Pat Roy

I start my fire with 3 full sheets of newspaper balled up, light it, add air and rake coke over it. I keep the air going until I have a solid fire going. Once the fire is well started, with the air off, it will maintain glowing coke in the firebox for up to several hours. I've never had to resort to a chunk of wood in the fire, what am I doing wrong?

Shutting down I spread the glowing coals out to expose them to the environment. The fire goes out in about three minutes. I pick out any clinkers before starting the next fire. I start every fire with coke left from the previous one. I don't know about mixing coke with coal, the coal becomes coke soon enough.

Your wife likes it; what more can you want.

Petere76, NESM is still advertising coal at $15/55lb bag on link removed as per TOS. I would call ahead to be sure. I'll be there for a class later this month and probably bring some home.

How did he manage to think it was a Trenton? The Hay-Budden stamped on the side is pretty obvious. What size is the table on a 200+ pounder? $35 is a heck of a deal. Tell him I'll double his money.


I have two Hay Buddens, 112 and 163 pounds. Mine are just under 4 inches wide which is a little narrow. They also have quite a ring if you are working near the heel or on the horn.

Trip, is your pipe galvanized on the outside too? It might be far enough away from the heat not to be a problem, but take the risk?

I doubt it is a "forge" blower. Buffalo Forge Company is a large company making fans and blowers of many sizes, that one pictured is actually pretty small when compared to some of the industrial equipment they produce. The "forge" in the company name I am sure goes back to their origins.

I might be taking the easy route, but generally I put a cold rivet in a cold hot and heat the end with my O/A torch and hammer it. The rivet fits loose enough to get in the hole and the heat and hammer expand it some. IF the two pieces have to move relative to each other then you have to work them a bit.

I bought a 112# H-B a few years back for half that and it was in an antique shop. The seller cried all the way to the cash register but he took my money. Those edges look pretty rough and it's not something you can clean up with a file. I'd keep looking, good luck.

Too bad I only know enough German to order a bier. I'd like to know more about his techniques in detail.

I had the same problem when I started out; too much blower capacity and the associated noise. I had installed a shut-off gate at the blower discharge to control air flow. But I couldn't stand the noise. I put a rheostat on the line and can control the blower speed down to a manageable level. I set it for a fixed speed and control the flow with the slide gate and shut the gate when I am not heating iron. The blower still makes more noise than I like and may build an enclosure around it when I find the time. If I were starting over, I would buy a smaller blower, but until it burns out I'll keep going; eight years and counting.

The simple answer to your question is no. Order what you need.

"don't grab the hot end"

That's a good one Frosty. I need to print that in large font and post it above the forge and read it every day.

Ummm, always more ideas to try.

I just use an adjustable wrench without the added handle; haven't had any great difficulty with this.

Am I right? A Hay Budden would say "Hay Budden, Brooklyn, NY" on it. I think "BIC Omaha" means it is something other than an HB.

That would have made a nice backbone on a dinosaur.

I guess I'm not a purist. I would apply my MIG welder to the job if it needs welding. Saying I am hit or miss with forge welding would be very generous to myself; actually mostly miss. Are you sure you need to weld these hinges? What weight will they carry? How big...etc.?

Bringing thin metal to welding heat brings you close to the point where things sparkle and disappear unless you are very careful.

Can you imagine a 747 executing a ground loop? (I am a pilot with taildragger time)

I didn't see anything offensive in Thomas' reply. It was concise and direct.

My fire box is 25 by 28 cm and 10 cm deep with sloping sides. I don't have a clinker breaker, just 2 slots about 1 cm wide for air. I don't have a problem handling clinkers. I have an electric blower which is equiped with a rheostat for speed control. The blower is also equiped with a knife gate damper so I can shut off the air flow and leave the blower running. This system works fine. the only problem is I bought way too much blower so it spends all its time at the low end of the speed control. I think it was rated at 400 cfm (cubic feet per minute) which is probably 14 cubic meters/minute. One quarter of that would probably work well. I'm not sure how much pressure is developed however and that is important too. Good luck.

Those look good. There are many ways to make hinges and I've made quite a few lately. The problem I have is making several that look alike.

I like the design of the flat bar tongs. I'll be making some like that.

What tutorial?

There are many diffferent shapes and sizes of leaves and many people making them, so many methods. And size matters, small bar will lose it's heat more quickly than large. I've made many leaves from 6mm round and some from 1/2 or 5/8 square. In all cases I don't necessarily try for one heat but do want to minimize the number.

I would make up the L shaped flat bar to match the existing, bend up the round bar into nearly an S shape and weld the two together. Pretty straight forward.

I have two Hay Buddens and that's only by accident. It's what I found when I was shopping. The best anvil might be the one you find and can buy.

I have a few comments on my two H-Bs; the faces are narrow, no more than 4 inches;and the waist is narrow and the heel relatively long, leading i believe to a aggravating ring if you hammer to close to the heel. But they are what I have and what is working in my shop.

Good Luck!