Getting into more trouble

[Lee188]

I am a fair weather weekend Smith at best. I am in my 3rd forge and trying to improve this one again, my shop (I chuckle at the term) is my driveway so is open to the elements. I have been working my way out of stone age blacksmithing starting with a rock for an anvil and a fire pit with no blower for a forge. Currently working on building the told necessary to do better work with fewer burns and hair loss. I have agreed to teach a group of scouts how to forge knives, dumb on my part but it will be fun.

For this I need to come up with 5 forges on the cheep and they have to be portable as I can't leave them onsite and my driveway may not be the best place to do it with the slope. I have two blowers I can use but have been wondering how much air I should be providing as I struggle with that myself. I use inducer motors from gas furnaces currently and was wondering how many cfm of airflow i should have so I can tune what I have and get the other 4 or 5 forges working when I get them built any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

thanks

P.s. I will be working with a group of 10 to 12 boys ages 14 to 16 and was thinking of putting them in pairs maybe with a couple just to tend fires and rotate them through so they each get to learn to tend fire and don't have to hold there work as there learning to use the hammer again any tips or thoughts are appreciated.

Edited April 21, 2018 by Noob

[Frosty]

Welcome aboard Noob, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how any of the gang live within visiting distance.

You my friend are in WAY over your head. You are aware bladesmithing entails ADVANCED skill sets. Yes? Have you qualified for the metal work merit badge yourself? 

You'll do everybody a BIG favor by: 1 fessing up to your Scouts you don't know enough to show them how to make a knife. Kid's respect honesty, especially Scouts. 

Instead go exploring WITH them. Look up the JABOD forge and other minimum equipment smithing set ups. An excellent video just got posted about a JBOD (Just A Box Of Dirt) forge that includes some good basic blacksmithing.

Good beginner projects, especially for Scouts are tent pegs, S hooks, and shepherd hook stands like you see in yards or gardens with bird feeders or planters hanging from them. They are excellent for hanging a lantern.

A driveway is way too close to be safe with even 4-6 young teens. I'd use one of our parks or maybe ask Wal Mart to use their parking lot in an out of the way corner. 

Do you have a good 1st. aid kit? Beginners tend to: burn, cut and mash, themselves frequently and  with that many in a group, add poke and cut each other to the list. 

You might check with a cooking site about how to move around safely carrying HOT things, where to and not to stand, etc. At the very LEAST anybody stepping more than a step away from the fire with HOT steel needs to say, "HOT, HOT, HOT," till they get where they're going and never, NEVER walk up behind someone with something HOT in their hands. NEVER!

Yes, have them work in pairs, they can help each other even if it's just watching each other's backs so someone doesn't walk up behind them with something hot. AND keeping each other from making mistakes. 

This is serious business for the experienced let alone someone with little or no experience blacksmithing.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Charles R. Stevens]

Yep, JABOD and a double action bed pump is about $20 each. Anvils are another item to salvage. Large sledgehammer heads are probbably the easiest to find at an flea market, or large drops from a salvage yard. Large drops may also be available as donations from a steel yard or fabricator. If you have to buy new consider splitting wedges. Tongs are a requirement for knives. Hammers are another tool, 1 1/2# ball peins are ideal. 

historicly blacksmithing was a group endeavor, one to man the bellows, one to hold the stock, possibily holding top tools, and one or two wielding sledges  

you can milk this buy starting with building forges, and basic skills .

 

[Lee188]

I am located in the twin falls area in southern Idaho.

Under qualified I am, have I qualified for the metalwork merit badge yes and I have told them I'm not very qualified, they still want to go forward so we might as well go for it, dealing with multiple teens and hot objects I am use to, and have felt with for years a well as burns cuts and smashes so that part I am ok with I will also have 3 other adults there that I plan on putting with the boys to keep an eye on them for safety reasons. I have a parking lot I planned on doing it in,I was reading about the dirt box forge but was unsure of how well it will transport as I plan on it being a multiple day project unless they choose to do it on a Saturday. The knives will likely be done with rail spikes, will they be high quality? No. The plan is to get them started, to explore new Hobby's and gain some knowledge. I am not a complete novice but I am still a novice, I think I have done fairly well teaching myself and on a budget of 0.00 for the last 10 years. Unfortunately my budget hasn't changed neither has my shop situation and my wood shop is no better other than tools I have inherited stop get to haul them out of a little shed so I can get something done.

I'll look up those videos and try to keep my posts shorter.

[Charles R. Stevens]

Use cheap clay cat litter to fill them, then you can poor it into a bucket, so now the box can be transported empty. You can add a few bricks as a “bellows shield” and bank the coals against them. This would alow you to use a 24x18” box:  or a 30x24” 

[Frosty]

Telling us where you are in one post won't stick in our memory once we open another post. Putting it in the header puts it in front of us on every post.

Any smooth faced hammer under 32oz. they're young you don't want them getting too tired too quickly it can cause injuries. 

Team them up, Charles laid it out nicely.

Carry the soil in plastic buckets, have the boys bring some. Scouting is about learning to do things yourself and helping. Have them fill them too if you have a good source of dirt picked out. 

Safety glasses are an absolute MUST! No safety glasses and you have to sit in the car. It won't happen a second time, believe me.

No synthetic clothes! When something hot gets on it and it melts deep frying YOU underneath. We're talking permanent scars nasty burns. This includes shoes, leather shoes and cotton long sleeved shirt and pants. Aprons are a good idea too.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Glenn]

7 hours ago, Noob said:

Boys ages 14 to 16

You may want to check into the legal aspects of providing boys of that age with knives. A knife is a more advanced project and takes some skills to succeed.

As Frosty said, good beginner projects, especially for Scouts are tent pegs, S hooks, and shepherd hooks. Easy to make as a first project and make successfully so they can be used. Plan the lessons so they can not fail. They just want something to call their own and show others.

[Charles R. Stevens]

Viking era hammers were in the 1 1/2-2# range, anvils were not particularly largest one found was in the 30# range. One was 1 1/4” square and 3 1/4” long. So a splitting wedge, a sledge hammer head or a 3x or 4x block is appropriate to the simple sideblast forge.

[Daswulf]

I would skip the knives. They should all Have pocket knives and that good enough for what they are doing. Go with some other projects mentioned including maybe roasting/ campfire forks or fire pokers. Just because everyone lately thinks knives when they hear the word forge doesn't help them to push it further. They can learn that later after some basic starting skills. 

Heck, have a workshop where They build the forges with your help and instruction. Charles uses a $10. Mattress pump that would work with the jabod forges. 

They will need a primer before jumping right into some knives. Even spike ones. 

[ianinsa]

Hi there, glad to have you on the site and pleased to see you wanting to encourage the youth! for me personally scouting provided a great time-filler/friend-making /educational  and probably life changing activity things learned have stayed with me  and i think 14 to 16 is a good time to teach activities that are fun and teach teamwork yet add a subtle element of responsibility so the forging is possibly as good as it gets.  as a present at that age my uncle took me down to the local " scout shop" to buy me an axe!  Boy was i proud of it! my dad was somewhat miffed (I suppose with good reason) I got the long lecture on responsibilities and safety(thinking at the time yada,yada) but it stuck whenever the family /we went camping I got to chop wood with my axe later after much pestering my dad let me fell a small tree(accompanied of course with with the prerequisite lecture/lesson) .I now believe that my father and uncle had colluded in order to give me the axe.

Now to get to the point boys love the element of danger and get a kick out of being trusted with something dangerous as kids we got to get familiar with guns yet adults drew the line at knives (larger than pocket knives) and axes ... go figure. at that age i made my own "bayonet" on the quiet in my dads workshop, with hindsight it was a piece of junk but i was proud of it, kids today can buy all kinds of knives at supermarkets/dollar stores etc. so if they want one they can definitely acquire one. So with the interest and inspiration  gleaned from popular television i think harnessing this and using it to teach not just forging but life lessons is good.

sorry for the long-windedness    i'm all for safety but sticking one's head in the sand does not remove the danger i think its preferable to manage it.

[ThomasPowers]

I'm of the opinion that you should know at a whole lot higher level than you teach.  So if you get a student---like I did Saturday---that's studying Metallurgy at the University you can answer their questions without looking like an idiot.  BCC vs FCC, what's an easy test for the curie temp?  (and why do we want to know when the steel goes over it!) Dislocation climb. How many points carbon does an alloy need to be hardenable by quenching...working high carbon alloys too cold or too hot, Annealing, Normalizing, Quench Hardening, Tempering

I would have started them on a progression: tent stakes, tripod for campfire cooking, S hooks for the tripod(s) and move into higher carbon forging with steels for flint and steels---make them light the forge with their flint and steel each time.  When they show both hammer control and stick-to-it-ness start just a couple on a simple single edged auto coil spring blade---and make them break the first one to check for issues and heat treat correctness. *Then* start them on a blade for real.  Of course this gives them training in smithing and just not trying to guess at how to do an advanced skill.  If they just want to spend *1* day forging well the tent stakes and maybe a tripod will work!

I did an afternoon forging demo for cubscouts once. They each made a twisted 1/8+" steel wire toasting fork with 1:1 work with me for safety sake and then held a hot dog roast to "test them in". No burns and they all worked. Of course I had been smithing for about 20 years by then...

[Lee188]

Would relatively thin sheet metal work for the box of only supported toward the ends? Thinking of different boxes I could use, there is a bunch of different work we are throwing out at work and a few furnace boxes that are a little thicker sheet metal.

If it was my group and I had say in what was done and how I would definitely start them out with simpler projects, I am thinking of a way to do some hooks or something that are much easier to get them started and maybe let them convince them selves that knives are more than they wish to tackle but if it's what they want to do I'll do my best to teach them. We have a couple dozen medium to large ball peen hammers and I have a half dozen 2 to 3lb sledge or cross peen hammers, leather gloves and safety glasses, no aprons yet but I plan on having people on hand just for safety and coming up with a way to rope of the areas so there are only ever 2 people inside a given area one with a hammer and one with the tongs

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

If you are making JABOD forges thin sheet metal will work. As a matter of fact wood will too as long as they are lined with dirt/clay.

[Charles R. Stevens]

Almost anything will work that will hold dirt. Large planters come to mind, the cheep “I want to look country” fake wash tubs for icing your beer from wall mart also come to mind. One could even use wooden ends and a bent piece of sheet metal for the sides and floor. Moms old stone wear roasting pan would work, a large engine oil pan (heck the vary between the heads of a defunct V6 or 8 for that mater. If it won’t servive exposer to burning charcoal or coal ( we know from experience that even tho iron melts at 2800f or so that steel and cast iron pots will servive coal and charcoal fires that have the potential to reach 3500f) then insulate it as clay and dirt melts at about 3200f it is a good choice.  Wood ignites at 550-600f. 

Honestly the old wooden produce crates lined with the scouts ever present heavy duty foil filled with dirt (but not pure sand) works. 

1/2 55 talon drums give you a neirly 24x36” trough 12” deep. Easy to attach legs and frame work, tho filled with dirt they get heavy

[ThomasPowers]

Not to mention that we are standing on a jabod just without the B...

[Charles R. Stevens]

 True Thommas, you can have them dig a hole to either stand in or dangle their legs in and build the forge in the ground. Having them cut the turf and set it aside, as well as separating the top soil from the sub soil would allow them to rather efencently hide the evidence. Put out the fire and fill in the holes with sub soil, tamping it in 6” lifts. Put in the topspin and less aggressively tanp it lastly top with the turf and water it in.

that acualy would be an exelent scout exercise. Being westerners and not used to squatting the leg hole is almost a nessesity. 

For myself, a 16” inch deep hole would be good, as it’s chair hight, the forge build with the subsoil and a short stand for the block anvil. 

Remember, in knife making the fire is the fun part, then comes the drudgery of filing and sanding befor it’s back in the fire to heat treat. Then more sanding, fitting the hardware, polishing and then sharpening. Brother this isn’t a 4 hour project, this can be milked all summer, to include weekly meetings for the non fire stuff. Showing them primitive vices for holding their work (Dave Cantabery has an exelent Video of a multi tool made from a stump) such as the edge vices made bou the Norse.

[Exo313]

21 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

Not to mention that we are standing on a jabod just without the B...

B as in ball? See? It still applies!

[ianinsa]

So its now a Jacod  as in container no _  . . .  when i was a scout this was carved into my stave

[ThomasPowers]

When I went to "Real Viking"  a reenactment trying for authenticity, I set up my  stake anvil on the ground and worked at a corner of the communal fire, racking hot embers over to the rocks I had set up to contain them and using the single action bellows and working on my knees.   I am not that young anymore! 

(I slept on sheepskins and my "tent" was a 10'x20' piece of canvass  held up with saplings and rope.  Great fun!)

[JME1149]

17 hours ago, Noob said:

If it was my group and I had say in what was done

As the person doing the teaching, it is your group. You are responsible for their learning and safety and as such need to be the one to tell them what is going to be done. I used to take my portable kit to summer camp and had the boys come thru for classes as their schedules permitted so I can speak from experience. Safety should be your #1 concern and you should have plenty of adult supervision to keep an eye out for potentially dangerous situations. Even better yet, have the adults do the project first under your supervision so they really understand what to look out for. 

From what you have described so far, you will not be teaching them the metalworking merit badge because there are set skills you need to work on and build upon. It sounds like you want to give them a taste of blacksmithing, and that is a great thing. Rather than having them jump right in and trying to hammer out a knife-shaped-object from a railroad spike, maybe scale it back a bit and make a simpler blacksmith knife/letter opener type project (simple blade, drawn out handle that is twisted and folded over to make a loop). They would have much more success hammering a piece of 3/8" round bar to get a desired shape than they would with a spike.

[Lee188]

Thank you everyone for your replies,I was able to talk them back a bit. They will still be doing knives as a part of it but those will come from an old saw blade, nothing fancy but they will think they conquered the world. They did help build a new jbod and I tested it out Saturday and it worked great, they will be coming back to try some forging and start there knives so far it's been a fun activity for them and a good excuse to try out a forge.