K. Bryan Morgan

That's why I like my domed one.  No cleaning needed usually.  The clinkers just fall off.  Once in a while one will be come lodged in a slot but its just a matter of forcing it through or prying it out with my poker.  Easy peazy.

I use slots for my tuyere.  And most of the commercially available that I've seen use slots of some sort too. 

There have been some very interesting comments on here that teach a lot.  I don't have any practical knowledge on this subject but I do have some experience with a light weight anvil. 

A couple of years ago I made an axe on a 25 pound anvil with a 2.6 pound hammer as the main forging hammer.  The work went smoothly and Jake and I experienced no issues with anvil or hammer weight.  With in a few hours, spread over several days, we had a nice camp axe.  The weight of the hammer, in my mind, was more important than the weight of the anvil.  I know this is anecdotal evidence, but my experience none the less.

I had no idea either until a friend told me. 

That size fire pot is great for large things, I can tell your gonna have fun.

Happy forging!

Those are wonderfully whimsical, I love them.  Well done sir!

Hey Jeff, 

I get my coal from Alaska Feed on College Rd, its right by the fair grounds.  Its good coal for forging.  The owner gets it for his dad who founded Alaska Feed and is also a blacksmith.  I have been using it for 5 years and it works very well.  I haven't used Healy coal as yet but know some people who have and they even weld with it.  So its all about what your willing to do.  The last time I got some coal it was $34.99 for 50 lbs.  I still have about 175 lbs left from my last buy.  But, I know here at North Pole Gravel you can get a ton of Healy Coal for $120 - $140 somewhere in that range.  It has high sulfur but will get the job done.

Hey Ice, I use blacksmiths coal, and a shop vac with a dimmer switch, the kind you buy for the living room lamp, slider type and just go for it.  It goes from 0 to more than I need at the push of a thumb.  Usually I use a moderate, this is subjective of course, blast and have no problems at all.  One thing I adopted from a very knowledgeable smith, the late Grant Sarver, is a domed tuyere,  the clinker falls right off and doesn't block my air flow at all.  In his version he took an end cap for a bit of black iron pipe and drilled a 7/8 inch hole in it.  Mine is a vent cap for an underground fuel tank and ground slits into it.  It works very, very well.  Again being cast its durable and easy to replace.  It will wear out eventually.  Its about the only wear I have in the whole system.  But lasting more than 5 years now I consider that cost minimal. 

Its a break drum.  I've been using one for years and no wear at all.  Cast steel is pretty durable stuff.  You don't need refractory.

How the heck did I miss this?  Hope you had a great one.

A very Merry Christmas to one and all.    45 below but warm inside.

I forge down to about 20f after that it gets just too uncomfortable for me.  50f would be a dream for us this time of year.  Heck we hit -40f last week for a couple of days.

Well come on up and stay a while.  You could always bring Pocket.  Heck we have plenty of company for her.

WE went from below zero to mid-high 20s and rain. Oh what joy. Even with a reasonably new 4x4 pickup and studs we just hung at home and let folk with important errands fill ditches and bend fenders.

 

Where are the nearest hot springs Chena? It's been many a year since I was in the interior but the hot springs stick in one's memory. Manley has a hotel/motel doesn't it? As I recall the entire town was heated by spring water, kind of smelly showers but very nice place.

 

Critter sitters is still out biggest issue to traveling. <sigh>

 

Jer

Chena hot springs is the closest by far.  Its a very nice drive and they have been repairing the road on a regular basis for frost heaves so its in good repair.  Or was last time I was there in summer.  Renee tells me there are accommodations at Manley Hot Springs but I don't remember exactly what they are.  Chena Hot Springs uses Geothermal exclusively and is completely off the grid.  Its a pretty tricked up system and works very well. 

A couple of days ago we hit -40 f but it warmed back up into the mid single digits.  Which is shirt sleeve weather for us.  :P

Certainly understand what you mean by getting sitters for the critters.  Gotta keep the babies warm and fed.

Glad to see you're online Bryan, did you lose power? Healing and therapy can be a job in itself but it's worth it. We'll get together for sure, I still need to give Deb the tour of the interior, all we have to do is find folk to tend the animals.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

Yes we did.  It was off for about two and a half days.  Not a huge imposition but a hassle none the less.  The winter bad weather keeps coming though.  We had another winter weather watch today.  Blizzard conditions.  But that may miss us as its more for the higher elevations and mountain passes.  I sure hope so. 

We would love to host you any time.  Come on up and we can do something together in my tiny little shop.  (compared to yours of course).  We do have some nice things here to see and do and its always fun when family and friends are here.  Bed available anytime.

http://www.abana.org/resources/education/chf.shtml

Here are 26 pdf lessons from ABANA.  A very good way to get started.

I hope so too my friend.  How about central Alaska run amok?  I can do that fairly well.  Well limp amok maybe better.  :D

I'm healing well from my knee surgery and hope to be forging soon.  But I will promise you right now that we will get together and forge.  I just can't say when that will be.   Living in the interior has its good sides and its bad.  One of the bad things is being so far from friends.

Whatever you get, remember the Rhino is a Chinese import. 

This is no longer true.  I bought one of the last Chinese imports that Incandescent Ironworks made four years ago.  They are all made in the USA out of an " alloy (that) has a very large proportion of chrome and nickel, with smaller proportions of molybdenum and manganese. This same alloy was originally designed specifically to tolerate the extreme shock and abrasion experienced by the liner plates in rock crushers. It is an air-hardening steel, and does not require quenching. Heat treatment involves only tempering, so the hardness (HRC 52) extends through the full thickness of the anvil."  From their website. 

Even though I have one of The Chinese versions I'm very happy with it.  I would recommend this anvil to anyone.  The company is very good to work with and more than willing to arrange shipping.  Which for someone who lives in Alaska is a must have.  They did a great job and saved me a bundle on shipping. 
 

Hopefully one of the guys down your way will pipe in soon.  I'm a good distance away and can't go to meetings often.  Its been a few years.  Hope to though.  Frosty has the inside track on this stuff.  After all, he's president for life.  :D

You left something out in chat until later in the conversation.... that this process needs to be repeated competently one hundred times.  I still do not see that in this thread.  Since you want to sell these.  Which means you need to do this somewhere between 200 and 500 times depending on how many you place in each gang punch.  When you leave important information out, expect inexact results. 

I love Frosties shop.  When I grow up I want one just like it.  Mine is kind of tiny in comparison 12' x 16'.  I can get my meager equipment in it.  Forge, anvil, post vice. Band saw, and drill press.  After this winter season I plan on putting in a coal forge and finally a wood stove.  It really doesn't take much to blacksmith.  You need four basic things.  Something to get the metal hot with.  Something to hammer the metal on.  Something to hit the metal with.  and the fourth is actually optional.  Something to hold the metal with.  If you do it right you don't even need that.  Rocks were used with great success in the past for hammers and anvils.  A small trench in the ground with a pipe and some way to force air through it.  Charcoal was used for thousands of years.  The earliest known iron artifacts are nine small beads, dated to 3200 BC, from burials in Gerzeh, northern Egypt, that were made from meteoritic iron, and shaped by careful hammering.  That means there is a history of iron working on earth that is 5300 years old.  I find that amazing.

The easiest and least toxic way that I know of to get rid of a zinc coating is to soak it in vinegar over night.  Then you don't need to worry about if your going to breath the fumes.

Also :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_fume_fever

https://www.osha.gov/doc/outreachtraining/htmlfiles/weldhlth.html

http://www.asse.org/practicespecialties/articles/weldingfumes.php

http://www.aws.org/technical/facts/FACT-25.pdf

And one last thing.  Drinking milk to alleviate or mediate the effects of fume fever is a myth.  And has no factual basis in science.

It effects how long the steel stays hot. Certainly -40 could make things a bit brittle.

Charles is absolutely correct.  I never hit my anvil when its that cold outside.   I paid way to much for it and shipping to put a chip into it.  I place a piece of plate in the forge while its heating up the place it on the anvil.  Do that a couple of times and its nice and toasty warm. 

My knee is healing up well and I don't care how cold it gets this winter.  As soon as I am able, I'm forging.

I really enjoyed the video.  I did like the music to.  I feel it fit the piece quite well.  It was very interesting to see your processes and also to watch the drifting processes you used in the making of this piece.  I also really liked the way it all fit together there at the end.  Showing how it was assembled even gave me some ideas.  Thank you for showing your artwork and your process.  Very enlightening.

Brian, Peter is a member here, SilkHopeSmith. He only posts occaisionally.

 

Here is the link for the video.

 

http://video.pbs.org/video/2365104352/

John, thank you so much.

Love that look.  Outstanding work once again.  Thank you for showing it.