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I Forge Iron

Horse Shoer Swages


George Geist

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Glenn,after my wife has the baby next month and things go back to somewhat normal Ill get the 2 seaboxes moved to our new house and start sorting through everything,basically my entire shop is either crated,strapped to skids or boxed,stacked on skids and shoved in the seaboxes with the skid loader. Took everything except the bed,bosh and chimney when we moved. Left those because they are brick lol

 Sold some things I wish I’d have not sold like my little giant,fly press out of the steam era western md RR shops as well as my shaper,south bend lathe and Bridgeport. But alas I did,can’t go back and change what’s done. I’ve amassed more stuff that I’ll ever need or use over the years and since we now live in city limits and have neighbors close by I won’t be setting up a coal/coke forge here and if I’m doing shop work I prefer to work in the coal. So as I go thru stuff I’ll take photos and make some listings in the for sale/trade section. When I found something that I liked/worked for me I had a tendency to buy said items whenever I’d come across them. 

On 9/23/2020 at 1:36 PM, jlpservicesinc said:

I'd be interested in seeing some firepots too.  I'm always looking for something more inline with what I want. 

You can shoot me a private message or I can be reached at my email, TheHorseShoer2017@gmail.com and let me know what your looking for and I’ll definitely make a note of what your looking for and when I’m going thru the pack rats nest I’ll set the items aside for you. 

Edited by JmShrader
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Well I admit that I cheated; married a lady with two children already. So for all those Father Freaking Fails I had an in house; "All babies do that; just clean it up...)

My biggest tip is to have a good set of ear muff hearing protectors; there will be times when a baby is sick or teething or unhappy and there is nothing you can do but sit and rock it through the night.  Hearing protectors tune out the higher pitches that grate on your soul with how helpless you are to help.

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Me too, I married into a full spread, children, grand kids and even great grandkids.  Not one diaper. :) Of course Deb's younger son Dan who actually changed his last name to Frost! Talk about a humbling development. Is yet to marry, though things are looking darned promising with his current S.O., has yet to produce descendants. I may get to do some diapers yet. I certainly look forward to spoiling them and sending them home. :ph34r: 

Not having children of my own is one of my few regrets in life. Standing where ever I did when I felled that birch IS another.

Frosty The Lucky.

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On 9/28/2020 at 7:40 PM, Irondragon ForgeClay Works said:

Along with spoiling them figures into the equation.:)

That’s also the greatest thing about being an uncle too,I’m the eldest out,so even before I had kids of my own the kiddos loved comming over to the farm to visit me because I’d let them have all the crap my brothers and sisters wouldn’t let them,and I’d always buy them the most aggregating toys for birthday/Christmas/good grades that I could lol 

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  • 5 months later...

I started shoeing in 1966. We pretty much made our swages.. My first one we simply filed in shapes we wanted on a piece of trolley track.. Made  a swage die going the long way for a bottom Little Giant die.. worked great.. Had a half round groove filed in the rail track for half round shoes..  I regularly mad shoes half swaged and half half round...Pretty easy to make.. Try it..

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  • 3 months later...

George, between the two of us we basically have me talked  in to building a rolling mill to roll out swaged & concave bar stock. Also I am definitely gonna be making a couple sets of blocks for the Little Giant and blanks/saddles for swaging under the hand hammer. Whilst swaging under hand hammer is a vital process for an apprentice, he’s also gonna destroy an immense amount of bar stock until he gets in the groove and gets his hands, eyes and xxxx wired together lol  Being able to make swaged & concave sections fast and easy will save time and money in the long run. 
 

 When I get my new shop built my intentions are to take on an apprentice and pass the skills and knowledge that me, yourself was passed to you by the old timers. Us talking about this project had had me thinking a lot about some good friends of ours who sadly are no longer with us. I know Danny, Bruce and Big John would love the ingenuity, but I’m pretty sure those three could have figured out how to make my idea work too. John would have gave me the devil for making something more complicated than it needed to be but he would have still helped me lol  I thought about those guys a lot over the past year, there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t use something they taught me, both in shoeing horses and just good old day to day skills. I’m in no way, shape or form ashamed to say that I miss them every day.  

ps, I’m digging through 14yrs of photos on my iCloud server trying to find photos of my blocks I made as well as my collection of vintage blocks from racetrack shops that are now just a distant memory. 
 

J.m Shrader 
 

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