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I Forge Iron

Building a table for my forge


Pr3ssure

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Someone on here, maybe this post. Or maybe i read it wrong. But they said something of the sort. 

And for my neighbor, that’s basically the agreement we came to. I asked if he wanted money and he just said to give him a hand when he needs it. 

He bought the club house/house for the golf course that used to be beside me so he has a giant garage that was once used for golf carts. He said if I help him clean it up I can have a section of it to store stuff, we both agreed I should pull the forge outside for the time being though until I’m comfortable enough to not burn anything. We will also setup a chimney, there’s already one of those spinning air gate things on top of the place. It’s cool though because he also wants to try forging, so it works out. We will probably build a propane forge together and hopefully a strong relationship. He seems like a no BS kind of guy which is hard to find in a person. Especially a nice neighbor. He also talked about turning one section into a wood working shop which interests me a lot as well. 

Hopefully I can get a lot done this week while he’s at work and surprise him, he works on pipelines 5 days a week. 

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5 hours ago, Pr3ssure said:

He also talked about turning one section into a wood working shop

If at all possible, locate the two shops at opposite ends of the building from each other. Airborne wood dust and forging sparks are NOT a good combination. Also, don't use the same sanding/grinding machinery for both materials, for the same reason.

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Ditto John, keep wood dust and fire as separate as possible, even a partition wall wouldn't be a bad idea. Sounds like you lucked out in your choice of new neighbors. Once he starts messing around at the anvil get him hooked up here, we'll help him too. It'll be sweet helping get two guys get hooked on the craft. Heck you can start a local club. 

Frosty The Lucky.

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Pressure,  It might have been my post that you're thinking of.  I specifically wrote that the rheostat control is less precise and more given to drift.  Put another way, the motor won't necessarily speed up or slow down in lockstep with the control.  If you put an on/off switch in series with the rheostat you can end up with a situation where the motor won't start and run at the same speed it was going before it was shut down the last time.  Starting the motor every heat will save coal but will wear the motor out faster.  It's just not a good approach.  People running antique electrical equipment are taking a risk, sometimes a big one.  The National Electric Code was originally created to assign blame on insurance claims for fires.  It took the NEC a long time to get around to life safety regulations which is why really stupid stuff like cardboard insulated lamp plugs were still being sold in hardware stores in the  1990's.  

In comparison, a gate valve allows the blower motor to run at peak efficiency all the time.  The gate adjustment is both infinite and immediate.  If you put any sort of witness mark on your adjustment, you can quickly restore a setting.  The "leak" at zero blast can be a huge benefit on it's own, as fuels like coke won't stay lit without constant airflow.  Beyond that, there's a huge safety reason to having a low blast going constantly.  As coal burns it creates a gas that's heavier than air.  If your fire is left untended, the gas can collect and push it's way back down the tuyere.  If the gas finds a path out the blower and back to the fire, it can detonate. 

This happened to me with a manual crank blower mounted to a forge.  I was at the anvil and heard a weird pop.  I turned around just in time to see my forge fire coming in for a landing in the pot!  The ash dump didn't do boo to protect my forge.  The tuyere was violently pulled away from my pot.  The bolt heads were ripped clean off, and the iron pot cracked from stem to stern along the line of the bolts.  

If you ever look at old photos of blacksmith shops using a great bellows, they make sure to mount them above the forge and they sometimes put in check valves to block the gas from getting into the bellows.  I bet more than one unlucky blacksmith blew their roof off before that became standard practice.

 

 

 

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I must have just skimmed your post rockstar and got it mixed up. I thought you were saying it was harder to control. 

13 hours ago, JHCC said:

If at all possible, locate the two shops at opposite ends of the building from each other. Airborne wood dust and forging sparks are NOT a good combination. Also, don't use the same sanding/grinding machinery for both materials, for the same reason.

Yeah, not something I thought of initially but definitely a good though. Probably even section it off with a wall. The garage is about 80 feet or longer I’d say. It’s atleast twice the width of my house long ways and it’s like 42 or 45 or something like that. 

It’s a big garage, used to store 50 golf carts along the walls easily. 

Mom definitely lucky he’s a good guy and interested in the some of the same things as me. 

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Also on a separate note, I’m wondering if there’s anyway to make all sides of my firepot touch the tabletop aside from bending the whole piece to the right shape. I’m thinking about cutting slits on the front and back and bending it a little to decrease the gap. 

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