tom_ET

Peng, thanks! Sorry for having to repeat yourself..

Frosty: 3 blows, yes? ok. what would you say should it take to heat it up again for the next 3 blows? ... would be a "back in" - turn up air - and maybe a minute or so, or should that go faster? related to bluerooster's post. I was about to ask nearly the same question. Took a small piece of rebar and just for the fun of it wanted to draw & taper it down as much as possible. was wondering how thing the thing would get and how it would react. (Then thought i would make a tiny sugar-spoon out of it. ) But it cracked open, bit difficult to see on the picture but seems to be the same like for bluerooster. Also did cut away the cracked part, to start again and the same thing happened again. I guessed it is the "unforseeable mixture" of rebar that was so often discussed... or might it have been some wrong technique?

Marc: i guess that is the main reason for getting into. While generally i like "old techniques", it is just simply possible to do so many things with relatively few tools/machines. So much can be faster and easier done by modern metal work but you need this pool of machines and the right starting-material to make that work properly. Glenn: true. they were just "held in right position" being temporarily bolted to the tub. bracing will come. Greasing: good point. will do. The wheel, btw. has its own bearing and with the weight on the wood on the axle-pin, it will probably not move much itself.

Hi there. Was out again and had half a day on the forge. When I see your great works, i don't feel like showing anything but hey. at the end, there sometimes come some nice comments that help one further. I think I am going through a lot of charcoal. I have to figure out yet the right way to manage it better.. I tend to not like keep pilng it up high enough as I have the feeling i am using too much. but I guess there is no good in using less than the right pile of coal on the forge. --> I think it makes the (less) coal burn even faster and with too much oxygen?! (figured at the end that this time i had far more clinkers than last time) The metal gets so quickly cold after taking it out.. But then it has been pretty thin material so far that i have been working on. Anyhow, so although i take forever and although not really such great achievements, here a small pic. The chinese wheelbarrows we get here are such a crap... the last 2 ones just lasted 2 weeks. Then I made 1 working one out of the 2 broken ones and figured the best would be to make an own under-construction. Used the anvil to form the 2 brackets holding the wheel axle to fit my crooked eucalyptus. So far only 2 hammers, the anvil and the forge.. and used the axle-pin itself as a help. Have to drill and attach them still.

Started with barrel bellows. As the Computer Fan seems to not be able to bring up the necessary pressure, I figured, I can directly work on the non-electric solution. The plastic is pretty thin, Ethiopian Plastic manufacturers seem to try to find out, how much you can reduce wall thickness while still keeping some kind of form... Am a bit worried how long my inlet will hold, I might prepare some plate with a thread that the 3/4 " nipple is screwing in, so it doesnt sit in the plastic only. The outlet I first thought to use a check-valve, but the springs are too strong in those, so that quite some pressure would be lost immediately. So i went back to the leather-flap and glued an old can over it, into which the outlet-nipple is mounted. .. After the first test in a bigger barrel holding the water, I think it works and i feel the output is good. The inlet (just a 3/4" foot-valve) seems to be too little though... Will move upwards (sucking stroke) a bit slowly... Will probably test it like this first but feel that i will have to add a second or maybe a third footvalve... having 3 might also balance the top-weight a bit better. Also I am wondering if i shouldnt have gone for a bit bigger directly, too.

thanks for that grinding-effect demonstration. I started grinding off the paint from my anvil (which was a rather thick layer) and also decided to use masks for that from now on. You just reinforced that decision... proper masks got scarce here, though.. For COVID people majorly wear majorly self-made fabric-masks.

I got a bit further. Before a week or so I brought my JABOD frame out on the land and filled it with mud. I decided to try it with our clay-ground only, didnt mix anything to it. I expected it to crack when drying, wanted to try that out still and just fill those cracks again with some more (or not...) Now this weekend i was able to get out again and finally have a first try. So I had the PC-Fan connected as can be seen above. I saw already in the dry trial that the air was not coming out of the tuyere as I hoped. The fan by itself seems actually pretty powerful but you could feel the Air-Jam, while there was coming air out of the tuyere, if you put your hand at the suction side of the fan, you would actually feel that some air is pushed back.. I had added a bit of rubber-hose on the suction side then as well, was hoping somehow, that would force the airflow more into the direction where it belongs, which i think it did a little bit. Anyhow, it was not sufficient. I wasted at least an hour, hoping that the fire would come higher. It looked pretty hot in the trench and I got even the leaf-spring into some kind of red but that took a long time and lasted but a few seconds when i had taken it out. As I somehow had feared that the 15W Ventilator, at least in the current layout would not be sufficient (want to try to build a better "channel" with a more smooth transition into the tuyere), I had bought a backup AC blower (which i might use for some other purposes anyway). So had to turn on the Diesel-Genset, to run the AC-blower... Now that was a difference! It is a 600 W blower and was much too powerful. from its 10 settings I had to always switch between step 1 and 2.. On step 1 there was almost no airblow, on step 2 already pretty heavy, would probably need nothing higher. The rebar i used for poking was too long, so I decided to make a quick poker. guess that was my first "project". Had bended the bar over and figured that thats not the best way, it made the tip pretty thin. In hind-sight, makes sense. anyhow. for poking charcoal it will work. Then I wanted to heat something heavier and put again my leaf-spring in. Decided i would make some kind of digging-hoe. Have drawn out the top, bended over. Time was pretty much over, had to make a last run with the weed-walker (rainy season is starting and we have to get the grass under control). Will continue next time.. want to cut it some 20 cm after the bend and figure something out for connecting it to a handle-shaft.

thanks for the correction. While working on it i was actually wondering if the edges should be ground a bit. it looks more beveled than round.

I dressed my first hammer today with what in the early afternoon was still a piece of Eucalyptus log. Luckily this head still had it's original hollow round wedge (with the piece of wood) in the head when I bought it, so I could re-use it. Linseed oil good for this one, too. (but just had sunflower oil at hand) Lo, my brand-new 1.5lb cross peen.

Frosty: Excellent point, not only can I really try different things, I'm even hiding the fault Dharris: For sure. My wife doesn't mind "prettier things" but surely also highly prefers "working things" to "no things".

yesterday I prepared most of the JABOD Forge preparation. Not sure yet, when I can make a first trial. Can't do that here but have to take it out to the land. Realized the pipe is a bit too low, have to redrill that hole. Also am not so sure if that power-supply-fan will really give enough air. But I found already in my electro-scrap another, bigger fan that will work if this one doesn't. Then, today had to repair the kitchen machine of my wife (seemingly just so much flour came in that it prevented the contacter inside to switch properly. And I used my small peen hammer (and the anvil) for the first time. Our fridge has a broken plastic-bottle-holder (what do you call that thing) and I thought best is i just make it from sheet metal. But I guess that is not called blacksmithing work

25 kg

Thanks, got it. Maybe again to the limits of the Anvil. Saw them hammering here with pretty heavy sledge hammers. But then, most Anvils also looked quite battered.

Hey Frosty, Thanks for the box bellow- short intro. I read about it but didn't go into detail as I figured the air (with charcoal at least) shouldn't be too big of an issue. Also I wanted to check what local blacksmiths are using. Some of them have an electrical blower a lot of them are have an assistant that makes air. They seemingly make them a lot out of wheel-tubes. But it needs double action, and stops blowing when the action stops, so my (future) manual version is going to be either a bigger bellows or the drum version might be a good alternative. I read though that a computer-fan might already be enough.. That sounds comparably small (the electrical blower they were using here locally surely was more powerful and they also just use charcoal. Looks to me though as they don't even have a real hole in the ground but simply a small charcoal-heap on the ground and a pipe going into the bottom of it for the air. Anyhow, I was in Addis and that's always an adventure to be in Merkato (where they sell everything. Didn't have too much time and quite some money in my bag.. there also the blacksmitths are in some hidden alleys. In fact of course again I was pick-pocketed. So I did not make any "friends" yet (to really take time and see the setup and learn from them) and I spare that for where I am living. a smaller town. I am sure there will be a few as well so I want to meet them and see if I can learn a bit more how they work. So I will probably try the Desktop power supply fan first. Its working on 12 V DC (would therefore be possible on any small solar system) and a DC fan can easily speed controlled. I'll probably try that one. Excuse me if I do not want to search now around. I found a lot of times that Galvanized pipe cannot be used and is really dangerous. So that's noted but I didn't see immediately what's the reason. what happens with the zinc if getting too hot? Don't think I'm gonna become a village blacksmith or commercial at all for that matter. Basically its "just another craft" worthy to learn to some extend to build stuff that you don't get so easy here. Working for others will be more in the sense of trading favors. But you are right with the scrap. There is hardly anything somebody else might not need so usually everything is in a way "recycled" in Addis I saw shops that concentrated on scrap springs, others on sheets of mild steel in any thickness, etc. Today I already convinced my mechanic to allow me to take 2 coils and to leaves. Best, Thomas

interesting. Here is hardly any carbon steel available. You will be mostly limited to the 2nd hand car (and other) parts market. That will be probably fine but i suppose it is nice sometimes to buy a specific srandardized size. so we have that version of packing the piece into the charcoal, salt, flour mixture and I think yours works without. It was mentioned that there is the oxidizing, the neutral and the carbonizong zone. I would have thought that you would stick the piece int he upper part of the pile and leave it there longer. thats bit really what you do, right? i think you heat it up 2-3 times till almost burning. do you quench it every of the 3 times or only the last time? you heat that in the normal neutral working zone or in the upper layer?