Thread: Planning a new little forge.

good reminder . I like my fires and flames outdoors. I may attract a gabby neighbor or 2 but they will have to talk between the pounding :<0) Which reminds me,,, I did forget something that I can wait on while I build. An anvil. I thought I posted something about this but I sure can't find it now. I may have started and canceled. Anyways.... I was thinking of getting a Cliff Carrol but I read more against than for them. I know it is designed for farriers and the posts I have looked at are forge guys mostly. I know there are many alternatives but I am dead set on having an anvil that looks like an anvil. I was going to go for a 35lb. but have decided a 70lb. would let me grow some. If I need a 200 or 800lb. later then so be it. I have also looked at NCs and I do like the look of the Calvalry model ,but same kind of reviews. I think it is because of where I am reading the reviews. I just want to be sure I am not wasting 300+ on something I will kill in a couple of months if I make my own tools on it. The usual tongs, some hammers and such. I am not new to hammering iron and have used other things as anvils. I even made a huge vise that I mounted on a rather large gluelam/workbench I made. 10 pound slugo hammering. :<0). I was young once. Finding a used anvil around here is as hard as finding that post i could of sworn I made on this anvil thing. If anybody knows of a good anvil in or around OC Ca. let me know. If you find that other post and send me a link and I'll kill it.

Keep looking to buy one second hand.

You should find one easily in the various local classifieds sites. It's what all local blacksmiths do. I don't know anyone who has bought a new anvil. You won't find one on ebay, but the more personal alternatives should have a lot. in belgium we use Marktplaats.nl - de advertentiesite van Nederland | Gratis zoekertjes op Kijiji België
Personally I would go for 100 pounds at the least. Also, why do you say you might kill in a couple of months? A real anvil with a hardened surface is pretty resilient.

I paid 220 euros for a 250 pound anvil, and while that was a sweet deal, it was in the ballpark for second hand anvils. If you buy a new anvil for that kind of money, you get one in cast iron that doesn't have a properly hardened work surface. And those will indeed deteriorate pretty quickly.

Not so easy as you might think. I have been looking in all sorts of places and have the word out to all friends. This is the kind of choices I have right now in the best classifieds in the US. within a days drive. The first one sells for $550.00, the second is really a joke at $150.00 and last for $450.00 and it looks okay but 250 lbs is not going to work in my small shop. I have to be able to move the thing from storage space to work place. I wish I had my own shop again but this is not the case at this time. This has me thinking I should drop back down to a 35lb. cast steel and wait on getting into my own place again before getting a real anvil. This should work for banging out some razors which is my main goal after all.


This is the 35lb. anvil I am thinking about. Or the 70. They ship free ! Anvils

I'd have to think more about the shape, but - the 70 pounder may work now and down the road, if all you are going to do is razors. The other possibility is that I've seen a sword-maker do knife and sword work, using a piece of 6x6x24 steel, mounted 6x6 end up, for an anvil. It was sourced at the Guild of Metalsmiths fall conference in the scrap auction. Also, a lot of folks have made small anvils out of sections of railroad track. I have an 8 inch piece that I use for pinning. Good luck on your search. I'm going back to the shop and finish tuning up my 200 Viking anvil.

Well, in that case I'd go for the 70 pounds. 70 is still easy enough to lug around. With anvils, the heavier, the better (up to a point of course) because it will move less with each strike of the hammer. My first anvil was 40 pounds or so. For razors, this will work no problem.

Gonna be watching. Have to build one soon myself...

Took your advice and found this>>> http://straightrazorpalace.com/forge...2-200-a-3.html posted it in my anvil thread. I'm allll over the place these days. To anxious to get started I think.

Well I started working on the forge today. It has been awhile but I am hell bent on getting a forge up and running within the next few weeks. I shaped some fire brick today and even though it is not perfect(which I always shoot for) I think I can live with it.

I was almost done when I remembered to take pics. You can see all the things I tried and I will describe what worked. You can also see the mess it makes.



I used a pencil to draw the round shape I wanted on one end and the some lines to make score marks on and for depth of cut guides. I used an old circ saw with a 6 1/2 masonry blade. I used 1 whole blade and wished I had bought 2. This is where the quality of the perfect inside diameter first started to deteriorate. On my 7" grinder is a 9" masonry blade. Once again I should have popped for a 7" wheel because that is the inside dimension I wanted. But this was all just a grab it and start thing today so, it is what it is. I am still under 7" but I design as I go so I think the refractory clay I line it with will hide my imperfect dia. You guys won't tell on me will ya ?



Here is the finished score lines and cuts.



And then I did some chiseling



Now I couldn't get any real good pictures of me grinding out the radius because that old B&D 7" really twists a wrist when you pull the trigger. Not to mention the dust factor. I just started grinding away until I got the shape I was happy with. For the final shaping I put 2 bricks together and ground the mating edges at the same time. Drop 1 brick and pick up the next all the way around until all the seams matched. It went a lot faster than I thought it was going to and on the bench it doesn't look so bad.



This is the hard firebrick and I am going to line the inside with a special clay made to withstand flux. I am going to lay everything out tomorrow and see what metal I have and maybe get started on some fabricating.

I had this wild idea of incorporating a heat treat oven on top of the forge but I decided against that for now. I thought maybe I could get more out of it if I heat treated one thing while a shaped another. Too much to handle at once for a beginner but maybe later I will add that option. I just hate to waste all that heat :<0) .

Not much wasted heat. Certainly not enough that it would make sense to try and use it for heat treating. Firebrick insulates really well. You could have a hot fire inside, and the outside would be 'warm'. The amount of heat transferred to the outside would be enough to keep your coffee warm, but nothing near the order of magnitude you would use for annealing or tempering; Not with the size of the fire you can make inside that forge.

Thanks for that tip. It was a thought, the kind that gets in the way of the kiss principle. Once i get moving around here this morning I am going to take the exploded view shot I promised. Then see what I can put together. I am thinking I have to make the shell tight enough to hold the brick solid. If not the liner of clay might crack up when I move it around. I guess I could/should grout the bricks into the shell. I know I am going to have to buy some plate tomorrow and I need to make a stand for my anvil also. This may force me to slow down and do this right :<0)