I have not seen this addressed anywhere as of yet. The question is, can you? I have an outdoor primitive forge and when the temp gets <50 degrees outside, it just seems too cold to work. Am I missing something?

Bo

Does this answer your question? A guy in Alaska keeping his hand crank blower from icing up at 50 BELOW.

I have not seen this addressed anywhere as of yet. The question is, can you? I have an outdoor primitive forge and when the temp gets <50 degrees outside, it just seems too cold to work. Am I missing something?
Bo

Bo - you have the set-up - you tell us, no reason you can't, just work faster while hammering and make your hits count so as not to waste your heats.

As the old saying goes; "Where there's a will, there's a way."

 

He's a very brave soul indeed...but I guess after a while you pretty much lose feeling everywhere. It drops to -50 F up in these parts during extreme weather patterns but the only time you'll find me outside when its that cold is when I'm doing the penguin waddle to the car. 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i6-5_tVgfA

OK thanks. Was wondering if it would harm anything by the temp change. What I am using for an anvil seems to suck the heat right out, so I the motto should be get it hot, hit it hard, really fast? 

It's too cold to work below 40F. :blink:   And that's spoken like a true sotherner! B)   Not saying I couldn't if I wanted too, the anvil wont brake but I might. ;)

It's too cold to work below 40F. :blink:  

 

40F is t-shirt weather up here brother! lol

thats  an ideal temp as far as im concerned, 50 degrees

40F is t-shirt weather up here brother! lol

That door swings both ways.  Over the summer I was out working, had a nice 3' fire shooting up out of my forge.  After about an hour I decided to go in and get a glass of tea.  A quick check of the temp showed 97f.  I'd much rather work at 90 than 40.  I'm built for the heat. B)

Growing up working on the farm 10 degrees was the cut off for working out cutting wood as my uncle was concerned for the oxen not us.  the rest of the chores went on at any Temp including -35 one morning working on the manure wagon.  50 above is a nice day in VT to work outside esp. if you have a fire going.  But the outhouse was brisk at -25 I can tell you.  That was 10 yrs. ago when building our new house and living in the basement.  Everything is relative!

Relative is the key word. For us frail creatures, 50F up or down is a major factor. Standing on plywood or a horse stall mat will keep your feet warmer than wet ground or concrete. Wearing a knit cap will keep your body from diverting all the warm blood to your brain, leaving your fingers and toes cold. 

 

For the metal coming out of the heart of the fire, whether the anvil is 1700F or 1750F colder is a minor factor. Preheat your anvil to 300+F, and now you are talking extended working interval! Keeping multiple projects going helps, if you are not just standing around waiting, you will be warmer as well.

 

Desire plays a big part in what you will endure. Deer, elk and duck hunters will put up with miserable conditions to fill their permits that no one in their right mind would volunteer for. How bad do you want to pursue this hobby/addiction?

If your anvil is sucking heat from your work too quickly, either keep at it until it warms up a bit, or heat up a thick piece of stock and set it on the face of your anvil to warm it up a bit prior to forging. This way your anvil is warmed up enough to not suck all the heat out so fast. I'm not sure where on here, but i believe there was a section on this at some point.

-Crazy Ivan

For me, in Oklihoma, wind chill is the determining factor. 32 deg. Is nice workin weather if the sun is shining, and the wind isn't blowing. Wile 60 deg can be misribal with wind and light rain.
A wind break will help a lot, and if your using a charcoal fire, you can always light a "fuel fire" to take the chill off and provide forge fuel.

when I used to watch someone that had heats that went on forever, I noticed he used a sort of rolling motion with his tongs. the work would just touch on the edge of the anvil to hold it steady then as the hammer came down he would lift the handle end of the tongs so the work laid flat just for the instant the hammer hit.

 

The other thing that makes a huge difference is the wind. Any moving air will strip the heat away very fast.

I forge down to about 20f after that it gets just too uncomfortable for me.  50f would be a dream for us this time of year.  Heck we hit -40f last week for a couple of days.

I don't know what too cold is, I have a cut off temp for non-must have projects in the +20's f. A young man just picking up the skills and I will be out in the shop tomorrow and it was -15f during today's coldest part of the day. Sunrise +/- 1 hour. This morning it dropped from -7f to -15 in about 40 minutes just before sunrise.

 

Tomorrow I'll go out an hour or so before I expect my new student to show and build a fire in the barrel stove. the stove might take a little of the edge out of the cold but it isn't going to "heat" the shop. I'll lay a couple pieces of steel on it so I can take a little chill out of the anvils when we start.

 

There are tricks for working on cold anvils though like holding the stock just off the face and letting the hammer drive it down into contact at impact. It helps but the stock still loses heat at record speed. Standing in front of the forge isn't a sweaty miserable thing though, even with all the dragon's breath we tend to stand a little closer. Heck, get in each other's way in fact.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

Also, I'm curious, with temperature dropping and a primitive forge outdoors, would you possibly run into a problem with your bellows? Assuming you have leather bags on it/them would you have trouble with the leather stiffening up and preforming poorly?

-Crazy Ivan

I usually stop at temps below 20 and temps over 100. Ain't seen either this year. (although under the open, so rain finishes me off in a hurry). Preheat the anvil so it don't suck the heat out of the stock, scrape the ice off of the slack tank (water or brine) and keep going. Nothing feels cold after Korea in winter.  :D

Heck you live in NC when I lived in Chapel Hill only had a primitive forge. The first time I forged was one of those days that the rain freezes on the tree a roof will help. You can pick up one of those car ports pretty cheep it will work for a year or 2

Folks who work on Blades and such, ... routinely pre-heat the Anvil, with a heavy chunk of scrap, or a Fire Brick.

 

That practice definately helps hold the heat, in thin material.

 

 

 

.

Thanks to everyone for the ideas and support. First winter at this so it is good to know I can keep at it. I have a tarp so I will stay dry

 

Crazy Ivan- My bellows are made from an old tractor inner tube, so I don't think it will have the issues one might with leather.

I wish you guys would talk in real numbers for temperature. Fareneheit, pfft.

 

I have to convert all these silly temperatures into real temperatures. 

 

Andy

we have to do the same with KPH to MPH when we cross into Canada, it's all relative, not sure who's relative.

Everything Mac, maybe this will help

 

Cool is when you have to add clothes over top your 2nd t-shirt.

Cold is when water in the slack tub forms ice. 

Really cold is when the entire 30 gallon (or larger)  slack tub turns solid.

 

Below that just put another log on the fire and stay inside.

Keeping modeling clay and a notebook handy reduces the withdrawal symptoms.. 

I think their are a few more definitions of cold, but they wouldn't pas the family friendly test.