DennisCA

This thread shows a forge design very close to what I have in mind.

I went and bought a couple of 55 gallon drums last night so I could start building a simple forge using dirt, bricks, cat litter or whatever. This way I hope t get started cheaper and faster and I wont have to wait for my new shed to be completed, which won't happen until next year at best. Side blast design is what I am going with, I am going to start with coke but want to keep my options open for charcoal. But other than that I am quite open ended about the design. I am leaning towards cutting the drum so it will have an integrated hood and chimney. I think it might be worth going with a hood & chimney to get some shade and hopefully annoy the neighbors a bit less with coal smoke. And I can keep it outside 24/7/365 if it has a built in roof. I am contemplating using two drums stacked on top of each other, and use the lower for coal storage as well as a stand. It probably needs to be cut down ot get the right height. I got the idea of stacking from another thread (link below), but he was building a bottom blast and going about it quite differentely than I will. I will keep the bottom of the top drum intact to fill with bricks/sand/clay and the bottom drum I will cut to the right height I think by cutting the top and adding a side hatch that I can open to both deposit and withdraw coal. As for material for filling the forge I am looking at firebricks that are rated for 1730C (3150F) I can buy for 1.8 euros a piece. I could also buy second hand red bricks for 20 cents a piece but I am not sure how well they will withstand the heat. My SO wants me to buy a batch of the red ones at any rate for raised garden beds. There is also bentonite cat litter but I am readig mixed things about it, at least if you use it "pure", mixed with sand and other stuff like straw, it might be good I understand? I need to research chimney and hood setup some more yet but I understand 10" is what I should aim for. I am aware of the dangers of cutting drums like this, steps will be taken before any cutting.

I'm gonna let them air out a few days and also fill with water. I left the hatchet head in the solution overnight and it will keep on going while I am at work today. I wonder if I should've gotten a third barrel, been thinking of making a stove too to burn scrap wood in. Oh well gotta pace the projects out...

Hmmm, going by some of the comments, it would almost seem as if welding an anvil is almost guaranteed to destroy the anvil. It seems strange to me because I have seen it done a lot by other smiths, preheating and welding seems to be common across the world, using the right rod. I personally know a guy who has repaired several anvils this way and he uses them, and I know there's a yearly event somewhere in the north east USA where people get their anvils repaired like this: https://imgur.com/gallery/nzunV I understand it's not an easy process and shouldn't be done by just anyone, but I wonder if some are exaggerating the risks in order to get newbies to not ruin their anvils by doing a half xxxxx job. And also because it's most often not required.

Went and bought two steel drums from a guy nearby, turned out to be a teacher I had in high school. Figure I will try my hand on a 55 gallon forge before I start welding one from steel. The 2nd one I figured I could use to store coal in. Used to contain diesel in the 1970s. Also picked up an old axe head, currently marinating in the electrolysis solution

Most people I have talked to, including my friend who has done some bit of blacksmithing says charcoal is not economical. But they all run bottom blast forges. I have read they go through charcoal so fast compared to a side blast. I do not understand why this is, the shape of the bowl perhaps, too large, or that the air stream goes directly through the whole pile from bottom up whereas in a side blast it only directly passes through part of it. I too want to try coke, I have ordered a 25kg back of coke, it wasn't very cheap, 48 euros with shipping. But it was labeled pajakoksi or "smithing coke". I plan to go buy two 55 gallon drums today, one to make a JABOD, one to keep the coke in.

I think I forgot a comma! I meant "Now, I have a garage shop, but it's full already." Hence building a 2nd shop (just gonna be an uninsulated shed).

Here's my future shop for smithing, all I got so far! Now I have a garage shop, but it's full already. Once inside the garage port, woodworking section: Behind the plastic drape, metalworking: Not finding any good images of my shop, but I guess here you can see there's another room, keep my welder there, and other stuff. There's a lathe hidden behind the mill. Vew from the lathe:

Chiming in to say diabetes sucks, did you know you can get it from a bum gall bladder? One of the knock on effects can be a damaged pancreas. I got some function left but have to take insulin and pills.

I've been in Vietnam in 2013 myself when I visited Ho chi Minh city with my fiancé as well as her sister & husband. Her parents are from vietnam, in the Hanoi region. They said people they talked to thought they were korean because they had apparently an accent from growing up in Finland.

Well, I liked the idea of reusing free material I had on hand, that was basically scrap and taken out of the firewood shed or was cutoffs from other projects. And I thought it would end up looking nice. I think it does look nice and a bit unique.

Yeah I'm gonna add some silicone. I have a suitable piece of plate here, not welded in place. Adapting Glenns advice a bit, I think I can drill and tap some holes in the corners and fit bolts on the plate, then I can use that to adjust for uneveness if needed by turning a bolt. Since the stand will be moved about a lot, the base will change constantly. I hope though when my new shed is built that I can find a permanent place inside for the anvil. If so I will cast a reinforced concrete foundation (shed will have a gravel floor, perhaps tiles on top) and bolt the stand to the foundation.

I am considering now to weld a 10mm (3/8") steel plate to the bottom, that is bigger than the base, to increase the stability of the stand.

Well I mulled it over but eventually I just added the metal banding as I had planned. I figure I can add loops and such with the flat bar I got left over for hanging tools from. This is what it looks like now. I used the angle iron itself to help hold the anvil down. The anvil bottom is not flat underneath though so it's been difficult to get it to seat on all corners, think the high spot is between two corners. I assume as the anvil is beaten on, the wood will conform to the anvil bottom.

I found it really instructive as well. I never knew that the flux would hurt the finish and so should be removed once forge welding was done. Whole video was like that, a bunch of small things I've never thought of but were useful pieces of information.

I thought maybe this video is of interest, it's in swedish, but english subtitles are available. I figured this is the kinda video most english people wouldn't find on their own. Also uses an anvil very similar to mine I see.

I was out looking at the anvil and the stand and looking at what suitable material I have got that would work. But the more I looked at it the more I realize I like it the way looks now. Thinking I'll add angle iron to the corners and let them be taller than the base, they would capture the anvil base pretty well then. Oak doesn't grow here naturally, pine and fir and arctic birch is what we got mainly. I have some oak but it's expensive stuff so I hoard it like gold.

Still a work in progress. I am laminating first the "core" from scrap wood I have got lying over, fir and pine mostly. Then some hand planing and routing the end grain flat happened, then I tried to put the anvil on the core and it's exactly the size of the base. I think it can do with being a little wider and longer yet to make it more stable, though it feels pretty stable now. So, the plan is one more layer of lamination on all sides with some nicer wood, might still use pine, just better quality / more uniform size, rather than this puzzle it currently is. I also want to use the router so I can sink the foot of the anvil a bit into the stand. Then I want to wrap up the corners in flat iron and angle iron. To be continued.

Thanks, same place also had an anvil, 180 euros and almost new looking. I was tempted but decided it was too small for me (figured 40kg maybe) and I have my 69kg anvil already so I tipped people on this local whatsapp group for smiths and it was gone last night when I went back to the store. That time there was nothing of interest.

Been working on this. This is my future place for smithing equipment, not gonna call it a smithy, since it will house a lot of various things and I will just drag the smithing stuff outside, or just inside by the door, forge will be outside though. Next up is brick laying with leca blocks, then the woodworking beings. Gotta get the drainage fixed too and properly leveled. Also had to patch my concrete mixer, worn a hole in the bowl, it's pretty old, but sturdy.

Found a blacksmiths vise in a 2nd hand shop for 60 euros and decided to bring it home. I took it apart and cleaned it in my electrolysis tank, it was very filthy and with time, it will get filthy again. But I like to add my own filth. And also so I can determine the condition of the vise. And here it is reassembled and I did slap some high temp paint on it (in the background you can see part of the foundation for my shed build, in which I will keep my smithing equipment in the future) The screw is clearly worn but has some life in it left. I have a lathe so I could turn a new one. And the jaw width is 10cm or 4 inches so a 4 inch vise, the jaws can open up to about 4 inches as well, but then you don't have much thread left in the nut, so maybe 3½ inches is more realistic. I have no idea who made this vise, likely it's of swedish or finnish manufacture and quite some time ago. Just another thing I need a stand for now.

I'm 6'2" and I have back issues that act up when standing bent over so I tihnk I will be aiming for a higher stand, wrist height perhaps. I also need it to be mobile for now, so I am leaning towards laminating a simple wooden post and reinforcing the outside with steel. Diresta recently made a nice looking stand, with an overly complex lifitng mechanism though... But otherwise I liked the general idea of using angle iron and flatbar to "trap" the lamination and keep it together. Might also be a good idea to use the router to sink the anvil base into the base a bit, and use silicone underneath as well for a better connection between anvil. And then some mechanical way to fasten the anvil to boot. This plan is based on days of reading trough threads on this and other forums.

Really, all cast? I mean i can see this one being a cast anvil as I cannot see a weld seam at all for the top steel layer at all, it looks single piece. But I thought Söderfors starting making anvils back in the 18th century and I thought the teconology for making a cast steel anvil wasn't available until some time in the 20th century, I figured my anvil was probably made around when that became feasible. But anyway I figured there would be all kinds of Söderfors anvils about made with different techniques through the centuries of production. I knocked off the burrs on the horns last night with a flap disc, I put a file on the top surface and drawfiled it, since its hard it did not cut, but it cut the black grime surface and gave me a visual impression of the surface, definitely dished most of it's surface. I am not sure if the anvil needs any work despite that, I hope not, but most of the working area is concave, there is a little area near the hardy hole, as long as the anvil is wide that is still flat or a little convex.

I was wondering if the experts on this forum could tell me if my anvil is a cast steel anvil or a wrought iron one with laminated top? I am not sure if an anvil with a laminated steel top would have a visible seam, this one doesn't. The markings are depressed rather than raised, on the bottom of the anvil there is a seam in the middle, I wonder if this indicates it's been drop forged.

The hardie hole seems to be almost exactly 1 inch, a little bit bigger but not a lot, like 25.5mm Guy I bought it from had a home shop and did smithing but he didn't know what it had been used for before. He had a very similar replacement anvil, same size but finnish make called lokomo and perhaps a little larger, but same narrow design with two horns.