The Hess
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I tend to forge my own wedges as of late I have moved to the round wedge design and I still forge it. I taper a 3/8" or 1/4" wide 3/16 thick piece all down the side then I determine how big of a diameter I want to use and I hot cut it there then I take a piece of round stock or a wooden dowel and I use it to bend the piece around to get the radius once a radius is formed I tighten the ends together then use a file to create teeth along the bottom of the wedge to help it grab the wood at this point it's ready to be pounded in. I prefer the round design of a wedge greatly over that of a straight piece. I can also get a 2" wide piece of 3/16" in the length if 6 meters and it costs me not a lot.after having them cut it in meter sections this allows me roughly 24 meters worth of steel to create my wedges. After reading everyone's posts about milling them and everything I feel like this would be greatly cost effective and works just as well I would even concierge selling these as four for a dollar that way I could still make a little after charcoal and steel cost then time invested. If I had a way to start doing handles in my current location I would sell hand make handles with wedge included also.
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Forging with wood.
The Hess replied to The Hess's topic in Solid Fuels: Coal, Coke, Charcoal, Wood, etc
I use 2x4s and 4x4s cut to 6-8" length then split in half and quarters they work wonderful for me -
Forging with wood.
The Hess replied to The Hess's topic in Solid Fuels: Coal, Coke, Charcoal, Wood, etc
Here is a few pictures of my forge I recently have changed the connecter to the crank so it doesn't kink which gets me way more air flow. These forges have an adjustable baffle running through the bottom with holes you turn the baffle to open more holes. All the wood I use is 2x4s and 4x4s split in half gets hot enough to forge weld just fine and I can fit pieces all the way to 30"+ in it. I also do not pre make charcoal at all I just use wood scraps.
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Hello everyone, I was wondering how many people on here besides myself Forge with a wood Forge and what people's take on it was. I use a Whitlock wood fire Forge with an open top and a hand crank blower it works great for me so far. Just wanted to see what other people have and use wood fire wise.
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As a beginning knife maker tool maker and in general blacksmith I have had a ton of these questions for myself. All the guys at work want custom knives built for them. They all give me ideas of what they want then ask for a price I end up telling all of them that ilk make a knife to the idea they give me of they like it they can give me a price if they don't then we can go from there. These are all weapons guys and EOD guys some say make me a knife all I want is it to look cool others want to use them I tell them all the same name the price after I show you the knife and tell you the time I have into it. So far I've made a lot more money from my knives then I thought I would have. I do point out any imporfection in my knives after all these are my brothers and some of them carry them when we go out on missions so they are trusting me not only to do my job but my knives to also. Talk about responsibility. I've really enjoyed this post though because it does help put things in prospective for me.
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These are some pictures of my anvil and the base and stand I built for it. The 4×4s are bolted to the whole stand with 2 8" anchor bolts in each one then same with the 4×8s to the 4×4s then I took some steel I had, upset the middle a bunch just about tripling the thickness leaving about 1.5" at the ends the stock width and thickness then drew them out to the length I then twisted the end faces and forged them to fit the anvil snug up around the base above the feet. I then drifted holes to fit the anchor bolts through and anchord them to the base. It's solid as can be and works really well also when I leave spain to go back to the states I can just unbolt it and take it with me.
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These are some pictures of my Whitlox wood fire forge which I use I got the hand blower because I don't like to be tied to society at all and don't want to ever have to rely on a power source. So far it has worked great gets really hot and relatively fast and is super efficient I can have a fire going for 4+ hours of forging and use less then a 10 gal trash can of wood chunks normally about half of one.
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Here is a couple shots of a pair of tongs I made I did a flat jaw design with a curved upper jaw so I can upset material to one side and still have room to grab it when heating the tip of the material and working it they also work well with flat stock and small round stock like making rivit from rebar that my wolf jaws couldn't hold. These are completely made from rebar the rivit and all.
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Some projects I've been doing. In the pictures you'll see my first hold fast I made that was an awesome project. A horseshoe attempt that I feel I did alright with. A few knives I've made out of rebar I found I could harden that I use in the garden a training karambit I'm still working out and a small hand wedge I made for cutting firewood since I only have a small hand saw and rounds tend to bind it us some.
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Thanks frosty I was just wondering because grease does keep brings from rusting and it's used to keep guns good for extended periods I also have used it by rubbing it into a rag then heating the rag up and wiping down splitting mals that seemed to keep all through the winter when wrapped in the rag. I don't have much options at the moment being new to a foreign country and not knowing any Spanish it's hard to find anything here let alone anyone who knows anything about smiting yet.
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So been away with work but got back kayaker 50 miles down a river to the coast and then built some new items for my forge. I created a hold fast from a bar we had at work that was about half inch round stock then I also made a pair of tongs drifted the whole and made a rivit from rebar also to put it all together. My next project is a hardy hole cutoff that I'm making from a huge 1.5 inch thick pry bar. After that I'll try to get some pictures up for everyone.
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Could a guy use say baring grease say for wheel hubs that's in a rag and wipe the face down with that after use to keep rust away? Just a thought and question also I'm in the process of building my smithy got about 3/4 the frame done but no walls or roof yet and the first rains started early this year.
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Another 18 months or so here and then back to washington where I have all the material I could ever want lol
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I'm trying everything I can to get my hands on any coils or leafs I can get the problem with on base is all the shops are run by the Spanish and trying to get them to do anything is impossible. They don't completely like us here
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Trying to find a steel yard here is hard in fact that is where I got the "sweet steel" it was all they had. There are also no junk yards as the Spanish don't allow you to use parts off old vehicles they crush the cars and let them pile up. Trying to have steel shipped costs more for the shipping then for the steel makes it not worth it actually. I would love to be able to use some known steel and get projects done right but I can only work with what I have and at this point it's rebar and "sweet steel".
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I'm no mountain of a man at 6'1" 155 lbs but I do have an ungodly strength to me. Years of logging and pulling engine blocks without a cherry picker will do that to you. I can personally pull a 350 block from a 76 scottsdale k10 by wrapping my leather belt around the back wrapping my hands in the belt and dead lifting it out "front grill and radiator removed of course" but forging things with a 4.5 lb hammer gets a little heavy after a while. One hand swinging a 30 lb. Hammer on a 18" handle even choked up on it seems a little far fetched to say the least to me. I don't mean to be rude on this subject but I feel some exaggerations are being placed here I have some 30 mm rebar I was gonna use to make a hammer by upsetting it a ton to add some weight and I was going for a 5 lb head once some high carbon steel was forge welded into the faces and to do this would take about a foot and a half of it at least your talking you would be needing 4 two foot long pieces of rebar for your hammer to even come close to the given weight. I just don't see how any of that is feasibly possible.
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These are all amazing work in my opinion and a huge inspiration. As a new blacksmith and practicing blade smith these give me goals to shoot for. The more pieces I see of everyone's work the more amazed I get but also more confident because I see that others can do it so I believe in myself to have the ability to learn from you all and do so also. Thank you so much for the post.
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Thank you everyone for the info and welcomes I am in rota. I will go ahead and add my location and I will sure to add plenty of pictures when ever I finish something new. I'm in the process of doing a pair of tongs for flat stock. It's my first set and so far doing pretty well just have to drift the hole and put my rivit I made out of rebar in it and peen it out. I'll be sure to add pictures once I finish up. Again thank everyone for the input on this subject. And with this being probably real low carbon what are some uses I could find for it? Would it have the ability to be used for tool making say some splitters drifts or draw knives for Bowyer work? When drawing out a stave for a bow you don't want a super shard draw knife so would this possibly work? Also if it's super low carbon I'm probably looking at a water quench to harden it if it hardens at all correct? Still reading everything I can on the subjects and learning every step of the way.
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Thank you George and Thomas. I do t plan to put to much work into them until I figure out the heat treating portion of things if they can't harden for some reason I have other projects I can use it for other then blades. Thank you both for the Intel so far it's great to have the ability to get advice.
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Hello everyone my name is Jeremy and I'm fairly new to blacksmithing. I am also in the navy stationed in southern spain. I got my start one day because I had a fire going in the yard and had a piece of rebar I threw into it as the fire burned and the wind picked up I was able to start seeing the changes taking place within the bar and decided I'd give it a shot I found a 50 kg peddinghaus anvil in town at a shop being shut down for 200 and decided that was a great start and was also the purchase that solidified my decision to start smithing I then purchased the whitlocks wood fire forge with a hand blower and went to work and cut a ton of rebar we had sitting around the compound. With that rebar I have made some knives key chains a couple pendants and bracelets along with some punches and some drifts my next project is a couple pairs of tongs. But enough back ground on my short career so far this is about a steel I just purchased. I was visiting shops around town looking for a piece of steel that would work for a hammer I found nothing but I was told to go out to the local steel mill. Upon getting there they still didn't have anything big enough for me to use without doing some major upsetting but they did have some rebar big enough that I was about to get a few pieces cut for free. What I also got was 6 meters of a carbon steel content and type completely unknown. All the people could tell me was that in spain they call it sweet steel. Has anyone heard of this before? Is this the same as sweet iron that you would use for horse bits? Also if so what type of quench would work best I plan to take all the scale off it and heat it to just above non magnetic then air cool it file test it and see how it does if it's still soft reheat and oil quench it and file test again just wondering if anyone on here has an idea and might be able to save me some time. Thank you all for your time and help.
