robie1373

I am loving that blower setup. That's my kind of engineering. Can you still shift the gears?

I finished the joinery on the base of the JABOD table tonight. The 2x8s simulate the box for dirt. The other picture illustrates the height of the finished box. I'll tongue and groove some 2x8s for the bottom of the box. The sides of the box are going to have tusk tenons holding it together.

I have really enjoyed digging through the posts on this forum for design inspiration and cold, hard facts. Such as can be found There is so much information here. Unfortunately, I'm a simple dude who's brain can only hold so much. I have made a drawing of the firepot aspect of a solid fuel forge based on information from Mr. Stevens' and Glenn's stickies threads. Thank you gents for those awesome resources. Because there is so much information and there are so many ways to skin the rat and YMMV, I had to simplify a bit in hopes of successfully completing my build. Here is the diagram that distill what I understand from Glenn's 'Forges and Fires' thread and Mr. Stevens' several JABOD threads and comments. Assumption 1: I'll be working steel < 1" by hand without a striker or power hammer. I believe this means I don't need to worry about heating up more than 4 or so inches of steel at a time. Assumption 2: I want the flexibility of working with different solid fuels. I use bituminous coal in the guild forge today. I like the idea of burning coke. I am curious about charcoal and even plain wood. I think the JABOD design will give me this flexibility by reshaping the firebox and/or building up the top of the table with bricks if needed. Assumption 3: I'm going to rebuild this a few times as I learn. Just a fact I guess. This seems to be the way others around here work too. The table of the JABOD is only interesting from a woodworking viewpoint. It's been hot here, so I'm making less progress on that heavy joinery than I had hoped. Slow and steady beats the hospital.

Good day/night/indeterminate all! I am a new smith form Northern Virginia just wanting to introduce myself. I have recently joined our local guild BGOP (howdy yall) and am very much enjoying learning smithing. I've been lurking for a while, reading up on JABODs and bellows. I just started building the table for by box yesterday. I get a kick out of hand tool woodworking so mortise and tenon construction abounds. Once I have some matching joints to take pictures of, I'll start posting them for everyone's amusement. Man. I do rattle on. TL;DR - Hello everyone.