Black smithing kilted

[macgreggor]

Morning y'all,

I know this is WAAAAAYYYYY off-topic but I feel the advice I might get here is worth a great deal.

I found my new obsession! Blacksmithing. Never done it but the idea intrigues me. I only need three things besides metal. Something to heat it, to hit it with and hit it on.

Question: gas to heat it? What do I look for in an anvil? In my reading, it seems one cannot have too many hammers but which one to start?

Am I correct in thinking NEVER near a forge in a kilt made of man-made fibers?

As with everything else, my budget is small and my desires large.

TIA
Greg (macG)

[Southern Breeze]

Blacksmithing as I've found out is as addicting as kilts. I've been doing for several years. A great site to checkout is Anvilfire.
http://www.anvilfire.com/

[Nick]

Hi Greg,

You can get started with an extremely simple setup. I've seen some ingenious methods of building forges, including holes in the ground and Radio Flyer little red wagons! Leaf blowers have been used as an air source to power the forge. You can also go with gas, but I will always prefer a coal or coke forge (charcoal is another fuel that can be used, but I never have). Baisically, if you can get steel up to an orange heat, you've got a servicable forge to start out with.

You can start with hammers with good sized ball-peen hammers. 2 and 3 pound crosspeens are probably the most popular, and can be found in hardware stores. My #1 hammer is an inexpensive Truper that I picked up when I first started, and after a little cleanup it's served me well ever since.

Any hard bit of steel will serve as an anvil. Some use railroad tracks. You can also get the "Harbor Freight" anvil from eBay cheaply. It's something you'll want to upgrade from, but I still have mine close to hand if I need a perfectly flat face or a very sharp corner.

Yes, you'll probably want to keep the PV, nylon, polyester, and acrylic kilts away from the forge, but that's true of any garment. And when smithing kilted, I'd suggest hose and boots that don't have an open top than can catch anything. Regular work boots or combat boots are what I've been looking at.

And definitly research around the web. Start with Anvilfire, and go back to it often. Definitly the best resource. But there are several others as well.

Good luck!
Nick

[macgreggor]

Thanks for the link to anvilfire all!

I finally found another site to spend waaayyy too much time at.

macG
Greg

[Nick]

Here's another one for ya: www.iforgeiron.com