Lou L

Had a great time and learned a lot. Thanks for the huge head start on the hot cut!

This is a great idea for my kids as well. I have dad envy! My seven year old daughter and four year old son like to watch blacksmithing videos with me and ask to work in the shop all the time. My son has already set his first weld on a tiny ring we made this summer. I blame his anemic hammer and tiny arms for the fact the weld has a cold shut! It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I did most of it. Fear not, he was armored head to toe!

Sobering news...especially for those of us who work "close to home" if you know what I mean. Sad to see a smithy go up in smoke like that. All those years of work gone in a few hours...

I missed out on the 6" vise missing it's spring for $125 because the guy selling it was nowhere to be found. Hours later, when I was finally able to get back there he had sold it. He told me I should have just grabbed it then and paid him later. This is how my life goes. I have a massive collection of near miss stories. My latest is the small dumpster of monster coil springs from heavy equipment that I could have had for nothing but "were just scrapped yesterday". That was last week. <sigh>

@jlpservicesinc, I am proud of myself because I was actually thinking about that problem. My answer was going to be to strike it really hot at the same angle you showed in order to bevel the mild steel. I hadn't thought about grinding. Thanks again for the tutelage! Thanks for the kudos Judson, I certainly learned a lot and met a fellow smith from CT who is interested in some hammer-in style meet ups. Still, I'm a harsh critic of myself and, despite the time crunch, I should have done better. I changed my material but didn't change the technique for the weld. Stupid...stupid...stoopid :). My error cost us too much time as I had to fight the weld and our plan fell apart. The lack of proper tooling was problematic for sure but that is my natural state anyway!

Hey, that was a picture of me making a forge weld on that damnable heart trivet! We made the mistake of picking a thicker piece of stock for the project because it was a better length...should have stuck with the narrower stock. Because I was rushing I didn't take the time to forge proper scarfs on the joint and had a shear issue that compromised the weld. It was terrible good fun all the same. Jen, thanks for the pointers. I have serious plans for that San mai taco. I was blown away by the technique of cleaning the scale from mild steel by quenching it and then hammering off the excess. So cool. Judson, thanks for being so welcoming and treating me like a long time member. Lou

Apologies for the repost. I have to admit, it is essentially impossible to see everything on IFI....and this wasn't really a searchable topic. Still, it is an excellent video and I find it awesome that a high school junior excitedly shared it with me. Lou

A student of mine who is currently hewing his own lumber to build his post and beam smithy in his back yard showed me this video. This summer he had the opportunity to apprentice under a blacksmith in Maine who taught him this piece of history. The tolling these smith's used was amazing. Their maple beam power hammer is a thing of beauty. Enjoy. https://youtu.be/Qr4VTCwEfko

Congratulations! Remember the adage "happy wife, happy life". It sounds like she is adventurous so you will enjoy making he read happy for sure.

I'm bringing a serviceable Champion 401 forge for the fundraiser auction OR the iron in the hat. I got it but don't see myself using it. I figure someone with the matching blower may want it and money can be raised. Which would be the most appropriate place for it?

At the last Fall NEB meet, Bob Menard from Ball and Chain Forge in Portland, ME did a workshop on mokume gane using regular old quarters as a starter material suggestion for beginners. He welded a frame of thin mild steel around it (designed to collapse with weak tack welds) and heated it slowly in a propane forge. He said it could be done inside tube steel or otherwise out of direct heat in a coal forge.

I feel confident that, at the very moment he typed the word "epithet", JHCC thought to himself: "rosy-fingered dawn", "he who shoots from afar", or "sacked of cities". He can't help himself....it's Pavlovian conditioning. Nice save on that knife!

Too bad about the knife JHCC. Looking forward to see how you adapt! I've been struggling to get forging time in with the start of the school year. With teaching and coaching I have been doing 12 hour days. I usually only get one day on the weekend. Last weekend I made two pairs of tongs (well, one was a rescue and rebuild of an old pair I acquired) and today I had a few hours so I decided to do some forge welding. I did it the hard way...no modern welding to hold the 3/16 round stock together, just string. There were challenges and I had to reweld twice but both came out alright. As usual, I didn't approach the project with a solid enough plan so I turned one into a bottle opener (of course) and left the other for a later idea.

Sure thing! I'm working (so far in my head only) on making a small press for doing this type of work.

Thanks for the additional ideas. I'm still on the project...sadly, I'm back to my real job teaching and have fallen into the void of teaching and coaching for fourteen hours a day. I don't have much free time anymore and what I doh AvE I've spent in the shop trying to move forward. Still, I'm soaking in the ideas.

My neighbor invited me to help clear out the house because his father recently passed. It was one of those "take it or the cleaning crew will" situations. Still, I had to show decency. This was my haul for the cost of $0. The grinder is a 1/2 HP. I'm hoping to convert the bottle jack into a very slow press to realize my goal of person carved images into steel

I actually did some searching and found a few books by scholars who collected all of the references to technology and building they could find from Greek and Latin texts. There was some interesting stuff on metal work and files but, sadly, it was all just references and limited descriptions of processes. The loss of knowledge was great.

Seriously, what would one of your small,presses cost to ship to the US? I'm in need!

Poor guys with small work spaces like I have will be prosecuted unfairly because my anvil is too close to the bench where I grind. Not fair! But I'm totally good with the spirit of the rules you propose. Honestly, though, the dimensions of that anvil seem a bit "off" to me. The waist and feet seem a bit narrow compared to the rest of the anvil. It could easily be the angles of the photos and a rebound test will tell all. It certainly has handling holes but the feet just seem odd. Once again, I know next to nothing.

I actually laughed and don't even know what it means. Genius! I think it would still be okay to apply ATF to an anvil with Q-tips...tedious....but okay.

Purgatory Ironworks (a smith from Georgia named Trent) is currently doing a series of videos for starting blacksmiths. His last couple have covered these types of forges. He gives pros and cons and draws out how to design them. His knowledge of the JABOD is not as profound as Charles' but the videos are informative nonetheless. He also communicates the IFI stance on anvils and the benefits of big chunks of steel over hunting for "real" anvils. If visuals help you check out his videos. Picture Charles' trench as a capital "T" shape. The air pipe (tuyere) is the bottom line connecting to the trench which is the cross line at the top of the "t".

I haven't met a fetishist yet who didn't believe their passion was a problem I'll have to try the Trewax or whatever variant some time. Does it withstand forging heats when you use the side of the anvil?

I'm in the same boat. I'm in a two car garage but one side really could never fit a car and both sides are filled with everything but cars. I'm waiting on the new shed to have some space. Then I will be co tasting Bob to find out if the last tire hammer has found a home. Technically I can afford it, in my opinion, because my son is going into kindergarten so we don't have those day care costs anymore.

Trust me, I understand. On days I can't use it I still visit and give it one tap with a hammer just as a reminder to both of us. Anvil love is an illness.

Giving it a coat will help...but the sides and feet are going to get ugly on you too! It feels good, though, putting that coat of oil on your fresh anvil.