[TheForge] Getting started

[Daniel Kretchmar]

Lloyd,

   I  have to agree with the the first two replies.  Even today, most of my
"new" tools are ones I've made or scrounged.  I made the last 6 forges that
I've used.  There are so many designs for forges out there building one to
suit your own needs is often the best choice.  I've even found that after
I've built and used one making do with the supplies that I had access too,
that people have told me that it couldn't  be done that way. ;).
   Almost every blacksmith I have met scrounges even if they have the money
to buy new.  It's part of the job description.  I bought my first
crosspein from the guy who was fixing our washing machine for $15.
  My first forge was a small riveting forge purchased for $125.  After 3
months I decided that it wasn't big enough and made one using a metal
cart (36x24) a local school had tossed out, a brake drum for the fire pot
and some black pipe.  I tried to weld the pipe to the brake drum for my
tuyer and air source but my welds didn't hold so I ended bolting bits of
flat stock to the cart to hold it all together.  I filled the rest of the
cart with concrete. Mixed with lots of dry grass and straw for the fiber
strength.  My hood was made from an old water tank I found at abandoned in
an empty lot..  Total cost for my first homemade forge brake drum ($5), bag
of cement ($10), 2 inch pipe (floor flange bolted to drum, Pipe T for air
source and ash dum, short nipples to connect them, and pipe cap to seal it
(~ $15), dryer hose ($6).  Computer blower for air source ($1) TOTAL $37.
 I used that forge for 5 years until I made my first gas forge.

The point of all this.  You can make your own tools, shop,
 and almost anything else you need.  I have even made a forge from nothing
but a pipe, a hole in the ground, and an old shop vac and the puppy got
HOT.  We 4 smiths forged a homemade iron bloom into a block of pig iron,
and then into a bar of wrought iron.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1026660832209&set=t.623777811&type=3&theater

Where are you located?  If you can find a blacksmith nearby or even within
an hour or two drive, most will help build the things you need if they have
the time, particularly if you help them with their grunt work.  A local man
came out to my shop this last Saturday to help me make 160 steel tent
stakes to sell to a reenactment group. He went home with 16 stakes for his
payment.  We both walked away happy with the deal.  If you live near a
smith and you know what you are doing, most would gladly accept your help
in trade for helping you make your tools.

Danr
Daniel Kretchmar
www.irontreeworks.com


> Hello,
> I do not know who to ask this question of so figured I would ask here. I am
> trying to use crowdsourcing to fund my first backyard smithy, and would
> like
> to know if it would be alright to post a link to it on here? I have been
> taking classes and doing vast amounts of reading, and would like to be able
> to continue learning more often than an open forge in a studio would allow
> me since there are none very close to me. Thank you for your time.
>
>
> Lloyd W. Giddinge
> mazrim at comcast.net
>
>

-- 
"Estattu alvarligt, nei?"