*Buildlog* First Shop (w/ pictures!)

[Henri De Vreese]

Hello everyone!

 

I am fairly new to blacksmithing and decided that after 3 years of forging outside (and not being able to forge when the weather is bad) I decided to build my own shop. I am a student and thus I am only able to forge (and work on my shop) in the weekends, so expect a weekly update on this (hopefully amazing) buildlog.

 

The space I'll be using is 2.80x3 meters (or 9'x10'). I guess it used to be the home to some pigs or rabits by the structuring of the place (metal rings in the walls, a gut for the water, no plate between roof and inside). I'll upload as many pictures as I can during the building of this place. I just finished cleaning it all out (took me more than 10 hours!) and don't want to show a before image ;).

I just bought a leg vise (without spring unfortunatly), which will be one of the first things to be installed after I get my bench moved. (it's standing ready to be moved in as you see on the picture)

I'll put a pipe in the ground so the vise sits secure and I'll also secure it through the wall with a large metal bar to give it extra stability (all attached to my wooden workbench). My avil will come in the middle of the room and I'll try to make a forge in the corner of the room. (check out this sketchup model I made)

To give you guys some orientation: the forge is placed against the wall with the small window and where the lader is currently standing in the picture.

 

I don't have a lot of tools as for now, so I'll just keep my hammers and tongs in a wooden box until I know how to make a decent roolrack.

 

There are still a few things I need some help with and don't find any usefull/realistic solutions to.

 

1) I need a hood/sidedraft forge, but every book/website tells me I need a chimney that is 4 feet longer than the highest point of my roof.

This is really hard to do for me as I have zero experience with building. It will also look rather nasty as I live in a dense populated area in the middle of a village.

What materials would you use? I am very tempting to do a sidedraft one if possible, so please share the best sidedraft forges you have seen!

 

2) It's cold in there, I mean really cold. Does the forge heat a small room like that enough or do I need an extra stove for heating? I never forged inside, so don't know if the heat gets pulled out through the chimney or if it just stays in the room.

 

3) As you see in the pictures, I don't have a door yet. Any idea's on making one for this place? What wood to use? I could forge the hinges myself, but have little experience with woodworking. I was also thinking about making my own big nails to give the place an extra blacksmithing look. Any idea's on easy to make and strong doors?

 

I really like this forum a lot and have been looking at all shop's of this forum, some are really inspiring!

 

Already thank you for the great support!

[Glenn]

If you add your location to your profile it will get you better answers to your questions. 

 

What type fuel are you going to use for forging?

[njanvilman]

1. You will need heat.  If you are getting heat from your forge, you are also getting Carbon Dioxide and will kill you.

2. Will the coal smoke and smell bother your neighbors?  It should not be a problem if everyone uses coal for heat.

3. Side draft hoods are great, just use a 12" pipe or flue and go up at least 16" from the forge.

4. Maybe you can find a woodworker to make doors in exchange for future metalworking.

[MLMartin]

While brick forges are lovely a metal one could probably be built much cheaper and faster. And they are easy to modify should you desire to change it later. What is the normal temperature where you live? A small room should not be hard to heat. Having a solid work bench bolted to the wall then the vise bolted to it should be very strong. No need to have a steel bar from the vise to the wall.

Depending on smell problems from coal you can use wood char coal to forge with. The smell from this would be very low.

Best of luck. I am sure that space could be used as a great little forge shop

[Henri De Vreese]

Wow, thanks for the superfast responses!

Glenn:

Just added my location, I'm located in Belgium, near Ghent in fairly large village. I live in the centre of the village, with appartmentblocks across the street and lots of neighbors.

I will be using coal (like I did for the last 3 years), I like it and don't think I'll need gas.

njanvilman:

1) Oh, didn't know that! I'll look into getting a seperate stove then.

2) Probably not, there is a large blacksmith shop about 200 meters from my house. I do smell it when they are bussy, but they say then never got any problems with it (and didn't even knew you could smell it that far :D). I try to go there as much as possible, but they only forge on Wednesdays and Thursdays (and very late), I am almost always at the University when they are forging :(, so I need my own shop for in the weekends.

3) Thanks, I'll look into that. Do you have any pictures of your own to demonstrate how they are made?

4) My uncle is a (just) retired woodworker, a very good one, I guess he could help me out if he finds some time.

MLMartin:

I do indeed like brick forges, a metal one doesn't seem that attractive. And my welding skills are not very good to make my own (I do know some people that do have fantastic welding skills).

Average temperatures are about 5°C in the winter and 12°C in the summer (sorry, really don't have a clue how that would translate into Fahrenheit). We almost never get snow, and only sometimes freezing temperatures (20 days/year or so), but I like to work at a bit more comfortable temperatures (mainly for when I am doing less intensive stuff).

My workbench looks very solid and is sturdy, but it's pretty small and I can lift it by myself. The floor is also a bit uneven and thus I will bolt the vise and bench together to the wall (that's the steel bar).

Charcoal is not an option, don't have access to large quantities of wood to make it myself and charcoal is at least 5x the price of normal coal. I also read that charcoal doesn't give a nice "coal oven" like real smithingcoals.

 

My main concern now is the chimney and the side-draft forge. Does anyone have any (nice looking) ideas? (have checked the blueprints, but only found an ugly and very big one.

I also don't find a spring for the vice (at least not under 100$), is it possible to make one myself?

 

To all a big thank you for the idea's so far!

[ThomasPowers]

Making a spring for the vise should take about 15 minutes and one can even be done COLD by taking a piece of mild steel strap stock and bending it using the vise.  Much easier done hot as you can use  larger stock and make it pretty.  Mild steel will not require any heat treat.  If you use spring steel I would normalize it instead of quenching.

 

I am a bit concerned as you seem more worried about the asthetics of your planned forge than the functionality.  I have built several no weld forges using a drill and bolting stuff together and would expect to be using mine while you are still mixing mortar for your bricks...

 

As for the chimney---how does the blacksmith shop down the road do theirs?   What does the local building rules specify?  A masonry chimney would be "prettiest" but hugely more expensive and time consuming.  Most of us use about 1/4 meter steel vent piping or larger.  Going through the roof is the tricky part and a lot of us go through the wall instead HOWEVER putting bends in a chimney massively impacts it's efficiency.

 

What kinds of items do you plan to be forging?  Fairly small ones may alloy you to enclose your forge with a hood increasing the efficiency of the chimney.  Also search on how Hoffi made his side draft chimneys for his school in Iseral.

[MLMartin]

I would try and have the forge a foot or more away from the wall on the opposite side that you stand. Images having a 3 foot bar that you wanted to heat the middle of. You would need a minimum of 1.5 foot from the center of the fire pot to the wall for the bar to fit. If you had a 4 foot bar you would need more. I know it's a small shop and you probably will not be working big railing or such. But you would not want to overly limit the length of bar you can heat.

Can you cut a foot size hole in the wall next to the forge? A side draft hood that punches right through the wall then goes straight up the outside wall will work well. Many people on this site call it the "hofi hood" but it's really just a side draft hood style that has been around many many years.

[Henri De Vreese]

ThomasPowers:

At the iron-seller (don't know the English term), they told me I would actually need a spring to start with.

Will it still be a spring if I use normal mild steel (does mild steel spring without special heat treatment?)?

I guess that normalizing a spring would take the spring out of it, or am I completely wrong here?

 

I am trying to find the balance between a beautiful shop and functionality. I am not a professional blacksmith and don't need the best of the best, but I would like to make something I can still be proud off a few years down the road. I already know that I will NOT make the chimney out of bricks, it will be too hard to make and will cost more than it's worth. But I do think about having a brick base (with metal structure in the middle) as this is very pleasing to the eye and is not very expensive.

 

The blacksmith shop down the road (where they teach for free btw), doesn't have a very good drawing chimney I noticed this morning (if you know what I mean). They use 3 HUGE chimneys that are more than 10 feet above the rooftop. The forge itself bigger than my shop and their hood is also very big (as big as the forge) and also pretty low. I guess the chimneys have to be cleaned (or is it because it was raining very hard?)

I think I'll have to go with a chimney through the wall as it will be hard to make it through the roof. I'll see what's possible tomorrow or the day after. (like I said, I am an hour away from it during the week)

 

I'll mainly make smaller items, if I do got a large project I want to do, I still have the shop down the road (and 8 experienced blacksmiths) at my disposal. I don't like the idea and usefulness of a closed hood as this limits the possibilities a lot (it would be impossible to make something fairly small like a 3-candle candlestick). I also saw the Hofi ones, but really don't like the aesthetics of it, it looks very industrial for a small shop like mine.

 

MLMartin:

You are right, I already thought of that. I will place the firepit itself far enough from the wall to make sure I can also heat larger object (but again, I can still go to the other shop if I would eventually want to make something bigger).

Wouldn't a side-draft hood be very annoying when doing 3-foot bars? As heating the middle would also be obstructed by the hood itself?

 

Thanks again for the great advice, I have learned more about shops here than all the books I read together.

[ThomasPowers]

Yes you are all wrong about spring steel.  Steel has the same Young's modulus pretty much whatever carbon content it has.  Higher carbon steels can be heat treated to be be bent further before taking a set; but for a vise we are talking only a few inches of throw.  Mild steel will do fine for this and I've seen smiths using mild springs on postvises about 30 years now.   Normalizing spring steel will make it so it's unlikely to break in use and it will still be sufficiently springy to open a vise.  However if you want to modify a spring steel vise you should do it hot and re-heat treat.  The mild steel version you can set on your anvil and whomp it a time or two to increase or decrease it's curvature. 

 

I would call the place a Steelyard like we would call a place selling lumber a lumberyard.

 

Since you are just starting out I would strongly suggest you find out what you need and like before you make hard to change decisions about your shop and tools  (I know a number of people who started out in one branch of blacksmithing and ended up in another after a year of two.)   I re-design my set up every time I rebuild it.

 

The larger the opening in the chimney the more cold room air can dilute the hot air rises effect so you want it just large enough and no larger.

 

As for asthetics over functionality:  I find things that work *well* to have their own beauty compared to things that look pretty but don't work well.

 

I don't understand your heating a 3'bar comment as the beauty of a side draft hood is that there is nothing on 3 sides and above the forge pot so you can slide a 40'bar through the forge if you wanted to.

[Chinobi]

Thomas, if he keeps the forge all the way in the corner like he has it drawn there will be a masonry wall on two sides of the forge blocking the pass-through.

 

Henri, as you say you do not have many tools right now (patience ;) they will grow soon), when you plan your layout in sketchup or by hand include a small box or rack or something as a placeholder for a future rack or cabinet or whatever.  it would be a shame to design a nice cozy shop and be happy with it only to find that it becomes congested because you didnt allocate any floorspace for future objects.

 

that being said, I don't see anywhere in the drawings or text a mention of your slack tub!  I don't know what size you will end up using but plan to have a bucket or barrel or something filled with water possibly located just under the tongs glued to the wall of your sketchup drawing.  hate to see that get overlooked!

 

I know squat about solid fuel forging, but I do see a window already cut into the wall at about top of head height, could that be repurposed as an opening for the chimney or would the bending kill it?  otherwise, those walls look like old, THICK brick plus the stucco, that's going to be a job to break through!  what material is the roof made of as well?  how tall are the nearest neighboring structures?

[Henri De Vreese]

Thomas: Thanks for the help!

Chinobi: I will probably make a wall-rack for my iron and tools. I didn't find a nice design for that, so I didn't include it in the sketchup design. I was still looking for a slack tub when I wrote the opening post, I found a nice metal bucket (but a large one).

 

I could easily break through the wall, it has only got 2 layers of normal-sized bricks and the cement is very old (I can scratch it out very easily).

The roof is made out of normal (orange) tiles with no isolation or plate (I can see the tiles from the inside).

Nearest building is our house, which is 4 stories high (including pointy roof).

[Charles R. Stevens]

By definition a forge is an industrial tool, so industrial looking isn't nessisaraly a bad thing. Tho clean lines is desirable
A note about your building, that old masonry is most likely "soft" brick with lime mortar. Most modern work uses "hard" brick and cement mortar. Don't use cement mortar and hard brick with the old work as it will have a long term detrimental effect. The soft lime mortar is muck less likely to crack that the cement mortar, and the hard brick was designed for cement mortar. So use like mortar and soft brick for repaires and modifications, along with lime plaster instead of cement plaster. The use of cement has damaged many historic buildings.
With such a small space you are just about stuck with the corner for your forge, might I suggest making a pass threw in the wall? A brick sized hole (even a half brick) would alow you to "pass" a longe rod trew the wall so you can heat it in the middle.
The deal with chimney is it needs to be high enugh that it isn't effected by terbulance coming of the roof, so the suggestion is 4' higher than anything with in 10' and some times that will bite you, as 4' higher than the highest point will guaranty clean flow. There are several descusions on hoods and chimneys is the forums. Unless you go threw the roof at the highest point flashing clay tile roofs is a pain, ant it will leak if you don't do it right.
As to the door, three layes of boards, one vertical, the middle diagonal and one horizontal is pretty clasic, and if you clich hand forged nailes threw the first two layers (the outside facing) you don't have to wory about any one pulling the nailes ;-) as for the hinges, inward sores are more secure, but on a workshop, out ward swinging are better, one, it doesn't toke up floor space, and I case of a fire, the door pushes out!.

[Frosty]

1. You will need heat.  If you are getting heat from your forge, you are also getting Carbon Dioxide and will kill you.

2. Will the coal smoke and smell bother your neighbors?  It should not be a problem if everyone uses coal for heat.

3. Side draft hoods are great, just use a 12" pipe or flue and go up at least 16" from the forge.

4. Maybe you can find a woodworker to make doors in exchange for future metalworking.

 

Josh: It's CO, Carbon Monoxide that's the real killer. CO2 is a combustion byproduct too and can be dangerous but it's the CO that'll kill you without warning. CO and smoke detectors are a MUST.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Charles R. Stevens]

CO sticks to hemoglobin 16 times better than O2,

[Henri De Vreese]

*UPDATE!* + crazy story
 
So, the first big update, I finished installing the vise and put the anvil in place.
Got some BIG problems with the vise installment! You probably read that I was going to put a tube in the ground and cement it in. Well, there was something nasty (literally) in the way (or do I have to say in the ground...). I started drilling with my 'hammerdrill' (drill that can screw and hit?), I was only about 10cm (4 inches) deep until all of a sudden my chisel flew down a hole! After panicking a bit, I called my grandpa to ask if I accidentally hit the waterpit, but he told me that was impossible. A cellar? No, that was on the other side of the old house. You probably guessed it right, it was a cesspit. A 3x3m (10x10 feet) and 2m (6 feet) deep pit with poop in it, just underneath my brand new smithy... And I still got to get my chisel out of there! Opened the thing from the outside, used leafblower to get al the nasty air out of there and went in. When going down the hole  I found out it was not used for at least 10 years and the poop turned into sand. However, I wanted to keep safe and just caught the chisel with a magnet attached to a long stick. I got it back, made the hole a bit larger so it just kept the tube tight and I poured in the cement.
I installed the workbench and then the vise. I put some threaded rod through the wall and secured it on the other side. On this side I welded a metal plate to attach to the vise. Well, I have to say, it's rock solid!
 
I moved my little anvil in (35kg one on a heavy stump) and now I am ready to forge inside.
My forge is still located outside, and I hope to change that in the next couple of weeks!
I think I'll make a basic metal forge to start with out of a bit thicker material so it's made to last a lifetime. Still need to find a good blower, because my leafblower makes too much noise to keep it inside.
 
Hopefully you like the pictures (don't mind the mess, it was 11pm and didn't want to clean up anymore). It was also very dark and pictures are just taken with my phone.
 
You can also see my quenching bucket next to my table.

[Charles R. Stevens]

Depending on the size of fire, there are all kinds of options, bellows, habd cranked, electric. And each has options, hair dryers, clothes dryer blowers, secondary blowers for hvac. (Exhaust) car ac/heater blowers...

[VaughnT]

Considering the 'old world' look of the walls, I'd be very tempted to go with a double-lung bellows for the forge's air supply.  They're not that difficult to work with if you tune them right, and they are very quiet.  The only problem might be room for it.

 

If you can find a hand-crank blower, they are also nice.  Some can be rather loud because of bad gears/bearings, but they'll be a sure sight more quiet than anything electric.  In a small space like that, I'd want a blower that's as quiet as possible!

[ThomasPowers]

And here I thought you were going to fix it up as a digester and build a gas forge to run from it!  (That's a joke folks, just a joke!)

 

I like the worn look of your bench. 

 

As far as a blower:  Here in the USA a lot of the super efficient house furnaces have a blower to assist the exhaust process and they are generally not what wears out. So when a furnace gets replaced they are often still good and can be sourced from a house furnace installation and repair.  I know the EU tends toward boilers but you might ask around.  Often people are quite helpful when they find out you are trying to set up a smithy.