Fe-Wood

I'm upgrading my atmospheric forge to a blower. I'll be plugging into 1 3/4" ID pipe sockets on the forge. I can make the flame holder that I already use bigger than the 1" burner pipe if need be. The blower I'm considering is rated at 70CFM unrestricted with a 2 1/8" outlet. I'm wondering what would be a good size pipe to use for the burner tubes. The forge body in the picture is the one getting the upgrade. Its 12" diameter with 2" of kaowool all around and fire brick floor. Thanks for any guidance!

nuge, good choice not to grind a bevel on the rings!!!!! Seems counter productive. I'm thinking I might have to use some heat tape to keep it warm. Wroughton, putting it on a timer is a great idea! I'll likely throw a packing blanket over it too. The part I don't like is that I have to turn on the hammer, let it run and adjust the blocks to keep it cycling for about 45 minutes. The noise sucks and so does the waste of power not to mention the wear on the hammer.

Peacock, I have a block with various shims to hold the hammer at as full a stroke as I can get w/o slapping dies.

forgemaster- You might think about putting a filter on the air intake below the crank shaft, I am. Might save some time for more beer drinking at the hammered.... So this morning I went out to start forging and it was a full 45 minutes of warm up run time before I had full forging power. That just ain't right!

Looks like it might be a peter wright. If it is, it should have a stamp on the thread housing. Nice find for sure!

The temps here lately have only been in the high 20's low 30's and it ain't even cold yet!

So I'm ready to replace the 30w oil with 10w oil and I'm not finding just straight 10w oil around here. There was the mention of 10w hydraulic oil. What about ATF fluid? What other oils are people running? At present, I have to run the hammer a good 1/2 hour before it develops enough power to move hot metal.... Seems excessive to me....

You make some great points Johnny. Building a reputation is what it is all about. Its about just showing up and being consistent. I'm living in a new area, its ben very interesting watching no's turn into yeses as people have become more familiar with me and my work. Joel, Nice display! That works super well for what you are selling! I think I will give that a try. I've been thinking about wall hung displays but wall space is often at a premium. Have you thought about putting your touch mark on the wood?

Have you tried to use it "as forged"? Like others have said, its not the best for hot work. Forging and letting air cool after re heating the whole tool for a bit may work as well as trying to do a controlled heat treat. Just a thought-

Very cool shade! I have played around with heat patina on steel shades. You can get great colors!

The problem with drying wood from the outside in is that the outside shrinks faster that the inside, result is cracking. If you want to use wood you have 2 choices, 1 is let the wood dry very slowly. Here is a very basic rule of thumb, hardwood dries about 1" per year. The other option is to make a block out of CD wood. For instance, I came up with an old butcher block, a big one, about 16" thick and 2' square. No checking, big and heavy... Good luck! Bye the way, nice looking bowls-

Ah, yes, Christmas. Having spent the summer selling at fairs and local markets, with winter coming its time to move inside. I don't really have any seasonal stuff yet but that is a good point Colleen. I think it is important to keep the work fresh and new even if it means keeping it moving more than one would like. As I have said, I'm new to this part so it will be interesting to see how this all works out in my little corner of gods country! Thanks for all the input! I'd love to hear what others have to say on this subject....

My concern about mark up percentage is that, say you are selling at one store with a 30% mark up and in the next town the merchant is putting a 50% mark up on your work. Someone may have issue with that. I also want to know what they intend on selling work for because if they mark it up 100%, that means I'm not asking what the market will bare. This comes to the perceived value vs. cost to make value. I know all the merchants I deal with have asked me not to sell my work to the public at my wholesale price, which is the "cost to make" price. I've been thinking about putting a suggested retail price on work and let them sort out how they want to price it. I can understand now why big manufactures use that kind of price structure. I can say that all the merchants I have dealt with so far like to have a clear and well thought out pricing and display package. It makes it easier to bring in new work. In the end we are all looking for the same thing, work that sells well with a good profit. I definitely want to check on stores that have my work on consignment to be sure they are displaying it well and taking care of it. If not, I will remove it from their store. I'm not interested in "filling the shelves" with work they can't sell. This brings me to my next question-How long should a piece be left in a store before it becomes stale?

just looking at stuff around the anvil I'd say it 100 to 150#. Haggle!

You guys are supper lucky have someone take you under his wing and show you so many methods of work and help you build up your tool kits. Brian, my hats off to you for doing such a great job with these guys. To all you young smiths, I look forward to watching you grow into outstanding smith! You are well on your way! Well done all!

All the shops I have dealt with so far, all of 6 mind you, only 1 has bought the work outright. They will do a 50% mark up. I'm fine with that because they have put up money to have it. The rest sell on consignment. Its either consignment or no deal. One of the shops takes 40% commission, the rest take between 30 and 35%. I'm leaning towards saying if they want to have my work on consignment I will give them 30%. My reasoning is as nuge said, they are not invested in selling the work, at least not as much as if they have bought it to resell. I have gone ahead and made a couple displays for my work for 2 reasons, 1 is because I want it displayed well. The other is because I made the display as a salable item so it will become inventory and have tracking. I also agree that keeping consignment local is important. A friend had a piece in a gallery about 4 hours drive from home and the shop closed, kept the work and never paid for it. I think it was about a month before she found out about it. Just starting to sell my work though galleries makes it hard to negotiate that type of term. Even though they all love my work, I don't have the track record to be to demanding... Or should I stick to my guns? There also seems to be a lot of good work out there with not so many places to show it. Galleries are struggling... At least thats the line.... Thanks for all the input! It really helps to know what others are doing and how well it works!

My stack is right up next to the fire pot. Flames go up the stack when it really roaring. One thing about aluminum is that it transmits heat super well. Unless it in the fire it won't melt. I've had mine in the fire for the amount of time it takes to get 3/4" round to welding heat with no problems. The wall thickness is about 1/8", I'm sure that helps....

I use a chunk of 10" aluminum irrigation pipe about 7' long as a side draft on my portable forge. Works really well to pull smoke away. The inlet cut into the side is about 80% of the opening size of the pipe. I cut it as a round top window and pushed the flap back into the pipe to act as a shelf of sorts. It amazes people all the time, how well it works!

I just got back from leave a heap of stuff at a small art dealers shop in a small seasonal town. The shop has a great reputation. We'll see how it goes. What I did for the display this time is offer it as a for sale piece as well as a way to show my work. Another aspect I'm considering is when dealers want to have my work on consignment AND take more than 25-30% is tell them they have to buy it outright or the deal is only 25% commision. Anybody tried that? Dave, do you sell your work in galleries? I find that more often than not, they want bigger ticket items only on consignment. Smaller stuff with a smaller price tag works better... Colleen, Gut feelings always play into all this stuff. We went to five shops today, of witch I only considered putting my work in 2 with the possibility of trying to work commissions from the 3rd.

Thomas, even a solid paper contract, well written and with the best intentions can fall pray to convenience and the heat of the moment.

David, That is exactly the kind of thing I'm worried about. Unless the merchant is honest AND has a good memory once you leave it with them, it becomes part of the store fixtures. Sorry it didn't work out for you- I'm looking for creative ways to work with what will happen naturally, making it good deal for all.

Yah, mine is something to work when running full tilt. It can get away from you real fast. I'd like to slow it down a bit if I could but a 7" wide by 6" diameter pulley is hard to replace.... Works great fro hit-turn tapers.

I've been making and offering for sale the display racks for my work. What do you guys do? So far I've been putting things on consignment and I am looking for creative ways to get shop owners to buy my work outright like offering a free display rack if they purchase so many pieces at once. I'm talking about items that retail for $30.00 to $500.00. How do you do it?

WI is great to work! Feels a bit spongy under the hammer. If it starts to fall apart from forging at to low a temp just weld it back together. It IS that easy. The other day I was playing with a bit, testing out a new cutter. I cut a slit along one edge of flat bar, then I would forge weld it back together. I did that couple times then I folded it over on itself because I was loosing thickness. Then I started a knife blank out of it with spring steel let into one edge to use as the cutting edge. Have fun!

I second peacock's advice. I have 200# compact. The motor runs on 950 RPM, 10 HP 3 phase. More importantly, your hammer should run at 350BPM. It can be scary fast having that iron going that fast... But boy, does it move the material!