Kevin Olson

I was doing some cleaning and bumped this piece of stock off of the bench and it fell into my 5 gallon metal slack tub and punched a perfect hole in it and drained it all over the place until i could get it out if the shop. What if it hit my foot. I was in sandals because i was just moving stuff around quickly to make room for something that wasn't important. Or so i thought. I could be in the ER now but i got lucky. Be careful in the shop.

Just about 3 weeks ago we fixed a gentlemans car who was visiting from WV. Im in Minneapolis Minnesota. Coon Rapids actually. So i feel for the good folks down there. God bless them.

Miner4life. Back yard coal mining. Wow We at IFI love pictures. We would like some pics of that operation.

Found this on cl. He posted it as a bench vise. 50 bucks brought it home. 5 1/4 jaws. Indian chief. Heres my 4 inch indian chief holding a 5 1/4 chief. The difference in mass is amazing. Just have to polish her it up and get er working. I am happy with my find. Wow 2 indian chiefs. Wheres my third. LoL

Shes beautiful. My heart goes out to you. Prayers sent.

Did you notice the top anvil was a Hay Budden. Just think. The builder had 2 busted anvils or he ruined 2 to make that beast. How many of us have 2 busted anvils. Makes me wonder how many he had at his disposal.

You only need constant airflow for anthracite coal but only a little bit at idle. Bituminus need no air between heats. Heres a pic of my clothes dryer forge. You can find them free on CL and most of the time the fan still works. With a little dryer ducting and a sliding airgate this is what you get

Are my eyes bad. I dont see "trenton" stamped on it and whats with the weld around the waist

In minneapolis gas is about 2.29. Diesel is about the same. 7.50 for a 5 gallon bucket of bituminus from the Guild of Metalsmiths and 11.85 for 50lbs bag from Tradewinds Fireplace

Here's my clothes dryer forge. Disk brake rotor firepot and im using thr dryer fan for the blower. I have a nice slide gate for air control that works great.

Wow. That looks just like mine except mine is stamped with "warrented" on the right side of the waist with the horn pointed away from you. The bottom is almost exactly like mine.

Blacksmithed version of Tron

Its kriptonite. Heat it till it sparkles then hit with a 20 pound sledge. LoL

I feel for you bro. Had a cat named Blackie. Looked very much like your black one. He was 16 and loved being outside. He was under the weather a bit (vet had no diagnoses) and made the move to go outside when i opened the door but hesitated. I gave him a little bump with my foot to get him to move. He went out and we never saw him again. That was hard. The not nowing what happened. He was a cool cat. That happened years ago but when i saw your black one .........My heart is breaking for you.

I use a single paper bag from the grocery store. I roll the edges in to make a ball then light 2 sides and add a little air till it gets goin good then pile on left over coke then crank the air and wait. I get forging in less then 5 minutes. :-)

I cut up an aluminum boat with a carbide circular saw. Loud but worked great

Heres my repurposed dryer forge and my brake rotor firepot. Thats a nickel to show hole size. It's a 1/4 plate cut round then tack welded to the bottom of pot. Your going to have to make the area around the firepot flat otherwise your going to need a huge amount of coal to get it banked up high enough around the pot to make coke.

I like it. I appreciate the work on the square corner. I'm still working to make mine better. Tell us about that hammer, I like that too!

Wow. 3/4 to that. My arm hurts. That thing is awsome. Another project to add to my list.

I too would be willing to send some money. Where do we send it to? I am a member of The Guild of Metalsmiths and pay a due to them so a donation to this site would not bother me. Im not saying make this a paying membership site but would just like to help offset some costs. As I'm writing this i realized that money coming in would put this site into some kind of weird tax thing so that might be to much of a hassle for admin. The Guild is a 501(c) nonprofit and probably has alot of paper work to do.

Day job is spent painting cars in a body shop. Other intetests are rock and roll drum player, salsa maker and mechanic for the less fortunate that don't have access to a warm shop and tools.

Only blacksmith on days that end with a Y. Tommorro doesn't end with a Y. :-)

I dont understand how a vfd wil power each of the 3 phases of the motor. A vfd just controls the output frequency to slow or speed up a motor without hurting it.

Can't wait to see how it turns out.

Refer to Glenns post here. Its pinned. Its called "forges and fires" There us a diagram cross section of a coal fire. That will help.