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I Forge Iron

Show me your shop!


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Thanks Billy, its usually the end where I head to. The other stores the car and some other metal and woodworking gear that was my grandfathers.
I really like your shop too. Thats a neat old looking building. I see some newish timber on some of the framing. Did you build it there? What was it used for before the smithy?
Jason

Its strange how this web is made. We here in Bosnia and Herzegovina have welded iron web that is used for foundaments.

We don't tie them with wire they are already weldedarmaturna%20mreza%20f4%2019kg.jpg

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  • 3 weeks later...

Is that a hand drill operated fan?  I am abut to build a portable 2nd forge and this might be a good option for it. Old fans are much easier to come by than blowers.I never thought about putting a handle on one.

 

Eddie: Not only can you put a hand crank on one but a little imaginative use of bike parts and you can gear it up to really move air.

 

Nice adaptation there Grymm.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

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A nicely made bellows would be a lot easier to use than a brace turned squirrel cage.

 No doubt, and I have been looking at bellow pics on Google, but was wanting something more compact and portable. The only ones I have seen were quite large.I have a small work area so this forge will be taken outside as needed to work on longer material I don't have the room to twirl about in the shop. If you have or can point me to plans for bellows you think might be suitable please share. BTW - I happen to have a few decomissioned bikes of varied size in the scrap pile : ) . I have a few ideas rattiling around for them...

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I've worked forges with single action bellows that were smaller than that blower!  Take a look at *old* bellows instead of just 100-150 year old recent ones.

 

I built my own with the plans based on what I could scrounge.  Based roughly on Theophilius "Divers Arts" and like him I was using charcoal as the fuel.  I still use one I built about 15 years ago for less than a dollar with my Y1K forge (along with a fancier one I bought leather for after the design proved in  They tell me I will have a bellows thrall so I'm going to drag it to the Albq renfaire and work on some viking cooking tools from WI...)

 

Now the big double lunged bellows can be a joy to use if made and set up correctly; but there is well over 1000 years of smithing with bellows before they showed up...

 

Also give a thought to the oriental box bellows.  Not much room needed and can do quite well...

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You can't see it in the pic I posted, but on the workbench my brother and I salvaged the crank and gears from a mountain bike we cut up. We are working on a multi gear setup for the fan.

The fan is actually an old floor drying fan he pulled out of a school demolition job he was on, the motor was fried but the fan blades were fine! Cleaned it up, gutted it out. BAM!

Couldn't afford a buffalo but this has more meaning since it was a project :)

Here's a closer pic:

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  • 4 weeks later...

A couple shots of my truly Backyard Blacksmithing "shop", just finished setting it up today. I still need to hook a blower up, but then I'll be ready to go. Note the clever disguise at the end, anvil, forge and vise cleverly disguised as barbecue grills when not in use! :)

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Edited by hairballz
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  • 3 weeks later...

I finally had another reason to take a picture of my shop today, so here it is:

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I have so much fun out there, it is really shaping up. The only downside so far is because of how finished it is, putting in a chimney for the coal forge will break the bank.

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And a nice dartboard, too.  Good set up, Danguite!  I haven't thrown in awhile, but I like any sport that allows me to be fat, smoke cigarettes and drink beer.  If I can do all that in a smithy... well that's just awesome times ten.

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And a nice dartboard, too.  Good set up, Danguite!  I haven't thrown in awhile, but I like any sport that allows me to be fat, smoke cigarettes and drink beer.  If I can do all that in a smithy... well that's just awesome times ten.

 

I've found that as a beginner it is nice to unwind with some darts after ruining a project.

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Some photos of my newly completed "Shop". Frame is all new treated pine - everything else is recycled. To give the building an aged look I am painting the new & secondhand timbers with a mixture of sump oil & kero which seems to work OK. The floor is quarry rubble which I think I might pave over as the sand content of the rubble is being tracked out  onto the garden paths. The area of the new shop is only about 11sq m as we only have a small suburban back yard and that was all I could negotiate with my wife. Have joined it to the existing garden shed which will now be used for my storage. 

Will "fire up" the forge next week in it's new home and see how I go with making some weathervanes. 

Cheers

Ron

 

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