ClassicGrimey

Thanks Mike appreciate the advice. The soil around me has nearly zero clay unfortunately. By fireclay I meant making my own out of bentonite and sand as you suggested, not the store bought stuff. In the mixture you mention do you grind up the litter into a dust or do you just mix it whole? Being able to experiment is why I went with the jabod. I don't know what works best and it makes it easy to change things up as I learn.

Yes I was just reading that thread last night lol. I may try kitter litter at some point. In the end I think I'd like to make the fire pot out of fireclay.

I decided to modify my firepot from straight dirt to hard firebrick on the sides. My soil is very sandy and the walls would collapse throughout the day and what started as a 4 inch wide firepot would be 6 inches before long. Ran it for about 5 hours today and it held up much better. I also made sure to pile up my coal high and as it started to coke up it formed almost an oven in the forge which helped me heat material much better. Between the new firepot and better managing my coal I had no heat related issues all day. I am also starting to get the hang of setting just the right amount of air coming in through trial and error. Practice makes permanent!

Very nice Ted I like it a lot.. Simple yet elegant.

I made my first pair of tongs today. They're far from pretty and even farther from perfect, but they are functional and I'm happy for a first try.

Thanks Mike I appreciate it I'll try again tomorrow. Between that and managing the coal better I should hopefully get better results.

Yes they are along the 9 inch side. I experimented adding bricks on the opposite side of the trench and that didn't seem to make much of a difference but I did not pile much coal on top of the work so maybe that's where I went wrong. My air supply for the time being is a hair dryer with a ball valve in line to adjust the flow of air. I will try to post a picture later when I am home.

Hoping to get some help improving/optimizing my JABOD. I built a box following Charles' method and today was my first good long day with it. I wasn't able to get a good heat on top of the fire I had to slightly bury the stock which at one point got it up to welding temps when I left it in a bit too long. Is that normal, or do I need to make some changes to my firepot? I also got some bitluminous smithing coal for the first time so I'm probably introducing some inefficiency there too. For instance I was adding the green coal on top of the fire instead of letting it coke up around the edges first. Did some searching here afterward and realized my mistake. My firepot is 4 inches wide, 9 inches long, and 5 inches deep. The center of the tuyere(3/4" schedule 40) is 3 inches down from the top of the box leaving about 2 inches below. I have 2 pieces of hard firebrick standing the long way on top of the forge as a back stop. Should I make the firepot a little shallower? Deeper? I eventually would like to form the firepot out of fire clay once I learn the best configuration.

Built the JABOD forge by Charles Stevens and took it for a test run. Turned out great I just need to get a different blower my hair dryer is on its last legs

Thanks guys glad to know I was thinking it was a bigger deal than it is. Looks like the rain will let up this weekend so I'll finally get to take a hammer to her.

Thank you sir I appreciate the advice. I'll leave it alone for now.

Thanks JHCC! Been doing nothing but reading since I found this gold mine(or should I say iron mine?) of a website. Curious if anyone thinks I should try to gently clean up the edges of the anvil a little bit or is it not that far gone? I've only got a few inches of a nice clean radius but I would hate to start grinding and make it worse if it would be better off just being left alone and used as is. I can get more close up pictures of the edges later this evening if that helps.

I for one would be very interested in seeing what an Amish blacksmith-themed romance novel has got going for it...

Haha agreed that it could certainly be messier. I intentionally didn't take pictures of my other bench.. this is the one I consider to be the clean room haha. I suppose it goes with the territory though. Whats the old adage? Never trust the guy on the job site with the clean truck and shiny tools?

Hi all. I'm new to blacksmithing but I finally managed to get myself a real anvil, a ~120lb Peter Wright. Sure should be an upgrade from the sledgehammer head I've been using. I looked for about 6 months before I found one at a decent price and I think she's a beauty and the rebound is excellent. Paid $400 for it and to my untrained eye it seems like its in pretty good shape. What do you all think for the price paid? Don't mind the messy workbench.. cleanup is this weekend's project!