blacksmithing info

[Luke]

good day to all,need some blacksmith knowlege,i have a little forge,have not been able to find a anvil,at least one i can afford.but a guy made me something similar out of a railroad track will that work he shaped it and everything,also swage blocks where a good place to pick them up for use in makeing butt plates and trigger guards, can anyone recomend a good dvd that will teach me alot thanks guys, luke

[Chris Treichel]

Try looking for a local ABANA or Blacksmithing group you can also try anvilfire   There are lots of groups arround that will let you join and have smithies open to the group where you can learn and bang away to your hearts content.

http://www.anvilfire.com
http://www.abana.org

[dannybb55]

If you are going to do some forging then there are a few things that you have to spend money on:
 A good anvil. Antiques are cheaper than new anvils. Buy the best that you can get. The bigger the better but a hundred pound London pattern will meet most of your needs.
 Buy a post vice, it is the only vice that will stand up to a sledge hammer. Old ones will cost between 75 and 150 depending on the jaw width. Make sure that all of the parts are included and that the screw is in good shape.
 A good Champion or other name brand blower will give you more air than any gimcrack contraption involving old ac parts and pipe. When you let the handle go it stops, think safety.
 The forge only has to hold a fire and a few bits of metal and tools and such. If you have a nice 14 inch firepot or Tuyere from Centaur forge then make the box out of 1/8 steel and make it deep. A good forge should hold a lot of coal around the pot. My old forge held 15 gallons of pea coal level full and another half gallon of coke in the pot. The top of the fire should be about 30 inches off of the floor.
 Even though we are selling tons of coal overseas it is still cheap, a half ton goes for about 160 bucks. A good bottom draft forge with a manual blower will burn about a gallon pail of coal in an 8 hour day.
 To start out get a few hammers. A 32 oz ball pane, a 42 oz cross pane and a 42 oz straight pane will do about all that you will ever need unless you need a striker.
 Last note: look on E- Bay First.
                                                       Danny

[heinz]

Luke, excellent advice from Danny.  You can also burn old fashioned lump charcoal if you can get it and the coal smoke is a problem with neighbors.   I have used it a lot in the city.  Note lump NOT briquets or you will find out how much clay is in a briquette.
I have also seen people use coke but don't know where they got it and never used it straight myself. I was taught to make coke by keeping damp coal around the outside of the firebox until you cooked the impurities off.
But I digress, follow Danny's advise and you will be in good shape.

[dannybb55]

Thanks , I tried charcoal in my side draught forge but I went through a feed sack in an afternoon. A very expensive proposition, and my Tue iron blew most of the fire off of the table more than once.
 That propane stuff will cook your shop and drive you out in August. Anything worth doing is worth doing right.
                                                  Danny

[heelerau]

Over here I have used charcoal, generally Jarrah or Wandoo, tends to burn the steel you are working if you are not carefull, coke is a softer and more controllable heat.
 The two woods I mention are hard wood, common to my home state of Western Australia.You might try charcoal made from your oak.  or anyother hardwood, Hickory?

Cheers

Gordon

[Elnathan]

Over here I have used charcoal, generally Jarrah or Wandoo, tends to burn the steel you are working if you are not carefull, coke is a softer and more controllable heat.
 The two woods I mention are hard wood, common to my home state of Western Australia.You might try charcoal made from your oak.  or anyother hardwood, Hickory?

Cheers

Gordon

The traditional wood for charcoal used for metalworking is pine, if you can believe that. The Japanese swordsmiths used it exclusively.
 
I haven't used charcoal yet, but hope to try once I get my bellows finished. Charcoal is more expensive than coal and you tend to use more of it, I believe, but it has the advantages that the smoke is not so noxious as coal and because all it produces is some ash it can be used with the simplest of set-ups - a hole in the ground. Pine produces little ash, one of the reasons it is preferred to hardwood. It also doesn't decarborize the steel as much as other heat sources, so it is the preferred fuel for many knifemakers.

[Canute Rex]

I have always used bituminous "chestnut" sized coal, also called blacksmith's coal. It is cheap and builds up to a steady, long lasting fire.

The key is to make coke in the forge, which is easiest with a deep fire pot. Start your first fire with wood charcoal. Heap coal in two piles either side of the fire pot and overhanging into it, leaving a trench in the middle. The coal will smoke and you'll get lots of yellow flame. You can sprinkle water on the coal to slow this down.

The coal will cook, essentially, although the verb and noun are both coke. The gases will come off the top and the metallic slag will drop out the bottom. You'll be left with crunchy chunks of almost pure carbon - coke - which will burn at 3000F or so.

Now that you have two walls of coke developing either side of your fire you can push your poker down behind them, pushing in more "green" coal and pushing fresh coke towards the middle of the fire. As long as you keep cleaning out the clinker (the metallic ash clinks when you hit it with a metal poker) from the bottom you can keep this going all day.

When you shut down the fire, pull it apart and douse the coke. It will dry out and be ready for the next day. You can start coke burning  with a ball of newspaper.

[heinz]

Good description by Canute.  I do break the chunks of coal up into almost a powder and keep it damp after the fire is going.  I use a "rake" that has a 180 flattened bend on on side that makes a hammer face and a long pointed end  that makes the rake and clinker checker on the other.

have fun

[Chris Treichel]

You can also make your own high grade charcoal... there are many methods but they usually involve burning/cooking wood in a low oxygen environment.  http://www.katanabuilders.com/katanablog/charcoal/

[T*O*F]

You can also make your own high grade charcoal

This is the most basic of high school chemistry experiments.  It's called the destructive distillation of wood.  In the experiment, the goal is to drive off the volatiles and distill them into a liquid...just like making moonshine.  However, the end residue in the retort is charcoal.

It's the same process as making charcloth for flint and steel.  You put your product into a tightly sealed can with a small hole in the top and put it in the fire.  When no more gas comes out of the hole, you remove it from the fire and immediately stopper the hole, otherwise the contents will ignite and burn.  Then allow it to cool.  If done with wood in a larger container, the end result will be charcoal.

[David R. Pennington]

charcoal works fine and makes a nice clean fire but you have to get used to the sparks that fly when you put the air to it! It burns up alot faster too.

[Jerry V Lape]

Hey, I know a lady in Columbus, Ohio who has about a ton of coke she would like to dispose of.  She also has a Little Giant trip hammer is you should know someone wanting one.  Her husband was a knife maker and these were his until he passed away about a year ago.   I get nothing from this but if you know someone interested have them PM me and I will get them all the info.

[sweed]

Just my 2 cnt. When I was repairing/restoring buggys and wagons I came across this book on blacksmithing.  It deals mainly with carriage and wheelwright stuff, but has many ingenious (to me) methods of doing things from the late 1800's. Also it covers tool making and tempering of dies/taps exct. Case hardening, forge welding even building your forge are all covered several different ways. Any one building a iron furniture rifle would do well to explore these pages if it can still be found.

PRACTICAL BLACKSMITHING  Compiled and edited by M. T. Richardson (Editor of "The Blacksmith and Wheelwright") I think this was a trade magizine of the day.

[Hungry Horse]

 If you are going to build gun parts, you can't do better than the blacksmith videos with Hershal House. He is very down to earth, doesn't use all kinds of expensive tools,  and fancy lingo. Just plain old fashioned American know how. And he's building gun parts, not high art blacksmithing like some other videos. JMO.

                         Hungry Horse

[JWBlair]

Not a dvd but two books I found very worthwhile were Alexander Weygers "The Modern Blacksmith" and " The Making of Tools".Learning the basics and making your own tools,with quite a bit on using found and salvaged materials.

[David R. Pennington]

Read all the books and watch all the DVDs you can but if at all possible find an experienced smith in your area. I met a local smith at a living history demo and became friends and he has taken me under his wing as semi apprentice. I learned more in the first afternoon spent with him in the shop than I did all winter in the library. An example is the technique of keeping the coal fire clean. He showed me how to recognize the symptoms of "junk" in your fire and how to remove clinkers by feel. I was tearing my fire up to "see" the clinkers. He showed me how to "feel" them and remove them without disturbing the fire so much. This doesn't sound like much but you can't imagine how much time is saved by learning this simple technique. This is just one example of many that can't be learned but by practical experience under the guidance of a willing and able teacher.

[Canute Rex]

Expanding on what David just wrote, I'd recommend that interested people look up ABANA, the Artist Blacksmith Association of North America. They will have listings and contact info on their website for all their state and regional affiliates. The regionals and state organizations have "hammer-ins" where the pros demonstrate techniques and everybody talks shop. Your brain will fill up fast at one of these events. Also a good place to buy tools. 

[TMerkley]

[ oak.  or anyother hardwood, Hickory?

Cheers

Gordon
[/quote]

It is advisable when using these woods for working that you build a fire outside of your shop in a pit and bring in the red coals when you don't see any more smoke.  At that point the impurties have been removed, and you don't have the excess heat and smoke in the shop.  I have used the hot coals from Hickory in my fireplace in order to heat a barrel to remove several items that had been stuck in the barrel for over 60 years.  It worked well, with the exception that I was sweating like a pig in the summer time.  It was twenty some degrees outside but the living room was roasting!