Paul TIKI

The gas grill is going to be my son's forge. We have one, just need to fill it and hook up his blower. That's going to require some problem solving as his blower is a nice hand crank Buffalo Forge blower so we need to neck it down to whatever tuyere he uses. The JABOD above is showing us several instances of what to do and what not to Believe it or not, this is the kind of problem solving that I love to do, so even if it's not working, I'm having a ball finding out.

If I drill in to the side of the pvc and the steel pipe underneath, that would put control of the blast much closer to hand. That's if that method would work at all well. A simple twist to close the hole or holes and you get full blast. Another twist to align the holes and the blast gets reduced, slight adjustments to add finer control. To shut off blast, lift the pvc and let it swing down off of the fan opening. Or am I way off base and this won't give me nearly the control I need. It would be simple enough to just stick a ball valve in line on the PVC pipe, but I don't want to spend the money right now (yeah, I know 4 bucks won't break the bank.) There is kind of a bet between me and my wife that I could get this going without spending a dime except for on fuel. So far I have managed with what was lying around. That 4 bucks is a point of pride !!! So much so that the connection between the fan and the PVC pipe is made from an empty sports drink bottle!

It'll easily blow out ash and a little of the dirt that gets in there. Since it was placed with a slight downward angle, not a lot got in there to begin with.

Thanks for all the advice folks! That gate looks really cool. It gives me some ideas on how to control the air on mine, though I will probably build the gate closer to the fan. I really should have included a picture of that in the first post on the this thread. I found a 20lb sack of lump charcoal at Menards for 6 bucks for the next time I fire it up. The thread about where the sweet spot in the firepot is makes a lot of sense and explains a lot of stuff I was seeing vs what my assumptions were. So now I know I have too much blast (most likely), I need better fuel (got it), and I need to fiddle a bit with the brick placement in the JABOD. I also discovered that I might need a hood of some sort to help deal with the wind. We got some fire fleas jumping around and I need to find a way to monitor and stop that for the dry months. I'd hate to be the cause of fires in the fields out there. The farmers might not like it As far as controlling the blast: I have a length of Hand rail from a treadmill I tore apart as the tuyer. It has a 90 degree bend and I have that rotated down to allow my blower to sit on the ground. A length of PVC pipe acts as a connection between the 2, and it is a simple matter to slide the pvc up and pull out the blower. would a hole in the side of the pvc pipe reduce the amount of blast I am getting? Because I could drill a hole through both the PVC and the bent pipe and then rotate the PVC to open and close the hole while everything is connected. I don't really get the fluid dynamics all that well, but I wonder if that could work. I can add a picture of what I have later today. Thanks again

Well, I'm really not controlling the air at all right now. It was kind of a struggle just getting everything hooked up so that I had air going through the tuyer at all. As far as the fuel, yes it was briquettes because that's what was on hand. I also fiddled with some cedar chunks that I had laying around. I wasn't expecting major results, just looking to find out what I don't know so I can figure out what I should be searching for. Weather dictates that I have to break things down for the week. When I reassemble everything I'll make some adjustments I think I have an ac speed control somewhere around the house. I'll see if that will work with the blower. It's tinkering I can do when it's raining.

Looks better thought out than mine. Can't wait to see it in action

It's a side blast, a lot like many of the others I have seen on this site. Basically made from scrap 2 by 4 and plywood sitting in my shed. The air supply comes from an old bathroom exhaust fan. I used some red brick and some fire brick to create a place for the fire and filled the box with sand, because that's what I had to hand without digging holes in the ground. I was going through wood and charcoal at a ferocious rate, and I wasn't getting really good temps, so I need to learn fire management. At any rate, me and the boy got to bang on some steel today, so it was a good day.

I found one in my backyard. Can I keep him?

Good Luck to you on that deal. feeling kinda jealous.

When I lived in San Angelo Texas, Mesquite led both lives as a tree and a weed. If you want the tree, it's a tree. If it came up in your yard, however, it turns in to the fire ant of the plant world. Nasty thorns, and a habit of coming up in 12 more spots after you think you got rid of it. It has a very deep taproot making it difficult to get rid of completely. There were entire businesses centered around yanking those things out (ok, they did general tree services too, but they specialized). I will say the ones that get to full growth can be beautiful, twisty, graceful trees, but the small ones are nasty. I have lost more than one pair of jeans to the weed version and the thorns can be long and go right through leather gloves if you aren't careful

Well, I dragged the motor to the treadmill out of the bin. It's very heavy. the plate on the motor shows it to be a 16 amp, 150 volt DC motor good up to 3600 RPM. It has a pretty stout flywheel on it but the central rod goes all the way through and extends a good three inches on either side. I'm thinking I could build a belt sander with the rollers, where does one find 24 inch wide sanding belts just kidding. I am thinking I could cut the rollers off to the width of a sanding belt

I'll have to fish it out of the bin then. the motor is a heavy son of a gun. it was a speed sensor that went, and that was on the circuit board. I do have a speed controller somewhere, and I need to check the wiring diagram to see what voltage the motor takes. Hadn't thought about using it as a belt grinder or bench grinder though, thanks for the ideas everyone! I gave brief thought to using it as drive for the hand crank bellows, but nah.

didn't quite follow me home, but a very heavy Treadmill we had gave up the ghost, so I got premission to tear it apart. After an hour or so with a Sawzall and some wrenches I now have about 200 lbs of various powder coated scrap steel I may be able to do stuff with. Some of the tubing might make a tuyier for a JABOD. dunno what to do witht he rest of it yet.

This is a great idea. I'm gonna have to try this soon.

Hi there, welcome!. I'm really new here too. If I have any sort of take away to getting started the thing you need most is a desire to learn. Don't have an anvil? Look at the thread Need a Forge? There is a huge amount of information under "Forges" ranging from solid fuel to propane and all over the place. Tools? you can get a wire brush, cross peen hammer or ball peen hammer really cheap at your local hardware store. Most of all, read and search, ask questions and LISTEN. The folks here are great

Be careful. I remember that there are a lot of folks in Albuquerque who don't understand that four wheel drive does not also mean four wheel stop.

Good that those boys are on the job. It seems like every winter idiots out here forget how to drive in the white stuff. I'm lucky I get to work from home. So at least for this year, I don't have to deal with that. Stay safe up there

Thanks for the beautiful photos alexandr! We got snow out here over the weekend. Not enough to be pretty, just enough to be miserable and get your shoes wet. This was the bit of fun this weekend. The boy bought it as his first motorcycle, so we had to plan around the weather to get it from the city back to our house in the sticks. We convoyed back home because he hasn't had a chance to register it until today and he was frankly intimidated by the prospect of driving a motorcycle at 70 for the trip to the house. The rush was to get back before the snow started.

Hadn't really thought about that. Maybe I'll drive around town when the ice melts. been nasty out here the last few days. Thanks for the tip!

Thank you Frosty! The concrete is just there to hold it upright. all the mass is actually resting on the wood which is in turn resting on the ground. The "stump" is Cedar, because that's what I had and it's all twisty. That culvert is holding 4 main logs in place, with two of them extending above the top and holding the anvil in place. I figure the downward force of the mass and the hammer hitting the anvil should have minimal impact on the concrete culvert. So far, what little banging on it I have done shows no movement at all and that post you see to one side of the anvil is actually about 2 feet deep in the ground. Been too busy to build the actual forge, but I have been practicing swinging the hammer (when I have a moment or two) on some boards to make sure I can hit it flat with consistency and also on some scrap copper just because. I had to re-purpose the materials I had in mind for the JABOD for some of the wife's honeydo list, then the weather has been crap. Oh well. life moves on.

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 please let me know. I'm old enough now to listen to experience. It's much less painful than making the same mistakes. I'll make plenty on my own.

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 information here, I can't believe it. Every time I click on a topic I find 12 more things.

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 as much fun as I think it might be, then I'll spend some cash slowly as I get more into it. A little about me: I'm approaching 50 and I have always been an avid sci-fi and fantasy reader. Often, my favorite characters were the smiths in various stories. I always liked the guy who would make what he needs and then uses it to great effect. For some reason, though, this never was my interest as a career. I went the management and Information Systems for that. Now that I am older and my twin boys have become interested in working with metal for their careers, those old thoughts of blacksmithing have come back to me, and with the magic of the internet forums and Youtube I have found that things are not as complicated and expensive as you might think. One of my boys had the idea of using the old slab that I had from my Dad as an anvil. I had a firepit I made out of a water meter surround. He bought an old hand crank blower and we decided to just kind of put them together one night and tried to get some metal hot. after a few beers and several turns on the blower, we got some rebar hot enough to bang on and deform. Since then I have been reading, watching a lot of videos (even forged in fire), and trying to learn about as much as I can in an undirected, rabbit hole kind of way. I stumbled on this forum and got even more excited to get out there and try something. In the mean time, I've got a lot more direction to my reading on the subject. I have twin goals. I would like to be able to make some decorative pieces at first and in a few years time, graduate to bladesmithing. My other goal is to make Bows and arrows. It has occurred to me I could forge my own broad-heads in time. Not in a hurry, but it's a direction to work toward long term. I know I have a lot to learn. I'd also like to thank everyone for the great advice I have already gotten and any other bits of wisdom I may receive in the future. I really am grateful.