Show us your portable forge for re-enacting event / demos

[Sam Falzone]

This is a portable charcoal rig a friend and i put together for re-enactment and demos (we're both part of the SCA and DARC Viking groups).

The box idea for the forge came from an image from the bayeaux tapestry that shows 2 figures cooking over a firebox. We figured why not a "forge box". I made it from 1.25" ash planks. There are no iron or steel nails in the whole forge box. Everything is pinned together with glue and pegs wedged at both ends (called tree nails) which were used in ship-building. The box is solid and hasn't shifted or wracked in 2 years. This is the mark-2 and now has a plate steel shelf for the firebox and sheet steel liner-pan between the wood and 2 layers of firebricks (the mark-1 had only 1 layer of fire brick and an ash plank shelf which completely burned away after 3 hours of use - the carcass was unsinged and used in the mark-2).

My friend made the side-by-side belows. They look small but work great. This set is the mark-1 for the belows.

We get a hot core around the size of a grapefruit with this set-up. We figure it's the rebounding of the heat back to the centre from the firebricks. Usually with charcoal your core is about the size of a baseball. And we can get welding heat with this rig.

We capped it off with primitive anvils. We made them from 4" blocks of mild steel, hammer-marked the faces and quench hardened them with water (we're hypothesizing that this was probably how they would have been hardened around 800-900 CE). I even put my mark on one side. The small block in the picture is my very first anvil that I bought - a stump anvil from Old World Anvils that I used for around 2 years until I decided I needed more in a primitive anvil. Unfortunately I couldn't pry it out of the stump so I use it for upsetting or other applications since it is cast tool steel and my anvil is water-hardened mild.

I know IFI has lots of re-enactors in its ranks.
Show us your portable rigs for events and demos.

Edited September 21, 2008 by Aeneas

[John Martin]

Sweeeeeeeet setup, I really like the antqiuity that setup displays. Or primitivesness, whichever floats your boat. That is really cool. Did you then temper the anvil? You could take big pieces, like track plates, get real hot, and lay 'em on top of the anvil to temper the tops.

[rthibeau]

This is my portable forge I built for demos to be used with the bellows

Portable Forge with Bellows - Blacksmith Photo Gallery

Demo Setup - Blacksmith Photo Gallery

[civilwarblacksmith]

This is my set-up.

[Steve Sells]

Here is the link to my ren-fair setup.

Fenris Forge Events

[CurlyGeorge]

Here are two different set ups that I use. The rivet forge is mine. The forge cart belongs to Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site, Lerna, ILL.

Big Doorway of the Pioneer Village Blacksmith Shop - Blacksmith Photo Gallery

Lincoln_Log_Cabin_8-4_5-_07_0181 - Blacksmith Photo Gallery

[solvarr]

I get allot of complaints about using coal or charcoal.
My entire rig goes up and takes down very fast. putting up the canopy takes longer than the rest of the setup.

The tripod post vice did very well on it's first run.
not quite as the good as the 55gallon drum filled with water I use at home but it really packs down

Midnight at the oasis 2008 010 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

[1860cooper]

I'm a stickler on historic accuracy and, well, lets say that I'm disappointed more often than not. I like your thought, Sam, and it makes sense but I'm not sure you can get away with it if you want to call yourself authentic (maybe you don't). It would be sort of period-esque, but what would you say when the admiring public asks questions:

"Is that the way they made forges back then?"
"Why did they make forges like that?"
etc.

Don't consider yourself too picked on... I suffer a lot of general frustration in the Civil War group I'm in, amongst other things, because there is so much guessing and so little research... reenacting in Oregon is more like a dress-up party (the Blacksmiths take a lot of liberties too), and no one is really preserving history. At least you did some research.

[Sam Falzone]

In no way do we pass off our rig as authentic because it would take nothing short of a doctoral thesis and years of archaeological research to figure out what authentic is.

We have tools and smithy related arttefacts from the Norse period but no real clear evidence what a smithy looked like (did they use ground fires, pit arrangements, or what???). We know where smithing occured based on scale, metal fragments and soil discolouration, but nothing really substantial about what the forge looked like.

People have asked those kind of questions and we openly tell them, we don't know. This is an extrapolated hypothesis based on a loosely related image from an historical source/artefact. That's the best we can do. Experimental archaeology and experimental history are just that - experimental. At least with the civil war era you have actual photographic evidence. Wish we had that for Norse history - heck even some decent drawings would be nice.

Aeneas

[1860cooper]

That's fine. You try harder and are more honest than so many I run across. I have some interesting stories along that subject. I don't think it takes a doctoral thesis, but you're right, Civil War is much easier, yet even then people just don't do the research... you wonder if they've even gone through one book of pictures analytically.

Happy forging.

[Jymm Hoffman]

Historic Demonstrations, 2006 - Blacksmith Photo Gallery

18th. Century Traveling Forge - Blacksmith Photo Gallery

[Jmercier]

This thread is great! Just this last weekend I got talking with some folks at the New Hampshire Highland games who were with the Historical Highlander's living history / reenacting group, and they're without a blacksmith currently. I've let myself be talked into looking into becomming their blacksmith for all the local events in the new england area. What I dont have currently is a re-enactment setup for forging, and though I've got some authentic late 1600s early 1700s jacobite period tools, I'm not sure if they're things that I'd want to use on a regular basis =P

In the last few days I've been doing a lot of research into period (1680s to 1740s) setups, trying to figure out what I'll need to build, etc, and this thread is perfect timing for me =)

Looking forward to seeing more !

[Jmercier]

Actually here's a question that perhaps someone who does re-enacting might be able to help with. I'm trying to determine if the style of this old horned anvil I have could possibly be early enough to have been period around the battle of Culloden (1745)



I can tell by the manufacture, with the pointy feet, the short and wide body (12" long if you include the length that would be there with the missing heel, and 6" wide) and the lack of a shelf at the end of the horn that the anvil is 1700s or very very early 1800s (I'd be able to date it even more accurately if the heel were still there so I could tell if it had a pritchel hole or not, though I suspect it did not) I'm just not sure if that may be too late period for a fairly strict living history group, or if I should be looking for a hornless anvil (not that I'd use an actual early colonial hornless, but I will [and do] use the above pictured colonial anvil with no heel)

I've got other anvils and anvil-like objects that are certainly period for even far older times but they're not ones that i'd want to use for any work for fear of damaging them

this 55lb bickern is mid to late 17th century
http://www.tharkis.com/images/shop/bickern.jpg

and this massive 125lb stake anvil, to the best my research has been able to determine is likely late 15th century to early 16th century
http://www.tharkis.com/images/shop/stumpanvil.jpg
It used to have carvings on the side faces but they're mostly worn off, and not visible at all in this picture except for, if you look carefully, part of the line outlining the edge

[triw]

Here are my re-enactment pictures do they count???????????????

[Sam Falzone]

Of course they count - it makes this thread cover my 2 favourite things to use iron for ...
... blacksmithing rigs and chow-lines ...

Aeneas

[mesquiteforge]

A few pics of my forge set up from a HABA Spring Roundup 07. Buffalo Forge with hood made by my grandfather, Champion Blower, Paragon 127#Anvil, Columbian 5"Vise, and about 1200lbs of other assorted "toolage". Everyone hates to see me show up-cause then they have to help me unload..I need to get my act together and get more portable.:o

[Frosty]

Here are my re-enactment pictures do they count???????????????

You're not seriously asking if FOOD counts are you?!?

Don't listen kids, next he'll have you questioning the validity of beer!

Frosty

[Finnr]

FOOD GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!! BEER GOODER!!!!!
Finnr

[triw]

Don't listen kids, next he'll have you questioning the validity of beer!

I am also a brewer of fine beer I have a bock ageing and two batches of IPA I just bottled

[Sam Falzone]

... show-off ...:D

[Gobae]

This is a 400AD Irish setup.

Large version

Here's a link to the research and creation Ancient Celtic Clans - 5th Century Forge

[John Martin]

Digging that setup Gobae, how well does it work, and can you forge weld in it?

[Gobae]

Works perfectly well and forge welding is no problem.

With a bellows slave (and therefore both bellows in use) there's very little difference from any other side blown charcoal forge. If I don't have a bellows slave I can still get up to working temp no problem, it just takes longer.

If we're going to be running the demo for more than a day I often clay the inside of the "bowl" that was dug into the ground; sometimes even building up the sides too. Depending on the soil I've found that this is sometimes necessary to keep the walls from crumbling into the bottom and thus filling up the hole by the end of the day. Other soils, however, vitrify and hold their shape fine.

The biggest issue I have with this setup is that it's killer on my knees.

[John Martin]

I can imagine your knees would hurt. Would it be possible to make a rig so that you can sit there or stand there, and just pull a lever, on the down stroke, works one bellow, on the upstroke, works the other bellow???

[Gobae]

Yes, and somewhere I have a reproduction print from a woodcut that shows just such an alternating lever contraption being used in the Middle Ages.

But actually it's not so much working the bellows that's an issue (because you can sit on the ground for that) it's kneeling at the anvil. Some fellow Norse re-enactors actually use a stool, but I've never gotten used to sitting while hammering.