firebug

Artist, I have a sliding gate valve in front of the blower to adjust the airflow just before it enters the fire pot. The lever that the horse head is attached to is the adjustment for air flow. It works very well. I figure this would be better than restricting air intake which in theory anyway, would help keep the motor cooler. I know the best solution would be to put a speed control on it to keep from loading the fan up with back pressure. But, these fans are not positive displacement and don't build a lot of pressure anyway. I figure this fan will last me for MANY, MANY years. Thank you for the input. Getting ready to head back out to the shop to work on it. I have a few more additions to it.

It is VERY quiet and smooth. It was about 90.00 at Grainger.

Do you know if I can resize the existing photos without having to totally redo the post?

I thought about a speed control and actually had a place for one but was told I could not use it on the 115 volt motor with a capacitor starter on it. Does anyone know if this is true or not. I would like to use a speed control if possible. If I cannot do it I have very good control with the gate valve. THANKS for the input.

To get more speed you are not only swinging your arm faster as you would anyway, you hold the hammer losely between your thumb and first two fingers and let it pivot just before it strikes the steel. This like adding another joint or pivot point and this is what really speeds the hammer head up. If you hold the hammer with a firm grip you will use your shoulder, elbow and wrist to create velocity. Doing this you do not have to swing your arm any faster than you normally do to increase velocity.

Here is a forge I am working on. I should finish it this week. I have incorporated as many features as I can think of. The side draft super sucker and chimney are stainless. I have added side extension on both sides of the fire pot for long material. The side I stand on also has an adjustment for material height as well. The blower is a 271 CFM and is connected to powere by an on-off switch located on the side of the forge. I made a friction adjustment for possitive feel on the air-gate. The cut outs on the side walls for the material being forged is level with the top of the fire pot which is a HEAVY DUTY set up from Laurel Foundry. I know someone who had one that was 15 years old and still going strong. They were also used at J.C. Campbell so you know they hold up good. I would like to have some in-put from ya'll. What other features would you like to see or have seen in other forges. I will strongly consider anything put out there. Maybe together we can come up with a coal forge that is almost perfect. I plan on doing a detailed article on this build and have taken many photos.

It has, been proven, I think!

Hofi, That is great, the gates are BEAUTIFUL. I hope Sahar knows how fortunate she is to have you as her grandfather and teacher, I am sure she does. Gary

That is true. I have seen this personally. There is something about Hofi's saliva that re-aranges the molecular stucture of the steel alloy used in the hammer and also it seems to influence the very laws of physics as well as the space time continuum. {Shrug} I don't know it just works!

The Hofi hammer is balanced because the weight of the hammer is distributed more equally on both sides of the eye, not because most of the weight is located in the center of the hammer head. Because of this you can tilt the hammer to the side much further than most any other hammer out there without it wanting to twist in your hand. When a hammer tries to twist in your hand you must counteract it with your wrist. This in turn puts pressure on your wrist and over years can cause problems. I have tested this with several hammers including the Sweedish hammer and there is no doubt that the Hofi hammer has much more control when it comes to rebound. Try it. Why is that important? Because if you think about it, most of the time you are not hammering straight down. You will tilt the hammer in order to lesson the amount of hammer head surface striking the material to in turn move more material. On a side note. I have talked about what results from putting your thumb on top of the hammer handle.It causes nerve damage which runs up to your neck. I recently did a gate for a neuro-surgeon. We have become friends, he happens to live 2 minutes from me. He confirmed that placing your thumb on top of the hammer handle can in time cause this condition which would require surgery to correct and asked me if I had this problem. I explained how I hold the hammer and strike and he was impressed. I should not have that problem.

Jug, I am glad you have had this result from using the Hofi hammer. There is a lot more to it than just swinging away at the metal. After you use the method for a while you will get better and better at it. You truly can move a large amount of metal in a shorter amount of time compared to most ways people forge.

Very Nice Swan.

That is the problem. They are such good anvils it is going to be hard to find one that someone is willing to part with one. The hope is one day Hofi's new anvil will be available in the US. If you think the Hofi/Ozark Anvil is good wait till you see and use the new design. Anyway, my advise is to hang on to what you have unless you decide to get out of blacksmithing all to gether.

If anyone knows someone who has a used Hofi/Ozark Pattern anvil they want to sell please let me know.

That was very nice of them. I sure would like to have one of those anvils under my Christmas Tree this year. Maybe Santa Clause will be nice to me.

Let me say a few things about your post because you make some good points. You do need to learn and usually can learn something from most people or smiths. Having said that I would like to say experience alone a good smith does not make. Yes even a blind squirrel can pick up an acorn every now and then but just because something has been done a certain way for 100 years does not make it the best way or right way. Here is an example from personal experience about years of doing something. The last 6 years I was in the fire department I was a fire investigator. I was the least experienced investigator but rapidly rose to become the best investigator they had in less than 3 years. That was according to the fire chief, deputy fire chief, the chief of the investigative division, the captain of the division and the men on the line, all told me this on numerous occassions. Now what you need to realize is I was working with invetigators that had 7 to 15 years on me. Within a 3 year period I went to Kentucky, Michigan, Indiana, FBI firearms class and became an instructor as well as other things. I did all of this at my own expense too. I obtained 3 different certifications in fire investigations that no one in the division had, including the chief investigator. Within a 2 year period I was the man that was called in if off duty to investigate fire related deaths. I attended all autopsies and wrote the reports for most of the deaths as well. The point, while some of the men had 15 years on me they did not apply themselves and did things like they always did, just enough to get by. I was thirsty for knoweledge and always asked WHY. That word served me very well during an investigation, put many people in jail with it and solved alot of fire investigations with it. That is a very big word in life to me, WHY. Turns out Hofi lives the same way, doesn't matter to him if it is master showing him something, he even questions himself. Can this element be made differently? In conversations with Hofi he conveyed to me that on several occassions him and Habberman disagreed to the point of arguing over the way things had been done for many years. Hofi changed some of the ways that Freddy was teaching him. Eventually Habberman agreed that Hofi was right and would even come to Israel to learn from him. I was attending a class in New York that Hofi was teaching when Habberman passed away. I know that Hofi had a deep respect and love for Freddy Habberman, he was very saddened with his passing. Hofi considered him his teacher, like I consider Hofi mine. There is no doubt that Hofi learned many things from other people. What makes him different is he has gathered information from many good smiths all around the world. He tested what he learned, the good he kept, the bad he improved or discarded. I do believe that there are things that he does that were not thought of before. He also has a love for teaching and passes his knowledge along to anyone that wants it. Not going to mention any methods or ways of forging in particular here, don't want to make anyone mad. But I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there are ways of doing some of the basic traditional forging methods that are no where near as good as what Hofi teaches. This is not an opinion it is something that can be seen and quantified. I have watched many smiths do some basic forging and it almost hurts to watch them. It takes them literally 3,4,5 times as long to do something than it would take me or any other student that understands what Hofi teaches. I am not saying anyone on this forum is like this, but I have observed many smiths at demos, forge council meetings etc. It is not an isolated occurance. Don't sell yourself short by thinking that you are in the presence of a great smith simply because he has been doing it for 25 years. Judge each smith according to his ability. And I am not saying that the smith you worked with wasn't good. If you do find a smith that is good and willing to teach you hang on to him but do not follow blindly. Believe it or not I don't follow Hofi blindly and he wouldn't have it any other way.

Believe me I understand. Yes you are right about the weight being equally distributed around the eye. Having said that I am sure that it is not perfectly distributed but close. The only reason I brought up the comment about the hammer standing on its face with the handle parallel to the anvil face is, I did not want someone to think if their hammer didn't do that there was a problem with it. Let me also say that while I believe that there IS more than one way to skin a cat(catfish), there are usually only a few good ways. I believe Hofi's method is one of the good ways to do it. Is there another good way or two out there, I am sure that there are. So when I am on here I am giving my opinion as to how I think it the best way. Anyone else is welcome to join and disagree with me. We can debate it over and over until one of us throws our hands up in disgust or gives in. I will also say that I personally know of quit a few people that converted to the Hofi method because of joint pain. I am not saying that they were swinging the hammer like any particular person on this forum before they converted.