You might be addicted to blacksmithing if you...

[Flynn]

You find yourself buying a lot of whatever it is your wife collects (plants, delft vases, etc) because you're afraid to come home without something for her when you've bought another anvil/vise/hammer/hardy tool for yourself.

[ThomasPowers]

I have a friend that sells hand made jewelry at local Gun shows for that very reason!

When I was looking around for a lady to marry one of my criteria was that she was passionate about a craft hobby herself---preferably NOT blacksmithing though.  That way she would understand *why* I needed another anvil when I already had half a dozen of them. (Also there would never be blacksmithing tool use contention.)  I married a Spinster and so am one of a number of Steel-Wool couples I have met.

[Daswulf]

3 hours ago, mcostello said:

We took a small railroad ride with an old timey coal fired engine.

I got to ride in the caboose once. From hookup at the yard till the engine broke down and we had to wait to get towed by a diesel engine which excitingly hooked up at the caboose and pushed us. Was a fun ride.

[George N. M.]

I've had people, usually older folk, come up to me when I've had the coal forge at an event/demo and tell me that it was the first time they had smelled coal smoke in many decades.  Sometimes it is the smell they followed to my booth.  That might possibly be an advantage to using a coal forge at a demo rather than coke or propane as long as you don't smoke out your neighbors, it attracts some people.

Speaking of steam trains, when my son was small we would take him to see Santa and ride the Santa Train at the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden, CO.  You would get on one of a string of cabooses they had hooked up behind one of their steam engines and be taken to the other end of the museum grounds where on a siding the kids could see Santa in another caboose.  Then you rode the train back to the front of the museum grounds.  I have a childhood memory of going to see Santa at Marshall Field's Department Store in downtown Chicago.  My son's childhood memory of how you go see Santa is behind a steam engine.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[BillyBones]

George, when i was akid we had a coal fire stove for heat in the house. Many years later when i started using coal in my forge i had almost that exact same response. Kind of like when i was away for years and started driving back home and got into the Appalachians. It literally brought a tear to my eye becuase i was home. The sights, sounds, smells and even the feel of the air and taste of the water are different at home than anyplace else in the world. I have been in places that certain aspects remind me of home, but when all of it comes together you know in your soul that you are home and feel the connection with land. 

[anvil]

I have a similar memory. My family was from Cripple Creek, Co. Gold miners and silver before that in Leadville. We would go visit friends and relatives and when we got to the lookout before dropping into the valley we were confronted with a spactular panorama and the smell of coal smoke from the houses. When I started smithing, I too felt like I was coming home.

[Bantou]

I can’t say that the smell of coal smoke reminds me of home, but it does have a certain nostalgia about it. It makes me think of simpler times before the world went crazy(er?). Times when a man’s word was worth something more than noise and living simply was a good thing, not weird. I’m a bit of a romantic though. 
 

The forge to me is a sanctuary from the craziness that our modern life has become. It has the added advantage of allowing me take the day’s frustration and use it to create or learn something. 

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

When my wife and I lived in the Miami-Dade metro area of Florida, we would come up to the Ozarks on vacation. Her folks had a home there and we would do the touristy thing. The first time I laid eyes on the area, I knew we were home. We moved up after about two years, took that long to sell our house down there.

[lary]

You find it irritating when an add on Craigslist is titled "Wrought iron gate" but turns out to made of box tubing.

[pnut]

2 hours ago, lary said:

"Wrought iron gate" but turns out to made of box tubing.

I hate trying to explain the difference to non Blacksmiths when I'm asking them if they ever come across any. I've only had one person show up with actual wrought iron after asking them about it. I've gotten plenty of mild steel though. I'm hesitant to try forging most of it because of lead paint. 

Pnut

[BillyBones]

Pnut, i have run into a lot of stuff like porch railing that is powder coated. To get that off is a real PITA. The easiest way i have found is build a big fire out in the back 40 and chuck it in and let the fire rage for a couple hours. It does not get it all off but a wire brush on an angle grinder get s off what is left easy enough. 

[pnut]

That's how I deal with most found stock with any type of coating. I'm hesitant to burn really old looking paint though. 

Pnut

[bluerooster]

 Can't wait 'till Monday, Monday is forge day at my house.  I work out of town, and been thinking about a JABOD, and sledge head anvil for the evenings when I'm at work.   But I'm so tired after 12 hour day, but working at the forge seems relaxing to me.

[Frosty]

Yes, time at the anvil can be very zen-like.

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

You might be addicted to Blacksmithing if you spend time trying to make out how someone is swinging their sledge in the dim background of a 100+ year old silent film.

Or if you read a booklet on the Borax mining in Death Valley just for the description of how the  large, 7' dia', wheel tyres were made: 1" thick 8" wide 22' long, had to buld a special roller to make them.  That's about  600 pounds a piece  just for the tyre!  Think of heating and maneuvering that for welding the tyre!

[Frosty]

I think there's a video isn't there, Thomas? Addicted would be driving a few hundred hours to volunteer to help tyre the wheels on the rebuilt borax wagon. IIRC there were a bunch of guys with hooks to lift it out of the fire and a couple guys with mallets tapping it onto the wheel and shrinking it with water.

It's a neat video unless I'm imagining remembering watching it several times. The voices haven't come to a conclusion yet. so . . . ?

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

ISTR a video about mounting the tyre on the wheel; but I don't recall if they showed rolling it into a circle and forge welding it.  I found an old booklet on Borax mining in Death Valley on the free table at work and read it last night for the information on the 20 mule teams and the wagons they hauled.

[JHCC]

The Engels Coach Shop has a video about making the wheels for borax wagons; the tire setting portion starts at 14:50. Looks like they arc weld sections of 1" x 8" stock up to make the 600 lb tires, not forge weld.

 

[ThomasPowers]

Nice mixture of old and new methods, I bet the original wheelwrights would have loved to have a forklift to use!

[JHCC]

Interestingly, the practice of using one-piece tires is only a few hundred years old; pre-industrial era wheels had short sections of iron plate (called "strakes") attached around the rim. This illustration from Diderot's Encyclopédie shows both methods being used:

[Frosty]

I must've imagined watching a different video, no forklift or garden hoses in my memory. Thanks for the link John, I'll tell the voices to remember this one from now on.  

Frosty The Lucky.

[JHCC]

There's also this, on a somewhat smaller scale:

 

[bluerooster]

Your wife cleans out from under the kitchen sink, and you rescue a box of borax, and 2 gallons of old used peanut oil from the garbage bin. (all the while thinking "Score!!  Flux, and Quenchant!!")  and pack them out to the shop.

[Frosty]

More so if she sets them aside for you. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[JHCC]

That would make her an “enabler”!