james austin

Perhaps now I've got this working? It shows up as an attachment on the post which is more than before. Is there a consensus on how deep the firepot (is that the right term?) should be? It's probably a half brick deep right now, and I think I read that it should be more like the thickness of a brick. Thanks

Thanks! I wouldn’t have thought that was old enough to be on archive.org. Glenn: I often forget about the Connecticut groups so thanks for the reminder. I’ve been hoping to catch up with the NEBA group, and just haven’t gotten there, yet.

now that I've got pics working, here it is all full of fire too: no photo attached

I think I got this working now. just paste the link into the text box, and the photo shows up? Double click on image to resize to 500? shows up in another browser, where the previous ones did not. Thanks for putting up with another newbie! no photo attached

Rats. And I'm supposed to be a millennial too! Looks like they are jpg, but probably much to large, almost 3 Mb Lets see if this works... no photo attached Do you see a picture? The others I posted show up for me, so I cant quite tell. Thanks for the heads up Glenn! also is there any way to edit the first post? don't want to clutter things up with a million photo links.

Thanks Thomas. I've been keeping an eye out for that one. I got a copy of "the making of tools" when my library discarded it, and he has some on gouges there, but I've seen mention of the Complete Modern Blacksmith having more/better info particularly about the carving tools. Perhaps I should just put in the order. Its pretty cheap over on Amazon. And I just found that the public library has a copy. Excuse me while I go request that

I've been working for the past month or so on building myself a small forge. Basically I was looking for the minimum size and cost that would get me pounding metal. I have been reading the various JABOD threads since the summer trying to decide if it was the right thing or not, but i decided to just go for it. Built the box out of some scrap 2x6 that I had around. I cut a single huge dovetail in each corner to hold it all together. I slaked some kitty litter and mixed in some sand, and beat that in as a floor, then started arranging bricks to make the firepot. I will admit that I got a bit confused between the different variations of the jabod, and probably didn't need to go this far, and the thing ways a ton. As I got going on this I decide that loose fill would probably be easier to manage, and I could empty it out when I need to move the thing (i've got to put it away when not in use). Anyway, after filling the thing up it looks a bit like: Once I got here I couldn't just stop, so after a quick break to make dinner for the family I fired it up. Seems to burn pretty good: I think I made the fire pot too deep, and too short. I think I will probably turn the whole thing around in the box, make it shallower and maybe use the two wall design rather than the viking style here. I had a pretty tough time getting metal into the coals rather than just on top of them. again I think this was my confusion due to reading many threads on JABOD forges, and just combining a few to many ideas in one place. I'm also probably just about at the edge of how small a box can be used with these; this is 12x16 inches interior, and I expect 16x16 inches might be better. I think it should be pretty effecient thought. I spent just over an hour, and only burned a few handfuls of charcoal, maybe a quart or a bit more at most. Thanks to Charles Stevens for showing the way with these. I spent a lot of time thinking I needed the 'right' equipment like an iron forge table, and blowers and all that, and put off getting started on my own. So this seeing these was a big push forward to just get it done. The teacher I had for the fundamentals class I took also suggested using a sledge as an alternative anvil, so I scrounged one up at the tool consignment. If not for this sort of encouragement, I'd still be sitting around waiting for a way to make my tools. Instead I'll be happily bashing away in my back yard. Here's a shot of the anvil station:

Hello! I've been reading the forums here for most of a year, and figured it is time to come out of the shadows and participate a bit more. I've been doing some woodcarving recently, mostly spoons and bowls and cups. I've reached a point with that work where I need some pretty specific tools which are either quite expensive, or simply not available, so I figured I should learn how to make them myself. Should be pretty easy really, just heat up some rebar, and smash it with a giant sledge hammer right? well maybe not, but I figure I should be able to produce something workable, and there are loads of things to make in the meantime to practice hammer control, and fire management. I don't have a ton of experience with smithing. I had a quick demo, and bit of practice back in college (can that really be 15 years ago), and last year took a 'fundamentals of smithing' class at the Steelyard hear in Rhode Island. They have open shop hours, and I had been planning on going back to use their equipment, but it has turned out to be a bit harder to manage than I expected. I've spent the past few months putting together a little back patio smithy. Anyway, I'm really excited to get started making some useful stuff out of steel, and definitely glad I found this forum. It's been a fantastic resource for building things on the cheap that will actually work pretty well. So thanks to everyone here who has made this forum what it is. And we have fire! 404 link removed