stovestoker

I sent an email last night. still have not heard back from him. I will wait and see if he responds.

I did searches for Roger Lorance. For some reason the posted pics don't show up. Didn't see a number for him.

I emailed and this is the response:" Yes they are still available, The pots are 3/4 inch on the bottom and 1/4 inch on the top". Seems a little thin on the top. The pics look more like half inch. But only ordering one will tell. 200 shipped seems ok.

Right Now I am working out of a small 20 by 16 forge. It is very shallow. maybe 2 inches deep. It is a pain to keep coal in or build the fire up high without it spilling out of the side. I got some firebrick today to try to build a ducks nest to see if I can keep the coal high enough without spilling over the sides. When working in a flat pan I keep loosing my bloom. It gets blown out when I try to insert long stock for heating.

I was looking at yucaipa valley forge site and saw that they have a fire pot and blower set up for.200 shipped. Has anyone ever dealt with them? Seems like a fair price.

We have had a burn ban on. The wind is blowing all the time. The rule is you can only have a fire in a pit or grill. No burn ban means no open fires weed burning or trash burning. Well I figure my forge is ok but I'm not a moron either( my wife might argue that one). Things are starting to green up and this morning it was dead calm so my son and I went for it. It was his first forge fire ever and the first fire in our new little cast iron forge. His first words when he saw the steel glowing orange was" that steel is beautiful when it comes out of the fire". we are both hooked big time. we made a small coal rake but had some issues with the size of the forge and long stock. Anyway here is a pic, he doesn't show it because he was taking the whole thing pretty serious, but he was pretty stoked. we are hoping tomorrow morning is the same as today.

Charles, is there a pic of your setup pocket posted or can you post one?

Well When I say huge, I guess more uber long pieces. Not looking to make swords. I understand about more rectangle then square.

I am going to order a firepot to build a forge table around. It will be a permanent forge with a side draft. I was wondering what size the table should be? I was thinking 3'x'3' would be enough room for the draft hood and a good area to rake in coal. I only want to build it once so I need opinions. At this time I have no plans to forge huge items.

Do you notice how everyone is perfectly frozen? I bet the photog was using a large format 8x10 camera. No flash so he had to have everyone freeze for the 4 or 5 seconds to get the exposure. That's a great pic with great tones.

In the school photo, has anyone seen buffalo forges like those? Wonder how they vented out of that big room?

I go to this website called shorpy.com. It's tag line is histroy in high definition. Basically it's a website with tons of old photos in hi res. I found these after doing a search for "blacksmith" My favorite is the school shop class. wish that had that as an option when I was in school. go here

Thanks for the invite Bob. Wish I was closer love to do all of the above.

I have thought bout that too. I have started on one. It needs to be lined and I have to figure out the burner. still a ways to go.

Just found this on YouTube. Going to grab some stills. Pretty cool to see a shop left the way it was. Sorry if this has been posted before.

I did not realize that you could reuse coal after it has been doused. It seems obvious now. The reason I was needing this info is because we are under a constant burn band. I can have a fire in a barbecue grill or contained pit. Which means I am ok working the forge. But right now I am building a shop, so I am working under a shade tree. It is very windy and very dry here so good days are rare. that means when conditions are right I want to be able to jump on the forge. I am basing all my past forgings on charcoal. which as you know blows sparks everywhere. I scored 100 pounds of coal from a guy and have been dying to use it.

I was wondering. About how long does it take to get a coal forge started and then shut down again? Just looking for an average. I get home from work at 4:30 and I'm am hesitant about firing up the forge that late. I don't want to.waste coal as it is hard to come by.

I was wondering about dressing the edges up. someone should do a how to on anvil maintenance. also was wondering. when an anvil is procured do you wire wheel it? Leave it alone? Keep oil on the body to prevent rust? The thing has been around a hundred years I figure without outright abuse it will last another hundred. But I am interested to know what good practice is. The post drill is pretty cool. All those gears reminds me of the industrial revolution. I think I will clean it up and mount it just to have because it's cool. Ill post more pics.

Thomas and Macbruce, thanks for the info. I feel better about my purchase. especially justifying it to my better half.

Well following in Glen's Footsteps I used the Thomas Powers Anvil Acquisition Technique, to get my first Anvil. This is a story in two parts. It starts with me asking a Facebook group for my home town if anyone knew where I could find an anvil. The first lady was very sweet and stated that her granddaddy had a blacksmith shop on his place, but the place had fallen to ruin and that I was welcome to go look and I was welcome to have anything left out there. The search didn't yield much but it was a great day of adventuring in the weeds, The second post came from a gentleman who said his brother in law had one. Numbers exchanged and 2 days later I picked up my first anvil. Arm and Hammer, stamped 197. Great bounce. edges are a little rough but not bad. he wanted 300 for the Anvil but said I had to buy the post drill too. They came out of the same shop and had to be sold together. I wasn't in the market for the post drill. But I wasn't going to let the Anvil get away. So that cost me an extra 100. He threw in a couple pairs of tongs as well and showed us his tool collections. All in all a great day of hunting. If anyone can provide info on both I would appreciate it.

Figure it would be a good idea to post pics. the guys I bought it from cut this thick steel plate as a liner. He never tried it though You can see how flat it is. One of the reasons I thought about clay was to form a bowl shaped fire pot. Maybe I can modify the plate to be more bowl shaped.

This is all very good info. I like how everyone has something slightly different that works for them. I thought about using thick plate one the bottom. I just wast sure if it would transfer heat to the cast iron. May it does but not enough to worry?

Mike-hr, gad I can be your 666th post.haha. so are you saying not use anything on the bottom of the forge? Also when folks say just use clay, what kind of clay? Clay for pottery at a hobby store?

I have a small clay forge that has the "clay before using" on the bottom. I was wondering what you guys thought about this stuff. Also how thick should it be on the pan? You can do a search on Amazon. I couldn't figure out how to link. Also if someone can point me to a tutorial, that would be swell.

I had this piece of track surfaced. It cost me 17 for the track and 50 to have it surfaced. My horn is somewhere inside that chunk of steel in the second pic. I just need to go in and bring it out.