Ferrous Beuler

Flesh freezes. When I was 13 years old I went sledding on the hill behind the local church with some friends. The temperature that day was 0 degrees farenheit. The windchill made it 35 below. The gloves I was wearing were inadequate. After awhile my hands got cold so I stopped sledding and just watched the others as I kept my gloved hands in my jacket pockets. They felt as though they were warming. I started out walking home and all the while my hands felt warm, good I thought but really didn't think much of it and kept my hands in my pockets the whole time just trying to get home as quickly as I could. When I had finally made the mile walk and got to the door I realized I could not open it. My hand was solid, in a fist position, so was the other one. I kicked open the door and got inside. I could not open my hands. Pulling off my gloves with my teeth I was horrified that my fingers were black at the tips then deep purple fading to dark red through the hands to pink at the wrists. Think hamburger that has been in the freezer for a month. first I thought running them under the kitchen faucet would be good. Bad. The pain was blinding. All I could do was keep my hands in my armpits and pace back and forth to try to dodge the pain but there was no getting away from it. After a while my hands became more pliable, up to this point being held fast in a fist position frozen right through to the bone as if my hands were the marble hands of a statue. I tapped my fingertips gently on the table. Take a stone and tap it on a table, that's the sound. By the time my parents got home a couple hours later may hands were again moveable, but I could barely move them and the color had changed to overall bright red, still black at the tips. By this time the pain was like pins and needles X1000 and throbbing quick and hard. Of course my Dad called the hospital and asked what to do, "DO NOT RUN THEM UNDER WATER" was the reply- Duh! I figured that one out right quick all by myself! "Describe what they look like", which he did. "Keep a close eye on them over the next three days for signs of gangreen". Well, over the next couple of days my fingers turned a sickly dead looking yellow and I noticed the skin had detached from the flesh but was still intact. About the third day or so the tips came off in one piece. Immagine wearing gloves and with scissors, cut around the tips at the first knuckle joint and slip them off, as if you have a sewing thimble on each fingertip and take them off. That is how the skin came off, exposing bare flesh and it took several weeks to grow back. I don't think anyone could be any more frostbitten and not get gangreen. I was lucky. Frostbite is not something you have once, get over it and can forget about it. My hands since that time 27 years ago have been forever after very suseptible to cold, turning white / sickly yellow, numb and generally immobile once the temperature drops to about 55 degrees F. I have to be very careful. "Frostnip" is a lesser condition which I have had several times since because of the suseptibility factor and the warm up cycle from numb to bright pink/ pins and needles throbbing is always very painful. You don't know when frostbite is happening to you, at some point you realize that part of you is frozen. Dan:o

Ruinite, If you are just getting started I suggest finding local blacksmiths in your area. Don't worry, they are there and very willing to help you. Go to [ABANA] The Artist Blacksmith's Association of North America, Inc. and click on "affiliates". You will find contact info for the group nearest you. One hour at an abana affiliate meeting will mindboggle you (in a good way) and you will meet some truly fine folks- real blacksmiths. Dan:)

Thank you all very much Gentlemen, very much appreciated. Brought her home a little earlier tonight, a bit soon for my liking but her doctors took into account her profession and her general well being after the surgery. She is doing remarkably well and knowing how stubborn she is, she will be fine in no time. Thanks! :)Dan

Keep it simple, to quote Ted Throckmorton- "The mother of skill is repetition, The mother of skill is repetition"...:)Dan BTW, Thanks Ted-

This morning my wife had a surgery at Noyes hospital in Dansville N.Y. She will be in there for several days before I can bring her home. All went well her surgeon tells me and she is in her own room now and will sleep for likely all day and night. No complications and I trust in my faith it will remain that way. She is one hurtin' unit right now and could just barely open her eyes for a moment when they let me see her. I sure do wish I could have taken it all for her but these are her steps to walk in so all I can do is pray for her and be there with her later tonight and for the next few days until she can come home. Then two months or so of downtime. How in the world I am going to get her to comply with that is beyond me (she is a redhead 20 year nurse)

Good for you IRon! I don't have any blacksmiths in my family history that I know of, or maybe. Could anyone elaborate on what a "Tool dresser" is/ was? An ancestor of mine appears in an old newspaper clipping we have from 1907. The Bolivar Breeze was an Allegany county N.Y. newspaper until the 1970's. The clipping is an account of how this ancestor of mine named Sinon got on the train at Bolivar and rode it to Scio where he and his brother momentarily got off the train at that stop and got back on. Then there was a man in his seat. He told the man to get out of his seat, who refused. Mr. Sinon then grabbed the man up, threw him to the floor and reclaimed his seat. Well that didn't "sit" well with the newcomer so he whipped out a pistol and shot out several of Mr. Sinon's teeth. The headline on the article reads "Tool dresser shot- XXXXXX in jail". "XXXXXX" being a derogatory term used to describe Italian immigrants. There is of course no way such terms would be seen in print today. Things must have been much different in 1907. Dan

Wow Jerry, I have a print of the same size in an identical frame but the image is different, another blacksmith shop. This one is titled "The Villiage Smithy" and the style is very similar, likely by the same artist. I like mine very much but admittedly I think I kinda like yours better! :oDan

Where does one obtain iron ore? If say, making a bloom, "running pig iron" etc. is the object then where does one obtain some suitable raw iron ore these days???:confused:Dan

Congratulations on keeping your heritage intact!:DDan

Hello Bros. Nice to see the young guns getting involved in the craft. So you want to make a bellows? Great idea, that should be a lot of fun for you guys and if you take the time to do it right it should prove to be worth the while and serve you well. I've also been toying with the idea of building one of these too. Mainly for historical reenactment demos, a year or two down the road from now. I aquired an ancient colonial period anvil for this which is period correct and showing up with a Buffalo forge or Champion hand crank blower just wouldn't be kosher, so a correctly made bellows is required. I've done a bit of research this way but not much yet, more when I'm serious about getting on with that job, but I can maybe offer a couple of pointers for you on your bellows build. As Glenn pointed out check out those blueprints, a goldmine of info is there for you for free. If you want a more detailed guide then I recomend the booklet titled "Making a blacksmith's bellows" which can be found in the Dixie Gunworks catalog for about 5 bucks. Their catalog also costs 5 bucks but I know this booklet is available elsewhere, on one of the blacksmith supply sights on the net maybe? I know I saw it out there somewhere (anybody?) When involved in the build make sure to include some hardware cloth ( 1/4" wire mesh screen) over the holes to keep the creepy crawlies and mice out. Leather can be expensive, a viable source may be an old leather sofa from the curbside showroom. Unfortunately the largest pieces, the back and sides, are usually vinyl, but this may be fine. If you are near amish country, you can get leather cheap from them. Gunlocke furniture company in Wayland New York has a scratch and dent store where they sell full size hides that are blemished but would work fine for a bellows, not cheap though, about $100 each. Lastly, once you are the proud new owners of the magnificent new bellows that you have made yourselves I recomend mounting it to the cieling to save floor space and protect it from damage. Good luck! :)Dan

When I first discovered this site I logged in and joined right away. I did not "ghost" and lay back in the shadows as so many do. When prompted in the log in process the system asked for a screename. In an instant I thought of something to do with iron- "Ferrous", i.e. "iron". And in the same instant I clicked with an old memory from some twenty years ago, a movie called "Ferris Beuler's day off". That movie came out in 1985 or so, the year I graduated from high school. It was a movie about some kids skipping school for a day and what they did, became something of a cult classic. "Ferris Beuler" was the star character of the film played by Matthew Broderick. A year or two later when I was in the Marines I went with some buddies on a "booze cruise" off the island of Oahu, 3 hours on a boat with a live band and a bar. This was about the time another movie, "Biloxi blues" was out, also starring Matthew Broderick. It was a movie about boot camp in ww2. My own mother said I looked like the guy in the movie. The night on the booze cruise, on the boat, I got asked for "my" autograph. This person thought I was Matthew Broderick because of the military haircut and the striking resemblance to me and him at the time the movie was out. If you see the markee poster from that film, it's pretty much me. Mirror image. Wierd. So when I got prompted for a screename the notion of someting to do with iron, "ferrous" became "Ferrous Beuler". I always liked the movie "Ferris Beuler's day off", did lots of the same stuff when I was in school at that time but never made the connection until my own mom told me on the phone to go check out some movie that was out with a guy in it that looked like me. Screen names can be fun I guess and I'd never used one on the net before but I got tired of it and it seemed silly. I am who I am so I just dumped it and opted for my real name. Dan

Hiya Sam, Nice work! Looks very much like the five forge tables/firepots that my group made for the new shop. Also very much like the table I have planned with a couple of differences. My firepot which is now just supported on an ad-hoc stack of cinder blocks and surrounded with rr spike plates upside down to form a surrounding table is inlet lower on the sides. Because of this I cannot use just a flat sheet for the table like yours, being that your pot is flat or level on all four sides at the top. So I got the idea that I will have to use some sections of pipe of the appropriate diameter to match the curves on the right and left sides of the pot. In other words, your table is level like this _______________ Mine needs to be like this _____ __________ . __/ See what I mean? I thought I might use sections cut from steel pipe which could then be heat & beat to match the curve on the sides of my firepot. Could also be done from flat sheet but easier with pipe to start with. Also, your table is a rectangle with 90 deg corners. I have a round hood which is 30 inches in diameter and domed. Its about 6 inches high and has a 6 inch collar 2 inches high for a stovepipe. This must have come off an old boiler or something. It will get an enlarged hole to 12 or 14 inches and a new collar. The table will have rounded ends to mach the diameter of the hood. This will allow me to make shrouds or curtains of sheet metal cut from the outside surface of an old hot water heater, attachable/ detachable with magnets as needed. Something I'll have to experiment with and assess. It gets mighty windy where I am and I smith outdoors. I also have some old steel implement wheels to make this contraption mobile. Nice work Sam! Now I'll have to break down and by a mig so I can catch up. You're right, it's nice to have access to stuff that enables you to make your ideas reality.:)Dan

Hiya Sam, Nice work! Looks very much like the five forge tables/firepots that my group made for the new shop. Also very much like the table I have planned with a couple of differences. My firepot which is now just supported on an ad-hoc stack of cinder blocks and surrounded with rr spike plates upside down to form a surrounding table is inlet lower on the sides. Because of this I cannot use just a flat sheet for the table like yours, being that your pot is flat or level on all four sides at the top. So I got the idea that I will have to use some sections of pipe of the appropriate diameter to match the curves on the right and left sides of the pot. In other words, your table is level like this _______________ Mine needs to be like this _____......__________ ........__/ Disregard the dots. See what I mean? I thought I might use sections cut from steel pipe which could then be heat & beat to match the curve on the sides of my firepot. Could also be done from flat sheet but easier with pipe to start with. Also, your table is a rectangle with 90 deg corners. I have a round hood which is 30 inches in diameter and domed. Its about 6 inches high and has a 6 inch collar 2 inches high for a stovepipe. This must have come off an old boiler or something. It will get an enlarged hole to 12 or 14 inches and a new collar. The table will have rounded ends to mach the diameter of the hood. This will allow me to make shrouds or curtains of sheet metal cut from the outside surface of an old hot water heater, attachable/ detachable with magnets as needed. Something I'll have to experiment with and assess. It gets mighty windy where I am and I smith outdoors. I also have some old steel implement wheels to make this contraption mobile. Nice work Sam! Now I'll have to break down and by a mig so I can catch up. You're right, it's nice to have access to stuff that enables you to make your ideas reality.:)Dan

How old are you and what sort of general health are you in? Just wondering when I should start parusing the estate sale listings;) Dan P.S. here, have a box of twinkies and some yoo hoo to wash it down...

Hey Rain, You can feel a LITTLE better at least in knowing I rescued one of these lawn ornaments from rusting in peace. A 114 lb american wrought ("Montgomery Ward"???) that actually WAS being used as a lawn ornament. This one will be seeing plenty of good use now that I have lent it to my local abana affiliate group shop indefinitely. Instead of rusting it will now be ringing like its supposed to:D Dan

Reminds me of a time last winter at the group shop. Coffee and doughnuts at 8:00 a.m. while the anvils soaked up some pre heat from 1"x4"x12" red hot slabs. Then an hour or so of forging and it was time for a little break again. This was when a late arrival entered the shop, got a coffee and promply sat on one of the anvils. He got up again pretty quick... :rolleyes:

Actually, it won't but if you plan a day at the beach or wash your car, it will!;)Dan

"design fees"... Could you elaborate?

I got infected long before I got started, decades before actually. The first introduction I had to blacksmithing was Colonial Williamsburg in the early seventies. Took trips to Florida with my family as a kid to visit relatives and stopped at a lot of places on the way. Places like Mount Vernon, Monticello, many other antebellum plantations throughout the south and many had smithys. Also in the '70s took many field trips from elementary school to local places like Old fort Niagara, Fort Erie, Genesee Country Museum, Buffalo Historical Museum. Again and again, blacksmith shops and demos. I was hooked. I can remember bugging my 8th grade metal shop teacher, hounding him really, until he relented and showed me how to "run colors" on a chisel (why is there an anvil here if we never use it?) I must have been a royal pain in the xxx to him ( a ww2 B-17 tailgunner). After the service I got into welding and worked on rail cars and cement mixer truck drum bodies. Nobody it seemed knew anything about smithing or anyone who did. But the bug itched all through the years and wouldn't go away. I figured I would just have to get started on my own so around '99 I started looking for an anvil. A year and a half later I got one at a barn sale. In 2002 I broke down and dragged myself kicking and screaming into the 21st century- I bought a computer and got online a decade after the rest of civilization, libraries always seemed devoid of anything on smithing. Discovered abana and the local affiliate. Met some fine folks ( BTW all I've met so far in smithing are fine folks indeed). Now I still pretty much Forrest Gump my way through it on my own but it is a heck of a lot of fun, and I'm always learning- I hope that never stops. Dan:)

WOW! - O L D ! Beyond old. Pieces like this are these days one of a kind. Who knows where it was forged or when? How many like it were made at the time this one was made? Was it just a one- off piece made in a shop with a particular need or was it made in a larger foundry in numbers for sale to smiths near and far? If awards were given out for scrounging old iron, preserving unique pieces of smithing history then this particular score should get some kind of trophy.:oDan

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Get aquainted with the farm auction scene in your area. Learn who the most prominent auctioneers are in your area and keep tabs on the listings of their upcoming events. GO TO the auctions and you will soon have your anvils.Dan:)

The pets I've had got their names from things they did or just they way they appeared. I never named one any specific name because I thought it sonded good like the run of the mill common stuff such as "spike" or "killer". I had a cat with a disproportionately huge head, butt and feet so I called him "Lumpy". The dalmation was called "Zits" and a pit I called "Dude" because he just fit in with me and all my slob friends and acted just like the rest of us. Sooner or later your pup will do something stupid or amazing or have some particular trait and wind up pretty much naming himself. Dan:)

Anvilfolk, nice to see you have arrived at IFI. If you are making your own charcoal or purchasing it locally, then either way try if you can to avoid pine. I don't know about eucalyptus but pine is full of "fleas" and burns up rather quickly. I live in an area with an abundance of hardwood, oak, ash, hickory, maple and getting hardwood for free is never a problem. I've made my own charcoal when I could not get coal. Pine is always trouble. Being in Europe you may find hardwood difficult to obtain and costly. If you are near a port you might inquire about obtaining shipping pallets, a good source of hardwood from which to make your own charcoal. Hope this helps. Dan:)

Quite coincidentally, I too came upon a version of yhe John Henry story/myth/legend. In this one, an historian claims there really was a John Henry, a black man who happened to be a prisoner. It seems the railroad in those parts had a steam hammer and could not hire men to work near it because of the hazardous conditions. Enter the prison labor, a pool of men who had no choice. Many a version of the legend has John Henry being a strapping huge man, this version according to the researcher who claims to have gotten to the root of the real John Henry sais he was stout and strong to be sure, but stood 5' 2" tall. And yes, he did in fact outperform the steamhammer. Dan:o