Lou L

Funny, someone else posted about their experience at Mystic Seaport and seeing the traditional blacksmith there. Thing is, I believe that the guy who taught at Stors is the guy who worked at Mystic. It is an insulated community with some very accomplished smiths...there just aren't a lot of them. We do have a guy from Wolcott who won Forged in Fire...so we must be a serious blacksmithing state!

Just find a huge chunk of steel and use it until your anvil finds you. I'm lucky to have met my anvil early on but guess what, I'm running out to buy a huge cylinder of mild steel to use as rough anvil for all the jobs a swage block and post anvil would serve. So, this is one person who has an anvil but wants a big chunk of steel anyway. And go ahead and search for TPAAAT on the forum. Thomas has a time tested method for finding anvils that has many devotees.

Thomas, for about $300 you can have a solar panel charging a deep cycle battery and run a 12v blower in your shop all year. Heck, if I didn't have to deal with so many trees over my workshop area I'd be doing that. ....concerning the original topic of this thread: You are thinking too much. The chances of you building the just right forever forge on your first try are ZERO. You need to build something, try it, learn to forge with it and then build something else. The reason you get so many answers is that there is no one way to get there. Take this advice from someone who tried buildings forge that was beyond the scope of his skills. I have a cool forge now and all I can think about is what it can't do. While I'm working at the forge I find myself planning for the next forge. Stop planning and thinking and just build something. You won't regret it.

That I did not do. However, I refuse to go into a Walmart. It's not a political thing....it's that seeing the people makes me hate humanity. Seriously though, Amazon Prime is an amazing thing to have. I can order a pencil on Amazon and get free shipping. I,need to,order some grinding belts (can't find anywhere that sells 2x42" belts) so I'm going to add borax to that order.

Don't rely on Craigslist. Be a crazy person and mention it to everyone you talk to. You'd be amazed at the opportunities you have already missed. There are a few I'm still angry at myself about.

I fully intend to use flux because I like easy at least as much as you do. Honestly, the main reason I tried it was simple curiosity combined with the fact that not one grocery store near me carries borax on their shelves. Seriously, I've searched. I actually have to order it on Amazon or something. All that aside, thanks for the input. I now know my mistake. I most certainly didn't clean up the mill scale enough on the surfaces to be welded. They weren't shiny. I'll go back and try that. I think I had the piece in a nice O2 free environment in the fire...but I'll play with that as well. I'm a fool who has hitched the cart before the horse....here I am trying to forge weld meanwhile I can't make a serviceable pair of tongs to save my life. This is how I do things I guess. Taught myself to play guitar and learned how to play finger style...still don't know how to strum songs but I can pick out some complex tunes.

Kailthir, The only thing wrong with what you've posted is the comment, "I wasted fuel." I think you got a lot out of every chunk of coal! My days at the forge are eerily similar to yours and I love it. It's gratifying to see that others have the same experiences and measure them as growth. I learn so much every time I get the forge going. The biggest mistake I think I have been making is that I tend to work without a strict goal. I hop from project to project seeking new challenges. I've decided that I need to force myself to hammer out ten or twenty pairs of tongs until I feel confident whipping up a pair that suit the stock I'm working with perfectly. Using the wrong tongs has proven to be a major limiting factor in my learning curve. Holding work the wrong way has caused me to lose lots of heat and to employ ineffective hammer technique. I had to remind myself of my favorite coaching mantra:. Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent. Only perfect practice makes perfect.

I just tried a fluxless forge weld for practice on a piece of rebar today. Failed miserably. I kept the steel in the top of the fire well out of the air blast (side blast forge) and brought it to just sparking. It stuck on the first go and seemed to work but fell apart on the third heat. So close. I'm going to keep at it until I get it. Deep down I want to make it work without flux first. I think I'm on a fool's errand....rebar, no flux, no experience with welding. Good times.

Amazing work. I sincerely appreciate your attention to history. You should share more because it is inspirational.

I had some challenges figuring out a way to start my forge because I was using anthracite. Could be you have the same problem I had:. Too much air burns out the paper, wood, etc.. before the coal catches. Adding charcoal on top of the paper and using very little air works every time for me. Whether you use wood or charcoal you just need to burn it slowly enough so that the coal gets going. I currently use a ball valve to control the air and it works fine. Will build a sliding gate when I get the blower I desire. You can even forgo the use of the fan and just wave the paper and wood with piece of cardboard or something until you get your air gate situation under control.

Absolutely....the feeling was something of a burning sensation...

If you are using charcoal or bituminous just get a cheap bathroom vent fan, use a slide or ball valve to limit it and be done with it. It's cheap and effective. You can switch to a hand crank as soon as you find one. If you are using coke or anthracite give up on your dreams of a hand cranked forging experience because you need continuos air with decent pressure. Ask me how I learned this the hard way....

I have one that is nicely radiused with a blunt, maybe 1/2" edge but the corners aren't rounded at all. My four pound cross pein I kept more flat because I was thinking I might be able to use the edges for set downs and texturing. Now this discussion has me thinking the heavier hammer would be more useful well rounded and the set downs can happen on the edge of the anvil as things were meant to be.

I was going to link to your excellent post of YouTube blacksmiths because I read it a while back; however, I had no capacity to look for it being that it is late and I'm tired.

There goes Frosty, getting all specific and spewing actionable information with his superior knowledge. On another note:. Thanks for the insights about reshaping the pein Frosty, I didn't take the edges off the pein on my hammers well enough based on your description....

I only have felt soles on my waders....no steel lugs. I could be in trouble.

Get yourself a YouTube account and start watching blacksmithing videos. Subscribe to every smith's channel you can find. You will se examples of every tool, forge and setting you can imagine. Take what you see and decide what is possible for you. In the interim you can start shopping at lawn sales and flea markets for hammers, chisels and other small tools. Plus, follow the advice that was already given. They haven't been wrong yet! JHCC, it cracks me up that you tried that search... However, there are a few articles and YouTube videos about the things you need to starts forging. Though, none of them are specific to one person's goals.

It might be cheaper and more efficient to look into the setups greenhouse owners use to ventilation. Inline centrifugal fans combined with targeted duct work would work. Then again, the fan you linked would be an easier installation....look at me second guessing myself! Simple test. Try out the fan you chose and run a CO detector in there at head height with the forge going for a few hours. That's what I would do.

Oh, it's gorgeous. I take back my reservations about the finish. Not a drop of the detail is lost.

I'm getting better for sure...but sometimes it seems like it would be easier to make the metal into the shape I want by smelting and the casting it....

It might be a long shot but: The concept of musical tone and the length of the string (in this case metal bar) was discovered by the Greek philosopher Pythagoras (of Pythagorean theorem fame). He discovered that there was a relationship between the length of the string and the various tones. Certain ratios created harmonies and others were dissonant. Music theory is based on the concept. If you were able to create triangles that followed those same ratios of length they would be musically "correct" and could be labeled as creating a perfect fourth or perfect fifth tone. There are loads of resources for the desired ratios online and a tuner (even an app on your phone) could be used to check the accuracy. Would certainly broaden your market for dinner bells! This was the first resource from my Google search for the ratios: http://www.aboutscotland.com/harmony/prop.html Not sure if you have the time, interest or energy to experiment with the concept...but I just might when I have the workable set up with a bending jig! Lou

I feel bad for you because I owned three cross peins in my first two weeks of collecting blacksmithing tools. I'm told the Northeast of the U.S. is a hotbed for old tools....I guess it is true. You can find them at yard sales and flea markets all the time here for almost nothing because people don't know what they are! I wouldn't worry about the hammer meeting your needs. After all, it is yours to grind and reshape at your whims. If it isn't perfect now it will be soon enough! Enjoy your hammer and move some metal. Lou

Sadly, it seems like there is little blacksmithing activity in CT. There are smiths around but there appear to be no groups or meetings. It sounds like you signed up for the classes at Brookfield Craft Center (I'm guessing by the title of the class). I planned on trying that class out some time but, in my stubbornness, I decided to self educate for a while and, so far, I've learned a lot. I figure that I'll learn that much more when I get to a class and be able to decide what information is best for me. My advice to you would be to get started as soon as you can if your class isn't soon. Heating up metal and banging on it is actually a pretty cheap and easy situation to get into.

Well, I've been wading through this whole forum for a while but my skills still need honing.

I went to college at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, CT and spent long hours researching in the Elihu Burrit Library. He is a bit of a revered historical figure around here. But, in keeping with the theme of this thread, most people have no idea...