Is it even worth working in the winter?

[VaughnT]

Sing, two or three steps (6'-9') might not seem like a great distance to someone used to the wide-open spaces of the west, but it's a far piece for hot iron when the weather's cold.  Pre-heating your anvil with a clothes iron will certainly help, but it's the travel time that I think is going to be the biggest problem.

 

Yves, you've got to have the neatest shop in the world.  :D

[yves]

VaughnT,

 

Drop by anytime. There is room for  striker.

 

I do enjoy the shop. It is small, 14 feet in diameter (easy to heat) but I once forged a five foot tree as a separation in a house without any space problems. And there a commision for a ten foot galery railing I will start soon and I do not see any space problems yet.

 

In the summer, I have benches outside and some old folk (like me but with nothing to do) come and sit around and talk and tell me about their brother who was a blacksmith, or ... you get the drift.  Something of the old days happens here at times.

 

Thanks for the shop ...

[BobL]

This might warm you guys up a bit.

I was over 100F here yesterday and forecast highs for the next 3 days are 100, 100 and 102F.

[Metalsmith21]

Location, location, location. in Arizona round abouts of Phoenix area its the perfect time of year to play with the fire. Considering temps don't drop below 30-40F in the winter. Its really great to forge year round, except the 4 months in the summer when it feels like your standing inside of your forge fire while using it.

[BobL]

This might warm you guys up a bit.

I was over 100F here yesterday and forecast highs for the next 3 days are 100, 100 and 102F.

UPDATE

The high reached here was 103, tomorrow the forecast high is 106, the day after it's 103.

[sing_j_]

BobL you can keep your 100F  please don't share it with me haha

[Wroughton]

I gotcha now Wroughton, I can see bozo having a still somewhat high concentration or still feel like it. I don't know why thats just bozeman for you. I've heard of the Sore Elbow Forge in bozo, and havn't heard of Ben Lund over by Fort Benton same with Deron Johnson at Big Timber. I know theres the Bar Mill Iron Forge in Big Timber and I've looked at their portfolio of the items and projects that group has done and its awesome! Heres a link to their website if anybody wants to look at their portfolio http://barmillironforge.com/?pageID=361338 The NRBA needs to get more younger people to get interested. I've started to find out with my generation when you tell my generation that you do blacksmithing they think it sounds just like a giant snorefest. I feel like if younger people, my generation, had more of an oppurtunity to at least try out blacksmithing they'd realize it's more then just hitting red hot iron in between an anvil and a hammer, and find a real enjoyment out of this art.

 

Sing-J,

 

Deron used to work at Bar Mill Iron Forge and has struck out on his own with Crazy Mountain Forge. He's crazy ; ) and he gets to stare at the Crazy Mountains all day long. He was responsible for some of the work you've seen on that portfolio and he is a F. Turley graduate. Ben's a farmer smith that likes to bring old equipment back to life, and he almost always has a little giant ph in some state of repair. Ben and his wife put a lot of time and effort into keeping the NRBA moving along in the last decade.

 

The NRBA isn't perfect and has suffered from the generational problems you've mentioned (like any club or group). 

The shared knowledge and the great visiting smith's that we've had as instructors over the years have been amazing. Striking and making sledge heads and hardy tools with Tom Clark was illuminating to say the least. 

 

In the 1890's my great grandfather and great uncle were sent from the orphanage to apprentice in a blacksmith shop in Superior, Montana. It wasn't an over active interest in working metal or the forge that drove them there but rather the world of the day. When they were old enough to strike out on their own, they went over the mountains to Idaho and my great grandfather went to work in the woods and my uncle became a machinist. 

This is the major difference of the blacksmith world of the past to what we have now for a smithing culture. We may not have a smith for every 100 people but most everyone that works with a forge wants  and wanted to be there. 

 

It's now your job to recruit your generation here in the mountain west. ; )

 

And, lastly, if you don't think the next generation is looking at the anvil you need to do a search on the "Young Smiths" here. 

[sing_j_]

Wroughton,
Most be terrible for Deron having to look at the crazys every morning. :)

Thank you also for sharing the story about your great grandfather and great uncle, that's a very neat story. My great grandfather started Singley Drilling in 1911 where he drilled water wells and also ran his farm at the same time. I have the privilege of using his anvil and a few of his tongs that have survived.

I don't know how much time you spend in your smithy and if I'm ever up I your neck of the woods and you need an extra hand I'd be more than willing, happy and take it as a privledged to be that extra hand.

Lastly, I have a few of my friends help me here and there when I need an extra hand. They all seem to enjoy helping and what I'm doing I know one of my friends wishes he wasn't traveling all the time cause he said he'd have a forge built by now and be blacksmithing.

[Countryforge]

My shops are all sheds with big holes and slots in them . As the winter storm just finished there is 6 inches on the ground and 1 inch in the shop. I have a two inch thick table which i heat up with a propane torch one hour and its 75 degrees also anvils are ready to work. Just about  -11 F in there right now coffee and breakfast and ready to go.

[Wroughton]

Sing-j,

 

You probably have quite a scrap pile with a family history like that. That's a great start for your smithing adventure. Dig out any

heavy and flat iron for odd anvils. You may have heavy slides or rails from dead drill rigs? You could make quite a flat fabrication table. Any conical cutter heads? Good for truing up rings. I'm fairly drooling over what you might have in the pile. 

 

Deron does have it rough staring at the Crazy's. Much like you have it bad with the Snowys ; ).

 

 

 

When I was very young (single digits) I watched my uncle and grandfather maintain and shoe the family horses and mules every other weekend. 

 

I remember bending horse shoes into wall hooks for my bedroom but that was the extent of the family smithing for me. Unless you count burning up all of the coal, incessantly hammering on the tip of the horn of the anvil, and melting up all the babbit to pour into buckets of water to make babbit lighting bolts.

 

When I started out on my own 10 years ago, my uncle John gave me my grandfathers post vise and some tongs. As for the story of my great grandfather, Streeter (he was given or took the name of the forge that he was apprenticed to), I didn't learn about that until my grandfathers funeral about 5 years ago at the ripe old age of 

97. My aunt uncovered the story from other relatives but it was news to us and it gave me goosebumps when I heard it. 

 

You're welcome at the shop and we're almost always here. 

And I have no problem putting you to work. 

[sing_j_]

Wroughton,

I wish we still had some of are old rigs, when my great grandfather drilled everything was steam powered and had to be pulled by oxen to the location. What a piece of machinery that would have been. Are scrap pile isn't that impressive we scrap quite a bit of stuff, and the vast amount of tools we have is what I drool over. We still have my great grandfathers two man crosscut saw. Comical cutter heads? Do you mean drill bits? Cause we've got a lot of those I think the biggest one we have is 23 inches.

Yeah I've got it bad with the snowies and the lil snowies, belts, lil belts, Judiths, and moccasins. It's just terrible. I don't know what mountain ranges are around you, the Rockies obviously.

And I'm glad to hear you wouldn't have a problem putting me to work. I'm a big guy and I haven't helped one person yet that has a hard time putting me to work.