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I Forge Iron

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Yes; work on getting/making a forge and an anvil and a hammer.  You don't need tongs to start blacksmithing, you do need a way to heat metal, beat metal and something to beat it on.

Not telling us what you want to do smithing makes asking if these tools are OK a useless question.  (Much like saying "I have an english socket set can I use it to repair my car???? If it's a 1960's ford, yes, if its a 2010 Toyota, no!)

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Attaching files doesn't work too often to be worth the bother of trying. Click the "Choose files" button at the bottom of the text window. Select the pic, from YOUR computer's files, you want to show us and double click on it. It'll upload as sort of a thumbnail below the text window. Click the + symbol and it'll be inserted in the message at the cursor. Then if you'll click on the pic you can adjust it's size to fit. It's also a good thing if you can reduce the file size to a couple hundred K so it doesn't eat mass amounts of bandwidth.

You also really need to be reasonably specific with your questions or you can NOT get meaningful answers. This is what Thomas is illustrating in his post. Seriously, can you tell me if my second favorite hammer is the best one for what I'm going to do today?

We'd really like to help you but you have to make it possible.

Frosty The Lucky.

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2 minutes ago, Frosty said:

Then if you'll click on the pic you can adjust it's size to fit. It's also a good thing if you can reduce the file size to a couple hundred K so it doesn't eat mass amounts of bandwidth.

You may not be able to do this if you're adding files from your smartphone. In that case, add the photos, and then go back to your post from your desktop computer within the one-hour editing window, click <edit>, and doubleclick on each photo to resize it.

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Just now, JHCC said:

You may not be able to do this if you're adding files from your smartphone. In that case, add the photos, and then go back to your post from your desktop computer within the one-hour editing window, click <edit>, and doubleclick on each photo to resize it.

Better yet, Email the pics to your desktop, resize them THEN post them. Pics straight off a cell phone are ridiculous HUGE. 

Thanks John, I was thinking about cell pics while typing and didn't remember to include it. 

Frosty The Lucky.

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The basic problem in asking questions on the internet is that while the Asker knows all the details of what they are trying to do and with what tools and materials; the folks trying to answer *don't*!  It's the old: "Please take off your tinfoil hat so it's easier for us to read your mind!" scenario.  

We're left guessing and writing excessively long replies to take care of the details---if you are using a gas forge; if you are using a coal forge; if you are using a charcoal forge; if you are using an electric blower; if you are using a hand crank blower; if you are using bellows; if your forge is bottom blast; if your forge is side blast; etc; etc; etc....

A basic tenet of asking others for help is to make it as *EASY* as possible for them to help you; not as hard as possible.  

Look how many people won't even put in a location when they ask how much something is worth! (I sometimes answer such questions in pesos as I work in Mexico and so not knowing where an item is; my guess is that it's in the same location as I am!  Not to mention how many countries use the dollar---it's not specific to the USA and all of them have a different value wrt the USA dollar!)

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  • 4 weeks later...

When I first started I had a 4 1/2" angle grinder. A framing hammer I ground the teeth off the face and a pair of pliers and a small coffee can foge made very wrong. It got me pounding steel and got me hooked. I learned from there.  Use what you got and pound some steel.  The Rest will come with experience. Heck you may find its more work than play and decide it's not for you. 

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Photo bucket demands I shut off  Adblock and literally within seconds the screen is taken over with ads till I'm transferred to a different site completely. I don't get to look at pics on photobucket anyway so I don't even try. Please, PLEASE just attach pics from a file on your computer. One of the better features of the OS Glenn uses is it's photo editing capabilities. You can easily reduce the file size, the screen size,  etc. 

And uses Frosty?! :o What DO you mean Scrambler?  The minimum kit I've used is a: smooth boulder, 30+lbs is good, maphic or ultramaphic stone is PRIMO. A smooth fist size rounded ovalish or potato shaped cobble for a hammer stone. Camp fire and found steel.

What do you think the first thing I made was? I'll give you a hint. It was a tool. shhhhhh. 

Frosty The Lucky.

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On 6/5/2017 at 2:22 PM, ThomasPowers said:

The basic problem in asking questions on the internet is that while the Asker knows all the details of what they are trying to do and with what tools and materials; the folks trying to answer *don't*!  It's the old: "Please take off your tinfoil hat so it's easier for us to read your mind!" scenario.  

We're left guessing and writing excessively long replies to take care of the details---if you are using a gas forge; if you are using a coal forge; if you are using a charcoal forge; if you are using an electric blower; if you are using a hand crank blower; if you are using bellows; if your forge is bottom blast; if your forge is side blast; etc; etc; etc....

A basic tenet of asking others for help is to make it as *EASY* as possible for them to help you; not as hard as possible.  

Look how many people won't even put in a location when they ask how much something is worth! (I sometimes answer such questions in pesos as I work in Mexico and so not knowing where an item is; my guess is that it's in the same location as I am!  Not to mention how many countries use the dollar---it's not specific to the USA and all of them have a different value wrt the USA dollar!)

Snapchat-777834701.mp420170625_133151.mp420170625_133151.mp420170625_133151.mp4 can you see these probably not

Snapchat-599073906.jpg

Snapchat-359555469.jpg

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Oh ok sorry I do to

5 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

I'd cut back on the air more to make a less oxidizing fire.  

BTW those MP4's take over a minute apiece for me to download. I live in a rural area with slow internet; a simple picture would have provided the same data and been MUCH faster!

And what do you think of the leafs?  that one is from a railroad spike if you couldn't tell

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way back when I used to use a dial up connection with a modem so slow  I could read faster than it would write the page; of course everything was ASCII back them, rec.crafts.metalworking, I remember the RFP for adding blacksmithing as a subgroup!

I still remember the celebration when I finally got a modem fast enough that my monochrome monitor could write the screen faster than I could read!

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1 minute ago, ThomasPowers said:

way back when I used to use a dial up connection with a modem so slow  I could read faster than it would write the page; of course everything was ASCII back them, rec.crafts.metalworking, I remember the RFP for adding blacksmithing as a subgroup!

I still remember the celebration when I finally got a modem fast enough that my monochrome monitor could write the screen faster than I could read!

I can not relate idk what the heck your talking about

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I'd put in a bit more relief; most leaves are not very flat in real life; but those are well within tolerance.  For a "Master's Course" go pick a bunch of leaves and try to duplicate them. You should get a grasp on what makes a leaf look like a leaf; most smithed ones are stylized to one degree or another---which is not necessarily a bad thing!

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9 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

Most leaves curl in 3 dimensions, even the ones that are pretty flat and are often displayed as flat like tulip poplar, maple and ginkgo.

Look at the leaf work on Tijou's gates for instance.  However, for starting out, yours are quite nice.

Ok, and yea considering I hit my first peice of hot steel less than 3 months ago I think I'm doing alright

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