TwistedCustoms

I have a three hundred gallon container that once contained sanitation solution for cleaning chicken houses. There are lots of chicken houses in my area and I see these containers for sale for usually around twenty bucks. They come on a heavy, plastic pallet and have a steel tubing frame on the outside of the plastic container. I cut the top out of mine to make it an open top bin. It holds a thousand pounds so when I buy a ton I fill the bin and then pallet stack the other thousand in 50lb sacks. I use the bagged coal first because the bags do rot pretty quickly. I thought about picking up another bin so I can dump a ton at a time but I like having some coal bagged to travel to events. If you want to spend a lot of money on storage systems, look up U-Line, they have it all. If you want a cheap solution ask a farmer

Spoken like a true Wile E. Coyote. If only you could have found a way to incorporate dynamite! Once you've hammered out the details to include high explosives I'm in, but only if I can ride the lead drone!

Incontrovertibly.....man I've missed this place, I gotta start popping in here again! If that whole wreck turns out to be wrought count me in on the salvage op.

I suppose if you're dead set on getting a working tool from magma you could find a nice pile of it that's already cooled into a formation of obsidian and knap a spear point or blade from it. Hardened and tempered by Nature

Is that a "Hand Hammer"? Also, I would really like to have that fly press!

If you don't mind cutting a hole in the side of the corn crib, an exhaust fan mounted just above the height of the pan should be plenty. (I'm talking about a 36" or better fan like you see in the gable of steel buildings, not a bathroom fan!) I don't know what kind of doors a corn crib has but a rivet forge, burning coal, would be ok in the center of a 20' by 30' covered workspace as long as you have some double doors propped open with a fan for circulation. Most of the smoke will come when you first light the forge, before the green coal starts coking. After that you just need enough ventilation to keep the carbon monoxide from building up. Venting depends a lot on how you want the shop layout but seeing as that is a portable rivet forge I would set it up in the center of the space and see how it goes with just the doors open and a fan to vent the space. If you plan on forging with the space buttoned up tight and trying to have some level of climate control, you will need a hood and a smokestack.

I like your choice of handle materials. It looks very nice with that pattern.

I have been really interested in the AR plate for a while because I have a good source for 1/2" but I don't know what welding will do to it in terms of changing the hardness. What is your 8"x9"x5" block made of? Even if it's mild I would try forging on it as is for a while. You have a pretty good looking set up. If the block starts to mushroom or sway too much you can just dress it, or roll it and keep on forging. You said rebound is "nice". What is that in terms of percentage when you drop a ball bearing on it from a known distance? If it's over 50% it's better than some! You can put a heavy bead of silicone between the block and plate and cut the sound way down too.

I've dug myself in so deep I'm surrounded by dwarves Sturdy wood blocks are handy to raise shorter smiths on a concrete floor when the anvil height is fixed. I wonder if an old barber chair base would tolerate being hammered on with an anvil sitting atop the cylinder?

Some of us find it seaxy

IFI is home to some talented and knowledgeable farriers, one of them will chime in eventually and solve the mystery one way or the other.

As scientifically advanced as Arab culture was at the time of the birth of Islam I wonder why the originator of that tale didn't know that you do not need tongs to make a set of tongs

Just looking at the photo I would guess the shear would handle 3/4" by 3/8" mild without too much trouble. Now I'm thinking I want to build a foot peddle shear to replace my tail gate shears for cold cutting mild.

The horizontal vice on the back (opposite the foot pedal) is what made me think it may be farrier related. I've seen plenty of the more robust type like Kozy posted. Centaur Forge sells an anvil stand that includes a foot vise for holding a shoe in the horizontal, like the one posted by BryanL. Not being a farrier I don't know why it's handy for them to have one oriented that way but I could find uses for it! The one made by CF looks like it's made of square tubing and wouldn't stand up to much hammering at all, more of a clamp really, certainly not for heavy forging. File work maybe? Holding a used shoe steady to knock out the old nails? I'm guessing but either way I like it.

I'm sure I've seen something like it in a shop that made horse shoes but I can't remember where I've seen it. It's a cool vice for sure!