mechelement

Do you plan on having any of this work inspected by your local AHJ?

Pole barn structures are some of the most cost effective here. Wood posts in dirt (best if sandy soils), wood girts, scrim reinforced plastic faced insulation rolls, whatever floor type you want, whatever siding type you want (will need to be vertically oriented and will drive girt spacing), whatever type of roofing you want, limit the quantity of openings to keep cost down. At 8’x12’, you’d only need a few posts. Single slope roof will keep the cost down too.

Isolate any parts that have percussion or vibrations from your slab. What type of soils are you dealing with? Do you know the soil bearing capacity and frost line?

What type of soils are present at the location which you intend to build? Sand, silt, clay, rock? The soil type will drive your foundation design. So will the type of building you intend to bear on your foundation system. Can you provide some info about the building as well? What zoning is your property? Residential/Agricultural/Commercial/Industrial? Zoning will drive your permitting requirements, so will MEPs.

No cool story like wrestling a bear. I was chasing my 5-1/2 y/o son around the core of our house which is hardwood floored. He was bare foot and cornering on rails, I was in socks. I was surprised how fast he was, so I kicked it up a notch and went to run around the corner and my feet slipped out from under me instantly. I guess I had my left arm extended for balance and fell directly down onto it extended so the palm of my hand hit first. It dislocated the ulna/radius into my tricep. The orthopedist told me ~97% of the time you completely dislocate an elbow, you break the tip of the ulna off. The severity of the break depends on how Big of a chunk you break off. Thankfully mine was very small, around 1/4”.

I’ve been following this thread for a bit. I dislocated and subsequently broke my left elbow which has slowed progression on my end. The only constructive thing I’ve done on the anvil is cold worked a stick of 1/2” EMT to laterally brace a 320 gallon water trough such that it wouldn’t bow out at the top and eventually collapse when full of water. Pretty boring. A portion of my profession is to identify and mitigate risk, whether physical, duration, financially or all of the above. I think it’s great you (lbs) are getting kiddos involved. I know my 5-1/2 y/o would love it. I notice you, and especially the kiddo(s), aren’t wearing any eye protection. My wife saw someone lose their eye from a punch that shattered when struck with a rounding hammer. The shard flew 6’-8’ before hitting the instructor in the eye. I took it in stride until I saw a farrier take forge welding slag to his eye while building a handmade bar shoe. IIRC, you had a metal sliver in your eye not too long ago. It’s a sue happy society out there, especially when kids are involved. I’d recommend some belts and suspenders for things like this. You can ingrain the value of safety in young minds and set an example for their parents as well. In Idaho, they had the Idaho Equine Innocence Act which waived all responsibility and liability of the property owner and everyone was their at their own risk. You just needed to post the sign at your pasture. It would be ideal if they had something like that for demonstrations like this. Lots of very impressive stuff in this thread.

I thought positive connection (lagged straps) to a stump would mitigate the ringing and bouncing around. Would setting the anvil in bed of silicone caulk on top of the stump help eliminate the ringing as well? We have a JHM and it's definitely a loud ringer, but is currently on a fabricated 3-legged tube steel frame and sits on a board covered in beeswax within a slotted tray for easy install / removal.

That makes a lot of sense, especially when compared to civil work in construction. What is the end goal with a sand set anvil? Sound deadening? Vibration dampening?

Does the anvil constantly slightly move in the sand as you work?

That's cool. I've never seen a stand built out of dimensional lumber before. Here I am drying a (green) cottonwood stump in my garage since January.

I like it a lot. Is that all thread through the top and bottom of the stand? Stand is glued and screwed laminated 2x12s? How long are the lags that hold the fulcrum via brackets into the stand, 3"? Regardless of dressing, that's a nice block of steel and it's obviously well thought out and executed as such. Edit: The sharp edge at the top of our JHM Certifier's base of the horn proves extremely useful for drawing out clips.

Thanks! Great question... to be honest, this will be primarily for my wife and she's expressed interest in ornamental work as well as knife making. I personally like the tooling aspect of blacksmithing, whether reproduction, repair or new and thoroughly enjoy the heat treating, quenching and annealing processes (material science was a bit of a focus). I heat treated a rounding hammer head and thought it was pretty slick, especially after paying so little for it and having it perform as well as hammers that cost 10X-20X as much. My wife made a couple of punches and I find myself using them often during projects. I appreciate the tip. Thanks. Well, you know what they say about discussion forums.

Hello all, My name is Jason and I recently relocated my family to Northern Colorado from Idaho for work. I'm an executive project manager for a general contractor that self performs miscellaneous metals (though I've found it less risky and more cost effective to sub) and steel erection. My education background is mechanical engineering specialized in machine elements, but upon graduating, I jumped into construction engineering & design, then estimating and management because I didn't enjoy the engineering nearly as much. My wife is an AFA Certified Farrier from Boise, ID. She's quite a hand and loves blacksmithing. I helped her get her get farrier business running well (business-wise) working with her for a year. I admit, I'm not even novice level, but thoroughly enjoyed working in the forge. She did some blacksmithing on the side for friends. Nothing nearly as nice as I've seen here! Just functional hooks and a set of saddle bag brackets for a Harley, etc. When we had our son, she stopped being a farrier, sold her gas forge to another farrier, but kept all of her other tools. Now that our boy is going into kindergarten, she wants to get into blacksmithing exclusively. To stay away from life stories, I'm going to leave it at this. I'd like to add, I perused this site over the last few days and I'm very impressed with the things I've seen. It's obvious this forum is full of professionals. I have many questions, but will search quite a bit more before asking. -Jason