The class I was planning to take was a bost...sort of, I signed up for the next available opening, it's the first weekend in March.
So, instrad of learning how to do it, my son (Nick) and I just went home and started a fire.
What I learned:
1.) Getting anthracite to start burning is harder than I had expected.
2.) Keeping anthracite burning is harder than I expected.
3.) Putting out an anthracite fire takes longer than I expected.
4.) Unless you have an actual anvil, you probably need a smaller hammer.
I probably spent about of 9 to 12 hours (over three days) working on this hobby so far, most of it was trying to start a fire.
Stuff I still have to get figured out:
I think I had too much air blowing. I was getting a lot of scale but I don't know how much is "too much" and how much is to be expected.
I was having a hard time getting the steel hot when I was using larger stock. I could get it good and red, but when it started turning yellow orange it burned. The sparklers were cool, but I know they're bad. If I left the stock higher on the fire it wouldn't get hot enough and scaled up, so I think both conditions (sparklers and scale) mean that I had too much air blowing.
I started with some welding rod, then 3/16" metal rod scrap I had. I actually got some of the welding rod to forge together...shortly before I turned it into a sparkler.
After I smashed the round stock flat I got a piece of bar scrap, but it was fairly large so it took a lot longer to get hot, and the scale got real thick. I hit it a bunch but it ws still pretty hard so it didn't move much. I stopped at that point and tried again a couple of days later with a smaller bar that I got from the big orange box store.
Here's the forge with fire blazing, and the big orange box store rod before and after. It really doesn't look like much, but all I was trying to do is make it square, and it's pretty square so...
https://www.iforgeiron.com/gallery/image/39830-20171011_103119jpg/?browse=1
https://www.iforgeiron.com/gallery/image/39829-first-projectpng/
Frosty - My son is 20, and he's within a quarter of an inch of my height, so once we get a fixed setup I don't have to worry about changing the height. The piece under the sledge hammer is just stained wood. It's part of an old TV shelf that was just about the right height to raise the sledge hammer off of the table to put it at the right working height (well, almost). The setup is not good though, the wicker table lets the sledge bounce. We took turns with one working the hammer and one holding down the sledge, but it still bounced all over, especially when I hit real hard on the bigger stock. I have a tree out in front of my house that is getting too big and needs to come out, so I'll probably make an anvil stand with the trunk, and forge a bracket to bold the sledge to it until I can get a real anvil.
Charles - I was thinking about the notch, but I figured I should get a feel for how much I need to cut out before I start cutting. I used a plant stand to hold the pieces in the fire and it seemed to work fairly well, plus I kept the pot very full of fuel, maybe wasting it, but... I'm using anthracite, but it's expensive here so I might change to charcoal, so I may get an opportunity to use some of your suggestions with clay and sand.
4elements, it's still just scrap, but it was fun to make it.
Steven Ross changed their profile photo
My home made forge with one of the first fires. (Some efforts ended without actually being a useable fire!)
Not really a "project" so much as my first practice. Not really a before and after, just one end of the bar and the other, but you get the picture.