Brasilikilt

As one of many who enjoyed and learned a great deal from Mike's posts, we can be comforted in knowing that Mike spent his time here on earth doing what he loved to do.... I unfortunately never got to meet Mike, but I have for years been a big admirer of the many historical items he made..... from the reproduction strikers, to the sheet metal smoking pipes, to the viking fish spears...the list goes on and on. The more I think about it, the more I realize how much of a giant of the blacksmith world we have lost! After getting the news, I went out back to tap my anvil to salute Mike and spent a few moments thinking about how many beginners including myself were inspired and improved their skills from what advice Mike had given. I then lit my forge and was able to FINALLY after several failed attempts produce a good serviceable set of tongs. Even though Mike has crossed the river and has taken his rightful place with Hephaestus, I'd like to think that he knew I was thinking about him, and he gave me a nudge in the right direction Thanks for everything Mike, we will miss you.

Hey Matheus Where in Brazil are you?

Hey My family and I are heading down to Rio at the end of the month. I would love to visit a Brasilian smithy while I'm down there, or just meet some blacksmiths and have a beer or something. My in-laws live in Sao Jao de Meriti which is on the outskirts of Rio proper, but I have friends/relatives to help me get around to places. Any Blacksmiths located in or around Rio on here? Anyone know of a smithy or place of 'blacksmith interest' to visit? thanks Iain

if it's too much to repair, I think it would still make a great block of steel with a hardie to hammer on, and use in conjunction with a smaller stake anvil.......just like the old days.

I certainly think that little 85 lb Peter Wright is too far past usable...... I'll give you a few bucks for your troubles, and you can send it on over here. Personally I'd LOVE to have a little PW like that for demo work! My 178 Trenton is in nearly the same condition and I use it almost every day for my general forging work. If I were you, I wouldn't do a thing to it, just start using it and the face will get shiny on it's own.

Thanks Glen! I was thinking that the instructions were a little more elaborate, but that would defeat the advantages of the 55 forge, now wouldn't it? I was thinking that an old paint or coffee can could be used as a reservoir for a water jacket.....hmmmmm I'll see if I can come up with something for that. thanks again...I'll post the result when I'm finished Iain

Hey all I seem to recall reading mention of a side blast variation of the 55 forge. I just looked through the blueprints section and didn't find it, I also did a web search and found quite a few dead links. Is this information still available somewhere? Thanks Iain

That is a lovely door knocker....I can tell that a lot of careful planning (and hammering) went into it :-) A guy with a coal forge and a loud anvil in a metropolitan neighborhood can use ideas like this to keep his neighbors happy :-)

I ask a simple question and expect some simple answers...... Instead I get people with plenty of experience and know-how under their belt spending the time to type out some very informative and well thought out answers...... As a result, I'm learning a lot more than I realized there was to learn about this. That's why I'm grinning now So, hitting a medium sized anvil with a big 8 lb sledge is not necessarily considered to be abusing it if it's done with an appropriate amount of accuracy........This makes sense. I have (many times) seen people using big sledge hammers on anvils smaller than my own, and didn't give it much thought......There anvils weren't abused.....It's an anvil after all, that's what they're made for! I've seen a few anvils that were pretty bashed up, and thought that they likely got that way from using hammers that were too heavy. Now it seems apparent that their owners simply didn't have the experience needed to do their forging properly. About stake anvils...... Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't stake anvils typically paired with a larger block anvil? The heavy forging was done on the block anvil, and the stake anvil was used as the anvil horn/lighter forging? thanks again everyone! Iain

It's the "wow look at this!" stuff that is very inspiring to those of us who are just starting out..... My question is, beyond it's use in c-clamp applications, what other uses is this little vise well suited for??? a jeweler maybe?

This indeed is very good news! I am certainly sending all the luck, well wishes and thoughts of a thorough recovery up north. Take care Frosty, we'll keep your seat warm for ya!

Hey all I'm remembering something I read (possibly on here) about a formula stating that the largest hammer you should use for heavy pounding should be no more than 1/20th of your anvil's weight. Is this formula generally accurate? Normally I wouldn't be concerned, but I have seen the face start to separate on the 180 lb Vulcan at school after being subjected to some heavy pounding. According to that formula, it was supposedly "safe" to use a 9 lb sledge on an anvil of that weight....... You can see why I want to be on the side of caution before using a heavier sledge on my 178 lb. Trenton..... It was a real pain in the derriere for me to even *locate* a good anvil, and it was pretty danged expensive! It's much easier to ask the questions and open the discussion now, than it is to to repair a damaged anvil later. Thanks Iain

Hey all I called Mt Scott and the lady said that they haven't carried coal in over 40 years.....The only time they are asked is around the holidays for gag stocking stuffers :-) She said that they simply don't have a demand for it....... I suppose I could try the Farriers supply place in Beaver Creek to see if they would carry the good Cumberland Elk horn coal instead of that dirty stuff they carry now.......

My guess is that this company used to sell coal of the heating variety back in the day, and stopped doing so when coal furnaces stopped being used so much. If they became a reliable source, I could see them doing good business selling blacksmith coal. Farrier supply in Beaver Creek still sells coal, and the smiths around here have told me that it is of a very inferior quality. I have burned very little coal, and don't really know good from bad, but this stuff had rocks in it, plenty of sulfur and clogged up my forge with this gooey lava stuff quite a bit. The place in Monroe and the place in Beaver Creek sell their coal for around the same price......if the bad coal was cheaper, then it might be worth it. If I buy coal from them, it's basically me telling them that it's okay to sell an inferior product, which will give them no reason to supply a better quality product in the future...... The place in Monroe sells (what I have been told) is an excellent quality coal, but the problem is getting enough "coal money" together to warrant making the long drive down there.

Hey all I must say that I am very thankful for the responses to this thread. Yesterday I moved all the wood from beside the shed into the yard trailer, and started cleaning up that little area...... I mentioned that I will move the forge and anvil off the patio to set up in that area, and her response was that of concern over the anvil and tools possibly being stolen. She knows that like it or not, her husband is going to always make stuff. As long as I keep the backyard smithy presentable and more of an organized and interesting feature of our house, I think that will do a lot to make her happy.

Hey there Down the street is a company called 'Mt Scott Fuel' that sells a lot of firewood, topsoil, bark dust, and even decorative landscaping stone. Mt. Scott Fuel Co. Boring, Gresham, Sandy and Portland Bark and soil On their website they state that they no longer carry coal, or fuel oil.......I was wondering that if enough blacksmiths request that they carry good blacksmithing coal, if they might place an order and make some available.... Has anyone succeeded in getting a company to start stocking coal for you? I figured the best way to go about doing this is to let them know that there is a demand, and that it would quite likely be worth their while to start carrying it. Anyways, I would like some feedback so if I do make some calls I can say with reasonable certainty that myself and 'X' number of smiths are going to purchase at least 'X' amount...... How many of you want to try to make this happen? Have any of you already tried and were unsuccessful? Take care Iain

I would love to make myself a set of those........ The plans in the blueprints section make it seem very do-able. IMHO, I think it's preferable to make/use new ones than to further degrade an original set of bellows. Ditto about canvas over leather........A lot less expensive and not as likely to dry out and crack apart.

I'm beginning to know that feeling. My daughter is not quite 4, and reading your story has me hoping that she will eventually want to help her Dad make stuff. She doesn't actually hit any hot metal, but has shown a real interest in turning the blower crank..... She has already memorized the names of some of my tools such as "Baw-pee hammer" and loves to chant that while hitting my little RR track anvil.

WOW! Thanks to everyone for all the great advice! Seriously.... One thing I forgot to mention, which I feel does have some relevance is the fact that my wife is from Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. I've been there twice, and noticed that the American man's practice of "do it yourself", or having a hobby of building/working on things (be it cars, blacksmithing, birdhouses etc) is not seen among Brasilian men very often. If you make/build something over there, more often than not, it's your profession....If you need to repair or build something, it tends to be cheaper and easier to hire someone. It became very obvious when she was telling her mom about my whole blacksmith venture......Nobody in her family had even heard of anyone who *wants* to be a Ferreiro.....let alone do it for fun.... I must admit that my wife is accurate in her idea that expanding my operations further into the yard will encourage my scrounging and junk collecting......To her that is a thing only done by people who live in the hill-side slums (Favelas) To all of us, it is saving money and recycling. I know that following the advice of keeping everything a lot neater and all the junk and scrap wood/metal be organized/kept out of sight will definitely do A LOT to decrease opposition for setting up the backyard smithy. Thanks again for all the replies.......I will certainly add more to this later Iain

I know that many of you have had to deal with similar situations before, I could really use some advice. When my wife and I bought our house last year, one of the big selling points for me is that there is a nice 10X12 Tuff Shed in the backyard. This shed would be for me to build my powder horns, clean guns, make knives and do wood/leather work. It was very exciting for me to finally own my own shop...... The agreement was that my "Junk" would stay in the shed, and the house/garage would be clear of any clutter of the 18th century variety Okay, fair enough........ Fast forward several months when I had a whole bunch of stuff stolen out of my shed...... Strangely enough they left all the power tools, but took a bunch of handmade knives, a flintlock pistol I was building, powder horns with all my powder, my shooting bag, musket parts, gun flints etc etc........basically all my favorite stuff..... One of the things I did was take a blacksmith class in order to have the equipment and instruction needed to hammer out some replacement knives..... I have always liked blacksmithing, but didn't realize that I would love it (beyond making knives) as much as I do. So began the quest to acquire the tools of the trade..... Now that I have my anvil, post vise, the use of a friend's forge and even a MIG welder now.....it's obvious that my little wooden floored Tuff Shed is ill-suited to house the smithy. I had a thought of dismantling the tuff shed and rebuilding it with a higher roof and a larger 12'X18' footprint (keeping the original wooden floor and having the "addition" be dirt floored), but this was met with fierce opposition from my wife.........Yes, it's a bit ambitious and could be expensive. Now I would be happy to simply have an 8X12 roof attached to the side of the shed so that I may have protection from the rain, a dirt floor and plenty of ventilation for the coal forge. She will have NONE of this.......Her reasoning is that a smithy is ugly and I will eventually turn the whole backyard into my personal junk pile. (there is some truth to this ) Right now the anvil sits in the garage with the toolbox and blower, and the forge sits on the back patio with an assortment of scrap metal....yes it's cluttering up "off limits" areas..... It makes more sense to ME to relocate the smithy under cover next to the shed where I won't have to move everything out of the garage each time I want to forge.....Plus the hammer scale, coal, ash/clinkers won't foul up the concrete patio. I know that there are women who frequent this forum, and I would *really* appreciate a female's perspective. I also figure that there are guys who have been in my shoes and have said the right things to get their wives to understand. If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading through all this!! Any advice will prove to be quite valuable. Take care Iain

........You get overly excited about scrap metal. I went to a mini industrial area in my neighborhood that has this complex with a welding shop, mechanic shop, wood working shop, a steel yard and a small brass and aluminum foundry. I asked a guy standing next to his truck as to who owned the lot between 2 buildings. (this area had lots of old miscellaneous metal parts and rusting equipment) At first the guy thought I was a scrapper looking to grab some stuff and seemed pretty annoyed, telling me that they don't have anything to give away. When I expressed my dislike for Thieving, Meth-using, scumbag scrappers that frequent our neighborhood, saying "They're so destructive and ruin a lot of things for a shop guy like you, and a blacksmith like me." His face lit up and he asked "Ohh! so you're a Blacksmith!??!" I smiled saying "Yeah.....one of the new ones, I'm just starting." He opened up the gate saying "Come in, I'll see what I can find for ya!" I had a nice chat with the guy, and he sure loaded me up with some good stuff. I will have to return with a box of doughnuts :-) Here's a big spring off of a semi truck, set next to a 5 gal bucket for scale Here are some Mud-flap hangers from a semi-truck....the guy said that I might want these because they're "spring treated" steel. They're all 3/4" solid square stock, so I suspect they might make good chisels and punches. Here's a broken spring off of anothger big truck. You can see where it broke, so I'm guessing that the steel might not be very good quality. It's going to be a big job to cut these springs down since they're so thick, and I have no cutting torch...... Here are more springs......obviously from a smaller truck. [url=""] I have no idea what these are, and I forgot to ask......Looks like it's a gearing shaft used in the big trucks........1 1/2" solid round stock of what I suspect is good machine/tool steel...... I'm really excited about getting all this material, and you guys are the only ones who understand why :-) I have ideas on what to use this stuff for, because there's still a lot of really basic elements that I am lacking in my tool kit. I'm eager to hear any suggestions you may have, because your ideas are probably better than mine :-) One again, thanks for checking out my post. Iain

Hi! I appreciate everyone's suggestions! The guys at the neighborhood mechanic's shop just down the street finds the whole blacksmith thing rather interesting, and has given me a green light to go through their scrap (that's where I got the smaller brake drums) I think it would be a good first place to look for any muffler tubing etc etc. The idea about using metal welding stick containers is a good one, I will have to look around for that! Most I've seen are square and plastic though....... Yes....plastic is a big no-no! Anything used will be made of metal or some other non-melt-able/combustible materials. My wife would have a big problem if we made an even bigger mess than we already have! In the picture the grate on the bottom does look rather restricting, but that's just because there is just some dirt and ash covering the grate. The hole beneath it is a full 3" diameter with the screening just sitting on top of the dirt. I am keeping my eyes open for a replacement as the screen is quite thin and will burn through before too long....I was thinking a mild steel plate over 1/4" thick with several holes drilled in it should work quite well. Thanks for chiming in everyone Iain

Hey all Last week I contacted a friend from my past blacksmith class, and we got to talking. It turns out that he can't use the forge he built because his landlord is touchy about people burning things, and I have no forge to speak of. I do however have a little space in my back yard where I can accommodate a modest smithy. The clothes dryer vent tubing seemed like a good idea at the time, but it seems like it wants to rip and fall apart whenever you touch it. It gets a little tiresome doing makeshift patches every time you attach the blower. Anyone have any suggestions as to what we could use instead? [url=""] Originally my friend opted to use a large brake drum off a semi-truck for the fire pot. This proved to be much too deep. I had a couple much smaller brake drums laying around, so I went ahead and filled the big brake drum with mud and ash, set the small brake drum inside, and packed everything in tight. I also packed some mud/ash inside to raise the interior of the fire pot, which seems to be a good temporary solution until we go out and get some proper fire clay. Even though this forge still has some work to be done to it, it's great to have something to heat up metal, and also have a like-minded forging partner. Anyways, thanks for checking this all out. Iain

If your helicopter were to crash crash in Siberia somewhere and that was the only knife you had with you.....you would be okay :-) Your knife has all the sturdy simple lines that a good using knife has. I say well done! Iain "a Kilted mountain man of sorts"

Your Irish friend might have some Scottish ancestry as well...... The knife traditionally worn in your kilt hose (socks) is called a Sgian Dubh (pronounced Skeen-Doo) The knife you forged looks like it's the right size and would lend itself well for that use, but it's doesn't look like a "traditional" sgian dubh. I think it would look cool to have the metal "curly Q" sticking out of your hose while walking around kilted. It doesn't look so much like a knife and some more timid people might not take too much notice of it. All in all I say good work and keep forging.......