K. Bryan Morgan

There are lots of ideas out there for small or micro sized forges. Try http://www.zoellerforge.com/ There are several good plans on that site that are extremely easy to execute. Good luck and post some pics of what you come up with.

Ya that was quite a shock to me. An old Florida boy to come to central Alaska just before winter. I think my favorite night was the one that was - 40 f and we ran out of fuel oil. Ahh the memories. All kidding aside. Alaska is a great place to live and I'm glad I'm here. I lived in Seattle early in my life and loved it there. Another great place to live too. You won't go wrong anywhere in these areas. Good luck with the move and have fun.

Well that sounds like a plan then. I am it. Tag. Renee says she won't be able to make it down because its end of month and her responsibilites won't let her. But we will be back down the very next weekend at the AKC show at the state fairgrounds in Palmer. She said she would love to meet you both then if that works out. As far as the rest. Love hearing you have a new puppy on the way. Renee loves the Icelandic Sheep Dogs. I think thats great. Fire good. Hammer good. Power tools excellent!

Unfortunately I don't know anyone here. Just my girlfriend and her son. I haven't met one blacksmith. Not to say I haven't tried. I just hasn't happened. But that being said. I will be there.

I am so there. :D

I so wanted to come down to the Art on Fire but was unable to. I know you had a great time with Frosty and Deb. They are definitely two of my favorite people on the planet. I would love to see the pics and here Frosty chime in. I sure hope he's doing better. Anyway congrats on a good pour.

Thanks George, its plenty strong. Still trying to get back out to the forge and finish up a camping set.. been so busy with other things I just havn't had time....When I get it done I'll post some pics of it too.

I'll add mine to the mix here...Incandescent Ironworks Papa Rhino, 242#. Its dimensions are 19.7 inches long, 5.6 inches wide, and 11.3 inches high. It has a 1" hardie hole and a 5/8" pritchel hole. I paid $950 for the anvil and I think $325 for shipping to Alaska. So total price $1275 new. Or, $5.26 per pound.

Beans, beans the more you eat.....as the old poem goes. I guess I could just do it with several S hooks but I got tired of making them. This was a lot more fun. :D

Thanks, that means a lot to me. It works. I guess that is the main test. I pulled on it hard. I'm sure I put more than 50# of pull on it and nothing. So I know it will hold a pot of beans over a fire. :)

You've been in my thoughts and prayers brother. I'm glad your home and doing better. I was very very sorry to hear about Libby.

Thoughts and prayers for you both.... I'm so sorry to hear about Libby.. I was hoping she would be here with us alittle longer...I really liked her alot.

Hey Paul, thats really a nice one.. I need to get a better picture of mine.. Thats what I get for takeing pictures at Nine oclock at night.

Thats 1\4" by 3/4" by 13" long to start. I bent the bottom about one inch up and the hook is about 6" drawn out give or take. I was going to use 3/16" holes but ended up using 1/4" instead and I spaced them every 2 inches. It was a little easier seeing how the holding hook is made out of 3/16" rod. I could have made it work forging out the rod alittle bit..but why go to all that trouble just make the holes alittle bigger and done.

I haven't posted for a little bit. Been kinda busy. But I have been forging . I made a trammel and a J hook. I got an order for four J hooks. I've made them before, but not with an arrowhead finial before. So I started with some 3/8th mild got the arrow head portion upset somewhat to make it larger and then isolated what I wanted to make the arrowhead part with.. It didn't work out so good... I broke one off hammering it too cold. Knew better too.. but it will make a nice leaf someday. And the other one .. eh..just not thrilled with it...There are some parts of it I like.. the twist came out nice I think, and the hook and finial scroll for that looks nice too.. I did a flat taper then rolled it. On the trammel, I did what seemed an easy way to do it. did a flat taper on one side and made the hook out of that for the hanger with a scroll and punched the hole for the angle. Then the other holes. Made the hook that you hang the pot off of and figured out pretty quick I had the angle for the part that goes through the holes to long. Got that fixed and I'm quite happy with it. First one I made and I like it. Enjoy.

This is what I did. Used 2x4 metal studs. Worked great. I've been using it almost a year with zero problems.

I can only speak about my experience with Rhino anvils at Incandescent Ironworks. I got the 242# Papa Rhino, and I couldn't be happier. It's a real good anvil. The price was, I thought reasonable, $950, I don't know what they are selling for now. And they worked real hard to get me the best shipping price for me to Alaska. Which you can imagine is usually a pain. So for a total of about $1250 I got a 242# anvil that has a good hard face, and excellent cone, well heck here I'll post a pic of it. Anyway, I am very happy with it. If you didn't get that impression yet. Anvils in Alaska are very close to impossible to find. I found 3. One was a 110# Russian ASO, RR rail, which is good, I started with one and still use it for small things, and the other was a real big 330# that was in Juneau, and thats a land locked town. Ship or plane only... shipping would have been huge, well over a grand for that much weight. So, I chose the Rhino. Hope you have good luck finding one. I know my search was long and painstaking.

Hey Frosty, That is a fantastic find...Way to go Deb. I know she is going to be busy with that for a while...

Wow, that sure is nice. I made one like it...ok well similar to it...lol... same basic configuration your just looks way nicer. I didn't even know it was something he taught. Just seemed the best way to use the piece of 1/2 inch round I made it out of.

Prayers sent from your friend in Alaska. Hang in there Jimmy.

Hey Tom, I wish you were here too, what fun that would have been. Heck I wish all the smiths in IFI could have come. But we would need tents .... lots and lots of tents. :blink:

Metalmangler, I really am working hard to make sure I'm able to be there. For me it will be a weekend thing because of how long the drive is. But thats just fine. It would be great to meet everyone at the meeting. And also good to see some other smiths.

It was a great experience for us both Frosty. I sure am glad we got together and I plan on doing again real soon. I hope to be there for the meeting but I don't know right now if I can. I should be able to. It will be fun to meet some new smiths and see you again.

This last weekend I had a chance to spend some time with one of our own. Jerry Frost, aka Frosty. I drove down to Meadow Lakes Alaska from North Pole, about a 5 1/2 hr. drive. It was a great day and a pleasant drive. Except for the one time a guy thought my lane was his lane, but we did miss each other. I pulled into Frosty's drive and he came out to greet me and we both had great big smiles on our mugs. After a few hellos and meeting Deb for the first time, we went to the shop. Ohhhhhh boy. He has cool tools. Pictures below. We did a warm up and started a couple of J hooks and that was all we had time for Friday. The next morning after a hearty blacksmith breakfast, hamburger, eggs, toast, and coffee, lots of coffee, we went back out to the shop and finished the J hooks. After that we decided it was time to get one of the pieces of wrought iron Jake had sent me and got it hot, real hot. Thank goodness Jerry has a Little Giant 50# hammer. It would have taken us forever to hand hammer that stuff. Its about 1 1/4 inch thick. We had thought we would make a trade axe. We heated it and hammered it straight by hand, well Frosty did. He sure got into it, and I was glad he did. We took turns using the power hammer to reduce and fuller it longer. I've never used a power hammer before so that was great fun. Once we got it to the size we thought was good, Frosty tried to do a forge weld with some powdered steel he had and a piece of spring steel we cut off a bigger piece. It seemed to go well but when Frosty tried to power hammer it longer it opened up and it was evident that it hadn't welded. But thats ok. We had fun. And that, for me anyway, was what the weekend was all about. I learned alot. I have a better idea of how to hammer by hand. I learned some basic techniques for the power hammer. I learned how to make a better finial scroll on a hook or anything else that may need one. And I also learned how to properly punch a hole. So, for me, it was a great weekend. I wasn't going to post this until tomorrow, and as I look at the clock I see that it actually is. I look forward to doing this again.

Wow thats really looking good there Jake. Thanks for showing us.