rockusbacchus

Thanks for the responses so far. Let's see- I'm in a suburban area. I have three step-daughters and that aforementioned wood shop with a huge backlog of projects, so it's hard to say how often it will get used. I'm hoping to set aside a couple of 1-2 hour blocks of time per week. As for the type of projects I am planning, I am not entirely sure. I want to start out by focusing on skill building. I was planning on finding a small project like a key chain or bottle opener and making a ton of them just to get practice time in. I love the idea of forging hardware for furniture projects, so I may move on to that after I have some skills under my belt. I also have a Gransfors Bruks ax that I love. I can definitely see myself getting into axes and hatchets at some point. I was mainly considering the fire brick forge due to its simplicity to build. I don't have any dreams of it lasting very long. It's just quick to build and cheap. This is important for several reasons including price, limited shop time and no actual blacksmithing experience. I don't want to spend too much time or money building something that turns out not to be well suited for what I end up forging, so an inexpensive starter seems like a good way to get my practice time in while learning what I like and don't like. I did spend some time looking at a few really affordable small forges from Devil Forge. I may decide to get a small cheap forge like that for around $200 instead of trying to build my first one. Any thoughts on that strategy?

I've been itching to get into blacksmithing for the last couple of years and have decided I can't stand to wait any longer. My garage is already a completely stuffed full wood shop so my blacksmithing area is going to have to be in the back yard. I live in Georgia, so the weather is muggy and hot in the summer and cold (but only very rarely freezing) and rainy in the winter. I have a few concerns with this outdoor setup that I'm hoping someone can help out with: I was planning on building the Essential Craftsman DIY forge. It's basically just some firebricks held together with some angle iron and a diy burner. Will this forge and the propane tank be ok stored outside under a tarp or in the grill mentioned below? What safety considerations should I be considering with this setup? I've read that the propane needs to be kept a certain distance away from the working area, but I'm not sure how far that needs to be. I have an old propane grill that I was thinking about using as a cabinet to store the propane tank in just to shelter it and keep it off the ground. Would it be inherently dangerous to have this small forge sitting on the grill surface in such a configuration? I'm guessing the anvil will be constantly covered with surface rust. Should I be concerned with this interfering with my projects? Will I need to clean this rust off every time I want to use the anvil? Thanks in advance to anyone who chimes in. I really enjoy this forum and hope to have something to contribute to it myself one day.