New Forge and a Few Projects

I am poor. This, I think, is clear if you have been reading my blog for any duration. Thus, having no more coal from last year's purchase, I am unable to buy more coal. What does this mean for me?

Time to build a new forge!!!!

I want to burn wood now, so the old coal firepot will not work, nor will the wooden frame of my old forge stand up to the radiant heat of the old forge. So, its time to build.

But, as I said, I am poor. So I had to use brute force and ingenuity to finagle a funky woodsman forge together. We had a downed lealand cypress tree, downed in the ice storms. I saw the straight wood and knew what I would do. I cut them to equal lengths, then build a log cabin out of them. This I filled with dirt, and then build a side blast forge on top of it. But, enough description, on to the photographic evidence!

The forge, fired by the ole' Champion 400. It goes from a 2 inch outlet to a 7/8" pipe, fed horizontally into the fire. I like the side blast better.

My heat shield so that my backside doesn't fry. This thing puts out HEAT! 

See what I mean? Hot hot HOT! On just Charcoal, too! 

I actually like it better than coal for a few reasons. Its hotter in my opinion, and easier to deal with. Plus, with this forge, no chance of cracking anything with over-watering a hot forge! 

This is as hot as it gets, which is welding and beyond. 

Now, to showcase my crude projects for the day. I want to brave the world of forge-welding, and so, in preparation for it, I made myself a flux spoon! It's not the most beautiful tool in the world, but for my first time hitting metal again, I think its pretty good. I'm glad to have scraps around.  

I then did some more delicate work, practicing my scroll work and punching. I made this door-pull for our chicken run. 

There's them cluckers in the background! Now we can open the gate with ease! 

Top detail

Bottom Detail

And, that's my hand. 

I thought I'd throw in a video of me hammering. Nothing special, just something to pass the time! 

Ah, its great to be forging once more! 

As always, Happy Hammering and God Bless! 

The Round Punch

Today I want to share one of my favorite tools to use, which I only recently made. It is easily made using only the tools outlined in Blacksmithing 101: Beginner Tools. (link)  The only tools you need for this are hammer, anvil, tongs, hot cut, and files. You could even do without the hot-cut and files if you forge to finish.

The tool I am going to show you is a round punch I made for punching screw holes in hooks and other such pieces. It is also helpful for punching rivet holes, and is much faster than cooling the piece and drilling a hole.

Behold, my Round Punch!

It is a 1/2" round bar of coil springs, tapered down to about 1/8". 

It is rather simple to make: 

1) Heat and straighten a 6" length of coil spring

2) Cut off the section, and dress the cut using backing-up blows

3) Taper business end by hammering square, octogon, round.

4) hammer flat 1/4" taper into the struck end, only slight taper, do not bring to a point. 

5) normalize in the air, them file it perfectly round. 

6) coat with oil to keep it rust-free! 

The profile is pretty round. It is slightly oval, but if you rotate the punch 30 degrees each time it punches well. 

the end is mushroomed from the hammering. Dress those edges to prevent chipping! It work hardens as it spreads, and can shear off suddenly. 

I need to dress it, it heated up a little too much and upset a little, deforming. 

When you use it, keep it cool every two hits by dunking it in water. A quick dip in oil or beeswax or coal dust will keep the punch from sticking in the hole. 

Here is what it does! 

As always, happy hammering and God Bless!

Ridgeway Forge Blacksmith Co. 

A New Tool: Nail Header

On this chilly Sunday afternoon, I write about something I've derived much pleasure from!
You may remember that in a previous post, I wrote about a demonstrator and the nail header tool he made, as well as a nail that he passed around. Well, although it is to some a mundane task, I have always been intrigued by one of the prime blacksmithing exercises.


So, I made myself a Nail Header!
Two, actually.
The first I began with a piece of 1060 steel. I beat it into shape:

Moving that metal was tough! It was the same stuff that I made my hot-cut hardy out of. Its really very tough, even with a 4-lb hammer. 

This was the first one, and the square punched hole is off center and crooked, which detracts from the overall quality of the header. 

It is beefy, but I may have to take it out and reforge a little bit. 

It is punched 3/4 of the way through, and then drilled out the back to allow the nail's shank to freely fall out of the header. Because the hole is punched off-center, it sticks a little bit. But it way my first, and I'm allowed mistakes, right?

The second is much better! 

I made it from a Railroad Spike: 

I cut off the head, and flattened the area a bit. I then rounded the spike portion of the metal, and drew the whole thing out a little bit. 

Here it is, post-forging and post-wire brush.

Again, punched from the top, almost all the way through, and then drilling the rest of the way. 

And now, NAILS! 

And, for these, I didn't quite "nail it", since I was new at the whole thing. It really helped me with my square tapers, though. Good practice! 

This is my best one!!!!

An ugly bunch, I know. I need to work on that.....

Ew. Ugly. But, its tough, there is only so much heat when it is in the lower 20 degrees F.

This nail header, I might add, is on sale from Craigslist, because I am a poor college student.

Happy Hammering, and Happy New Year!