Paul TIKI

Well Frosty, then surely you know the beauty of a pun is in the "Oi" of the beholder.

Ah, only one is at home now. He's itching to get out of the house. The other lives with his fiance the grandbaby only an hour away. The one that's still here is looking for a place in the city half an hour away, so they can still come by for little "hammer ins". The reason the one JAGOD is on hold is that thing 2 will be taking it with when he moves to his own place, hopefully with enough room for him to set up his own shop. If you haven't seen the pig iron anvil thread recentl https://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/66689-pig-iron-anvil/page/2/ Ifyou have any ideas when you see the pics

The "words of Wisdom killed a good few hours the other night. I even added a few myself

given my day today, I'm ready for some therapeutic metal abuse. Unfortunately the JAGOD is on hold because my son really wants to be the one to build it. He's on third shift, so that's got to wait for the weekend. So, no fire for me until I see what I have to build a different box of dirt forge. If nothing else, he can learn from my mistakes. In the meantime, I have some scrap copper I may play with to see how that moves. If nothing else I can get a better feel for swinging a hammer and aiming where I hit. I read the thread on proper hammering technique. There is so much valuable

So I've posted/commented a few times but never got around to introducing myself. I'm new to blacksmithing and think it would be a rewarding hobby and a way to make Christmas presents on the cheap . I've built up an anvil out of what I thought was a pig iron slab but according to the sparks and what I read on spark testing is probably wrought iron. I'm now taking stock of what I have on hand to build a JABOD and at the same time helping my son to build a JAGOD (just a Grill of dirt). I want to get to hammering on hot metal without spending more than a few bucks. If it turns out to be

the popping of hedge is why we never ever burned it in the open fireplace and only in the closed wood stove in the basement. It heated the house to 75-80 degrees when it was -10 degrees outside. The half of the basement the wood stove was in got up to 105 degrees. The cast iron plates inside the wood stove that held the wood in place would consistently glow dull red. I learned later that those plates were removable and were there to actually burn coal. They were about 5/8 thick. That's why I'm curious about it's use in a forge. does the popping and all get worse with extra air applied i

Well, my improvised pig iron anvil are now ready. This week, building the forge! After reading a lot on the JABOD forges I have an idea on how to make it work.

Well, I now have an anvil setup. I used my circular thing of cement, then packed it with logs and the stump of an old cedar tree we cut down a while back. It's all wedged in tight and won't move. Then I removed all the extra branches and cut a channel through the stumps to hold the slab of pig iron in place. Then I shimmed it in place. I also drove a 4 foot long, 2 1/2 bar into the soil for extra support next to the slab. A while back, my son brought home a large chunk of I beam home and mounted a vise he got from his Grandpa on it. It's made of 1/4 inch steel, so may not be great a

Well those could build a heckuva earthbag house There was a nice subterranean place here in Kansas for sale. A former Atlas Missile silo, only half a million. What you might call a fixer upper. It only needs, everything... It would be great in case of the Zombie Apocalypse. The downside is that my wife doesn't do subterranean. She needs big windows. So the search goes on. It'll be a few years until I get the savings back up for a cash purchase on the next house. Paid cash for this one and I do not miss the mortgage at all. The goal is to be as off grid as possible when I retire

In Kansas I'm about as far north as I want to be I'd like to be in a place where If I want snow, I can drive to where it is and then go home when I'm tired of it. Sadly, that becomes more of a problem with more altitude. That's why I have been looking in NM and AZ. though I will say that no personal income tax in WY is pretty darned attractive. How is Sheridan? Thinking about applying for work with Weatherby

Earthbags should have similar characteristics to Adobe. High thermal mass. You can do things like double layer and infill or even fill the bags with scorite or rice hulls or a number of other fillings. I have even thought of using it as part of building a hobbit house. Doesn't matter, I want to be above 6k feet anyway. Preferably with some trees around to shade the compound I have in mind. A rocket mass stove for heating and then the modern AC and heat as backups for when I feel too lazy to cut firewood. Fleur de lis, I'm new to this whole beating on hot metal thing, but I hope you

I've been watching house prices in areas like Edgewood and Tijeras, Even Belen and Socorro. I found a great one that was totally off grid, Solar, well, and everything else on 42 acres. I'm just lacking the nearly half a million to buy it. Oh well. No too fussed about the distances involved. I currently live in a pretty small town 45 minutes from the nearest Wal Mart. Farms as far as the eye can see. What I'd love to do is get a spot in the mountains and build some earthbag houses. Maybe talk to UNM's Architecture school and convince students to come out and fill the earthbags up fo

I have 2 nom de web I use. The one here is because of a computer repair biz that never went anywhere. I just used that old email to set up forum id's. been that way for several years now. My other is based on one of my favorite characters from my favorite authors. I use that one for all the more personal stuff. I always kind of likened the made up name since CB handles were a thing.

I miss Las Vegas, NM. Actually, I miss my Uncle's cabin that was in that area of the Sangre de Cristos up the road from Camp Blue Haven. Grew up in ABQ and spent a lot of summers up there.

True that