Howdy,
Newbie here from ATX. Just recently took an introductory blacksmith class over at Pioneer Farms with instructor Philip Waters. Philip was a great teacher and I had so much fun and will be signing up soon for more classes. Eventually I want to make blades but for now I want to keep expanding my knowledge and basics before I move on to that.
The bug bit me pretty darn good. I knew this was something I wanted to explore more of so I immediately reached out to my cousin who now owns and lives on my grandparents old farm. I asked if my grandpa happened to have an anvil or forge or any blacksmithing equipment. Sure enough, he had an anvil that was passed down to him from his grandfather as well as a forge table. Both needed some work… the anvil was pretty eaten up, lots of pits on the face and horn, but the rebound with a ball bearing was perfect and rang like it should with no delamination in the plate to the body. I did a little surface grinding to clean the face up a bit but could still use a little more work but since I’m just starting out it’ll work great. I’ve already identified my anvil as an old Peter Wright 94lb anvil.
The forge table wound up turning into a pretty big project. Since this piece has actual family history I didn’t want to cut into it or weld to it etc. especially in case I ever happen to stumble across parts that could actually restore it. From what I can tell, it looks like it was the Buffalo Forge model #0 table but it was completely missing any kind of fire pot and most everything else that would come with that table. It had some sort of cement pot that I’m assuming my grandpa made for it at one point and was cracked into 4 chunks. I knew I was going to have to come up with something to use as a fire pot and get rid of the cement.
Initially I was considering just buying a fire pot from Centaur and just slapping it in there, but those things are like $500 and I knew I could build something myself. I had almost convinced myself I was just going to drop a brake rotor in there and just call it good, but then I thought, what if this really takes off and I wind up wanting something that actually works properly and efficiently. After tossing that around in my head I decided to build myself a true fire pot and that is what turned this into a much bigger project. Thankfully, my late father owned his own construction company and so just about every tool under the sun was passed on to me so there was 0 need to go buy and spend money to complete this project. I went to my shop and found me a big 1/2” steel plate where I keep all the stock and scrap metal and built a pot that would just set into the forge table without cutting, drilling, welding etc to the table. If I ever find the parts to restore the table I’ll just have to cut off the blower intake tube and then I can just pull the whole pot right out of the table.
I just finished my build yesterday and figured I’d share some pics with my intro. I don’t have any coke yet so I just tossed some lump coal in for its first fire test and it worked great! Can’t wait to finish setting up my forge space and seeing where this hobby takes me. I took pictures throughout my forge build in case anyone is interested in building something similar, just DM me or maybe I’ll post the whole build somewhere else in the forum. I haven’t welded since I was in my late teens so don’t make too much fun of my welds
Glad to be here, thanks for having me, and I’m sure I’ll have some questions for you vets in the future.
J.C.