[TheForge] Forge Trailer

[Ralph Sproul]

	Hi Barry, First thing I'd check in a "club trailer" is the insurance
situation.  Some companies allow the towing vehicle to cover the trailer -
other's wont' allow you to register a trailer or haul it unless you OWN it.
This can throw a stick in your spokes if you club spends money on one - then
finds the folks you wanted to haul it ......Can't.

	The approach we've used in our club's trailers (which copied my portable
forging station mostly).........was to get a 6 x 10 cargo trailer, and place
one forging unit into it.  It allows it to be used as a demonstrators
forge - or used by members for historic farm, museums, etc, demos that are
"educational".   Being a non-profit the New England Blacksmiths did not want
money generated from the sales of members wares if they used it - but to
make it fit our mission statement of "used for teaching".   We allow members
using it to pass out business cards for potential customers to contact them
later after the demo - but we keep the non profit .......non profit.

	Early on ABANA had a trailer with 10 stations on it called the "teaching
trailer" - but being a nation wide organization - the trailer was sold and
the forges ended up in the ABANA containers for gear to put on the bi-annual
conferences, due to the always at the wrong place to get hauled to the next
place it was needed.  Hauling a trailer across country to cater a teaching
session or small conference is now a joke with fuel prices the way they are.

	.......So, after you decide how this trailer is going to fit your club's
mission statement, how it will be used, if insurance regulations in your
area allow it to be used like you want it to.........then you get to build
or set up a trailer for actual use.  We found the thinking and discussing it
part of it to be the tedious part - and then I got a bunch of guys to
volunteer and we made five demo forges, and made one of them go in the
club's trailer and four other guys made small carriers for their trailer
hitches, or bought cargo trailers, or pulled them around in the small open
utility trailers they had. About 25 of us volunteers pulled it off in three
weekends time at my shop.
	We found the one trailer, one forging station to be quite handy - as it
allowed a large car or 1/2 ton pickup to pull it - and being as there were
half a dozen of these in the club we could then "circle the wagons" at a
conference and have green coal, the demonstrators forge, or all the forge
set ups if the conference was a "group participation" style event - all on
hand when everyone shows up for the conference.  It doesn't take long to
have a few professional smiths who really like having a portable demo unit
to easily set up their own presentations without taking their shops apart to
do so.  It catches on quick and they can then show up for conference by haul
them along for a few dollars more in fuel.
	If you have a multi station teaching trailer - it becomes large to store,
expensive to insure, and a large truck getting poor mileage is needed to
haul it, and if your club's area is large - it always seems that large
trailer and guy with the truck to pull it is at opposite ends of where it
needs to be.  We discovered this when folks started borrowing my demo
trailer on occassion to do demos - so people really caught on quick to the
small unit - that was your own - and all showing up to make life easier than
loading open trailers with half your shop - or counting on the same poor few
guys to load all the gear and gather it and take it all back after each
conference.
	I made up plans for a nice demo forge we assembled at a workshop about six
years ago when we had 18 bored blacksmiths show up at my shop one day.  We
all gave input on what our "ideal demo forge" would be if we were to make
one - then I went ahead and made it from the basic start of a rectangular
forge table and a side draft hood.  I'd started on making an axle -but we
all decided it should be removable - and so should the handles.  This
evolved into a "gardenway cart of a forge" as it could be rolled by one
person into and out of the trailer and a hand crank or electric blower would
attach to it with "gazintas", as well as a post vice, a hand crank drill
press, an industrial airgate that can be operated from two sides, and it had
nice stock holders, flip up side pans, a tool tray, a wind block panel, a
removable stack, tong & hammer racks, a starter eyebrow hood for smoke on
start up - or sun shade at an outside demo, and a lower shelf to put hot
items and a catch pan to keep hot clinkers and debris from ruining a site's
lawn or parking lot by catching them in an "ash pan" under the forge pot's
clean out.
	Of course each portable demo unit has it's blowers, anvils and stands,
along with tools you have to bring from tongs and hammers to swages or
magicians, etc.
	I have pictures of what we did - if you decide to go that way.

	It works well for us..........hope your project comes along and works as
well as ours.

Ralph

-----Original Message-----
From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net]On Behalf Of
bmyers647 at comcast.net
Sent: Saturday, November 19, 2005 10:29 AM
To: theforge at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [TheForge] Forge Trailer


I am beginning to plan for a forge trailer for our Guild.  I am looking for
advice from those of you who have built or used them.  Things like how many
stations, size and style of trailer, single blower for the whole trailer or
individual blowers, etc.  That sort of things.

Thanks.   Barry Myers, Philip Simmons Artist Blacksmith Guild
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