Mateo Posted March 7, 2011 Share Posted March 7, 2011 Been creeping in the forums for a few days now just reading posts and getting ideas. Thought I would introduce myself now and show what I've managed to scrape together for my own home made forge, and get some help with it. Its not done yet, obviously. The anvil and blower(need to make that one functional) are just temporary as my grandpa is in the antiquing business/trading and said he sees them sometimes and will keep an eye out for them. The cart is from some football team or something and had two holders for gatorade and water jugs so I kept one on there for the water bucket, got to fix the wheels too. The fire pot I don't know if it will work or melt cause I have very little experience with melting metal, it is about 1/6 inch thick iron. Oh and the little bars on top there are going to be my first project, a pair of tongs. Uncle Mateo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Dean Posted March 7, 2011 Share Posted March 7, 2011 Howdy from East TEXAS!! and welcome to IFI! Where ya from? Give us a general idea and most likely there is someone close to you. We can also direct you to the nearest blacksmith group and their meetings. If you are considering the trash can as your forge pan keep looking. You DO NOT want to use anything with galvanize on it, ever! Check in the "pages" section for the blueprint for making a brake drum forge. Also, try to find a smaller blower. A hair drier works, vacumm cleaner--hook it up backwards to blow, blower from a car. Don't mean to be dissin' you and your finds, just trying to help. (the fumes from galvanize are XXX DEADLY XXX, the WILL make you very DEAD.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mateo Posted March 7, 2011 Author Share Posted March 7, 2011 No the galvanised bucket is just going to be for water, the thing that I want to use is the rusted plate shaped into a channel on top of the cart. Thanks for the warning though, kinda making me reconsider using it for even that. I had a wheel connected to the blower but I reconsider that as it was kinda hard to get it to move fast enough to even move dirt. There is an electric motor on the back but I dont think it works, I pulled the whole thing out of a scrap pile where I work. We have an old shop-vac in the garage, that might be to powerful though =) and some old hand-held car vacuums that connect to the lighter slot. As for my location the California delta area. Uncle Mateo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marksnagel Posted March 7, 2011 Share Posted March 7, 2011 Hey Mateo, Welcome to IFI. As you see there is always someone here to help and give safety tips. Ask all the questions you want and there will always be someone to give you their opinion/answer. Take in all the info you can and toss out what you don't want but don't toss it too far because you'll probably need it sooner or later. Trust me. Enjoy your new hobby/obsession/addiction/habit. Mark<>< Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Stubbs Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 Mateo welcome to this hobby/craft. i am new myself also. one thing i have been doing is reading/watching everything i can that pertains to blacksmithing. that channel you are wanting to use as a fire pot should be ok to use but i would consider getting some fire brick to help keep it from breaking through. the best thing to use would be an old brake drum and then use the channel as table top. you could turn it over so the flat part was up and drill your hole for the drum brake and build your tuyere and dump gate and be able to attach your blower. now like i said i am new also and no expert on it but i believe that would be the better thing to do then use just that channel. i imagine others on here can give you more sound advice on this. making tongs is great. i just made my first pair with some help of course. i posted some pics of them in the introduction area under New Smith and first attemp. i would say one of the best things for being new is to get with a good group or even better a fellow smith. i have found that most of them are willing to help a newbie out. i think i have asked a million questions to my neighbour who is a smith. and has a great setup. the other thing is watch Youtube, you can find a ton of stuff on there. just put in blacksmithing for the search and go crazy...lol. so welcome to this crazy and exciting craft/hobby/addiction called blacksmithing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIGGUNDOCTOR Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 Hello, what part of the delta? I grew up in Fairfield. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mateo Posted March 10, 2011 Author Share Posted March 10, 2011 Thanks for the info guys, haven't been home for a few days, so nothing new. Also that's probably all the info I would ever give out, about where I live, on the internet Yes, uncle Mateo is paranoid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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