Chuck_Steak Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 Hello Everybody, Thank you to all for the great community that you have created. I have been lurking for a while around here and finally have a start to post about. I've been intrigued by blacksmithing as long as I can remember, which probably has influenced my career so far. I am a metallurgist and work for a small failure analysis and test lab. Last October, I was fortunate enough to get into the beginning blacksmith class at Old World Wisconsin. It was a great experience and solidified the fact that I want to play around as a blacksmith. My instructor for the class was Darold Rinedollar. He was a great instructor and we had a blast. Hopefully we picked up some good habits along the way. I have a couple pictures of the forges at old world wisconsin attached. We made an S hook, a wall hook, practiced a hey penny scroll, made a door stop and even got a chance to practice forge welding on some scrap. Prior to the class I got a small Vulcan anvil (it was free) and a 4" post vise (also free) so I had some basic equipment. I put together propane forge over the past month or so. Its not 100% complete, I have ITC on order to coat the Kaowoal (don't want silicosis of course), and I need some soft fire brick for the front. This past weekend, however, I finally was ready to test my burner so I fired it up and decided to do some simple forging to give it a try. It took a couple minutes and quickly brought up my stock to orange heat. I will need to tweak it to get hotter, but coating it should help with that. Anyway, I banged out a pair of tongs and bent a quick cutting plate for the anvil (not that the face of the anvil needs to be saved, its gouged to crap, but I want to be in the habit). The tongs are a little rough and I didn't get the hinge geometry quite right, but good practice for next time. I may re-heat the tongs and shape the jaws for round or square stock, but for now I just left them flat. I also broke the edges and polished up the reigns. All in all, it was a very educational and relatively productive test of the forge. Lots of tools to make and fun to be had... Thanks again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seldom (dick renker) Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 welcome aboard cheesehead Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
781 Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 Welcome to the group UMBA just had their winter conference at South Beloit, IL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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