July 8, 20215 yr Hi! I'm Chloe; I run a small smithy in Baltimore City making little decorative doodads to sell (hair sticks have been popular) as well as small tools for woodworker and leatherworker friends. I forge entirely with charcoal because I live in a row house and don't want to shill out for a gas forge, which certainly presents its own challenges. I used to do demos at a historic park before I moved. Would love to get into iron smelting as well someday, but that's a whole other shebang.
July 8, 20215 yr Welcome, Chloe! Glad to have you here, and we look forward to seeing photos of your work. We've had some good discussions of making tools for other crafts, so your expertise in this area is certainly welcome.
July 8, 20215 yr Welcome aboard Chloe, glad to have you. We don't have enough Ladysmiths posting, the more the merrier! Do you make crochet hooks? While I've never made any for sale there used to be a decent market for them but you need to use aluminum or stainless and stainless can be heavier than some folk like. One last thing. We LOVE pictures, shop, tools, work, pets, scenery, etc. Frosty The Lucky.
July 9, 20215 yr Welcome from 7500' in Wyoming. There are a fair number of fiber tools you can make if you think you have a large enough market. You may in a large metro area like Baltimore. There are a surprising number of "steel/wool" couples in the craft and who post here. Thomas and Frosty are two and my late wife was a skilled spinner and weaver. If you are interested let us know and we can suggest items. Also, you can forge with coke to avoid smoke and odor and disturbing neighbors. I have used coke for years for that reason. Now that I live in a semi-rural area I could go back to coal but probably won't since I've gotten used to coke as my preferred solid fuel. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."
July 12, 20215 yr Author Frosty, I have a lot of friends who knit, crochet, and do all sorts of fiber arts. I appreciate the idea, I'll look into making some with aluminum. George, I'll definitely give coke a try. This is a pretty good area to find it, and my forge should be set up to run it well. Thanks!
July 13, 20215 yr Welcome from the desert outside of Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada, also known as the surface of the sun during the summer...... It was only 113F today. What kind of leather tools have you made? I do leather as well as a few other crafts.
July 13, 20215 yr Here in my part of the Ozarks, the low was 63F and the high was 73F with partly sunny and a delightful gentle breeze. Very unusual for July to say the least, haven't had the AC on in three days.
July 13, 20215 yr In my part of the Mat Su Valley the high was 67f and the low around 56f. Showers this morning breaking up to partly sunny and a gentle breeze. Your AC has been off for 3 days! What's taking the electric company so long, is there an emergency I haven't heard about or something? Frosty The Lucky.
July 13, 20215 yr Cool night and only supposed to be in the 90's today; but still high humidity, (for us where single digit humidty is quite common.) Glad that work is AC rather than swamp cooler. We've actually had enough rain storms close enough to each other that I saw 2 mosquitos this morning! (The HORROR!) I expect I will have to wirebrush and BLO a lot of tools after I get power to the shop. (Found a couple of missed screw holes in the roof, when it's cooler I'll go up and "patch" them.
July 14, 20215 yr The weather has been so nice we turned off the AC and opened the windows. The temp went up to 86F today so the AC is back on. It was so nice this morning, I washed the '87 Z24 Cavalier hatch back.
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