Mick

A special prayer from me Finnr

Mick

This table also has a huge vise that come with it. The wife has the winning ticket.

Hate to burst your bubble Tom, but technically you still haven't won nothing and on top of that you owe the wife big time. But all in all a fine score.

OK Bill, it seems that both of us are in the same place as far as forge building and smithing experience goes, so you know that what I have figured out is not based in hard experience. If it makes sense to you it may be of some assistance, use it as you see fit.


What works on one mans forge may not work on another. The number of variables in any forge set up ensures this.

Some of the variables, other than the blower itself :-
1. Diameter, length, shape (bends etc,) air tightness and materials of air delivery plumbing. All of these will have an effect on the percentage of loss in air volume, (cfm) and air pressure delivered to the tuyere. {Your lungs have a fixed capacity to exhale, if you blow that capacity through a drinking straw you can create a strong blast of air, if you do the same through 6 feet of vacuum cleaner hose you would barely notice the result at the other end.}
2. The tuyere design. How well the ash dump seals off the bottom of the tuyere and how much the grate (and fuel and clinker) restricts air flow out of the tuyere.
3. How big you need the 'hot' fire to be. (A fire big enough to heat 1/4" round stock would not be enough for 3".) The bigger the fire you need the more air you need delivered out of a bigger tuyere.

Whatever blower you use, hand crank, bellows or electric, it will need to have a capacity in excess of your forges requirement in order to overcome losses and restrictions within the system. The excess air is then 'tweeked' out by using intake restricter, inline air gate or air dump. Obviously if you go too big the ability to fine tune would be soooooo much harder to achieve.

From Mr Woolridges post in the thread above I am assuming that a blower with bigger blades that moves more air per revolution is going to work better for forging than one with little blades that is spinning like crazy. We seem to be more in need of air volume rather than high air pressure, but air volume that will not stall when confronted by restrictions in the system.

On that basis I would opt for the 128 cfm blower you spec'd earlier. It would not be too hard to glue, stick, weld or jam a round pipe into a square plate to make a manifold for the square outlet on that blower. Being that it is built with an intake restricter this should provide you with the all important 'tweekability'.

Oh and I had another 'WOW LOOKIT THAT' moment. To keep track of a thread just click on the bit that says 'Thread Tools' at the top of the page, then click subscribe to this thread. Sure beats the heck out of trying to remember and find the ones yor interested in.

Let me know how you get on.

Mick

Hi billp, I have been going through the same process over the last week. Just found this thread about half an hour ago whilst trolling through various posts. I think it may answer some of your questions, It did for me.

http://www.iforgeiron.com/forum/f22/blowers-842/

Sorry can't figure out how to do that s a hyperlink, but you can copy / paste it in your browser.

Mick

Well there you go, hit the post reply button and bingo it turned into a hyperlink.............ahhhh the wonders of modern science.

Welcome aboard Lanchie, maybe try looking for businesses that use a kiln in their process, maybe the local suspension spring works, pottery, etc. They may be able to help find a local source, or maybe even have some excess materials on hand. A bit of seet talking can go a long way.
Mick

2K if you want to experience the effect of work heating metal try this. Grab a wire coat hanger from your closet. With your hands close together grab the coat hanger between your thumbs and fore fingers, bend the wire and without letting go of it, rapidly bend the wire back and forth, pretty soon the wire will actually break. If you haven't already got heat blisters on your fingers you will be able to feel the heat generated in the broken ends of the wire.

Going to kill some vampires in the garden you say?


Very nice cross!

For vampires that would need to be a wooden stake and to get a fine looking twist like that in wood, would indeed be a challenge.

Mick.

Jimmy has hit the nail on the head with the sincerity thing, and once your learn how to fake that you are home and hosed.

OK so the minute I clicked the post thread button I realised I was probably asking 'how long is a piece of string'.

However I am developing a great faith in the clairvoyant skills of IFI members and their ability to provide enough clues to set me on the right path regardless of how badly I phrase my questions.

One day I may even post a thread consisting of just a question mark, ?, and I'm guessing it would still elicit, a bevy of well reasoned, informed and helpful replies, and hopefully as long as the bear does do-do in the woods, Frosty will be throwing in a measured dose of humor.

You guys are sensational.

I suffer from Blokes Disease :- It can't be that simple, I will have to find a complicated way to go about it. Big is good - bigger must be better. One of anything could never be enough. I know deep down I am probably trying to re-invent the wheel but I will forge ahead regardless.

There is no known cure but I try to manage the symptoms.

Thanks to you guys I now know that anything that will deliver air at 1.5 - 3 p.s.i. through the tuyere and grate is going to do the job. I don't need 25,000 pounds of jet thrust.

Mick

Still gathering resources to construct my first forge. Can anyone help me with some tech specs for a blower for a charcoal forge.

Is there an optimum range for air flow volume and pressure,

This information will help me source a non forge specific blower, hopefully a very cheep one.

Thanks Mick

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, thanks for that fantastic 8,000 word essay Mark. Learned heaps from it.

Mick

As with any type of financial transaction, it is all in negotiations and trading.

One day at the (opera, mall, or other unpleasant man activity) is worth so many merit points, which can be converted to cash. In my case expenditures come out of the fiscal slush fund that is subject to my discretion.

Last time I needed to buy stock at the local salvage yard I took my scrap in, the wife saw this as me "trading" materials. The details of the transaction are a secret, worked out to $2.40 of scrap in, $45 worth of materials out. As they say the devil is in the details. I buy very little expensive stuff, and when I need to do that, I work overtime to fund it.

And as far as writing checks? Checks are tracable, Cash is not....

This sounds pretty one sided and selfish, I was being funny, my wife knows what I buy, and approves of it. It is better than spending money sitting in a tavern or casino, she knows where I am and can visit me any time.

Now going and spending $1200 on an anvil or $6000+ on a power hammer, that is another story.....my biggest shop expenditure so far was my welder at $700, which is more than it cost to build my shop building.

Beware any man who undertakes to operate on the 'Merit Point' system of trade and negotiation!

The devil is in the fine print of the 'UNIVERSAL STATUTE OF MERIT POINTS'.

1. The value of merit points awarded is on a sliding scale and shall be determined by the Finance department. This decision is final and negotiation will not be entered into.
2. The redemption of merit points shall be at the sole discretion of the Finance Department.
3. The value of merit points at the time of redemption shall be determined by the Finance department and may be subject to inflation, account keeping charges, taxes, duties and the law of diminishing returns.
4. Once redeemed merit points will be regarded as having never existed and can never be referred to in mitigation of a purchase during an audit being conducted by the Finance Department.
5. Merit points have a use by date that shall be determined by the Finance Department. This date is a State secret and will never be divulged to the point holder.
6. All merit points can be cancelled without notice or explanation by the Finance Department.

Don't want to scare anyone but you need to know the risks before entering into any kind of investment.

But don't let that stop you 'cause remember..........He who dies with the most toys wins.

Now that far side edge might be be fairly munted to you, but being left handed that would just about be the near side edge for me. To save you all the angst and dilemma about repair or not, I could take it off your hands as a special favor, no charge. I could pick it up on my way through in about 3 weeks.
No need to thank me, its the least I could do for you.

Mick

Thanks Ian, I just lost myself for an hour browsing through Alan's site, should be in bed for my usual 4.30am start. Unfortunately I am 250 km west of Mackay and about 1300 km north of Alan's smithy.
Will be heading home in another 24 sleeps, not that I'm counting and already have a full load, or willhave buy the time time Julie flies up to join me for the trip.
Bowral is not too far from Traralgon though and we might be able to catch up one day.

Mick.

And Frosty that is a mighty handsome looking hammer you made there, but by the look of that porch railing you might have to have a try at forging yourself a paintbrush.

Thank you gentlemen, just the information I needed. Some of the sledges coming my way are from the incredibly wasteful coal mining industry. It makes my heart weep to see some of the stuff that they discard and the general wastefulness of their workforce.

My ute (read sedan based pickup) will be dragging its bum when I go back to Victoria in a couple of weeks with all the "foundlings" I have acquired over the last 3 months. Sadly I will be leaving this treasure trove with but a trifling amount of good stuff.

Another burnt foot story. In the days before O.H.& S. the fitter in the cannery I worked at was cutting a can race overhead with the O/A. He was on a ladder but because he was reaching up so far, his overalls rode well up exposing the top of his boots. Murphy's law dictated that the great lump of slag went straight down the top of his boot, instantly melted his synthetic sock and effectively glued the whole lot to his kin. Smell was worse than oxidised tomato puree. Very nasty burn but............ the worse part was that he grabbed onto the can race as he fell from the ladder. Caught his wedding ring on a protrusion and hung there until the skin and half the meat peeled off his ring finger and he fell to the floor. Meantime the slag and melted sock was burrowing deeper into his foot. Ambulance and hospital job that one. His missus walked out o n him the day he got home from hospital. That was 34 years ago but I can still feel Ralphs pain now.

100% with Sam on this one. Good sharp chisel and the right technique will take the top out of a drum clean as a whistle.

Thanks for your concern Fe. Fortunately at my age I am under no illusion as to the toughness of the job. I already have a few 'lump ammers' or 'mash hammer' as I call them, that have managed to follow me home. They will be the starting point for hammering.
Unfortunately in Australia, old blacksmithing tools are rarer than rocking horse do-do and fetch outrageous prices when they do come up.
My questions are more related to determining the suitability of sledge heads as a suitable material, or wether there is an alternative, with the view to start having such stuff follow me home. I do tend to hoard stuff with a long term view and a great deal of the materials and resources I will be using to create my smithy have been accumulated over the last twenty years. Surprisingly with no prior plan for the final usage other than "that's too good to be thrown out / or not accepted gracefully" when offered.

Having just read Hammerkids thread on making his first hammer got me to thinking about hammers for myself for when I get my forge built.

Question 1. Is it feasible/practical to use sledge hammer heads to re-work into smithing hammers?

Question 2. If so, what preparation would be needed before forging and after?

Question 3. If the answer to Q1 is no, what kind of other recyclable material would need to follow me home that would be the appropriate kind of steel for hammers?

I generally get access to all kinds of mild steel but more exotic stuff would be a greater challenge.

Thanks,
Mick

PS If you haven't already please take a look at the Victorian Bush fire tree project thread.

HK those pics are perfectly focussed, just not necessarily on your hammer. Nice work bloke.

Only joined IFI 2 days ago and allready this blacksmithing is wrecking my body. Sore neck shoulders and back, headache - and that's only from trolling through 300 BP's and 145 pages of posts in this forum alone. Been worth it to find out that all that 'stuff' that has been following me home for the last twenty years is actually more than enough to set up a well appointed "smithy".
Can't wait to get back home (1500 miles) from this contract and get started. Now all I need to figure out is how to get some of the 1.2 million tonnes of fine coking coal they pull out of the ground here every week to follow me home.

I only found IFI today on the web. I started reading this thread and by page two I was starting to choke up, by the end of page eight I was crying, had tears running, complete with snot. I haven't done that in fifty years!

It's not just the concept which is fabulous, but the response that has really touched my heart.

I was personally fortunate the Churchill fire front was stopped a few hundred metres from my place at Gormandale at around 3.00am on the Sunday morning. Friends at Marysville have lost everything, worst of all many members of their local community and neighbors.

Your response has really touched my heart.

Thank you.

Mick.

The photos are of the fire front approaching Gormandale on the Saturday between 4 and 5 pm

Mick, from Latrobe Valley but currently separated from my shed by 2,500km and working short term in North Queensland. Been rained off for the last three weeks, (unpaid too the bastards), whilst the neighbors managed to stop the Churchill fire about 200 metres from my boundary. Bloody good blokes!
The Missus managed to kill all the spot fires on her own, so thanks to them I have a shed, oh, and a house to go back to. Julie, what a woman.
So having a lot of spare time, bugger all money and nowhere to spend it I managed to stumble on IFI. Will be a jumping off point for a long held desire to dabble in Smithing.
Got a few pieces of older farm machinery that deserves to be repaired, restored and Julie deserves a bunch of decorative stuff and horse gear after her fire fighting efforts.
Can't wait to get back south.
Cheers to all you ouaaie blokes and women here.
Mick