JHCC

Make an ~8” tall open-bottomed wooden box that fits just inside the rim of the cart. That will give you enough dirt under the fire to protect the cart, and you can always remove the JABOD later to modify it or convert the cart to some other use.

Gotcha. Cool.

No, it won't. Slam together some scrap lumber to make a stand: a vertical post under the hammerhead to put it at the right height, more wood around the side to hold the head upright (leave just enough room for some wedges to hold the head in), more wood around the base to keep it from falling over. A couple of pallets will give you all the wood you need, or the guys at a construction site might be happy to have you get some scrap lumber off their hands. Get the whole thing done in an hour or two. LOL.

Here's my suggestion for the sledgehammer head: Make some kind of stand that holds it solidly, but allows you to quickly remove it, flip it over, and lock it back in place. Grind both ends smooth (being careful not to overheat it and ruin whatever temper it may have), but make one end a rounder than the other. That will give you two different working surfaces that will do two different things.

I've been thinking about a grinder build for a while, but had always been put off by the cost of a VFD. I just got a line on an inexpensive speed control for DC motors (a used Leeson Speedmaster 174308, for what it's worth), and I was wondering how suitable this would be and whether a total know-nothing (at least when it comes to electronics) would be able to get this set up with minimal risk of burning the house down. Or should I just salvage a treadmill with its speed control?

If solid fuel (charcoal, coal) is an option, take a look at the JABOD threads. This was a general truth back in the days when almost all anvils were made from wrought iron with a steel face: a faulty forge weld or internal crack would result in a thud or thwack rather than a bright ring. Once Fisher & Norris figured out how to make a cast iron anvil with a tool steel face, brightness of ring became less of an absolute criterion. Cast steel anvils are also known for the loudness of their rings. One thing to consider regarding the lightness of your anvil is that if you attach it solidly to a heavy stand, it will be much more stable under your hammer blows. I have a 148 lb. Mousehole (the Undisputed King of Anvils) that was okay when it was mounted on an ash log, but fantastic once I moved it to a heavy welded steel stand. Think of the anvil and the stand as an entire system, and not just the weight of the anvil itself.

Definitely keep it, and definitely keep working on getting better. It's good to have a benchmark for how far you've come.

Charcoal does better in a side blast than bottom blast. Side blast is easier to build, too.

Was that the first time you were there, or the second?

It's YOUR blade, Nick -- make it the way you want it! Even (and especially!) if that's different from how everyone else does it! Worst case scenario, you hate it and say, "Well, never doing that again!" Best case, you love it and it becomes part of your signature style. Who knows?

Some of those episodes were pretty close shaves.

Foamhead, I see this is your first post, so Welcome to IFI! If you haven't yet, please READ THIS FIRST!!!

That was baaaaad. I'm going to tell your maaaa.

And then your celt would be solt.

A water tuyere (like the one I just built) circulates water within an outer shell and around the blast pipe to keep them both cool. This in turn both keeps the tuyere from burning up and keeps clinker from sticking to the tuyere. Some of the water evaporates, but not much. Just add a couple of gallons before a forging session, and you're golden. A dry tuyere is simply any tuyere that isn't a water tuyere. If you use a pipe encased in clay or sticking through some bricks like Charles shows above, it will certainly take up less space than a water tuyere, as well as being easier to construct. I used a plain pipe in my JABOD, but I love the water tuyere and I ain't goin' back no more. For a beginner, a simple JABOD with a plain pipe is the way to go. Once you have some experience and know a bit more about what you like, then you can start playing with variables.

This is why I encourage Lisa to visit yarn stores and get as much as she'd like: banking up spousal good will for just such an occasion.

Nylon isn't great for forging, though. Natural fibers only!

If I were doing this project, I would fill the tube with sand, weld or bolt a top plate on to keep the sand in place, and then attach the anvil to the top plate with a layer of silicone caulk (which will hold the anvil securely and really help deaden the noise). If additional fastening is necessary, drill and tap holes in the top plate and fasten down the anvil with brackets bolted into those holes. (I don't like chains and turnbuckles: I like to have all the surfaces of the anvil available to work on. That's just my preference, though, and you should feel free to do whatever you like with your mounting system.)

My old friend Dick Adams (alas, no longer with us) was a great character: backwoods Vermonter, USMC veteran, logger, carpenter, maker of maple syrup, grower of Christmas trees, the kind of guy that you think someone with an overactive imagination dreamed up, but real. At gatherings of woodsy types, the conversation would inevitably turn to chainsaw injuries (my own was a very slight cut on my left thigh), with everyone trying to top everyone else. After a while, Dick would pipe up with, "So, you want to hear about my chainsaw injury?" Everyone would say, "Yeah! Yeah!", thinking "This guy grew up in the woods -- he's got to have the best story of them all!" Dick would lean back, pause for effect, and say, "I don't have one." Then he would give everyone a lecture on workplace safety.

Why? The biggest challenge to a side-blast tuyere is the heat of the fire burning up the outer surface; over time, this will erode away the tuyere and cause it to fail. A water tuyere combats this by keeping the tuyere well below the temperatures that will cause it to burn (or even start to glow); dry tuyeres either distribute the heat through a solid mass of metal (especially cast iron, which resists having clinker stick to it) or use a sacrificial nozzle (which, if ceramic, also acts to insulate the air pipe itself). Your proposed pipe/clay/pipe arrangement will probably end up with the outer pipe burning up (since the heat won't be conducted away), leaving an inner pipe with a clay sleeve. That's time, trouble, and material down the drain, leaving you with something you could have made up from the get-go with substantially less bother.

My steel supplier charges about the same as RobS's. I usually buy drops at 75¢/lb.

My anvil was a Christmas gift from my parents when I was fifteen. If I'd put a dollar an hour in the kitty for all the time I've used it since, I could probably afford a half-semester of my daughter's college tuition by now!

By the way, I’ve been using the thin rounding hammer a lot, and I’m really enjoying how easy it is to deliver a precision blow with force and direction. It’s not perfect for everything, but it’s good for a lot of things.

This was part of the great chapel roof renovation salvage operation of 2017.