rokshasa

awsome thread guys, me and element where just making some small drifts the othere day and where asking the same kind of questions , thanks for making it so clear brian

awsome to have you along for the ride.

mine is about 50' away from the house and about 50' away from the closest naighbour, and i have very little complaints, maybe only if i start at the crack of dawn....

"treat evrything around you as if it where hot" thats my motto, i came up with it as soon as i burnt myself lol.

the peaces of the rail way are very good qualety spring steel most likelly, almost all i use is track steel and let me tell you, its tough as far as the pin goes i cant answer you there

heck, thats a nice knife freind. i know what you mean about the perfection thing im like that sometime as well and it keeps me from finnish stuff...something to work an i guess lol

you could also line the brick chimny with 12" dia. pipe if your not really sure about the mesurments, but that ristricts you to a square look. i use 12" dia pipe with a 10" square hole for the openning it works great

to retip the sword would be to put the end back to a point or ball the tip , you cant really add any "material" at this point, it would be very dangerous to use.

nice blade freind, i have a few knives in the making, im at the heat treating stage right now, dont want to finnish ti'll i get all the stuff i need.

yeah and your gonna pick up alot of stuff your never gonna use too you can be sure of that so be ready to have a huge mountain of stuff in the back yard. and yes buying coal or coke would be much easyer and take less time than making charcoal, to bad you dont have an abandoned coal mine around your place... i get mine from a retired openpit mine just a few hours away

nice place freind, and i like the color lol mine is barn red lol, i use a baby barn not much bigger than your shop, works out well, hope yours does too

im sure she's jsut glad to be out of the cold lol, just rasin yeah, thats awsome news, good luck with the move

i use the side draft with the 12 in di pipe ,it draws pretty well if it whern't for my super power blower( getting a speed contol switch) wich sometimes overpowers the draft but othere than that i find it works very well compaired to my old cone hood i was using befor, where a slight breez upset the smoke

cant wait to see your pics freind, me and element just got our forges up and running as of a few days ago, element already has pics of his shop and im well on my way to posting them as well, hope you figure it out.

born into artistry all around, from musicians to sculpters, i picked up the pencil. after many years of creating sketch art ,the "insperation" had left me ,after going into many years of depretion i woke up one day and desided i had to do something more real, something otheres could touch and hold. i turned to the fire of the forge and swing of the hammer on hot iron!! then when i started , famely members i hadn't spoken to in many years came to see me and spoke of my great grand fathers being smiths by trade, not being so close to my famely ...well... ever i never knew that and found it interesting and so i will continue till i can no longer.

most awsome, my great grand-fathers made a living forging anchours back in the day(fishing town) , its great to see pll still making them today!! sounds like it was a very positive experience.

to anneal i use just simple wood ash, never had a problem, matter of fact i annealed a nice sized peace of chaft just the other day :)

for cuttign stock of any kind and even some large chunks i use a "soft" hammer i have 2 i got them with the anvil, they where made so that the hardy wouldn't break, they are heavy so they drive very well and you dont have to worry so much about damage, made with a miled steel chaft welded onto a metal pipe.

i must admit i dont have a swage block nor any type of cone...yet but what i have noticed is the cones point is centered while the anvils bick is not, makes for a more uniform roll i'm "guessing" and well , as far as needing them. you need them when you need them so there good to have.

i live in a small town and i have had the cops come to my smithy door asking some rather iretated questions( no doubt the complainy called many times ) but when i took them in the shop they had a look around and seen what i was doing and had no problems with leaving me to my work and well if the neighbour doesn't like it she should have done a little reserch on her neighbours befor she perchesed the house , besides there used to be 2 smiths in town here not 15 years ago, i see there work evry day.

i woke up one day and felt i had to do something, always having been an artist, pencil and paper just wasn't enough for me i needed something more subtantial, more real, and it came to me , like a flash, the next week it all came togethere with help from freinds like element and famely. now i have somewhat of a well furnished shop and can look forwards to a life time of learning.

hey thanks for the info mark, much better than my clumsy technique. I'll try that out as soon as i can

hey man ,nice pics. got lots of work done looks good. I'm almost done setting up myself just need to pu my chimney up then im done i'll post some pics for yas, generally the same setup as element here

the names Patrick or Pat, my alter ego is rokshasa, been part of the site for a little bit, been blacksmithing for about a year been learnning for about 2, like decor. wrought iron and metal sculpting but the art of smithing is what i love the most, have a little shop in "the little red shed" in the back yard. just got a major upgrade in equipment, past down from an old master "cerile arsenault hail to thee" mush smithing to come lol!!