Getting back in the forging game.

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Aerindel

Aerindel

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Joined
Oct 20, 2020
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2,174
Location
On some scarred slope of battered hill
Many years ago I used to be a pretty active bladesmith.

Then I started building my place and all that extra time, energy and money I used to have ended up going into the house. And then later, I realized the only way anyone in my family would have a decent vehicle is if I 'built' them out of junkers and so for years most of my shop time has been working on more 'modern' things. I haven't even fired up my forge in I don't know how many years. The anvil face is rusty.

But finally I'm finishing up my new shop and with a blizzard going outside today I decided its finally time to start getting out my old dusty, rusty blacksmithing stuff.

My anvils and hardy tool collection. The silver half sphere is half of a ball valve from the alaska pipline. It's an irreplacable tool for making breastplates. The thing next to it is a compound reverse curve tool for making armor. Its part of an steel elbow joint from on oil rig.

nogG67W.jpg


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Hey, the forge still works!

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ssonb said:
Did you build the base for the anvil? I like that design.
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I did. About fifteen years ago so its held up pretty well. I used to have it on a stump but my shop was small and I wanted something that took up less floorspace. Its 4x6"s and 1x4"s, held together with lag bolts.
 
There are so many things on my “wish to do” list, and blacksmithing is an activity that I wish I was proficient at. I’ve assembled some of the items needed, but it hasn’t made it on my top priority list. I may come to regret this. My big missing item is a forge.

Aerindel, can you show more pics of the forge? I was wondering if a forge is something I could build from what I have laying around.
 
I too have accumilated most of the equipment needed to undertake blacksmithing. Mostly all except a good anvil. The one I have is about 50lbs and ok for small stuff, but not a lot else. I'd like to have time to work with a good blacksmith to learn from. Time just don't permit right now. And yeah I will regret that.
 
Aerindel said:
I did. About fifteen years ago so its held up pretty well. I used to have it on a stump but my shop was small and I wanted something that took up less floorspace. Its 4x6"s and 1x4"s, held together with lag bolts.
Click to expand...

Well according to Mama us kids could still tear it up.
 
Alaskajohn said:
There are so many things on my “wish to do” list, and blacksmithing is an activity that I wish I was proficient at. I’ve assembled some of the items needed, but it hasn’t made it on my top priority list. I may come to regret this. My big missing item is a forge.

Aerindel, can you show more pics of the forge? I was wondering if a forge is something I could build from what I have laying around.
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It's something I wish I had stuck with.

The forge is this model

https://www.amazon.com/NC-Tool-Whisper-Low-Forge/dp/B077ZH97QC
I got mine in 2001

Its basically just a metal box lined on the bottom with high temp fire brick, and on the other surfaces with ceramic insulation and heated with three propane ventruris on the top. I've seen some people make similar things with insulation and weedburners. A hundred different ways you could make something as long as you have a heat source and insulation.

Bacpacker said:
I too have accumilated most of the equipment needed to undertake blacksmithing. Mostly all except a good anvil. The one I have is about 50lbs and ok for small stuff, but not a lot else. I'd like to have time to work with a good blacksmith to learn from. Time just don't permit right now. And yeah I will regret that.
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Don't let the lack of a teacher hold you back. Truth be told, a lot of blacksmiths are kind of arrogant and don't want to teach people. I think they still are working with the idea that they alone hold semi-magical knowledge and you have to apprentice with them for 7 years to be worthy. I started with just some books and within a couple weeks I was able to make a pattern welded knife.
 
Aerindel said:
It's something I wish I had stuck with.

The forge is this model

https://www.amazon.com/NC-Tool-Whisper-Low-Forge/dp/B077ZH97QC
I got mine in 2001

Its basically just a metal box lined on the bottom with high temp fire brick, and on the other surfaces with ceramic insulation and heated with three propane ventruris on the top. I've seen some people make similar things with insulation and weedburners. A hundred different ways you could make something as long as you have a heat source and insulation.



Don't let the lack of a teacher hold you back. Truth be told, a lot of blacksmiths are kind of arrogant and don't want to teach people. I think they still are working with the idea that they alone hold semi-magical knowledge and you have to apprentice with them for 7 years to be worthy. I started with just some books and within a couple weeks I was able to make a pattern welded knife.
Click to expand...

You may well be right about that.

I found an old hand crank blower/bowl forge. It's nothing huge, but I think it'd do fine for hinges, knives, etc.
 
Bacpacker said:
You may well be right about that.

I found an old hand crank blower/bowl forge. It's nothing huge, but I think it'd do fine for hinges, knives, etc.
Click to expand...
Nothing wrong with a forge like that at all as long as you can get good coal.

Which is why I went with propane as there is no local source for blacksmithing coal, or really any coal as its not used in this area.
 
I found bagged coal at TSC a couple years ago. I got 400 lbs. Not sure how long that would last, but better than nothing for starters.
 
My son found a Hay Budden 122 lb farm anvil in excellent shape under a tin roof from a collapsed shead out in the woods. He carried that thing out of the forest by hand!!!! I tried to buy it from him for a couple of years until he needed some tires on his lawn care trailer. It was a good trade, I have it and after seeing that stand I have a new project in mind. Oh BTW at the shop I work at in a pile of old automotive parts there is a Armitage mouse hole 117 lb anvil made in the late 1890s....Trying to work a deal on that one also.
 
Can’t find an anvil that isn’t a fortune around here. This is something I’ve been wanting to get into and was planning to sign up for a short Training program. At least I could learn some basics. Then c19 hit so that’s on pause for now. Still keeping an eye out for the anvil and other basics in the meantime.
 
Ain't old good condition anvil going for 4$ per pound now. I found out that the "simple" tech that is in old anvil is not simple, the old ones were actually made using up to four types of metals and are not monolithic shaped hunks of steel. Wrought on the bottom,cast in middle and forged on top, the more expensive ones even had high carbon plates attached on to the flat impact areas.
 
ssonb said:
Ain't old good condition anvil going for 4$ per pound now. I found out that the "simple" tech that is in old anvil is not simple, the old ones were actually made using up to four types of metals and are not monolithic shaped hunks of steel. Wrought on the bottom,cast in middle and forged on top, the more expensive ones even had high carbon plates attached on to the flat impact areas.
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So in your mind the older anvils are of better construction than newer versions?
 
Well, forging, like a lot of things is really dependent on WHAT YOU ARE FORGING.

This was my first anvil. I have no idea what it was. I think it was some kind of jig. I got it from a company that makes molds for plastic injection parts. They just gave it to me when I asked if they had any chunks of metal that could be an anvil.

I started out with just the forge, a hammer and this anvil. I made my first set of tongs just by using long pieces of metal that I could hold with my hands while the other end heated. I used that first set of tongs, to make a hot chisel....that I used to cut a chunk off an old planer blade, that I used to make a knife...finished on a belt sander...

I only ended up with a real anvil when I mentioned I was searching for one to a friend who just happened to have one. Got it for $100. No idea the maker but it seems pretty good. But honestly, I didn't use the traditional anvil much as most of what I wanted to make was blades.

My favorite and best anvil you can see in that pile of metal in my first pic. Its just a 3x5x16' rectangle of steel. It cam from a scrap yard, it was part of a front end loader fork.

A lot of medieval anvils looked like an axe head stuck in a stump with the anvil surface just being a small flat spot on the top.

These days, with cheap metal if I had to start from scratch and couldn't 'find' something I would weld one up from 1' plate steel, laminated and stick welded to shape with top surface of 5160.

Or if I won the lottery, just order an Refflinghaus anvil.

IMG_4335 2.jpeg
 
Good general purpose anvils are cast from steel and then a steel cap is forge welded to the top. Some of the most expensive anvils are forged steel throughout. The general rule is to have an anvil that weighs about 50 times the weight of your heaviest hammer. That way your hammer strikes move or deform the metal you are working with and not the anvil you are working on.
 
Nope just different... They used what was within the limits of the technology of the day.
 
I stumbled across this photo today. The poster said this was a 105yr old Fisher anvil. We had a good anvil when I was a kid. It disappeared (along with many other shop tools) in the aftermath of the tornado in '74 that demolished the farm. Debris from buildings and trees were dozed into piles and burned. Scarp metal was loaded and sold. I still have a few odds and ends that survived that time but not the anvil.

Anyway, here is some good information on Fisher anvils
https://www.anvilfire.com/21centbs/anvils/fisher-norris.php
Sort of neat... the Fisher and Norris Muesum
Fisher & Norris Factory Museum • The largest Fisher anvil collection in the world • Home

Fisher Anvil.jpeg
 
Peanut said:
I stumbled across this photo today. The poster said this was a 105yr old Fisher anvil. We had a good anvil when I was a kid. It disappeared (along with many other shop tools) in the aftermath of the tornado in '74 that demolished the farm. Debris from buildings and trees were dozed into piles and burned. Scarp metal was loaded and sold. I still have a few odds and ends that survived that time but not the anvil.

Anyway, here is some good information on Fisher anvils
https://www.anvilfire.com/21centbs/anvils/fisher-norris.php
Sort of neat... the Fisher and Norris Muesum
Fisher & Norris Factory Museum • The largest Fisher anvil collection in the world • Home

View attachment 53788
Click to expand...

Is that your anvil or Fishers? Thats one heck of one whoever it belongs to.
 
I don't remember the brand of our anvil, that was almost 50yrs ago. Since that one was lost we've used railroad rail, spiked to a stump.

The one in the photo was posted as a Fisher. I think it is, it fits the shape and style of Fishers.
 
On the farm we just use a chunk of 100 pound rail that was probably discarded at a crossing by a Rock Island section gang before I was born. I would guess it weighs 70-80 pounds, as it's less than 3 feet long, and rail weight is measured by how much 3 feet of rail weighs. It works on the farm, but we only use it for bending and straightening stuff...
 
Got some time a couple nights ago and started a new knife, just for fun (bottom)

And while trying to figure out how to fix my old quenching tank, I found my very first knife, made 20 years ago, covered in sludge at the bottom of the tank. Not sure how it got there but I recognized it as soon as I saw it. (top)

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Nice work!
 
I was in the middle of building a forge when my copd got so bad that it put me in the hosp. And I could no longer be around smoke
Here is my build that i only got half way done😂
Nice work on those knives, If you ever think about it, I would love to have a knife made out of a bicycle/motorcycle chain

forge 2 002.JPG
 
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