jonkoontz Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 Hey all, My name is Jon. I live in Glen Rock, PA. I decided 2 weeks ago that I wanted to give blacksmithing a try. I saw an article in "Popular Mechanics" about building a forge from a stainless steel kitchen sink. Check it out here! After searching on google many times for research, I ended up on this site for advice and stories to help me along many times. So thanks to all who post here. I found a lot of it very useful. I welded together a cart, got a sink on craigslist, and made a few trips to Lowes. Tonight, I finally got to fire it up! It works great I guess, don't really have anything to compare it to, but it made a railroad spike glow and I got to hammer it. So I was pleased. I've attatched A picture of my "setup" in case anyone was interested. I look forward to progressing at this hobby, so I'm sure I will get to talk to many of you soon. Thanks again, Jon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremiah Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 Sweet, feels good huh? Forge On! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 Welcome aboard Jon, glad to have ya. I see you're into improvising, this is a good thing in a smith. The leaf blower is way too much blower, a hair drier is actually plenty for most things. You also need to find something to use as an anvil, modern cast vises are NOT designed to be hammered on and it won't survive long. All you need is something heavy and hard to get started, RR rail being a sort of traditional improvised anvil but almost anything will work. I'm sure you can find a couple hundred lb (that heavy isn't really necessary) piece of steel at a salvage yard for less than what that vise cost. Mount it lower too, you want the anvil's face between knuckle and wrist height while you're standing next to it in the shoes/boots you work in. Good start Jon, well done. Frosty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Sells Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 welcome to I Forge Iron, I appears that you are off to a good start. Don't be shy about asking questions. If ya don't know, just ask and some one in the forums will most likely know about it, and share it with you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonkoontz Posted March 3, 2009 Author Share Posted March 3, 2009 Thanks Frosty! i knew the leaf blower was over-kill. I put a Y in the pvc, along with a pvc valve. I kept that about 3/4 open and a good bit of the air was kicked back out trough the open pipe. The valve allows me to adjust the air flow. Since I had a leaf blower, and the girlfriend didn't want to part with her hair dryer, I made it work! I will work on finding a better "anvil", and will take your advice on mounting it lower. It is also pretty handy to have the second basin as a quench tank. Since I'm using channel locks until I can get some tongs, i found myself cooling them in the water often. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Finnr Posted March 3, 2009 Share Posted March 3, 2009 Don't get some tongs. You have all that you need to make yourself some. There are excellent BPs on doing them in our Blue Print area. Finnr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonkoontz Posted March 3, 2009 Author Share Posted March 3, 2009 Good point! Which tong's are the "Standard"? I've seen so many different styles for specific purposes, can anyone recomend a basic starter set? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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