Irondragon Forge ClayWorks

Now rub it down with boiled linseed oil and it will darken a little and last for decades.

If it were mine I would replicate the bent legs. A muffler shop should be able to bend the pipe with their pipe bender or if the pipe is thin walled an electrician could do the bends with a conduit bender.

The handle is 45 inches long (could be longer) made from a 2X2 with the rear section planed & sanded to round and the leaf spring is 11 inches long (drawn to a point) by 2 inches wide.

8 hours ago, Yeticowboy said:

I'm new to blacksmithing.  I have one of these anvils also. There's not very much info out there about them.

Welcome to IFI. It looks like your anvil is ready to go to work.

BTW if you put your general location in your profile you may be surprised how many of the gang are near you and some answers are location dependent.

My anvil stumps have a good coating of scale on them, no problem with flare ups from hot metal dropping on them, which isn't left there long.

As far as mounting it in concrete, I wouldn't do that. If you have anyone near you that cuts firewood have them save you a nice big stump before they split it. Mount the steel to it with welded tabs bolted down or build a metal stand.

Here are some ideas.

It took me about 3 hours to make it, spent almost as much time on the haft as the bit because it was too long for my wood lathe. Ike sold a ton of them in several local hardware stores. The nice thing about it is it's lighter than a pick axe so not as tiring to use.

My wife found a Ozark Hoe in an antique store. It was made by my mentor Isaac (Ike) Doss of Berryville AR. It followed her home so I decided to make a copy of it. Made out of leaf spring bolted to the haft. Ike designed it and made many for digging in our rocky ground. Had fun making it and it works well.

14 minutes ago, Jon Cloud said:

"Anvil acquisition method" ? What would that be?

As far as missing parts, I don't see many. The connection from the blower to the fire pot can just be some flex dryer hose with worm radiator hose clamps. If the blower turns OK without any rude noises, I would just lube it up and use it. Most of the hand crank blowers run in an oil bath like 80wt gear lube or chainsaw bar oil. Someone more familiar with the Canadian/Buffalo blowers will correct that if I'm wrong about the lube. You should be heating metal in short order with that good find.

PS the stock support can probably be straightened out cold on the anvil.

The only thing you don't want to rush is the curing of the Kaowool liner and refractories. We had 4 layers and let each one dry/cure overnight before firing them to cure each one.

It took us 4-5 months working at our leisure and having other things interrupt the progress. If we had worked steady probably a couple of weeks.

Welcome to the forum Pete.

Canadian Forge & Blower Co. was a subsidiary of the Buffalo Forge Co. If you look up Buffalo forge you will probably find a lot about them.

BTW if you put your location in your profile you might be surprised how many IFI members are near you and a lot of questions are location dependent.

I found it on scribd.com free download, not a scam site.

https://www.scribd.com/doc/155973901/Gas-Burners-for-Forges-Furnaces-and-Kilns-Michael-Porter

That would have been our choice too if we hadn't built one and to be honest we may still get one. Like hammers one can't have too many.

Hi Matt and welcome to the forum. If you put your general location in your profile you might be surprised how many IFI members are close to you and would be happy to help in person. I have been forging using coal for decades and because my wife has recently gotten into Smithing she wanted a gas fired forge.

We considered buying a gas forge, but after reading here and trying some commercial forges, decided to build her one. We were lucky in that I already had all the components due to having parts for a gas fired kiln that never got built. The only things I had to buy were some refractory & bubble alumina. We are happy with our forge and would do it again.

Here is a link to our build and the help we got from everyone.

41 minutes ago, Chiefum said:

Sorry everyone, I live in Cincinnati Ohio. I'll be buying a burner probably from the places listed in my original post unless someone knows of a better place to get a quality burner.

Welcome to the forum. None of us will remember where you are located ten minutes from now. You can go to your profile and add your location and may be surprised how many of the IFI gang are close to you.

If you read the forges 101 and burners 101 threads you might decide to build your own. I did (although I had a kiln burner) and everyone here was a tremendous help.

Good luck on your quest.

I really like it. Have used it several times at BOA meetings.

The retro fit fire pot raises the fire enough so longer stock can be used. I love history and enjoy using things that Smith's before us used. Somehow I feel a connection to them when using old equipment.

Interesting I like it... never thought of doing it that way, good job, now I need to use your idea.

Here ya go Frosty, someone suggested putting an LED light on it.

You can get 2-tank hook-up kits at Amazon and Walmart too.

That is done all the time on campers. There is a 2-tank hook up kit that you can buy. Zoller forge has a simple manifold kit.

I bought my 2X36 multi grinder like LBS 2X48 from Trick Tools. It works well and the price is right but has limitations. For serious knife grinding I would go with a 2X72 with extra wheels & accessories.

I would cut the hole the firepot sits in bringing it down level with the table and cut the cutouts down to the level of the table. Five inches of coal under the work is not excessive.

"Can you help me with my forage".