Blacksmithing

[bacpacker]

The wife ask me today if I would be interested in taking a Blacksmithing class. She found a place that holds classes and I thought it sounded pretty interesting.

My question is for you folks who have done any amount of smithing. What particular subjects would you look for in a class? Fire making and tending for sure I would think. What else?

[Echo2]

building a forge

tooling

temp by sight

sources for materials

heat treating

[carolinasurvivalist]

That's something I've always been interested in doing myself. Let us know how it goes, BP.

[idahobob]

Where is the class being given at?

Be my luck that it is back there in TN.:(

Bob
III

[bacpacker]

Actually classes are held in Brasstown, NC. There are several classes and I"m tryin ti figure out which one would be best for a total newbie.

[bacpacker]

We went to a Living History event down the road from us Saturday. My favorite part of it was spending close to 2 hours talking to the Blacksmith that was using a replica 1780's set up. He had made a forge the was designed, but not completed, to be on and axle and wheels transportable by a horse or mule. The firebox was maybe 12" diameter and the forge itself was about 3'x3'. It had an attached bellows that he made himself, actually the entire forge was homemade. I went all over it and made several notes for ideas I think I can use. And ask so many questions I felt like he was gonna run me off. :)

I think I am gonna make up my first forge along the lines of this type.

http://www.stormthecastle.com/blacksmithing/how-to-make-an-easy-cheap-blacksmith-forge.htm

I know I have an old mower deck I can use for the forge and there is an old rear end from something out at my parents house that I'm pretty sure still has break drums on it. I just need to by a few pieces of pipe, and come up with a suitable stand to mount it on. I plan to make in being able to disassemble so I can move it if need be. I plan on initially using some type of blower, hopefully one of the hand crank styles if I can locate one reasonable. I probably will also make a bellows as well.

Now for finding some tools and metal to work with.

[Sniper-T]

a worthy project. looking forward to the progress on this one. keep us posted and dust off the camera

[bacpacker]

Yeah I've been very slack on taking pics. This is gonna take a while to pull the parts together. I got to looking on the IForgeIron forum to look at other forge builds and found another idea of using an old gas grill (already has the stand built in) and since I have an old one I was gonna trash, I may look into building off that instead. One plus it will have a lid to keep things covered when not in use. I am looking forward to working on this. Just hope I get decent results when it's done.

[bacpacker]

I ran across a couple of Blacksmith vendors tonight, both have a decent amount of tools, and such. Quite a bit that I haven't found anywhere else. Here are the link's.

http://www.blacksmithsdepot.com/

http://www.centaurforge.com/

[Grumpy Old Man]

De Tinker is premiering his first show on JMR tonight at 9:00 CDT and he will cover some blacksmithing.

http://justmeasurescs.com/just-measures-radio-network/

[Grumpy Old Man]

BTT Tink has been having some great shows!