JHCC

And keep the fire extinguisher by the door, so that you pause to spray the conflagration before making your escape.

More like "Wheel, this vibration is an unexpected behavior!"

+1 on the JD graphite. Also, if you're looking for a cheap/free source of beeswax as an ingredient in punch lube (as well as for a myriad of other uses), make friends with your local Eastern Orthodox priest. Orthodox churches go through a lot of beeswax tapers, and somebody has to do something with the stubs.

Shades of "Arthur 'Two-Sheds' Jackson"....

What's the a-b-a test?

You don't need clay for a JABOD -- just dirt. Mine is clay, because I live on the glacial till of northern Ohio and that's what we've got. Frankly, I'd much prefer sand. Just because you have it doesn't mean you have to use it -- just yet. I have a brake drum that I originally intended to make into a firepot, but then went in a different direction. I hung onto the drum, though, and it ended up making a nice base for my slack tub.

That is pretty darn sweet.

Couple of quick replies: 1. Don't overthink your forge. Search the site for the JABOD forge or the 55 forge; either will serve you well and are easy and cheap to construct. 2. For an anvil, you need (a) solid steel and (b) depth below the hammer. A truck axle, a piece of railroad track, a chunk of forklift tine -- all these make great anvils IF you stand them on end. 3. For your air supply, you don't just need CFM; you also need static pressure. Not sure if a computer fan will have enough, but I admit that I've never tried. However, a flea market hair dryer will work just fine. A word to the wise: take some time to read over the earlier posts in the forum. You will find a lot of people have tried foolish things as they were starting out; you can save yourself a lot of grief by learning from their mistakes. (For example, I myself initially planned to make concrete-lined forge in a bucket, fired with a weed-burner from Harbor Freight. That was a bad, bad idea.)

On the road for work, so got together with LouL and started a pair of twist tongs.

Says the man who knows.

Not to be confused with "Nemo collocat infantem in anguli."

Look up spark testing and break testing.

For the 12" section, you could grind some grooves across one or more faces, like the trunion swage block from Blacksmith Depot.

Use what you've got for now. Depending on what kind of coal you have, you may not need so much air anyway, at least not for starters. Also, if you eventually switch to charcoal (as ThomasPowers recommended in your intro thread), you'll find that it takes a LOT less air than coal.

Puns are like children: you're proud of all of them!

If you did use it as an anvil, you'd be able to write the book on safe forging practice.

And surgical gloves.

That's why it's good to have the occasional woodworker on the blacksmith's forum.

Also, keep in mind that superglue (aka cyanoacrylate) comes in a variety of viscosities. You want the thinnest variety you can get, so that it soaks into the fibers of your handle material and bonds inside the surface, rather than sitting as a film on top. Also, try putting a layer of tape on the steel before you put on the glue. You may get some seepage (depending on what kind of adhesive the glue has), but you won't have to worry about slop.

That is some awesome work. Very cool. Are you also responsible for the hood over the fire?

Welcome aboard! Glad to have you here. Nothing to add to what was said above (which is all good advice), except one little detail: you'll see a lot said here on IFI about "London pattern" anvils. What you have there is the somewhat less common "Birmingham pattern", which is distinguished by the absence of a flat step between the horn and the face.

Are you saying that rebar is for suckers?

When the time comes, you have two choices for correct pronunciation: "pro-bo-SIGH-deez" is more a Modern English prononciation, while Ancient Greek would probably have been "pro-BOSS-kih-dez".

Blacksmithing-wise, silly. It's not that making concrete strong (or, more precisely, giving it greater tensile strength) isn't important; it's that in a blacksmithing context, rebar is better for things whose failure won't mean hot metal bouncing up in your face or falling on your foot.

And did you forge it with a dog-head hammer?