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I Forge Iron

Tom7

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    Bath, UK

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  1. As requested, see below. For those interested in the church, it is partly 15th century, but largely torn down, rebuilt and expanded by the Victorians. It's nowhere special - a small village church in Somerset.
  2. Hi all, I've just finished installing my first ironwork job and wanted to share some pictures. Admittedly there wasn't a lot of smithing involved here, almost everything was done cold. There are a lot of details here that I'd sort out if I were doing the job again, but overall I'm really happy with the result. The job was new candelabra for our local church for their annual Christmas carols by candlelight event. The arrangement they had been using was made by a local farmer and was definitely showing its age (lots of tobacco tins, bits of fibreboard and ad-hoc clamps involved). The job was made more challenging by rules that no changes could be made to the fabric of the church building without approval from the diocesan chancellor. Fortunately, there were anchor points at the tops of the arches and holes already drilled in the window sills that could be used for mounting. I'm really pleased with what I've achieved - I hope you like it too. These window-sill fittings were the first to go in. I'm looking forward to seeing these lit at night from the outside. These four chandeliers were next to go in. A dozen candles on each one. These are probably the best of everything I've done, but I still wish I'd fish-tailed the ends of the scrolls. There's a slightly complicated system of hooks and loops so that you can lower them about three feet for easier replacement of candles. We've done it with them lit but it's slightly hair-raising and I think in the end we'll light and snuff them in-place. Last to go in were these sconces on the pillars. The sconces are fitted to ratchet straps (like you'd use to tie down the load on a trailer) by poking a soldering iron through the strap to make a sealed hole, then putting a pop rivet through each hole with a washer on the outside. Ten sconces per strap. I was worried that these would flap around a bit, but the straps ratchet up very tight with almost no stretch and hold them very solidly. These were the first of the pillar straps to go in; each pillar gets another strap set about the top of the straight section of the pillar with another ten sconces. And this shows everything together, as well as the Christmas tree which went in last weekend! In all, 132 candles (four more than the previous arrangement!) mounted around the nave of the church.
  3. I'm a beginner too (probably a lot more so than you). I presently get by with a garden fire pit filled with soil, a piece of steel tube I had lying around that I've welded some legs onto and a mattress air pump. Only for outside use, of course, but I can keep a coal fire about the size of a sideplate hot enough to burn steel. The only big advantage I can see in a propane forge is that it doesn't take a quarter hour to get up to temperature.
  4. Wow, okay, thanks for the very useful info. This is recalibrating some of my thinking. The seller's description is indeed very confusing and I tend to assume the worst when there is any ambiguity.
  5. Apologies for breaking the rules with they ebay link; an image of the ASO I was talking about is attached.
  6. I have, yes. I'm heading to the local scrapper tomorrow to see what I can find. I'm getting by with a 3-way cobbler's anvil someone's lent me for the moment, but I'm only working on very light material at present - something heavier is definitely in order.
  7. I'm looking at ebay link removed There is, shall we say, a lot of fluidity in how these are described on ebay. That one, for instance, is described as "Steel Anvil Blacksmith Double Beck Cast Iron 66 LBS" (steel? or cast iron?). But there is another which has the title "Round Horn 30KG Blacksmith Cast Steel Anvil Metal Work Double Horn Workshop" and in the description, "This anvil is made of drop-forged, high-grade steel for high hardness, maximum strength and durability." (Cast steel? or drop forged?) The images for them are identical. Thanks all for the feedback. Looks like a trip to the local scrap yard is on the cards.
  8. I've done a reasonable amount of cold iron work & welding and now want to add an anvil to my collection of tools. Looking around, I see I have two basic options for buying new: I can have a cast iron anvil fairly cheaply. I understand the downsides of these, I think - significantly lower rebound, more fragile & prone to damage / chipping. I can have a cast steel anvil much more expensively. These largely lack the downsides of the cast iron one. So, given a budget of about £120, am I better off with a 30kg cast iron anvil or a 5kg cast steel one? How much does the extra weight in the cast iron make up for the downsides? Is buying the cast iron one and welding a piece of 20mm hardened steel plate to the top of it a reasonable idea? I should mention that ironwork is still very much a hobby for me and I'm not likely to be doing more than a day a week at it.
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