks like someone "lost" there tool box to a scrap guy. these days around here anything made of any metal is at risk of being taken for scrap, they've resorted to stealing bronze plaques off grave markers... They stole my garden hose splitter off my tap out front of my shop last week, and cut the chains off my dumpster steeling the brass padlock

Glad to hear I'm not the only one with those kind of "friends"

I have a a little giant 100lb and Nazel 3B, I'm a big fan of powerhammers the bigger the better I work everything from 1/4" stock to 4" solid square with it. The self contained I find are much nicer for long controled tapers etc they have real nice rythmn to them. I use my little giant more for one hit work, I have real good brake on it and it can hit nice and hard single blows. I also use it when doing work were I need to have a certian die for one procedure and jump back andf forth from one hammer to the other. Both machines I run radius flat dies and have built some different profiled dies that drop on the bottom die, They are the same size and have a flat bar band on them with a set screws to hold them on. Either that or I have one those drop on tool holders. For the flat dies I found that an 1/8" radius isn't quite enough for me, I have the very edge of the die about 3/16 round but crown it in just slightly, about a 1/2" or so in which helps keep the straight die marks off the work when smoothing it out. These are on dies that are about 4" wide and 8" long so the amount you'd want on smaller dies would take some experimenting. I highly recomend the Clifton Ralph tapes and the last Dave Manzer Video had some good demo's on tooling. Spending time with someone who knows how to run a hammer is a must, I had a couple years experience on hammers all self taught but had only seen someone else use them on videos' and once demo'd at an NWBA conference, I was a bit cautious using the Nazel to its full potenial so I went and spent a weekend with Terry Carson (president of the NWBA) at his place and had great time, and reassured me I was going in the right directions with my techniques and gave me confidence, well worth the time and money.

I'm mostly looking for a way to clean small product without having to be doing it myself, part of the fun of the 1 man show. I'm hoping this can help keep cost down for the small ticket items were the stores need to mark them up.

Never got to see if anyone answered my question on tumblers. Does anyone use one for cleaning there parts? how did you make it? did you use a vacuum to suck the dirt out or a blower to blow the air out? is it in a room to keep the noise down? Got any pictures of your setup?