Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Hi I'm David Burress with Calerin Forge. Today we're going to talk about what do you really
need to get started in putting up your basic Blacksmith shop. One essential tool you're
going to have to have is an anvil. Well anvils are really expensive to buy new you can sometimes
find them at flea markets or estate sales or whatever and get a bargain but when you're
just starting out, one thing you, one option you can use is to, if you can find a piece
of railroad track, it makes a really servicable anvil. I've made several of these for people
just starting out. You can go as detailed as you want to go in shaping the thing but
it's really good high carbon steel and it'll hold up to a lot of abuse when you're learning
to blacksmith on one. If you're just starting out and don't have a great deal of money to
get started with, one of the essential pairs of tongs you need is a wolf jaw tong. I recommend
the wolf jaw tongs because they can hold a variety of sizes. This is a 1/2 inch square
bar and it grips it quite comfortably. This is a 3/8 round bar and it grips it as well.
The grooves in the jaw will let you grip it this way, or this way. You'll go back to using
these over and over again as you progress in your learning the craft. The bolt tongs
are more specific. Like this is a 1/4 inch bolt tong and it's for gripping 1/4 inch rod
which it holds very well. They're good, they come in different sizes for different sizes
of stock and they're really handy to have. In a later video we'll show you how to make
some of these of your own. These are for 3/8 rod which, they do a good job with that. It's
essential to be able to grip what you're working with in the fire. It saves a lot of frustration
if you've got a good pair of tongs that will hold the piece while you're working on it
so you're not constantly flipping it out. These are scrolling tongs and when you're
making scrolls or spirals in steel these are really handy to manipulate the hot metal with.
This is a different set of scrolling tongs that are bent on a 90 degree so you can see
what you're doing a little better with them. As far as hammers go the basic blacksmith's
hammer is a cross pein hammer. This end of the hammer is called the pein always and this
is the face. The cross pein is a horizontal pein hammer to the face and I...The tendency
when you're just starting out is to get a hammer that you're comfortable with as far
as the weight, but I urge you to go with a heavier hammer than you're actually comfortable
with because the heavier the hammer, the more work it will do for you. You actually work
much harder with a lighter hammer than you do a heavier hammer and if you've got a good
steel anvil, the rebound in the anvil, which we call the life in the anvil will send the
hammer back up. So you're not working as hard as you think you will be once you get started.
This is a straight pein hammer. This is my particular favorite. This is the hammer I
use the most. I've just found a lot of use out of that straight pein. This is a ball
pein hammer. Obviously the pein is shaped like a ball. It's a lighter weight hammer
but it has a rounded face. When I'm making a knife or something I find that this is really
useful in drawing down the edge. The small cross pein hammers are really useful in finer
decorative work, like when we get into making leaves and things you'll see me use this later
on. If you'll step over here with me I'll show you the post vise which is another essential
piece of equipment for the blacksmith shop. This is a blacksmiths post vise or leg vise
and it is specifically designed for blacksmithing because a regular vise, if you clamp something
in it and then you hammer on it, you have the potential of breaking the screw, which
all the energy from the blow will land on the screw. This is designed with this leg
that goes down to the ground so that the energy of the hammer blows are carried into the ground
and not all absorbed into the screw. So this specifically designed for blacksmithing and
this is an essential piece of equipment. They're available, you can find them at flea markets.
New they're quite expensive but I've never paid more than $100 for one at flea markets,
so even if the spring is damaged...as long as the screw works. That's the first thing
you want to check out. You want to make sure that the screw works and closes good and tight.
That the jaws line up evenly. See if you've got a good tight grip on it and that spring
is working or you. So if you're working with something hot and you need to clamp it up
really quick, that's the real benefit. If the spring is missing, in a later video I'll
show you how to fashion the spring and to heat treat it to make a new spring. I've had
to make several new springs for the vices I've got in here. Anyway, I've got this one
set up as my portable vice. This is what I take when we do demonstrations and programs
at schools or whatever, festivals. Later on I'll show you one that I've got mounted in
the ground and that's, if you've got, if you're setting up your shop that's how you want to
do yours. But a good vice is essential and the other thing that is essential is a place
to build a fire hot enough to heat the metal up so you can fashion it. That takes us to
the forge. This is my portable forge that we use when we do demonstrations. Now the
way the forge works. The air comes in here, you've got an ash dump here. This is just
a screwed fitting, I unscrew and let the ashes fall out when I'm starting a fire every time.
But the air goes up into the bottom of your fire into the bottom of the fire pit. We have
a grate here. Now this a brake drum forge, it's a homemade forge and you can do this.
You have to have someway to break the air up and to keep the coal from falling down
in and clogging up your air pipe. Since this is a brake drum, I made this large enough
to cover the holes and the lugs in here and the air comes up through there and your fire
is concentrated in the fire pot and the hearth is just used for the green coal that you'll
be raking up to resupply your fire with as it cokes up. At a later time we'll go through
the process of actually building one of these step by step. The essential thing is, you
have to have a hearth, a place for your coal, a fire pot that will contain the coal that's
actually burning to heat your metal up and a place for the air to come in through the
bottom. We call that the tweeter. The pipe right here comes in through the bottom of
the forge and for an air source you can use a hand cranked bellows or I built a great
bellows, a two stage bellows that we use when we do demonstrations. Or you can use, when
I first started out in blacksmithing I got an old canister style vacuum cleaner that
had the option of, when you put the hose in the other end it blows instead of sucks so
we got a light dimmer switch from Walmart and we were able to control the amount of
draft with that. It makes a really good servicable blower for just starting out until you can
do better. I've used everything from fans out of the hand dryers like you see in restaurant
bathrooms or whatever. Squirrel cage fans, anything that will deliver enough blast of
air that you can control the amount of draft, will get the coal hot enough for you to work
with so be creative, think outside the box. There's a lot of things you can use to get
you where you want to go here. It helps to make friends with an electrician to help you
along the way with some of the wiring you have to do on some of these projects. It's
not rocket science and you can absolutely do this on a light budget if you've got a
desire to learn the craft and don't have $1,000 to pour into it, well you're in luck, I'm
going to show you how to do this on the cheap. Thanks for watching and we'll look for you
on future videos.