pnut

I decided to leave the climax model blower I have alone. I figured it works well enough that taking it apart was asking for trouble. Pnut

At the risk of being repetitive, absolutely beautiful. Do you make tracings of the hamon patterns of your swords? I was looking at some hamon tracings online the other day from historical Japanese swords. Pnut

With the addition of a piece of string you could also map out irregular shapes that have curves in them. Pnut

Have you looked into induction methods of heating metal stock? No flames or combustion whatsoever. Pnut

The description of the anvil from the distributor is confusing. It does say cast iron in the description but it also says steel. What I've managed to parse out talking with folks that have purchased them is that any of the anvils sold by happybuy under 30kgs are in fact cast iron and the 30kg anvils marked accacio are steel. Pnut

Instead of spending the money on a 5 kg. steel anvil you'd get off much cheaper with a sledgehammer head of the same or greater weight. Look around for any relatively heavy piece of steel. I use a 115# piece of RR rail mounted vertically. Have you browsed through the A collection of improvised anvils thread? Welcome aboard, be safe,and remember it's supposed to be fun. Pnut

I save and label a test coupon from every new known alloy I get for future reference but JHCC is right a piece of structural steel, a cold chisel, and a piece of spring steel will give you some idea of what you're dealing with. You can also do a break test if you plan on hardening the mystery steel. Search bamsite heat.pdf and you'll find a pretty good PDF explaining it that you can download for free. Pnut

I agree with Frosty for the most part. In Northern Kentucky the tools pictured are worth a little more than $15 bucks though. 15 dollars would be my opening offer and I'd go grudgingly as high as $25 but there's a scarcity of those types of tools at the flea markets around here. I see them more frequently at "antique" shops that think because they're old they must be valuable. An example I recently seen was a pair of nippers at an antique Mall for $40. How ridiculous is that? Pnut

You'll learn more in a day with an experienced smith than a month fumbling around on your own. If you can take a class jump on the chance. Join a group near you and go to meetings AND take what you learn there back to your forge and practice, practice, practice. Good luck be safe and remember it's supposed to be fun. Pnut

Wayne Coe's forge building instructions have a description of how to cut a propane tank. Wayne Coe artist blacksmith is the search terms to find it. He's a member here but I don't think he's been here for a while. Pnut

I'd say the simplest would be a charcoal fueled jabod forge. Welcome aboard, be safe and remember it's supposed to be fun. Pnut

Too much air will actually make your fire cooler and cause excessive amounts of scale. Pnut

Apply the refractory and place the forge in a plastic garbage bag with a wet towel and tie the garbage bag closed. I read that like I had no idea what you are talking about Frosty and thought it was confusing as to whether you meant the dry refractory or the lined forge. Hope you don't mind. Pnut

I would give an estimate not a quote. Pnut

Use a magnet to get any scale that does make it into the excess flux. Pnut

Not sure about the maker but the price was right for sure. Good find. Pnut

I don't see any reason it wouldn't work and if you do end up having any trouble it's easy enough to cut them off. It wouldn't have occurred to me to go that direction but I try to stay low tech as possible. I use a jabod forge and bricks was the first thing that came to mind as that's what I use along the sides of the trench firepot in my forge. Pnut

I have to look for wood. There's some downed trees out back but I mainly use pallets. There's a Polaris dealership near me that has stack's of those weird shipping pallets that the four wheelers come in. I only make a few five gallon buckets at a time because I live in town in an apartment. The landlord doesn't mind but the fire department has shown up before after someone called about the smoke. Luck had it that one of the firefighters is a blacksmith. I do have to say that the two fire extinguishers I had at the ready went a long way too. Pnut

I would make the larger grate removable. Pop it in for charcoal and take it out for coal. It looks like a great forge. You're gonna have a blast with it. Have fun and be safe. Pnut By the way. I use a 120v AC matress pump I got from Walmart with a ball valve to control the blast. Works good for charcoal and is sufficient for coal.

Yes it is. I use charcoal mainly and would like to buy it if it made sense compared to the time and effort spent versus making it. Pnut

Looks good, it's only missing a fire. It's going to be great for coal. It's going to eat through charcoal like a monster though. You may want to make another grate that will sit higher in the firepot for when you use charcoal to raise the fireball up to level with the table and put a brick on the left and right side of the pot so you can pile charcoal a bit deeper. As it sits now I think the hot spot will be a little low for charcoal and you don't want to have to angle the stock down to get to it. Good luck and good job on the forge. Keep us posted. Pnut

Good catch, I didn't see that. The inserts definitely need to be hand fitted. Once you get them close I'd use a mill file to finish it up. Pnut

Oh no! It's called time dilation. It happens under stress. Have you ever been in an auto accident that seemed to last for minutes versus seconds or in a thirty second fight that seemed to last ten minutes? Your brain speeds up so the world seems slower. I seen the results of a study where volunteers jumped from an eight story building and then had to estimate the time it took. Every one over estimated drastically. I was in an auto accident and it seemed to last forever. I remember whole thoughts going through my head. It's bizarre. Pnut

Welcome aboard. The only suggestions I have since you will be using charcoal is that a bottom blast forge is fuel hungry when it comes to charcoal so you may want to look into a sideblast forge and charcoal takes much less air than coal. I use an AC matress pump and have to use a ball valve and T to limit the air. If you want to check out an easy to build sideblast charcoal forge to see if you like it's performance better, you should read through the jabod threads. Jabod is an acronym for just a box of dirt.. If it turns out you like it you could then make something more permanent like a water cooled tuyere side blast forge. Glad to have you and remember it's supposed to be fun. Pnut