May 3, 201313 yr Hi all, my name's Adam and I'm in Elmore County, Alabama. Just started attempting to smith and found these forums. Certainly a wealth of knowledge here! Made my forge from "junk" from around the house. Previous owner left an electric, shop-vac, leaf blower half buried in mud; which I stripped and cleaned for my air source. Runs great, but I had to make a sort of extension cord/ dimmer switch to regulate the airflow or my coals just get blown everywhere. The forge itself is a conglomeration of a satellite dish, spare car wheel, bed frame, and rusty cheap barbecue grill. All of which were free. Ugly but, as i found out accidentally, she'll melt steel with charcoal as fuel. Using two, hundred poundish (<-made up technical term) rocks, and about a 25 pound piece of railroad track as anvils. Aside from various claw hammers, i have a 24oz ball peen, and 3 pound cross peen from good 'ol harbor freight that seem to be holding up for now. I will be making my own charcoal with an old barbecue grill and a hole-in-the-ground fire pit for fuel for now. Learned a lot just from reading this site, but there's nothin' like firin' up that forge and havin' at it!
May 3, 201313 yr Hello - check out and joing the Alabama Forge Council. alforge.org. You'll find a good base of smith here in Alabama.
May 4, 201313 yr Welcome aboard Adam, glad to have you. I think you may be a natural, scronginng and making do with whatever we find in our resource piles is the heart and soul of blacksmithing. . . Well, okay playing with fire and beating innocent iron to our will with hammers is the heart and soul. Sure "bending" to our will is maybe the commo term but I like beating things with hammers so. . . . <grin> Yeah, hook up with the forge Council, they're good guys and will help you on your way. Enjoy the ride. Frosty The Lucky.
May 4, 201313 yr Author Thanks! I will definitely look into the AFC. And I have always been a bit of a scrounger. Seems like as soon as I get rid of something I find a new use for it and want to kick myself!
May 4, 201313 yr Here is the Alabama Forge Council web site: http://www.alaforge.org/index.html If you look at the contact us tab, the various forges are listed and their meeting times. There is also the yearly conference in September at Tannehill that you may want to plan for. And/or the Madison conference coming up in a few weeks in Madison, GA.
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