ChrisL

Thanks Latticino I'll go ask.

Thanks so much for all the guidance. My wife has some old potters clay that she hasn't used, so I'm going to give that a go. I think you are right, the large L shaped metal plate is removable, so I guess it allowed for a concentrated fire maybe for horseshoes, or if removed, a larger one. Close up photo's below. Chris

Hope I'm doing this right. I'm a bit of a newbie so may get it wrong, please set me straight if I do. Thanks for the great responses everyone. I was quite pleased how it turned out in the end. I think I was lucky as it was in such good condition to start with. JHCC, I'll take a photo of the lettering later tonight and post it up tomorrow. Sorry for the dumb question, I was planning to just pour a layer of sand, about 1'' deep, in the bottom of the hearth. Does that sound OK? Chris

Hi Jobtiel, before and after below. Mod’s, sorry if I did this the wrong way.

I was lucky enough to buy an old bellows forge a few weeks ago. I’ve stripped it down, removed the rust, and repainted. Now it’s time to use it and I’m not sure what to do next. From what I’ve seen, I think I need some kind of bed at the bottom . But some people say that needs to be fire brick, others suggest using sand. Sand sounds much easier and I have a bag of sharp sand left over from a building project. Would that work? Any guidance greatly appreciated.

Thanks Twistedwillow thats really kind of you. Thats a good idea I will look into that.

Hi, I'm forging a cooking tripod and I need to find a way of suspending the fire plate from the legs. I saw these silver things. Does anyone know whet they are called and where I could get some. Thanks :-)