Minimum effective time to spend at the forge

[Meadowgrove]

I tried and tried but couldn't come up with the right search terms, so I decided to face the wrath of curmudgeons* and make a new thread.

Let's conjure up an image of a man who does not have a lot of free time. He wants to get into blacksmithing and is planning to cobble up a charcoal-fueled JABOD trench forge at some point.

The first projects would be 3-METER SWORDS AND DAMASCUS KNIVES... just pulling your leg! Nails, J and S hooks, maybe bottle openers.

The question: At minimum, how much time should this newb reserve to get any of the aforementioned projects done? 15 minutes? 30? An hour or two?

 

*Wrath of Curmudgeons... that would make a great movie title... Imagine the IFI power crew hunting vile Youtubers!

[ThomasPowers]

Tally-Ho!

Unfortunately there is still a lot of possibilities in that question.  When I teach new students; making their first S hook takes quite a lot of time and that's with a trained and experience smith helping them along.  In a class of 5 college students running 4 hours we are lucky to get a 1/4" sq stock S hook, two nails and a chili pepper forged from black pipe done in 4 hours. (Focus and not bringing a phone to class helps a lot!) I could probably work all 4 simultaneously and be done in under 20 minutes...

Some people have an innate talent; some people have hammer experience doing construction; some people have to be trained which end of the hammer to hold.

When I started I often had Weygers' book in one hand and the tongs in the other hand and things seemed to take a long time...and the book has big black smudgy thumbprints in it.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Most of my forge time runs from one to four hours depending on what I'm doing. After that my short attention span kicks in and I usually shut down. When I first started some thirty odd years ago I might go for eight hours but I was a lot younger then. Like Thomas says it depends, even a short time is rewarding in it's own way.

[C-1ToolSteel]

Personally, I wouldn't bother even lighting a solid fuel forge unless I had at least two hours total. Now, there is the exception of every now and then when I need to make one little piece for something, but I can't enjoy myself if I'm in a rush. 30 minutes is about how long it takes to get your act together and get a good fire going!

[Borntoolate]

15 minutes... Don't bother.   Mostly.

30 Minutes...  Don't bother unless you are just trying to put that final touch on something or if you are just interested in some sort of forge, fire therapy.   Though if you are good at the fire and quick at the forge and hammer/anvil you can accomplish something.

For me it takes a good 8-10 minutes minimum to get a a decent fire started and have it progress to what I would call a mature and hot plus well rounded fire that actually can heat well and quickly.    And that would only be if I shut my coal forge down with a good amount of coke.   And 8-10 minutes is actually pretty fast.  Though I forge more for fun and therapy than productivity.     

Please note that I am a novice but I have also started my forge several times after work and did little it because of time and other issues.   I have shut it down all too often shortly after it became a mature fire.    That may also set me up for the next one...????

I flooded in the great 2016 flood in Southern Louisiana and have only recently got back to it and only in a small way.

[Dave51B]

 C-1...if it took me 30 min. to get my coal forge going.....I would have to quit. I haven't timed it exactly, but up to forging temp in 10 min. tops I would say.   A handful of homemade charcoal, a propane torch, some air blown in and last sessions coke and I'm good to go....Should I time it?                 Life is Good                    Dave

[Borntoolate]

C-1,   I would say that if your time window to do work on a hot useful fire is small then you need to focus on learning how to get to a hot useful fire quickly.   I have always thought that that is something that does not get enough attention on this site.    Maybe there is a thread on that But I don't recall seeing it.       But the flood has put me out of pocket for the most part for over a year.

[C-1ToolSteel]

May have been somewhat of an exaggeration, but If I quit after thirty minutes, I feel like I have just started. That was my point.

[Borntoolate]

Sorry Meadowgrove was the original pster

 

May have been somewhat of an exaggeration, but If I quit after thirty minutes, I feel like I have just started. That was my point.

agreed,   BUt I have done that just for the the shop / forge therapy...

[JHCC]

All very good answers. If I'm pressed for time, I will start the fire and then neaten up a bit. By the time things are neat, there's enough of a fire to make nails, so I make some nails. By the time I've made a few nails, there's enough of a fire to work on the session's Big Project. After that, there's never enough time. 

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

It takes me 6 minutes to get my coal forge going with a forging fire. When I shut the forge down I wet the coke so it's usable the next time.

I start with a brown paper grocery bag crumpled up into a nest which I put a handful of stove pellets in the nest and pile all the coke on top of that. Light the edges of the paper with a propane torch and apply a slow stream of air. When the coke is going I rake green coal around the edges to start it coking.

Yes, I have timed it. My propane forge takes 10 minutes to come up to forging temperature.

[Dave51B]

 

May have been somewhat of an exaggeration, but If I quit after thirty minutes, I feel like I have just started. That was my point.

 That makes sense.....I understand what yer talkin' about........             dave 

[Frosty]

Good question and a lot of variables we can address! The more experience you gain the more you can gain from less time. When you first start it can take a couple hours to make a leaf coat hook and after 6 months you might be able to knock one out in 6-7 minutes. so if it takes you to get your fire to working condition and another hour to make a coat, S, etc. hook then you're going to want an hour or so. 

I can't imagine taking more than 10 minutes getting a coal fire to work and that's without anything but coal, no coke, charcoal, etc. Using last fire's left overs I'm thinking 3-4. Fire building and tending is a learning curve too and gets better as you do.

 Not all smith shop projects need to involve fire and an anvil. You can polish your skills cold bending, dressing scrolls, bends, etc. The grinder is an important tool as are sharp edged tools. how good are you sharpening drill bits? Hmmmm?

Even if all you have are 5 minutes you can grow your skills, sweeping the floor and putting things away requires thought, organization and sequencing to make the most. Sometimes just standing and thinking of why you can never find the right tool at THAT moment can really help. 

I know this thread isn't about metal spinning or drilling but there are parallels in any craft that requires a person to use a number of tools and equipment in order. How did you arrange your hammer, punch and drift, tongs, what might make it work better?

So you don't have time to light a fire, drag stock out and forge a winged widget whocker you could lay your tools out and do a little rehearsal for items you've been practicing. 5 minutes to see if putting the tongs on THAT side instead made it better or worse. Maybe worse . . . this time but another time it might be THE secret trick.

Heck, walk in and take a couple pics, print them out and doodle while you're on the pot. 

If you're going to light a fire then you do want some quality time to spend, maybe double what making one of your current practice pieces or if you're spending too much time wool gathering then half the time you need to push yourself. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Francis Trez Cole]

As a new comer the question should be how much time are you spending at the forge? for some one new 3 hours is a long time. You have to build up your skills. Walking up to a forge and spending a whole day. This is not good. You get tired after 3 hours and you have to build up your mussel memory. It takes time to gain the skill it is not going to come over night. 

Practice practice.  

[Meadowgrove]

Thanks guys. Excellent answers all round.

Kid just went to have a nap soI just might have an hour or so to do something...

[Dave51B]

 

It takes me 6 minutes to get my coal forge going with a forging fire. When I shut the forge down I wet the coke so it's usable the next time.

I start with a brown paper grocery bag crumpled up into a nest which I put a handful of stove pellets in the nest and pile all the coke on top of that. Light the edges of the paper with a propane torch and apply a slow stream of air. When the coke is going I rake green coal around the edges to start it coking.

Yes, I have timed it. My propane forge takes 10 minutes to come up to forging temperature.

 Ok, sounds good....but I gotta ask.....where are you getting brown paper grocery bags nowadays?                    Dave

[JHCC]

 

 Ok, sounds good....but I gotta ask.....where are you getting brown paper grocery bags nowadays?                    Dave

Around here, Aldi, Trader Joe, and IGA.

 

[Glenn]

You can find brown paper on a roll as wrapping paper or cover paper for the back of picture framing. White butchers paper can work. 

Cardboard is most everywhere. Open the cardboard box and lay it flat, Next cut it into 2-3 inch strips of what ever length is available, the length of the box. The tubes of the cardboard interior should run in the 2-3 inch direction. Take a strip and roll it into a cylinder leaving a small opening in the very center of the tube. Crumple up piece of burning paper, news paper, etc into the fire pot. Put the cardboard cylinder on to the burning paper. Add just enough air to get the cardboard burning. All your solid fuel on top of the cardboard cylinder and a bit more air. You should have hot embers from the cardboard cylinder that will ignite the fuel in short order.

 If the fuel is stubborn, place some small pieces of wood, sticks, kindling, etc on top of the cardboard cylinder. Then the forge fuel on top of the wood. Add air as needed to get embers hot and start the forging fuel to burning.

One cardboard box should produce several cardboard cylinders. Each cylinder can be used for starting a fire in the forge.

Moderators please let this pass and do not delete. There is a rule, seldom discussed in public, for when you can build a fire in a forge. It is called the Y rule. You can only build a fire in the forge on days that end in the letter Y. Tomorrow does not end in the letter Y.  TodaY does end in the letter Y and therefore is a good day to build a fire. 

[Tubalcain2]

unless tomorrow is thursdaY. 

[VaughnT]

Time spent at the forge is not nearly as important as what you do with that time.

The single greatest failure that new people encounter is jumping from one project to the next, thinking that they'll build up knowledge and experience while also making a s-hook today and a nail next weekend.

Where this fails the logic test is the fact that you never actually spend quality time developing the fundamental movements that allow you to make nice stuff.  By the time you've burned up a year of one-hour-here and one-hour-there, your work is still as rough and rudimentary as it was in the beginning.  Why?  Because you forget the lessons you might have learned during one episode in the lull between episodes.  And because you don't do repetitive work, always trying to make something new and neat, you never get to apply those lessons to the next piece you try forging.  You'll certainly make progress, but it will be super slow and where you are in a year or two down the road won't be nearly as far as you would have liked.

Mastering the fundamental movements means doing the same exact thing over and over again.

I highly recommend you start with a very simple exercise that requires a forge, anvil and 20' bar of 1/2" square stock.  Cut the bar to 5" lengths, heat said length and draw the end down to a nice point.  As soon as  you have the point formed, throw that taper into a bucket and start on the next 5" length.

You do the tapers one after another, until you have the entire 20' length of steel turned into tapers.  Every strike of the hammer should be focused on.  You want each strike to be the best you can make.  And when you get done with all those tapers, you'll see a noticeable difference in the quality of your work between the first and last.  Most importantly, all that repetitive work will have driven the knowledge into your mind and muscles.  

Once you have the tapers all finished, you pull one out of the bucket and work the big end half-on-half-off the anvil to create a flat section that is nicely rounded and about half the parent thickness.  This is where you'll be putting the mounting screw down the road, but your only concern right now is getting that finial nicely formed and even from all angles.

Again, you go through the bucket of tapers, one at a time, repeating the same fundamental movements over and over and over.....  

You'll get sick of doing it, but it's one of those critical things that you need to do whether you want to or not.

As with the tapers, when you look at the rounded heads, you'll see that the first ones aren't nearly as nice as the last dozen or so.  This is the learning writ large.

With the tapers done and the heads formed, you need to scroll the ends of the tapers to make them decently attractive and softer on clothing.  Go through each one and curl the end so they all match.  Getting them to match is trial, for sure, and you'll have a lot of fun with it, I'm sure.

After you've emptied the bucket yet again, all you have to do is start over and bend the tapers around to make a wall hook, then drill the hole for a screw.

By the time you're finished, you've got yourself a ton of hooks that you can use  around the shop or give away as gifts.  Even better, though, is all the experience you've built up.  Every project you'll make will incorporate tapering, scrolling, flattening, etc, so getting solid knowledge in those fields, without jumping around like a chicken with its head cut off, will pay huge dividends.

The key things to remember --

• focus on every strike
• pay attention to all the little details
• keep things very simple
• don't bite off more than you can chew
• take lots of notes
• work smart and try to make the hooks identical to each other.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Frosty is right about the cardboard.

The thing is heavy paper is better than news paper because it burns longer. I have used old pizza boxes to set the fire, bonus is the shop smells good for a while.

[lyuv]

I want to add a point that I think was not addressed yet - Beside lighting the forge, there is quite some time spent on "logistics" and chores (At least I do) - cleaning ash and clinkers. Getting coal and water. Fixing/making/arranging tools for the project. Replacing that light bulb, ect. ect. I might also be chatting with a guest or just taking it easy. after all, I"m there for the fun, not for bussiness. So I plan on 30-60 minutes for each session to be "wasted" before the first hammer strike.

BTW, the OP mentioned using CHARcoal. So it keeps burning after the blower is turned off. That means either a much greater waste of fuel for short sessions, or a need to somehow put the fire out (water?).

I don"t start if I have less than 2 hours. I guess a gas forge would shorten that greatly.

[Gergely]

I think Vaughn hit the nail right in the head.

My experience shows that if you want to learn something in this trade it's best to start and make a 100 of it. 

And as for the time: as a beginner I scheduled 3 hours of workshop time at once. (Now it has changed into half to 10 hours as the circumstances dictate  )

Bests:

Gergely

 

[Frosty]

It wasn't until Francis pointed it out that I realized one of the main things I do with students is watch for them to tire.  New comers don't know enough to know when they're getting too tired to practice effectively. There are cues it takes time to learn to recognize and it's easier to spot them in others, than yourself. 

First timers often are losing what edge they came with in less than an hour IF I let them practice that long at a time. I break sessions up with bull sessions to give them a breather. Well, not really Bull, I describe what they were doing and why it was doing what it was and what to concentrate on next. If after 10-15 minutes they're still shaky when I hand them a hammer from enough distance they have to take it at full extension. I'm sneaky like that you know.  If they're shaky I might pull out a couple stools and graph paper for a while longer.

Now that Francis made me think about it I have to agree, beginners should set maximum time limits to their sessions. I wish I was still in contact with Lindsey, one of my first students as she was taking graduate courses to become a sports medicine pro of some kind. She explained to me why my method of gripping a hammer is so much better for the joints.  

I'd LOVE to ask her about pre-forge session warm up and stretching exercises as well as strength and flexibility exercises in general. With as little as I know, I suggest a squeezy ball and some wrist exercises like winching a weight up with a broom handle and a string, curls and wrist curls. All moderate weights, it's not about strength as much as durability. 

I want to offer you a sincere thank you Francis, you made me think about why I do somethings and it's important. I'll certainly be more deliberate about it and explain the whats and whys to future students.  

Frosty The Lucky.

[metalmangeler]

I am a big fan of doing the same project many repeations. The hooks described by Vaughn is a good illistration and start, this is the kind of work that would be expected of an apprentice. I guess that really does not answer the question of how long a session should last, but if they are really short you are not going to really get much done.  A lot depends on how you are set up is your shop constantly set for work or do you need to roll out all the equipment from storage to start......I would think you should plan to have an hour if you are trying to get anything of value done.