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I Forge Iron

ShortMagPirate

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  • Location
    Teller County, CO
  • Interests
    Outdoors, Hunting, Shooting, Gunsmithing, Electronics, Automation, Programming, DIY, etc. etc. etc.

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  1. All this talk of motors and frequencies and voltages makes my head hurt. And this is what I do for a living (E&I Supervisor at a major gold mine (currently)...) There is actually a lot of good and in-depth technical info in this thread... but for all intents and purposes, it's really overkill for what we need. The bottom line is that the best, safest and most efficent way to vary the airflow output of a small single speed AC motor driven fan or blower is mechanical. IE: via an air gate as Marc1 suggests below. Sure, you probably can get away with using a dimmer switch for a while, using such a small motor, but a valve or gate is a relatively simple thing to incorporate. I may be new to the intricacies of forging, but the principles are the same whether applied to combustion (coal boilers, stoves, incinerators, etc.) cooling, dust suppression, ventilation or anything else requiring controlled air flow. I have a 1/4 turn ball valve on my forge set up, as well as the ability to simply redirect the blower nozzle away from the inlet pipe, but there are plenty of other designs that I have seen, all of which would work just fine. This thread is actually one of the ones that originally brought me to this forum, so I've been watching this build with interest... TP: my son's girlfriend is from Katy, and I have a friend who up until very recently worked in a salt mine just a few miles north of there... such a small world we live in.
  2. A good hard packed dirt floor would be fine, if your soil conditions allow it... otherwise concrete over packed gravel would be my choice. Anything that gives you good, solid, safe footing. I may be new to blacksmithing but I do know a thing or two about putting a shop together in unusual and irregular locations...
  3. There's a song in there, somewhere... I can feel it...
  4. LGDs are the best dogs. These pups have some huge paw prints to fill... their predecessor was an Anatolian Shepherd, without a doubt the best dog I've ever had... he was not only a guard dog but my daughter's service dog as well... he was her constant companion for about 11 years, saved her bacon more than one time. She has a form of MD that has progressed slowly, and he helped her walk before she became confined to her scooter. He caught her when she fell a few times, and he'd let us know if she was in pain or sick even before it happened... he'd post himself in front of her door and wouldn't move until he knew she was ok. We got the pups a while after he passed. They have their work cut out for them, but they're going to be great dogs.
  5. This is what greeted me when I got home from work tonight: Snip, Snip!
  6. That's a nice shop, jeremy. Don't let my wife see that. My forge is an old electrical enclosure with a 1" stainless pipe running through it, a few air holes, a bed of refractory cement and an old blower I've been hanging on to for a few years. The only things not scrounged are the pieces of 2" black pipe. It's not ideal by any means but it seems to work for now. I have a brake rotor that will be making the transformation to a forge soon, as I find time to work on it.
  7. Thanks! They can be a handful, but after 8 kids, they're actually pretty easy when you think about it. That they are... nothing gets past them.
  8. My boys and their 'little' sister... The boys are just barely a year old (Akbash/Great Pyrenees/Golden Mountain Dog) and the little Golden princess is my wife's baby. She's amost 5, I think. Haley, Winston and Trooper, in that order. Doing what they do best, guarding the dining room so no food escapes.
  9. I found my pipe parts at Do It Best, they carry both galvanized and black, at least they do here. Otherwise any mom and pop type hardware store should have what you need.
  10. Is Ductile Iron the same as Cast Iron? I have several old pipe wrenches that are donating their top jaws to the forge, just wondering if there is anything that can be done with the handles?
  11. Yeah, I have a 1” ball valve between the blower and tuyere, it was wide open for the video. It will take some tweaking to get the feel of it. The blower is a 2 speed stove blower, so it’s pretty powerful. The other thing I need to do is trim down the ends of the box so I can get some longer pieces in there.
  12. I finally got a few free minutes to put it all together and light it up... seems like it works, I was able to make my poker with it... (one end, anyways.) The 4x4x12” anvil did OK, but I think the rock breaker will be a lot better. The steel of the 4x4 seems pretty soft. Maybe it will work harden. 82BB621C-4048-4DFA-90D8-BA66776D6822.MOV
  13. I was thinking wooden wedges might give it more "backbone..." make it more solid... but silicone would work too, I guess. I have a couple tubes laying around doing nothing anyways.
  14. Thought I'd throw this in here. Finally got around to putting anvil #1 in the block. A little bit of quality time with the chainsaw and now all it needs is a couple of 6x6's to raise it up to height and some wedges to snug the steel up in the hole. I have another large round that I might just use for the piece of rock breaker but now that this one is ready to go I can wait on the big one until I'm ready to build a good stand.
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