thecelticforge

:~) When I come up to Bluefeild to get coal again, I will bring a bottle of gluwine we can split.

If it is just for a throwing hawk, you may want to go the cheap route and use pine. That way when they break, it will be no big loss.

I use a vegetable tan on mine and have had the same loin cloth and leggins for years of rendevous and powwows.

Oh, I am so gonna copy that! I may make the top of mine convex and just have one hole with different plates I can change out.

Make sure you clean your fire pot out very well when you finish. Copper will mess up a weld faster than I can!

I know I would like some iron. I love to use it for chopping tools. I weld steel into it for the cutting edge. It "feels" better when I use it, almost like less shock.

I am willing to help any way I can.

I am making my #5 s hook!

Can these veins be polished off? I seem to remember the same thing happening in lard also.

I am most influenced by Ivan Bailey and Jim Joyce. I have not heard from either of them for years. However, I am most moved by the obstacles that Ivan had to overcome in his life and his attention to detail. Jim Joyce in my opinion has an idea of art that speaks to my emotions the most. Not to the side of me that recognizes technical ability or following traditions. He is excellent at both of those also. My idol in the craft is Jim Paw Paw Wilson. Simply because of the kind of person he was. He was not defined by what he did for a living. Rather, he used blacksmithing as an extension to warm the hearts of other people. I would also like to mention my Great Grandfar. He was one of the "token Catholics" at the Belfast shipyards. His lot there was not good yet he was able to feed his family by making each rivet fit just so.

Thanks DL, I will go to the glass shop the next time I am in Athens, GA. and see what my options are. I was going to try grinding up glass and pouring it on.

Has anyone tried to enamal iron yet? I am going to try using ground glass. If successful, I wish to start using it to make vases, goblets, and coffee cups.

I am having the same issue. However, I wish to coat my goblets and vases with enamel. Can I just grind glass and pour it in like flux? I saw a discovery channel episode where they took the heated bath tub and just poured the enamel on it and poof! Enameled tub.

I have had the same experience as Glen. When I was at the living history museum, they had 3 12" flues for one firepot. It was a major task to get a draft going in that monster. I finally put stone on two of the flues and it worked much bettter.

I am thinking lime stone would turn to dust very quickly. You can heat it and use the powder (mixed with water) to heat things and give off light.

Hello, My name is Wind (really) and I am a forge-a-holic. I started around twenty five years ago. It seemed like such a little harmless thing at first. Sneaking anvil dust from my Grandfar's anvil stand. Then my cousin and I would go to the creek behind the shop, and take a few tablespoons at a time. It was a lark to put a magnet on my head and have it stick. But, as the years went by, I found myself working in his forge just to make my own dust. I was not even bothering to go to the creek any more. I would just grab a hand full and inhale it. Then a few years later, I was caught trying to go through the metal detector at the airport. The ex-rayed me and found that the gray matter in my head had turned reddish and was a solid mass if bog iron. So I moved to Ireland to live in the bogs with the hinkypunks and pukas. After several more years of being frozen and tanned by the acid, I had had enough. I swore off all ingestion of iron and I have come here to you, my Brothers for the support that only other addicts can give.

Thanks, I have always wrapped mine around a rod, but this looks much faster. :)

I am thinking a bit of slag.

Welcome to our world Bill! We have the friendliest people in the world here! We also have the world's smartest people, but the latter never post anything, so the rest of us make do by learning from each other.

My Great Grandfather brought one like that over from Ireland in 1915. He didn't use it in his shop though. It stayed in the barn where we dressed hogs and cured meat. It stayed on top of a box that he kept the salt in to keep the critters out.

The palmettos are far to the South. I live at 1700 feet in the mountains, about 20 miles South of TN. I Spent years in the Rockies and in WV, so Mr. Winter and I go way back...

Fun eh? I noticed the black sawbuck in the rear. Was that a thing you use? If so, besides bucking logs, what?

Are the 1-14 different leaves being made? I count 4 heats total?

POST LEG VISE: Another two purpose device. This can allow you to slip with your rasp while working hot metal filling the shop with the smell of burned skin; bumps into you while you are trying to heat the middle of a 16 ft piece of bar stock.

I use an engine block heater. A large magnet that you can pout on your engine block and plug in. Works like a charm!