Alan DuBoff

Glad the information helped out Alan. When you come to So Cal please give a call and stop by. The contact info is on the web site. I live in San Jacinto which is about 20 miles east of Riverside & 80 miles NE of LA.

Yep, I looked it up on the map last night when I saw where you live, I occasionally get down to Orange County, and more often to El Segundo as my company has an office there which I end up at more than I would like (twice a year typically).

My parents live in Newbury Park, up in Ventura County just before the grade. I was down there a few months back and was able to visit the Gamble House, in Pasadena. Was really cool to see some of the great straps incorporated with the timberframe, forged pieces inside the home, and other cool stuff like the hinges on the carriage doors for the garage (now the bookstore).

I bought my burners directly from Rex. For my first forge I bought the flare from Larry, but the second batch of burners I bought the flares from Rex as well. I really couldn't tell the difference in the way they worked. That may have been my lack of experience at the time.

Making the burners yourself is definetly cheaper, but for me the performance is no where near what I get from Rex's burners. I have used other forges where the burners were home made and while they worked, there was more fooling with them. Others didn't work nearly as well. As for the size, you can get the smaller burner Rex sells, but later when you get to knowing what you are doing and want to do bigger stuff you may have trouble getting it up to heat.

This is very helpful, thanks. I will order one of the freon tanks, and decide how to move forward with it, and get the solid fuel forge cleaned up and going with my blower. In the meantime I have the smithy at Ardenwood Forge to use, can't beat that with a stick!

Thanks for writing up the process for building your freon (and other) forge(s). I appreciate it, and I will be able to learn from your mistake on putting the floor in before adding the burner holders. Someone mentioned recentely

Good point on the mapp vs. propane. I can get a 20 gal exchange at Home Depot for about $15, opposed to 1 gal of mapp for $6 as you point out. Yeah, I can get propane cheaper, but sometimes convenience is worth a premium. A freon forge with a 20gal tank seems like a decent road warrier.

Thomas,

Just to follow up, I bought a pair of old safety glasses off ebay. With a slight tweaking, they are very nice and cover around the eyes as well as from the front (metal mesh on the sides).

However, as a friend pointed out, the rayban style safety glasses also fit snugly to the eye and pretty much seal the bottom from anything getting up in there also. I like the vintage stuff though, if for nothing else but because it's cool.:cool:

I asked why they would make a difference between the two and they said they were afraid that dropping hot steel on the ground might start a fire. It's hot dry and windy out here at times so folks are cautious---the BLM lands banned smoking *except* in your cars and tossing a cigarette but out the window would get you take out behind the woodshed---as a non smoker I applauded the anti-litter aspect of this!

To some extent I feel sorry for the Indian on the BLM lands, I mean, we take their land away from them, put them on a small section of land we "let them have back", and then we don't even let them smoke on their own land, a tradition that has been going on before white settlers came to America, AFAIK. There's a good case study there...

Sometimes it seems our world has gotten so caught up in being politcially correct and forcing the values the govies prefer, that we loose sight of the past. Getting to the point you can't even light a forge without some activist breathing down your neck asking what you're doing that for.

For small hardware, brass, and other woodworking related stuff, folks will use peanut oil and heat it with a small propane torch, gives it a real antique look.

On a brass ring for instance, I've seen where one used a bolt to hammer small dimples on the brass, brush it with peanut oil, and use the torch on it. That gives it that Japanese dimple effect (I'm not quite clear on why they forge hammer heads like that). I'm talking about using the brass ring as a ferrel on a woodworking tool though. The hammers they someone beat little dimples into...:confused:

I never use any formulas, if it don't go, get a bigger, longer pry bar!!!..LOL

Now there's another person that thinks like me!

Sometimes it's easier to do the math though, that way it saves you multiple tries. In my case I'd probably forge each one of them and have to do it 3 times! :rolleyes:

I have a couple coils from an old Range Rover, and was wondering the same thing.

I can't imagine heating up the entire coil (it was a suspension coil spring), and was thinking to cut it in sections first with a hack saw or similar.

You'd have to heat those puppies up good to pull them out with a tractor! I certainly don't have a forge that big I don't imagine, I'm not sure the coal forge I'm getting soon would do that large of a piece of steel.

What I was thinking of doing first was using the shock absorber rods from the old shocks, I hear those are really tough steel normally, and they're straight already which is a plus. As it is, I'm working on getting my 24" inch piece of 5/8" round rod forged into a 1/2" square rod...as my first project! Oh, I take that back, I made a beam hook already!

Car/truck parts seem like a good source of good steel.

I have two gasser's currently in use. One used a grain auger tube for the shell---very light weight and very portable. The other used a section of Oxy welding cylinder and is massively heavy and hard to move---But it's great since you can weld on an adjustable stock support or other jigs due to the thickness of the shell.

Fred Frontino has a place linked on his page that sells freon tanks that have been cut for front/back holes, for $10. I think I might go that route.

but I asked why everyone use gas grills were still allowed...)

Isn't it pathetic? I mean cooking on a gas grill, but considering a ban on forging shouldn't be allowed per our constituation, it's been going on for centuys. Same with firearms.

Fred, I see you got the freon tank from Mojave Southern Machine Works. Seems quite reasonable at $10+change with the hole cutout.

Did you buy your burners direct from Rex Price?

I see they have a couple different burners that look like a similar design, at less cost.

Your site's great, I'm still sifting through it...;)

Welcome to the dark side Alan. Blacksmithing has been a wonderful hobby.

I started off similarly to you in that I got myself going with coal. I built a break drum forge that I could hook either a hand crank blower, or an electric blower to. I found the hand crank worked better for me. Then, I built my first propane forge after taking the coal forge out to one of the Renaissance faires I do. I ended up smoking out a lot of people, so I built a propane forge. In the last 4 years I have only used my coal about 3 times. I love being able to start it up in a few seconds, and being ready to work in a couple minutes. With coal I found I spent most of my time on fire managment. Now I spend my time beating on hot steel.

Fred, thanks so much for your posts to this thread, you have really given me a lot to think about. I have spent the last couple hours surfing your site, as well as the linked sites from it, and wow, you are a great inspiration!

When I get down to SoCal, I will definitely want to look you up, if you don't mind, and at least get together with you and toss a cold one or burn a hot one. Your work is superb and I like your site. Your wealth of information and willingness to share with others is exactly what makes the web what it is. I grew up in SoCal, but up from you in the San Fernando Valley.

I wasn't comfortable building my own burners, so I bought the 3/4" T-Rex burner from Rex Price. They work perfect right out of the box and I can go from ideling at 2 psi to screaming at 20psi with no problems at all. I also found that the small freon tank forge I built as a traveling forge was more than large enough for the stuff I am doing.

Yes, I think this is a wise move, and those burners look awesome. As with most things in life, you often get what you pay for. The time and $$$s to build similar could end up costing a lot more $$$s after factoring in the time involved, and someone like Rex Price or Larry Zoeller have obviously gone through various evolutions to get the burners where they are today.

I've put up a lot of step by step photos on my web site that show how I built all of my forges. If you don't have a welder, they can still be built effectivly with a few design changes.

And I can say for myself that I truely appreciate the content and information you have put together on your website. I find your site much easier to read than Ron Reil's, yet see a similar willingness to share, and I like that. Jr. Strasil does the same, as many others.

So, tell me, I see a lot of references to freon tanks, and I'm not clear on where folks get those. Are these propane tanks cut open? I would love to have something about that size with a 2 burner on it, if possible. I like the industrial look of them, as I do the style of the Zoeller mini-forge. Your freon tank forge looks like the ticket for me, if I could put one together easily. Since I don't weld at the moment, I might modify it to bolt legs/stand to it, or get a friend to help me, I do have a friend that welds.

Hammer drills are definitely not a waste of time, being able to hold the hammer correctly, being able to swing correctly, and being able to hit what you are aiming at are all things that are very important to develop and can only be developed by practice. There are no short cuts!!!

Thanks for your encouragement, and yes, I do plan to do them. I am a fond believer in building a solid foundation, and I'm trying to approach this in a way that will be benificial for me in the end. I am a fond believe that "practice doesn't make perfect, it's perfect practice that makes perfect". There are far too many people that practice bad habits, which you point out, and this is a point that many can do themself good to heed.

even strong people, because it is easier to control, and they can work longer with the light hammer. The strength will come with the hammer control, and should, who wants to be able to swing a big hammer, and not hit what you are supposed to, just makes a big mess;-)

I couldn't agree more. A bunch of friends got together a year or so back and did some forging. Many of them complained because the gent with the forge had them using a large heavy hammer as he prefers. Most of them had sore arms after and mentioned that they were using what felt like a 40# hammer. I didn't feel bad after a couple hours pounding with a 2.5# and 1.5# hammer, used the lighter one for lighter work, and my instructor showed me the differences in light medium, and heavy hammering. Having a rack of hammers next to the forge was all too convenient, I have just about every hammer available to me. Both hammers were the same type, a flat face and a round face (I don't know if I would call it a pein, the round face was more of a slight curve. I was only using the flat face. I only have ball peins to practice with, but the flat side should be fine. I have about 8 or 9 different sizes, bought a lot of old greased up ball peins that look like they mostly came from a mechanic, since they were pretty loaded up wtih grease.

Knowing how to stand was very helpful in knowing the proper way to hold the stock, how it should be in relation to your body, having your left arm close to the body, where my feet should be pointing, and how to swing and hit the hammer to the stock (i.e., what to look for to ensure one is hitting flat). He first mentioned that if my hammer technique wasn't good, he would have to embarrass me with the wood technique practice. However, I told him I had to know so that I could practice at home, I do have an anvil, and think it's a good thing to practice.

You guys have me wanting to forget about the mapp all together and go with one of those freon tank forges, just need to know where I could get such a tank and/or if it's a propane tank which I can get at Home Depot. Good quality burners such as the T-Rex burners would appear to be the biggest investment. They look like a good investment to me though, time wise.

I have always defined wisdom as the ability to learn from the mistakes of others without having to make them yourself. :-) I pray you are wise...

I certainly try to be wise, but do find myself learning from my own mistakes instead of others, on more occasions than I would *like* to admit! ;)

I wonder if you could add a little something to the mini forge toch to make it burn hot enough with propane?

Well, my inexperienced understanding, which might get corrected by one of the more knowledgable smiths around here, is that it's all based on volume to some extent. Other than propane only being able to get so hot, and mapp being able to get hotter by nature, it really depends on the amount of cubic space inside the forge.

After a given amount of space is reached, an additonal burner is needed or the amount of actual heat starts to diminish. So, in theory you can always add burners to compensate for the additional space to keep the heat up, but you end up with quad burner forges, or similar.

The other factor is the amount of pressure vs. output required to run the amount of burners, since more burners will probably require more pressure. In fact my WAG is that the more pressure you have, the more fuel you can blow into the forge, and in turn the hotter it would get. Which is why some of the commercial forges get plenty hot on propane, they're designed and built correctly.

I could be wet on this, and in that case I'm sure somone will be along shortly to forge weld an idiot sign to my profile.:o

Ok, myth or fact...

Smiths use more coke than anyone else in the world?:p

definitely want to set yourself up for the 20 pound tanks as those little mapp bottles will eat your $$$. Bigger is cheaper for the container it comes in. but the mapp might be a short term solution for you.

The mapp was 2-fold kind of. I figured that I could use mapp to do some light braising and/or soldering of copper pipe/sheet.

Anyone know how long a bottle of mapp will last, the small bottles that sell for $6+change at Home Depot? I'm hoping this won't be my main forge at home, but rather would supplement what I end up with. I'm hoping that coal/coke/charcoal will be my main forge, the smith mentioned to me that charcoal is not a bad solution where neighbors complain about the odor of the coal...imagine neighbors doing that? I just don't know how my stuff neighbors will be. A friend of mine lives in a much more upscale and stuffier area than I do and his neighbors haven't complained, but he doesn't forge a lot. The area I live in is comprised of mostly afluent families, and sometimes they seem to expect perfection, in my experience.

I do have a 20gal tank, and was eyeing the nozzles that Zoeller sells on his site, and he gives pretty good instructions on building one, or I could buy the whole thing from him, but the nozzle seems the most valuable. He sells the stainless nozzles for a Ron Reil style burner as well.

A small dual burner propane forge would be nice, no denying that. The small mini-forge which Zoeller has on his site looks attractive for mapp.

Comments/suggestions welcome.

Congratulations. Sounds like you're on track now. As far as fire, it's always easiest to use the same type when learning and trying to re-create the same feel at home. But trust me when I say, tis better to have a different kind of fire than no fire at all.

I trust you on that, certainly, and do want to be able to start a fire with green coal, definitely for the very reason 6013 points out.

I'm not as worried about using a gas forge, and want to have one, if for nothing else but to be able to easily take it anywhere. A small mini-forge with a mapp tank would probably be best suited for that, I 'spose, not that a 20gal propane tank wouldn't be good, just that it's not as portable in the sense of heft. OTOH, I would like to have a decent mini-forge, opposed to a coffee can if possible. But I want it small and portable, so something like a piece of 6" iron pipe or similar seems in order. The good thing is that the smith is selling me a cast iron forge that will allow me to hook up my hand crank blower, and even if I need to find a place I can take that to, it is portable for the most part. Who knows, maybe a tailgate smithy is in my future!

There is so much you will only pick up when actually working the metal. Granted when you are first starting out you might develop a bad habit during the week untill you can get back to your teacher, but if it's no longer than a week or two I don't really think it's ingrained into you as a long term habit and can be changed fairly easily.

He gave me an excercise that some might consider a waste of time, and it doesn't even involve metal. It involves hitting a piece of softwood (pine for instance) on the anvil to learn hammer control. With softwood you can see the indentation of the hammer, and it is apparent if the hammer head is square/flat or not. This seems like a good excercise in gaining hammer control without letting the excitement of just hitting metal until it develops. Don't get me wrong, I do want to hit hot metal! I just thought this would be good to try at home during this next week.

one tip. Quit chewing on the coal.

Congratulations! You indeed have a good start. Sounds like a good person to learn from. Coal smoke is addicting!

I was pretty fortunate to find a historical smithy in my area that has a smith willing to help folks like me. Really was just luck, IMO.

Most importantly, thanks to all of you folks that have answered some of my dumb questions, and provided useful info here on IFI. I've had some friends tell me that I should just start bashing hot metal, and certainly there is nothing wrong with that. But I prefer to take a more structured approach, and starting off with a safe environment, and then moving into the basics of forging (i.e., hammer technique) seems like a good approach to take. Hopefully before long I'll be able to make some of the cool stuff like many of you have done. Learning to understand what is left in the forge, lighting one properly, and tend it seems like a valuable thing to learn at the start as well. I'm glad the smith had me do that.

Well, after waiting for a few weeks, I was able to get my first instructions on being a smith today.

Started out by cleaning the forge I used, sorting out the coal/coke from ash/clinker, then chopping up my own kindlin' with a hand forged axe that was pretty cool, learning how to light the coal fire in the forge (with the coal/coke I sorted, get it going with the blower, tend it, and load it up with coal and get a nice toasty fire going. There wasn't much coal/coke left in the forge, and he said that he doesn't encourage that to his students, but it was good to do that from scratch as I may need to do that sometimes without having much.

Then it was on to cutting some 24" sections of round rod, taking one of them, and start to develop my hammer technique by making it into 1/2" square rod. This will be a fire poker when I'm done with it. Seems I'll need a rake also, was using that most of the time I was forging.

He told me it looked good, but I could see that my hammer technique can use some development and could see some moons on some of the side, meaning I wasn't hitting the head square to the stock at all times. Was using a 2.5 lb. hammer I think, along with a 1.5 for lighter work after getting it shaped.

Was so fortunate to find this smith to learn under, was a real treat. He also had a cast iron forge in the back, which had a tuyere and a clinker buster, with everything except for the blower...and seeing I got a blower not long ago, that seemed to be just the ticket for me. It was one of the larger squarish type, opposed to the smaller Champion style 18"-22" ones. He had fixed up the legs not long ago but hadn't been using it. It will be nice after I get it cleaned up and get my blower hooked up to it.

Learned quite a bit about the differences between coal, coke, and other great info. Really had a good time. I'll be looking forward to next week when I can get back there again.

I got about half of my 24" round rod forged into square rod, will need to finish that up next week and possibly finish my fire poker. The smith suggested that if coal doesn't work out with my neighbors, I could use charcoal as it smokes/smells less. He noted that it's typically not that the forges smoke that much, it's that the neighbors typically don't care for the smell, which I could understand. Hopefully they won't mind.

I would prefer to use solid fuel if possible, and he doesn't use any gas whatsoever.

Shoot I have used a popcorn tin from the thrift store; a friend has used nothing just tieing baling wire around the kaowool to hold it into a cylinder. I picked up a helium party tank alonside the curb last month---used to inflate a small number of balloons for a party...

Thomas, I like the helium tank better than the bailing wire.

I had my first smithing lesson today, and bought a cast iron forge from the smith, with a tuyere and clinker buster, all pretty much that I need except for the blower which I already have..., I couldn't turn it down as he gave me a very fair price. Fairly big forge, haven't taken it home, will need to go back with my wife's mini-van and get it. This puts less emphasis on building a propane forge, but still want to build one.

I think I'll go with something like the mini-forge shown on Zoeller's site, and use a small mapp tank.

The smith told me that he knows a place to get 6" iron pipe locally. I'll get a small section.

Usually in the next bin down the line they will have black iron pipe fittings - no galvanized.

Yes, they did have some black iron pipe, but I didn't see any fittings that were large enough for anything I was wanting to do, where there were galvanized.

I couldn't even find a 5 gal steel can to use for a propane forge, everything was plastic. I'll need to stop somewhere else, like Kelly-Moore posibly.

Are there stores local that I could get 6" steel pipe at in most areas? I live in NorCal, and would like to make something similar to the simple forge, or even the mini-forge on Zoeller's website. The mini-forge used some 6" steel pipe.

I saw the poor boy forges on ebay, and they look nice being made from a 30 gal freon tank, but I'm not sure something like that is within my skills right now. I also have limited knowledge of welding, which is probably something I need to look into, but unfortunately can't do everything at once.

One thing is for certain, and that is that I do not want anything galvanized or zinc around my smithy, if for nothing else but to prevent me from using it accidentally. Maybe a quench tank, but I'd rather have a wood barrel for that if possible.

BTW, do you have any plans to sell Kaowool on IFI? I see you added some hammers, but I'm not currently in the market for such a nice hammer.

If your blower is hot enough to burn off the zinc your smithy has just burned down!

burnin' down the smithy...not good...

The firepot may get hot enough in use---depending on how it's made and how you are using it, so the connection just under it may have issues as well. But I have never had the ashdump section hot enough to burn zinc in the 25+ years I have been smithing on a number of commercial and home built forges.

In trying to understand all this stuff, I hadn't really paid attention to that before, and did look at some fittings at the hardware store that I went back to check and saw some were galvanized, which threw up a red flag to me...so I learned something, maybe I should take a vacation this week to gloat over learning something...;)

In regards to galvanized and/or zinc, I have seen lots of folks use a galvanized quench tank. And more what got me wondering about this is if galvanized pipe was used for the blower and/or ash gate of a tuyere?

I 'spose a quench tank won't be nearly a problem, but if someone was to accidentally use galvanized pipe/connectors on the tuyere, I can see that presenting a problem. Is this the case?

This thread got me at least looking at different materials at the hardware store, and there's a lot of galvanized, most of it.

Up until the leaves I thought it was a nice grenade!

Even so, it still is, the enemy picks it up, "oh, a pineapple...", BOOM!

Oh wait, a grenade is really a pomegranate, not a pineapple...never mind...:rolleyes:

BTW, I wanted to add that the vintage safety glass I bought recentely, have metal mesh around the outer and bottom portion of the glasses, that fold when they're closed up. This metal mesh actually seems to protect the exposed area of glasses, making them somewhat more akin to goggles.

I wonder why safety glasses are not made like that today? At least I haven't seen them like that and most I see are like modern style rayban or similar fashion glasses, or big ugly square plastic goggles (I have a pair of those also, but they fog easy as I sweat). Those will at least protect pieces of metal from entering the eye as they seal on the face.

The vintage safety glasses are quite cool, IMO, not only as far as functionality but looks also. Of course, I tend to like old things, so not surprising I would like them.;)

To fairly closely quote our dear late friend Jim Wilson, "You can walk with a plastic leg, you can grasp with a plastic arm. But, you cannot see with a plastic eye".

That's a great quote, I might use that on my sig...any reference to one of Jim's posts with that quote in it?

Good point Rich (pun??? all pointy objects in the eye must be a BAD point). I must say that I do wear safety glasses in my shop most all the time, and since I wear glasses almost always, they do function as eye protection to some extent.

I was recentely told that I will need safety glasses to start instruction under the smith at Ardenwood Historical Farm. The smith had some great old vintage safety glasses on, and being that I like old and vintage things, I had to ask him about them. He told me if I was to go on ebay and do a search on vintage safety glasses, I would find many, many hits...which I did, and found a clean pair which I'm waiting to arrive.

I'm am content to take the time to make sure I do this craft in a safe, and workable environment, because not only my eyes, but I want to function in life with all my fingers and toes if possible. I'm sure there might be some reason why folks feel that safety glasses are not important, such as getting fogged up or covered with smoke and preventing you from seeing, but see those exceptions as always being present. For the majority of work I can't imagine how wearing safety glasses could be bad.

In some ways I think I'm fortunate the smith is requiring me to be safe, and I hope it places the proper values into me so that I won't do something stupid, and possibly end up without an eye or similar.

Thanks for reminding us.;)

This might not belong in this thread, since it is zinc, but something I've wondered about is when you take old car parts, like leaf springs, and if they were old and contain paint on them, there could be lead in the paint.

Wouldn't that cause problems in the forge? We all have learned that lead is not good, and I have to imagine that burning lead paint couldn't be good for anyone.

Can anyone confirm or deny this as something else I should keep in my mind. Typically the leaf springs are all rusted with no paint whatsoever, but it seems a spooge bath (electrolysis) might be in order before putting some of that stuff in the forge. Or better yet, just find non-painted steel.

no need for input here.

no need for input here.