Building the super low budget blacksmith shop. A work in progress

[Spots]

SO I know a lot of guys have expressed an interest in home blacksmithing. Some people wanna do stuff as simple as a poker or hook, to as complicated as a combat quality knife, Damascus steel, or other large projects. This thread is to document my building a small, home blacksmith shop on a super tight budget. Like an unemployed budget. I will have help along the way, but I will give you cheap sources for the material I'm using. My dad will be assisting in this build, he has been smithing for 30+ years. So first off you'll need a building. I happened to rent a large farm, that had a workable structure already in place. This shop will be a 9 x 9 building, with 3 open sides. In this thread I'll be showing how to build and setup a cheap forge, with junkyard sourced blowers, wired into a variable switch for air control. I'll also be showing a railroad track anvil, mounted on a large stump, and a few other things. I'll up date as we get stuff done. Right now I'll start with a picture of the building we will be using. Feel free to ask questions, and comments are always welcome.

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[Guest Broomhead]

Subscribed!

[vontar]

following

[Spots]

Ok so the first order of business. If your gonna do forge work, then your gonna need an anvil. The anvil is the most recognized piece of blacksmiths equipment, and the standard anvil we use today with the single horn is the London pattern anvil. Now some folks say good work can not be performed without a good, real anvil. I say bullcrap. I've seen some amazing things come from shops with the ugliest, most primitive tools you could imagine. Now if you want to drop some coin you can pick up something like this:

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That is my dads 200 ln Kholswa anvil. Price in the late 70's was $150. Price now starts around $500 for an abused model. Clean Kholswa's, American Ross and other good anvils can easily run into the low thousands. So for a budget thats out....

Next we have a homebuilt railroad anvil. This anvil was built using 3 ft of railroad track. It is a fairly simple anvil to build. This anvil sold on craigslist for $75 and was a good deal.

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Now we have the true budget anvil. This is a model older than my dad, that was built from a piece of mining rail. Its smaller than normal track, and this example weighs about 45 lbs. Plenty to do knife and trivet sized work on. This is cut from a piece, with a horn ground out for shaping.

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This anvil can do a good amount of work. The hard part of these anvils is finding railroad rail. So what are some other solutions? Any big chunk of good steel, not mild, but high carbon or tool steel, will work. A good size would be 2" or thicker, 4" or wider, and 12" or longer. This should be mounted solidly at proper height, which we will get into in a later post.

Now the other part of beating the hot steel into shape is the hammer. I have here a small selection of flea market hammers. These can easily be found with bad, or no handles for $5-$15 dollars

From left to right we have a 4 lb crosspein, a 4 lb sledge, and a 2.5 lb crosspein with no handle. The sledge is nice for moving big metal, but the crosspeins will be very important later on as we get into spreading and lengthening steel. A small selection like this, with new hardware store handles, should set you back $30-$45 dollars. You can add more as you go, but these are a good start.

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So thats it for now. In the next series we will get into proper anvil mounting, and then forge building. We will also be getting into shop layout and electrical requirements, as well as hot and cold cutting tools, tongs, coal and coke fuels, junkyard metal selection and all other aspects of budget blacksmithing. Any questions or comments on anything up to this point are welcome and appreciated.

[Spots]

Ok so some friendly members here, and some yard sale and flea market shopping has proven very fruitful to the super low budget shop. So far with help from members here, contacts along the way, and some family members, I have $65 in the shop setup. This is everything I've collected so far...

This is everything together
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This piece of railroad track is around 35-40 lbs to the foot, and a member, TNcobra, found it for me for $50 for 4 feet of it. This will be made into 3 smaller anvils, including a striking anvil to help preserve my nicer, larger anvil when using an experienced striker and a larger hammer.

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This piece of track was hauled all the way across the state and donated to the cause by DLM, the ever famous reloading guru. Thank you david. This is 60 lb to the ft mainline track, much larger and heavier, and there is about 3 ft of it. This will be my main working anvil.

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This is a brake drum picked up for free at a friends shop, this is from a ford box truck. Asking around some small mechanic shop can land one of these for free, but I'd offer up $5-$10 for their troubles to sweeten the deal. Working relationships net lotsa scrap metal This will be the heart of my forge, the tuyere pot where the air comes in to the bottom of the fire, right under the ducks nest.


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Here are some hammers bought from an older gentleman at a flea market. They were labeled at $10 for the longer one, which is a 10 lber. The shorter handled, larger headed is an 8 lber that was marked at $20, and the smallest head is a 6 lb railroad hammer, also labeled at $20. Talked for a while, shot the ####, joked, made friends. Walked off after 30 minutes carrying all three for $5 apiece.

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In the next few segments I'll be building the forge, and building stands for the anvils, as well as cutting them into different pieces.

[Spots]

Does anyone have any questions, comments?

[gregintenn]

Not yet, but I'm interested in following your progress!

[56FordGuy]

[quote name='Spots' timestamp='1353814265' post='850298']
Does anyone have any questions, comments?
[/quote]

Looks good so far, but you know that!

For those just starting out, don't discount the big hunk of steel anvil idea. Lots of blacksmiths with 'normal' London pattern anvils also have a big hunk of steel on a stand as a 'striking anvil'. When you're working with hardy tools, the striking anvil being just a bit lower than your regular working anvil puts the top of the hardy tool at a normal height. It's also nice for working with a striker (hence the name) using a sledge hammer. If the striker misses a blow, damage to a mild steel block is much easier to repair than damage to the face of a 'normal' anvil.

If you start out with just a big hunk of steel, rest assured that you will continue to find uses for it long after you get another anvil.

[Viracnis]

I'm really looking forward to following this thread. GREAT stuff.

I mentioned this in the other thread but thought it warranted repeating here since you mentioned the railroad rail anvils:

Turning them up on end to hammer on the cut end is dramatically better than hammering on the top of the rail or the base plate. More mass under the anvil = more efficient anvil and that means less shoulder pain! Teaches good hammer control too

[Spots]

[quote name='Viracnis' timestamp='1354736389' post='855328']

Turning them up on end to hammer on the cut end is dramatically better than hammering on the top of the rail or the base plate. More mass under the anvil = more efficient anvil and that means less shoulder pain! Teaches good hammer control too
[/quote]

I noticed this in the other thread. How do you have any useable space? My normal hammer is a 4 lb crosspein, or a 6 lb sledge, and while I have no issues with a small useable face, Ive never seen anyone use an anvil that is as small as, or smaller than the face, as it usually becomes a bottom fuller and leaves some fun lil dents and ripples. Just went down and did some looking, and while my big track is slightly bigger than the face of my 6 lb hammer, its just barely, and I have no idea how you would straighten and flatten out a blade like my normal bowies. Though I do understand having that amount of metal under the hammer to work better, I think I'll stick with making a "london pattern" style anvil like the smaller track, as I am used to having a normal horn and stuff, and prefer that style. I have seen several post anvils with a 3x3 or 4x4 face, about 16" long or longer, and they seem to work good, but there doesn't seem to be enough surface on track. Anyways some pics to go with this post, and I will definitely keep your idea in mind.

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[Armed Aviator]

Awesome
Thanks, Subscribed.

[Spots]

I got the building semi boxed yesterday. Debating on whether to do 3 sides, or 4 for the winter, but I do know all but on side will be removable for summer use

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Built some hammer racks from horseshoes, still need to build about 10 more of these

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Some yard sale hammers waiting on my ass to get in gear so they can have a hook to hang on, and work to do.

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Some big boy hammers. The 8 lb short handled sledge is my big stock hammer when I'm working alone, and the 10 lb hammer is good for when I've got a striker working with me

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The forge build should be in the next couple weeks, definitely wanna have it rolling before Christmas. Edited December 5, 2012 by Spots

[Pat]

I'm following this like stink does roadkill. Thanks for posting this, Spots, you went and infected me. LOL Edited December 5, 2012 by Pat

[peejman]

[quote name='Spots' timestamp='1354737642' post='855340']
I got the building semi boxed yesterday. Debating on whether to do 3 sides, or 4 for the winter, but I do know all but on side will be removable for summer use
[/quote]

I'd leave the south facing side open for light. It'll be really dark inside otherwise.

[Spots]

[quote name='peejman' timestamp='1354742300' post='855380']


I'd leave the south facing side open for light. It'll be really dark inside otherwise.
[/quote]

Ill have interior lights wired in before Im done. Qhat worrys me with a lot of ambient light is seeing the colors on the steel. Bright orange is a dull red in sunlight, and bright light makes welding much harder. We will see how it goes though.

[56FordGuy]

[quote name='Spots' timestamp='1354737642' post='855340']...and the 10 lb hammer is good for when I've got a striker working with me[/quote]

You need a big hammer!

We used a block of steel striking anvil and a 14 lb sledge to forge a hammer this last weekend. Simple and effective.

Looks like your stuff is coming together!

[Spots]

Ive got a 24 lb sledge but can't find anyone willing to swing the bastard.

[56FordGuy]

[quote name='Spots' timestamp='1354760401' post='855522']
Ive got a 24 lb sledge but can't find anyone willing to swing the bastard.
[/quote]

Not sure I blame them...

[Pat]

Well, I wouldn't want someone swinging a 24 pound hunk of steel at something two feet from my hands! No thank you.

[Spots]

[quote name='Pat' timestamp='1354761951' post='855545']
Well, I wouldn't want someone swinging a 24 pound hunk of steel at something two feet from my hands! No thank you.
[/quote]

A striker has to be well versed in smithing. He needs to be able to follow the smiths rhythm, land accurate blows, and swing a big hammer. The smith has to turn the steel at the correct times, and not in the middle of the strikers swing along with trusti.g the striker not to break the anvil or hit him.

[Spots]

If you wanna see some very coordinated strikers watch this video. Start at 14:10 and go till they stop smithing about 14:40 or so. Its insane

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKVLTZGoUlI&feature=g-hist

[56FordGuy]

A good director/ striker team is impressive. A bad team doesn't last long.

[Guest Robertson]

Spots you teach me what needs to be done and I'll swing the 24 lber after I practice the swing for you.