KevinMacDonald

My brand new Kanca 6" leg vise just arrived! My #9 RIDGID anvil is soon to follow. So many new toys for Xmas I don't know what to do with myself!! New questions on my mind: Should I mount heavy duty rubber feet under both the 3-legged anvil and vise stands I'm about to build? I plan to roughly follow Mark Aspery's designs in his "Fundamentals of Blacksmithing" book. If I'm not anchoring the stands to the floor his suggests they help to keep them from moving around under use. I imagine there's some efficiency loss, but given this is (at the moment) a hobby in a residential neighborhood I primarily want to help reduce noise. (I bought magnets for the anvil). And then of course, hammers! I'm 6'-3", reasonably strong in the upper body with long arms. I don't know how much my stature affects hammer weight, but again I think I may follow Mr. Aspery's lead and secure a 3.2lb cross pein and a 2.2lb rounding hammer to start. Thanks for the good advice all. Very glad I joined this forum.

Thank you Wayne! I've definitely been offered that same advice by metal-working friends. Right now at least I really like the idea of a very self-contained unit with a sheet metal skin. I'm sure I have the general fabrication skills and tools to build one, especially with help from someone like yourself, but I definitely don't have sheet metal equipment. Most of the home-built ones I've seen didn't look very portable to me. I will give it more thought. I am interested if anyone has thoughts on the thickness of stock I can work with, with one of these forges and a 165 lb anvil. Does drawing out a 1" dia bar to a taper seem doable with this equipment? I'm just using that as kind of a benchmark in my mind for how heavy I can go; maybe not a valid one as I have yet to hit an anvil with a hammer!!

I am a machinist by trade (although I no longer do that for a living) and I have an interest in adding light duty blacksmithing capabilities to my small shop. Lately I do art work involving lots of CAD design, general machining, CNC plasma cutting, and other general metal fabrication. I have various welding capabilities (MIG, TIG) and oxy/acetylene rig. I just purchased a Peddinghaus 165 lb anvil and leg vise. And now I need a forge! My preference is to buy, not build. I want something self-contained, fairly portable, and safe and easy to operate. My shop is currently in a garage under a house. Could I operate a small propane forge indoors, or should I pull it out into the concrete driveway? Should I pull the anvil out there too? I'm still not entirely sure how practical my plan is. I've successfully done lots of welding and machining in my shop, but not hot work with forge and anvil! These are some forges I have looked at: 3 BURNER MULTI-PURPOSE / FARRIER DELUXE from http://www.majesticforge.com $500 Model 50000 Blacksmith forge from http://www.forgemaster.com/ $775 2-burner MetalSmith Forge from http://www.diamondbackironworks.com/2_burner_metalsmith.html $625 I can justify spending the money on any of these. Any recommendations for a newbie blacksmith who wants to do sculpture / artwork are most welcome. I suspect the heaviest work I might want to do is drawing a 1" diameter bar of mild steel out to a point. Thank you!