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Hi I’m new to the forum and to smithing, I am excited and hungry for knowledge, since I was a kid I always loved knights armor knives axes swords etc, but was more fascinated by the men who made these tools of utility, warfare, and beauty and I’ve wanted to be one of them my whole life. So I’ve built a small foundry before out of an old steel bucket and some homemade refractory cement(plaster of Paris and play sand) that was coal powered and worked like a champ for melting aluminum and softer metals to be cast, even managed to burn through a steel crucible once. Now I’ve recently built my first forge out of an old propane tank and a similar refractory mix and it took forever to dry not sure what I did wrong there, But she did work and worked well even made 2 file knives and began drawing out an attempt at a Khukri ( ive always wanted one) but couldn’t get up to welding temperature when I attempted to make a small amount of Damascus, currently I use only a greenwood torch fro. Harbor freight on a homemade stand as a burner, but to test its durability I purposefully ran her long hours probably 30 hours in 3 days if not more before the refractory began to fail. Currently she is hollowed out and waiting for me to reinsulate and set back up. My questions to experienced smiths are, is that a good lifespan for a refractory mix 50/50 plaster to sand? Is there a better ratio or anything I could add to the mix to insulate better maintain more heat? I’ve read articles about wood ash, sodium silica (water glass) , adding borax you the mix and even just plain old clay. would a custom built burner be more fuel efficient? thank you ahead of time guys any information , tips tricks or encouragement is much appreciated and welcomed. I suppose it will be awhile before I earn the title of smith but it is a road I look forward to walking,

Hello Everyone! This forum seems pretty dead. We should liven it up a bit! I'm a fledgling blacksmith. Just got my forge up and running and mounted my anvil. I have the basic tools and a full tank of propane. I'm eager to get started! I'm totally new to this but I would like to invite anyone out there who's interested in blacksmithing to learn with me! I make no claims of expertise and will in no way be teaching. I know there's a lot of people out there who are interested in blacksmithing but consider it to difficult to get into. So this is a chance to come out and try your hand at smithing. I know this is shot notice but I'm super excited to spend tomorrow with my forge and I'd love to share my excitement and enthusiasm with you! I live in south London and will just be chilling in my backyard most of the day. Send me a message if you're interested in coming by!

So I am dressing my first hammer (a small 2.5 lb drill hammer) based on what I have read in various threads. Despite all those description, I am a bit unsure whether I am doing this correctly, so I'd like people to comment based on those pictures. Note that I can't test it yet by beating on hot steel, as I don't have a forge yet. But I'm going to an event next week where I will have the opportunity to do it so I'd like to show up with a useable hammer. Initial configuration of the hammer: After my attempt at dressing it: Should I sand it some more or does it look fine like that? Considering that this is a small drilling hammer, is it worthwhile to make the other end of the hammer into a cross pein?

Hello everyone! Dave here from South East Pennsylvania. I have been using this sight frequently as it is arguably the best consolidated reference point on the web. I appreciate all of the input and shared expertise that this forum has to offer, and all of the people who have taken time away from forge and family to share it. I hope to some day be able to contribute to the community as well. About 3 months ago my friend and I decided we were done talking about blacksmithing and decided to dive in head first. We sourced an old 14" Champion blower and a decent 70lbs anvil of indistinguishable origin, bought some cheap paving stones and made a very basic and amateur forge from it. We designed, built, and fired our forge up and were heating steel to an orange glow in an afternoon. Shortly thereafter however, we realized that we had only made a forge capable of heating small projects (predominantly 1/2" rebar). We made a few changes based on information I read here and managed to get our forge to be more powerful. We are now confident that our proof of concept forge was a success, and are trying to get deeper into the wonderful world of smithing. Now down to the brass tax. We would very much like to find the best design for a simple coal forge for bit or anthracite coal. We are seeking good advice for where exactly to go from here. I can upload some pictures of where we are at now shortly but in the meantime I would really love some guidance to a good forge design that will keep us heating and beating. I look forward to hearing anything you guys have to offer. Thanks in advanced!