Latticino

Not completely sure. You are aware that copper work hardens right? You probably just need to anneal it more often during the process. When you feel it starting to stiffen up under the hammer, anneal again. Typically you only have to take it to cherry red, then can quench. Copper shouldn't harden from the quench. If you are pickling be careful of splashing though. Good luck, perhaps someone more expert in coppersmithing can better advise you.

Nice pattern. Cannister weld? Did you also include powdered steel, and if so what type?

Sounds like you are on the road and headed in the right direction. Welcome to the site.

Well I currently use heated Canola oil, though I'd love to source some Parks 50 or equal. A good workable handle material is wood (preferably a hardwood, but just about any wood will do)

From the photos the forge grate/clinker breaker looks to be in rough shape. Hard to tell though as it is pretty out of focus. This is a fairly critical element for effective coal forging, so you might want to look into correcting this. It also appears that you have the air connection made directly into the forge inlet, without an ash dump. I urge you to take a look at some of the more accepted solid fuel forge designs to update this connection to one that will be easier to use and maintain. Hammers look like a good starter selection, though you might want to get yourself a 2 or 2 1/2 lb. crosspeen at some point in time. I find with a fairly blunt peen (around 1/2" radius), it is a hammer that is used a whole heck of a lot in my forging. Depending on what stock you plan on using for knife forging you may need to draw out the width of the blade before setting bevels. The blunt cross pen is great for that. Sweet anvil...

Heat is heat. As long as you can keep the flame inside the forge body till it transfers it's heat to the forge walls you won't have as big a waste of fuel as you think. Of course that isn't as easy as it sounds. With a less effective flame configuration (see Mikey's detailed posts on this) the speed of the flame front, volume of gas air mixture and actual combustion of the mix may not be optimal, so it will be hard to use that heat effectively (if you have a couple of feet of flame shooting out of your forge it is a good indication of overall system inefficiency). On the other hand, presumably you can turn down the gas pressure on your existing burner and still have it function. With a fixed orifice, inducer type burner, less gas pressure = less gas used during forging. Don't get me wrong. I think the use of a MIG tip as an orifice (or the needles Mikey is now advocating) is a brilliant option for allowing a repeatable burner build. It certainly isn't the only game in town though.

The burner you have there will certainly heat a forge. It might not be the most efficient, but it will work. Why not try it ?

Drat, I live in Upstate NY and never saw that one. Hard to tell from a photo, but if I had to guess I'd say it is in the 120-250# range (unless that is an awful small stump, or the photo is distorted with some kind of parallax). I'd say if shipping doesn't run much you did great. Looks like a user...

Used properly you can certainly forge blades in a coal forge like that one. Build a hood and vent it or work outside.

Welcome aboard. Might consider editing your profile to show you location, which will help us answering questions down the road. Lots of good info already in the forums. Recommend you read selectively to see if your questions have already been asked to avoid repetition.

Pictures?

Yes you can, but probably shouldn't. In fact at first to learn hammer control I would recommend forging with stock pieces long enough to hold in your off-hammer hand whenever possible. The proper selection and use of tongs is another skill that needs to be learned and it is certainly easier to limit the number of things you are trying to learn simultaneously. Photos, drawings, information about things you are interested in making, a good progression of starter projects. Language and descriptions that are approachable. I like the Backyard Blacksmith and Aspery's first book for beginners. Probably, but that depends a lot on having a proper venting system for your forge. As it was inherited, I assume that it is a coal forge. You will likely need a hood and exhaust stack (flue) to remove fumes. The diameter and vertical rise are the critical parameters, and a sidedraft hood can be relatively easily constructed and supported. Research carefully, take some classes, join a blacksmithing group... Be careful what you follow on YouTube as skill levels and safety precautions are not always evident (though there are some excellent ones as well, as a beginner you may have trouble identifying them). First person training, particularly early, will always pay off. Try to get a class in basic skills first: fire tending, hammer control, tapering, punching, drifting, twisting and scrolls. You will save yourself a lot of time. Crosspost with JHCC lots of overlap, but clearly we agree on a lot...

Not to deliberately shift from the fascinating farrier drift here, but as regards the OP: The only problem you are going to have with these new forge tools (which were sorely needed in the last meeting as I recall), is that they are far too nice and may end up disappearing. Hate to ruin the aesthetics, but perhaps paint the handles some bright fluorescent color...

I participated in a sword forging workshop with Sam Salvati where we used this technique to temper our swords after quenching. Worked well.

I've layered, but never used any kind of glue. I just seal the outer layer once I line it twice. If the density of the 3/4" won't work for the form desired, consider the pleating technique where you can build in almost any liner thickness. Just be sure the blanket is rated for the temperature it will be exposed to or include a cast refractory inner liner

Not going to be definitive on this (Proceed at your own risk), but provided you move the contact point around and ensure that the tank doesn't ever get to the point where the zinc starts to burn off you should be OK. The quenchant inside the tank should keep it cool provided you don't get a local hot spot on the outside. Keep upwind. Not sure how you are heating the object to be heat treated if you only have a propane burner... I would recommend heating the tank using the method I outlined in the previous post. If you see any white smoke, stop! This is nothing to play around with.

Just like any other, more conventional, type of hammer a weight forward hammer can be used for any number of operations, depending on your skill level, its size, weight, face configuration... The one pictured appears to have a pretty aggressive rounded face and should be great for moving material. I've seen weight forward hammers well up to 10 LBS of head weight that were used for anything from striking to solo slitting and drifting of hammer eyes. Of course with a more flattened face they also do very well at final clean up of a beveled knife edge. Nice hammer, going to have to put that on my list to copy. The one weight forward hammer I made to date has a face that is more optimized for finish work.

Very unlikely that any surface zinc on your tub will volatilize at 150 deg.F. The issue is in how you plan on heating that water up. If you use the typical red hot piece of stock carefully swirled around in the quenchant before you actually heat treat you should be fine (I like a meat thermometer to check my quench temperature). Just don't try to heat the tub up with a roofing torch on the exterior surface or similar.

Nice one Bob, love the wood selected for the handle. Some kind of spalted maple? If you don'the mind my asking did you oil quench the 1075, and what quench oil was used?

Coil spring certainly makes a lot more sense. Only thought it was a pulley from the OP.

Might also be left over crayon burning out in the openings of your burner. Amazing how long that can persist. I cured my multiport burner up to 1450 deg. F in my heat treat oven. Looks good to me, though I anticipate that like me you will be working out a more sophisticated door design eventually. Nice job!

Kind of hard to tell from the picture, but if I had to guess I'd say that the pulley has nothing to do with the vise operation (perhaps put there by mistake by someone storing the vise, or just used the post vise location as a transfer location for an idler pulley that changes the direction of a v-belt assembly). Of course I could be totally off base and would love to be educated if so.

Your question is too open ended to respond to. Size and shape of spring, size and depth of opening, material characteristics and size of the "thick metal", tooling and skill level available... all have an impact on how to make holes in metal. Taking a wild stab I would suggest either casting the "thick metal" around a form shaped exactly like the spring, hot slotting an opening and drifting to shape, or CAD/CAM milling of the opening.

Overall sounds pretty good. Response to some of your questions and some suggestions: Make doors on both sides, losses thru the door will be the greatest efficiency loss in your proposed design. A 6 x 6 opening is huge and will be a major loss of heat. Make sure the fiber board you select is rated to full 2,600 deg. F at least. There are many types. I would definitely use at least rigidizer, at least, on top of your fiber board. It will keep it from buckling and keep those nasty short fibers away from your lungs. You might consider a skim coat of refractory cement (build it up in layers, painting on each layer after the rigidizer) or a thin casting of refractory insulation for the inner surface of your forge to add some reinforcement. Particularly as a new smith you will find that you hit the walls with your stock periodically. IF nothing else you will need to have something other than the fiber board directly across from the burner outlet. Outlet temperatures may exceed 3,000 deg. F which will degrade your board. You can direct the burner down towards the kiln shelf, but then need to be careful after use, when the remaining radiant heat from the forge rises up to the burner location 360 cubic inches is generally thought of as a good size for a starter forge with a single burner. While you might want to consider upgrade to a multi-port burner in the future (see Frosty's post on this) you can certainly get by with a single (correctly sized) Naturally aspirated or blown (gun) burner for that forge volume with the insulation you indicate. Nut and bolt construction should be fine. Design to keep the frame cool and you shouldn't have to worry too much about thermal expansion there. Suggest double nutting any long threaded rod.

Just make sure whichever motor you chose is rated TEFC (totally enclosed fan cooled) or encapsulated for washdown (expensive, but possibly available used). The metal dust you generate while grinding is sudden death on typical ODP (open drip proof) motors. The other things to check on replacing motors aside from voltage and phase (which you already mentioned) are mostly physical characteristics and operating parameters. For physical you should at least check the frame configuration (so it will fit into your existing setup) and shaft size and keyway. For operating you should check both horsepower and RPM to meet or exceed your current unit. High torque start is nice, but IMHO not a big deal with a belt grinder as you don't have a huge inertial load to overcome on startup (unless your drive pulley is really massive that is...).