Latticino

Take care moving the rolled socket back out. Work at tool steel temperatures, just in case. Keep the blade side cool, if possible, re heat treat if not. Don't water quench, just in case is all high carbon. That's all I got, good luck.

Wet tile saw (diamond wheel) works great also if you have access.

Glad to help. Please post photo of repair when done.

OK, been to your website and also appreciate your work. What rockstar mentioned earlier about the economy is an important point and one worth understanding and preparing for. Not sure how to pivot to be able to make a living in harsh times like these. I myself got out of the fine craft world and back into engineering during just such a time as I couldn't take the uncertainty. Going to give you a bit of what I hope will come across as constructive criticism now, and not just trying to be harsh (remember this is just my opinion, you are welcome to disregard): In tough economic times the general populace buys necessities, not indulgences. Craft these days is seen as the latter. Your high end work is capable, you have the "art speak" narrative to attract potential collectors, but that is a tough market to get into. In my experience you have to either be validated by being carried by an important gallery, or appeal viscerally to an art appreciator who can afford your prices. I suggest that you, at minimum, enter your work in as many quality juried shows (art shows in galleries, not retail craft shows) as you can to try to get your name out there. They used to be advertised in magazines. I hope you are already a member of ABANA. Also you need to work a bit harder on developing a visual language for your sculpture. Currently you are going in a number of different directions. In my experience galleries are looking for a more cohesive body of work, especially from an unknown artist. A sense of scale for your sculpture is needed on the website (at least in the descriptive passages). Typically an artist would put something like the following on their page: Momentous (forged and fabricated steel and copper (?), 11" x 16" H (unless it is really 3' x 5' high). Some of this sculptural work does look like maquettes for larger pieces (check out some of AL Paley's, Henry Moore's or David Smith's for example). You might try to go big for one of those juried shows. The low end craft pieces don't have any relationship to the sculptures other than material and to some extent process. They look so dissimilar that I would recommend that you don't feature them on the same site at all (possibly even two different sites with different studio names). Fine art collectors don't really want to know that the artist they are trying to patronize also makes $7 bottle openers, unless there is a direct relationship between the work (i.e. corkscrews they can give their friends that replicate a portion of the massive sculpture they have just purchased to show off in their foyer.) Your hammers look cool. Its a good business to be in these days, but there are others going that route because of that. Go to places where there are a lot of blacksmiths (SOFA, ABANA...) and try to sell them directly to build clientele and find what sells. Just be aware that you have competition at the same price point from established hammer makers (so you need to find something that sets you apart). Oh, and as far as time, it took me 3 years of attending a high end ACE Wholesale show before the galleries started to take my sculptural work seriously.

As regards the description of your larger forge: Make sure you have a thermal break between the forge interior lining material and the forge casing. By thermal break in this case I mean a layer of high temperature insulating material. If you have either hard fire brick or castable refractory (not castable insulation) touching both the forge interior and the forge casing you make a thermal bridge between the two locations and the heat you are trying to keep inside the forge will conduct out to the forge casing where it will be lost to the atmosphere. Please note that the insulating value of castable insulation can be determined from the manufacturer's data on the material ("k" value for thermal conductivity, lower is better). Most castable insulation is not as good an insulator as high temperature blanket or board. It can be used, of course, but you need to use a greater thickness to achieve the same level of insulation and the forge will likely heat up more slowly because it has a greater thermal mass. Note that this extra thermal mass can be useful, but that is a lecture for another time. For your smaller forge, are you sure that all the flame from the burner outlet is making it's way into the forge interior? If you have a gap between the forge insulation and the liner, and the burner head is too far out of the forge some of the flame can get directed to the gap, and not in the forge (and the forge casing will get hot). Look carefully when you light up, a full developed blue flame should show inside the forge past the insulation. Also, on installing blanket it is certainly possible to crush it down too far when applying satinite, which lessens its insulating value. Go gentle next time and consider spraying a colloidal silica layer on the exposed blanket first to stiffen it before the refractory coating.

I'd be tempted to just forge it over a bull pin, as Frosty has suggested, and leave the split sections unwelded. A brass or bronze wire wrap around that area would look pretty classy and there would be less chance of a catastrophic heating trying for a forge weld. Of course that all depends on how good you are at forge welding. Kind of tricky there as it isn't certain whether the socket is mild of high carbon steel and, as I'm sure you know, the former welds at a higher temperature.

Really nice lines on the belt axe. Your stamp looks classy as well. Where did you get your wrought iron stock? Must be pretty refined, can't see a trace of "grain".

Know what you mean. Did the same at a recent blacksmith gathering when a guy drove up with an anvil in his truck bed and I was the first one over to check out his tailgate sales items. He had a Fisher ~125# farrier pattern with some rough edges and top surface damage, but still quite usable for around $120. I was going to grab it, just to use either as an upsetting block or for the hardy hole, but a young man stepped up and I could see the anvil lust in his eyes, so I let him have it with the proviso that he wasn't just going to just try to offload it on e-bay, but actually use it to set up his shop.

I have a friend who made an excellent Mjolnir replica out of solid 4" x 4" stock. I believe it weighed just over 30 lbs. Choking up almost right to the head I was able to lift it and flip it into forging position one handed, but I'm pretty sure my wrist would give out if I swung it a couple of times. If you can easily hammer one-handed using a 20 lb. sledge I won't get in your way. I'm a pretty big guy, though no body builder, and a 4.5 lb. hammer is about my limit for any useful forging one handed. I can choke up on my 15 lb. sledge and make a couple of one handed strikes, but I usually only do that for driving punches or drifts, and only a couple of times a session under duress at that.

Cross-post with Buzzkill: Frosty and Mike will probably have good suggestions for you, as they are vastly more familiar with the operation of propane NA burners. I have a couple of recommendations for you though: Tune your burner operation inside the forge and make sure that the outlet is not too close to the opposite wall or floor and you have reasonable door openings (personally I don't like to put burners pointing down to avoid the chimney effect and side-fire, but YMMV) You may want to play with the length of your mixing tube (downstream of your reducer fitting). I think the typical rule of thumb is around 8 pipe diameters in length Include a cast burner block in your forge to set the mixing tube against instead of the flare (12 degree angle of expansion is usually a good rule of thumb for that).

I'm in the keep them both group as well. If I had to sell one it would be the Hay Budden for two reasons. First I like the Peddinghaus configuration better for the type of forging I do, and second because it appears that right now Hay Budden's are the current "fad" anvil and their prices seem to be disproportionately high.

I'm with Michael on this one. Using approximately 500 lbs./cubic foot for the average steel density I get around 15.2 lbs./ linear foot for (4) bars of 30 mm rebar. Not including any losses to scale when forge welding, or the hammer eye opening, a 20-30 lb. hammer head would have to be between one and a half feet and two feet long (unless the billet was upset quite a bit after forge welding). I think a trip to your local post office to weigh your forged head is in order. However, if you can "one hand" forge with a 30 lb. sledge (which you would most likely be doing with only a 12" handle) I certainly won't argue with you...

Well, I think the forge is hardly what I would call miniature, just about 2/3 the size of my current forge. The new interior is right around 340 cubic inches, configured as a half cylinder (hemi-cylinder?); a "D" shape with the flat side down. Saw that configuration in other's forges and when our local group had a workshop making same I had to sign up. Most folks used a pair of full hard bricks for the floor (backed by 1" of kaowool) I used a high alumina split brick floor backed with a bit more thickness (as far as I'm concerned you can't have too much insulation). The design standard was for a single 3/4" NA propane burner, and reportedly others have achieved welding temperatures with same. I use low pressure natural gas in my shop, so I decided to try a ribbon burner instead. My logic, and it may be totally off kilter, is that the ribbon burner will permit me to add the same amount of heat (combusting air/gas mixture) to the forge interior at lower flame velocities and greater spread to initiate the radiative heating process used to actually heat the metal. Hopefully this will give me a couple of positive outcomes: Not overtaxing my smaller blower (would rather keep with the Kane Bros 140 CFM blower than go up to my Dayton 1/2 HP high pressure blower, which is rather oversized) Reducing the noise level from the gas forge Reducing the effective forge heat lost via the combustion products venting The last one is a bit questionable I agree, but my theory is that my door openings typically are not optimized during forge use (larger than needed) due to my negligence in closing the doors and/or stock considerations. With a door that is too open, high velocity flame fronts (from conventional stable burner outlets) could lead to high velocity flue gas exit, or even portions of the flame existing the door itself. The higher velocity at the same door opening size would result in a higher heat loss. Basically the slower the flame moves inside the forge the more time it has to heat the forge interior and the stock. Now I'm not a combustion engineer, and have been quite impressed with the design information for forges and burners you have shared with us on the site. The natural gas/forced air ribbon burner I have is 9" x 2" Mizzou with 15 crayon sized holes. What do you think?

Actually I checked his profile, and while I would also attempt to help the young folks who are trying to build a safe, successful smithy the OP is apparently in his 60's. I think this is just a matter of miscommunication.

I would add that it is not just the interior volume, but also the type and thickness of the forge insulation as well as the door construction/configuration, but I see where you are coming from Frosty (for sufficient insulation that the side walls are not bleeding out all your heat and reasonable door openings the critical parameter is the forge volume). I have also made the mistake of having my first two gas forge bodies a little too large. Now on my third, which will have a ribbon burner, and hope to correct this. Forge design is a bit more critical when you are heating with residential pressure natural gas.

Unfortunately there are a lot of variables that you haven't defined carefully enough to allow reasonable suggestions. Glen, Thomas and Frosty were clearly trying to be helpful by indicating where we need additional information and/or how they solved these issue themselves. If you would prefer to do the code required ventilation study and get a professional engineer onboard (at an average of $120/hr.) I'm sure you could hire a consultant locally. That being said I'll try to give you some feedback based on assumptions I'm making about your shop (I will be getting a little technical, so bear with me): You don't run the coal forge and the gas forge simultaneously You have at least a 3' x 7' door that you can leave open You are burning propane in your gas forge, not natural gas (like I do) Your 12" chimney draws well and removes all visible smoke when coal forging My recommendations would be as follows: Get a $35 Fire/CO monitor from your local big box hardware store. There is no substitute for monitoring For coal forging you're probably fine for ventilation with the door left wide open during forging and the chimney exhausting the fumes, forcing the replacement of air at that point. You may want to add an exhaust fan (see below) to draw some heat out of the facility as well, but be careful to not overcome the chimney effect and draw your fumes back down the chimney (best to keep the door open most of the time you are forging and start the exhaust fan only after the chimney is drawing well). Gas forging is another problem, as you likely don't have a hood to capture the heat and drive the exhaust up a chimney. My recommendation is to install a propeller style exhaust fan at the high point in your building. A good rule of thumb is to design for a minimum of 10 air changes per hour (10 ACH) for ventilation. That is 10 full room volumes per hour (i.e. if you have 10' ceiling height in a 8' x 12' shop you need at least 160 CFM of ventilation air, not a whole lot. For my 20 x 20 shop with a peaked roof above 10', I have a 24" exhaust fan that pushes over 3,000 CFM with a 1/2 HP motor, but I like lots of air exchanges for both safety and cooling). However you also need combustion air entry added to the mix for consideration. Typically code states that this air must enter the room at two points, one high and one low. In this case you can get the high entry via a roof vent (I use a turbine style in my shop) and the low via the open door. The national gas code requires that these openings be at least 1 sq inch in size for each 4,000 BTUH of heating capacity of your fuel burning appliances. If you know the ratings on your burners you can size this accurately, but likely an open door will do for the lower one and a 12" turbine vent for the upper. Anything more and I'm sending you a bill Turbine vent:

A typical bathroom exhaust fan has, at most, around 0.5" of external static pressure capacity at the lower of the airflow rates it is designed for. A fan curve or chart will tell you more. Your diverter appears to be designed backwards. You can definitely use a Wye fitting, like you have, but the variable damper should be on the outlet side of the of the bypass (or release as you call it) side, not on the main inlet. In this I assume the flex duct connects to your forge. If it actually connects to your fan, and you don't have enough airflow, I suggest that you damper the bypass side and close up the slot you made. As I said, exhaust fans don't develop much static, but you shouldn't need too much provided you keep your duct lengths short, avoid elbows and offsets, use smooth wall ducts and avoid rapid transitions in diameter (30 degree transition angle is a good rule of thumb). A photo of the entire system, setup with the fan in place, would make it easier to diagnose. Others might be able to comment on the size of your coal. The last workshop I went to we made an effort to screen out all the "fines" leaving us with only the larger size pieces (these were still in the 3/4" -2" minor diameter size though, not huge fist sized chunks. This worked extremely well for the upblast style forges we used, but I'm not that familiar with a side blast, so don't know what kind of pressure and airflow are needed. All I can say is that the conventional hand cranked or electric forge blowers I've seen all are more of the low airflow/high pressure style (radial paddles) instead of the high airflow/low pressure style (squirrel cage centrifugal) like your bathroom exhaust fan. The former most likely develop 4 times the pressure yours does, for the same airflow. If nothing else see if your exhaust fan has a backdraft damper built in. Remove that.

The easiest way to update your setting for variable air volume would be to use the Dirt Devil vacuum and modulate the output in one of three fashions: Put an outlet TEE, or cut a hole in the connecting pipe, that can dump out some of the air before it gets to the tuyere. Use a movable cover on that outlet (dump gate) to increase the bypass air or the air fed to the tuyere as required. Add a butterfly damper to the supply side of the dirt devil vacuum (may be a problem with the fan motor as the extra resistance that cuts the air supply will force it to work harder) Put an adjustable shroud over the air inlet for the vacuum and open and close as required (mock this up in cardboard to see if it works. some constant speed fan motors don't like getting starved).

Also a big fan of the ubiquitous 2# drill hammer. It was my first "real" smithing hammer and I still like to use it. I ground one side to a bit of a rounded profile and use it for my "light" rounding hammer. If pressed I could easily do any forging necessary for basic bladesmithing with it, and have in the past. Last time I was over, Harbor Freight did have a cheap one, though the handle is a bit long and the faces soft. I keep it for beginners to use so I don't give out the nice old one I found hanging in a corner of my father's basement.

Good tools can be found in many places: online blacksmith supply, antique shops, e-bay, yard sales, your relative's basement, flea markets... As far as what you might need: A lighter hammer. For a beginning bladesmith 3# is a bit heavy to learn the required hammer control. I would suggest 2#. Something to use as an anvil. Lots of possibilities here, don't get fixated on a London pattern, you hardly need it for bladesmithing. Something to heat your metal up with. Sounds like you want to do some forging, so you need to get up to orange heat at least. Gas or solid fuel forge is what most of us use. High carbon, tool or spring steel: railroad spikes are not appropriate for making knives with in general More sets of tongs to fit the steel and size of knife you want to make, flat nib are barely adequate and the stock will shift as you learn forging making control more difficult. A tank and appropriate fluid to quench in for the critical heat treatment part of the process Something to do final shaping on the steel after forging. Good files and wet/dry sand paper at least. A book or two on bladesmithing, or some in-person training from a smith who knows the craft

Suggest that before you spend a lot of money and time on putting together your kit for smithing that you investigate joining, or at least attending a meeting, of the local chapter of the New York State Designer Blacksmiths (NYSDB) group. I believe that the Adirondack region chapter in pretty close to you: http://www.nysdb.org/regions/adirondack/. You can attend your first two meetings for free and learn quite a bit from this knowledgeable and friendly group. Getting info online is great, but hands on experience can't be beat. If you are up for a road trip, we have our annual picnic with the Niagara group in Buffalo this Sunday.

Forgot to add one of the key caveats from my missing post: makeup air. The fumes you want to vent need to be replaced by something, be sure to have a window or door open somewhere else in the room.

Drat, I had a good, what I thought would be helpful post, but it disappeared (moderators?). Don't have time now to recreate it with all the theoretical stuff, sorry. Bottom line is, my suggestion is: Cap the lower TEE and install P-trap for drainage (prime that trap with water so it doesn't leak air) Add stack height, that is what drives the flue exhaust (take Frosty's suggestion and move forge closer to wall and use interior duct in vertical) prime stack by burning paper in hood before use to start flue going get rid of the restriction before the TEE 8" diameter is rather small, flow resistance may impact the effectiveness.

I'm particularly sensitive regarding this topic as I worked at installations with no rigidizer and high heat/velocities for many years. Have consequent damage to my lungs and hope to have others avoid same. The rigidizer is a good first step, but as you can see from your photo it is a fragile layer, and being transparent difficult to tell when damaged. For what it is worth I'd put at least a skim coat of furnace cement over the exposed wool. Since you plan on building doors of some kind this will also protect this area when you operate the doors.