I'm curious about bare minimum size

[Kozzy]

Not that I specifically need to address the issue as my business shop is 5000 square feet and my home shop is about 500 but whenever the subject comes up, I start thinking about the mini-shops that some people need to create and ways to do that--for example, small shipping containers and sheds are often mentioned.

I was wondering what people's opinion would be about workable size in an effectively enclosed shop--is 7' x 7' too small to be workable?  6' x 6'?  Where do you think it would cross the line to so small that it's unworkable (I'm assuming that people will have smaller equipment in a smaller shop).  Where would it cross the line in your opinion?  Obviously one could get stupid compact..I'm more interested in the notion of "workable" than creatively micro.

I think my workable limit would be about 6' x 7'--assuming it had full barn doors so any longer bars could extend a bit further.

I saw a fairly well stocked "mini-mart" in Kowloon once that was the size of a phone booth...

Could you design your shop so it fit on a skid that could be forklifted onto the back of a pick-up and effectively work within that parameter?  The only way I could see doing it is with tilt up sides that form a larger roof area which sort of breaks the size rules I set up.

[ThomasPowers]

Depends on what you are doing.  I've had a lovely knifemaking forge set up in a 10'x10' space before but could not do gates in it if I needed to swing a 20' stick of steel around in it.   The "work Triangle" *should* be fairly small so you don't waste heat; most of the rest of the shop is for other metal working tools and processes: Welding, grinding, layout, storage, storage and of course storage.

[Charles R. Stevens]

A standard pick up bed lends it's self to using a "camper" plan. A floor 4x10, with sides that extend out to 8". This could be loaded with "camper jacks" instead of a fork lift, and jacked down to the ground. This effectively gives you two long work benches. 

A 12' floor can be had if you go with a over hang over the cab to balance the weight (shifting the center of mass forward tord the rear axle)

[swedefiddle]

Good Morning,

Most Farriers work out of a Pick-Up box. Their Tools come out and they work on the ground level.

I know a fellow in Vancouver that lived in a Condo, his Blacksmith Shop fit into a WheelBarrow. He would move from Park to Park, he would get kicked out of one Park and move to another.

Neil

[Charles R. Stevens]

swedefiddle,

i work on the bed of my truck, lol. I have a Isuzu NPR with a 12' flatbed, seps in back and forge and boxes up front, lol. I hate moving anvils....

[Glenn]

There is a knife maker from Italy on the site that works in an area the size of a small bathroom. A fellow in Sweden that has a small building, but moves from home to the building daily on his bicycle, anvil, forge, all tools, etc.

There is a well known blacksmith in the Carolina that used a storage building for his shop along with a couple of tarps for outside shelter. Other blacksmiths work from pick up trucks (farriers) or demo trailers with no problems. There is one blacksmith that made his demo trailer from the bed, frame and axle of a pick up. Just drop the trailer hitch on the ball behind his truck and go.

There was a fellow that the city restricted his building size. He hinged the two long walls at the top and when he worked, raised the walls and propped them up with 2x4s. Almost tripled the floor space.

It just depends on what you have to work with, and what you want to do with it.

 

Bare minimum for solid fuel would be a fire, a sledge hammer head for an anvil. For a gas forge use a Freon tank, and a propane tank and a sledge hammer head for an anvil. Set up next to the dumpster so you did not have to carry metal stock (grin).

 

[Kozzy]

I guess my notion had too many variables going on to be viable.  I was more interested in each person's opinion about their own work space--maybe paring down the power tools to the most important but keeping a real anvil and forge (though possibly smaller than the giant you might have) as well as the normal scope of work.  Not the minimum tools, but the minimum space you think it would take for you to use your core tools as you use them now.

It's a variation on the desert island theme--without the sand, cocoanuts, and island beauties... and with walls.

[Charles R. Stevens]

Well, vise, forge, anvil and work bench.

so 4" vice attached to a bench, a small side blast forge set against the opposet wall (18" deap and 24" wide) and forge, if I place the forge close to the center of the wall, and the anvil in the middle of the next wall, with the vice and bench opposet the forge and the dire looser the anvil. I would want either another door or window on the anvil wall. The dang walls are an issue, maybe make them all half walls with tilt out awnings like they have in the tropics, forge back to the winter winds. 

[ThomasPowers]

Speaking of winter winds; I used to forge in the basement of my 100 year old house in Ohio during the winter: 1 soft firebrick forge run off a propane plumber's torch.  Small anvil on small stump---I used it sitting in a chair.  Small work, minimal footprint.

[Buzzkill]

All I know is that no matter how much room I have it's never enough.  To be fair though, a lot of that is due to tool migration.  Any time I have open space some destitute tool in need of a home shows up on my doorstep with puppy dog eyes and I just can't turn them away.  I swore i would always make room for my truck in the garage, but it hasn't been inside for a year or more now.  I don't know what the minimum working area is; I just know the correct size is always more.

[ThomasPowers]

I remember the progression well: 1 Truck fits inside garage with lots of room all around it.  2 Truck fits in garage with care, you can no longer walk around it after it's in.

3  Truck fits in garage when fully loaded for a smithing demo or campout with forge.  4 Even fully loaded with smithing stuff truck does not fit in garage! 5 Separate shop building is sourced GOTO 001   (There is no escape!)

[Alan Evans]

Space is our most expensive tool I think.

It must be one of the Parkinson Laws...tool collections expand to fit the space (almost) available.

I have had strategically placed hatches and windows aligned with hearth and anvil so I could shove the end of the bar outside as required. One of the power hammers used to be sited just by the door...anything over a metre long and I was standing out in the rain.

I did manage to make a large-ish pair of gates for a major London Cathedral in a 12' x 14' forge and a 16' x 10' clear builders' polythene clad wooden frame tent over a concrete slab to assemble them.

Alan

ps mount everything on wheels or make it roller-able.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

I forge out in the open on my 2ac. It is nice not having walls to restrict you. Having 350 sunny days on average is also nice to have.

[gote]

I agree with Alan. It must be one of the Parkinson laws. I have outside dimensions 4x4m (13') with a double barn door that is 1.5m (61") wide. Inside is net 3.8m square. The "triangle" is of course much smaller. Distance forge-anvil c-c is 1.45m (53"). That is fully adequate for the blacksmithing I do. The problem is other stuff than basic blacksmith tools. The shop suddenly became smallish when I acquired a small lathe. I am now trying to figure out where to put a drill press if i should find a good bargain.  

[Smoggy]

I have a 6x8' aluminium green house clad in steel (a few glass panels still remain to let in enough daylight) it houses a stove(fixed in the corner), brake rotor forge,(sits on the stove but can be moved anywhere) a bench,(fixed)  box bellow (by far the largest item lies under the bench and takes up one side of the building, two block anvils on stumps. I've got a vice to fit to the bench, and a small hand grinder. I also have a chair.....and just enough room to store the basic tools I'm using at any given time, ample fuel (charcoal) and stock for the task in hand. I'm intending adding a few small shelves in the eves for sundries. This leave me enough room to walk in, which is may working area say two foot square. The entrance is accessed via the outside foundry which uses the same box bellows. I have, by choice, no electricity supply. If I need more room to forge larger/longer items......the garden is more than big enough for anything I could physically manage.

I'm contemplating adding.......a small drop hammer, and stump mounted hardy hole. As you do when you have so much free space to play with.....!

[Alan Evans]

A lot of the terraced houses in the Black Country had three similar sized brick structures behind. The pig sty, the nail maker's forge and the earth closet.

[Frosty]

Gote: You have a bit of a conundrum adding machine tools to a blacksmith shop and room isn't really the issue. Blacksmithing tends to put some dirty combustion byproducts in the air and I've always thought it best to keep the machine tools out of a hot shop. Were I in your shoes I'd look to building a separate machine shop, by separate I mean different room at least to keep smoke, sulfur in all the forms coal can make and the various grinder and polishing dusts off the lathe, mill, etc. Most lathe and such are pretty proof against normal metal shop grits and grime, grinder dust and such but the less the better.

Just a thought for you.

I've known a couple bladesmiths who did spectacular work in an apartment closet size space. One fellow used to do his forging on the "balcony" outside his 9th floor condo in Florida. He stored his whole shop in a couple cardboard boxes in a closet.

The space you need is determined by the work you do. The space you WANT is something else entirely.

Frosty The Lucky.

[gote]

You are right of course Frosty but I do not live in an ideal world and he smithy was about as much as I had money and time to build. Sulfur and smoke is no problem with my forced exhaust. The problem is dust from the dirt floor. I keep an old bed sheet over the lathe at all times when it is not in use. I also keep a small electric heater underneath to prevent condensation at weather changes, The lath and the anvils are he only pieces with enough heat capacity to that have this problem. On the anvil I have a coat of linseed oil on the sides and if the weather looks risky I spray some thin oil on the top. I (now) know that linseed oil is slightly hygroscopic but it works well in my condition when everything is dry most of the time.  

[Frosty]

Yeah, dust is a problem anywhere, we have ice fields and glaciers to provide dust almost continuously here. A mist of oil on the cloth goes a long way to catching dust. If you're keeping a heater going you can try an old trick with a trickle battery charger. Connect the negative lead to the lathe. A low level charge will keep help dust off it.

Believe it or not this is why vehicles are grounded negative rather than positive. A positive ground is a dust attractor, literally a dust magnet,  just look at the side of your TV, the screen is positively charged. Even our new LED TV collects more dust on the front than the back.

I really like wax as a protectant on metal tools, it's not so sticky and generally not hydrophilic. Just good old Johnson's paste works a treat when I don't need something bullet proof durable and pull out my can of Trewax.

Frosty The Lucky.

[JNewman]

Several years ago one of our OABA members did a slide show at one of our meetings of his trip though Asia..  He visited a lot of blacksmith shops many with a roof only,  many of them with a piece of round bar on end as their anvil.  These were full time blacksmiths.  One I remember in particular was a shop on a busy street in India, it was about 10' wide when working and about 4' deep with a steel rollup door on the front,  this was a shop that 3 or 4 smiths worked out of.  They did spill out onto the sidewalk a little when working but even if they doubled the size that is still 3 smiths working in 8x10 with lots of pedestrians walking through half the shop.  He did not take any pictures but mentioned their were also smiths in India he saw who worked out of a square of sidewalk, a hole chipped in the sidewalk as their firepot. 

[Judson Yaggy]

I went to India this past winter, and in many places breaking thru the sidewalk (if there was one, and if it happened to be an unoccupied space) would result in discovering the sewer.  I didn't find many "blacksmithing only" shops but there were hundreds of little shops at most 10' by 10' behind a roll-up door, whose equipment consisted of a chop saw, a 75 year old stick welder, perhaps a drill press, and about 15 employees.  

I did find some farriers working cold shoes with an anvil driven into a city street (first few photos) and shop that forged agricultural hand tools, also around 10' by 10'.  Anvil was something cast locally as far as I could understand.  Side draft forge with hand cranked blower,  the blocks of granite were workbenches and seats.  

 

They of course did have huge manufacturing and heavy industry right alongside little shops like this, but I didn't get to see any.  

I started in a 64 square foot lean-to with a forge, blower, anvil and 2 hammers.  Made enough money to build a 12x16' shop with walls! and electricity!  Built in a little door in the wall behind the power hammer so I could pass longer pieces thru the hammer and out the wall.   Made enough money in that shop to start paying a mortgage on an old farm and turned one of the barns into a "real" shop... the next one will be in the 4k sq.ft. range.  (don't tell my wife!)

[ThomasPowers]

working towards your 4th shop?  She's already given up hope that you will come to your senses!  (We celebrate our 32nd wedding anniversary next week; but she knew I was this way from the start, we were introduced to each other by the wife of the swordmaker I was working under at the time...)